*OFFICIAL* Alienware m17 Owner's Lounge

Any updates for the 9th gen intel processor ? Would be nice to see 9980HK benchmarks for the m17.

 

They continue to push more powerful hardware inside the same envelope without any upgrade to the cooling system... what's the point i wonder...

 

The point is that maybe the new cpu have better thermal control due to engineering, producing less heat.

You may remember the Pentium 4 that use to run like a toaster, today we have much much better CPUs that run generating a lot less heat. That's the whole point.

 

we will see i guess.. might be the case, might be not. If the trend we experienced with 7th and 8th gen chip has to be taken as reference, my educated guess is that tech is not yet ready to be implemented is such compact form factors.

Also, is my understanding that intel has been strugling with their production lines, so they are stuck at 14nm production. Take that into account and add:
higher frequencies/core count
higher voltages compared to desktop counterparts, given that a bga chip is basically a desktop chip which hasn't qualified to be used on desktop (it requires more voltage, runs hotter and at lower frequency)

For the above, i doubt there will be any improvement in terms of efficiency

 

Hey everyone, im looking to order an m17, but not sure what choices to make. Leaning toward the 120hz UHD 1440 screen, but a little stuck on the hard drive. Is dual better than a single drive? Not sure whats preferable for a gaming laptop.

 

9980hk might be a better chip and might not. But before the 9700/9900 came out, people with very hot 8700's were thinking there was no way they new chips could be managed. We've since learned that the 9900 is hot but can be managed and it is seriously faster than the 8700. So I'm inclined to think with their back against the wall Intel may have done their best to give us the laptop equivalent of the 9900, hot but manageable. I understand "we'll see" but the history is there that they can figure out how to get more out of a chip series without a process shrink. Would a shrink be better? Yep probably. But I don't think we're going to get junk. No one thought you could put a quad core into a surface. So let's see how the 9th gen does.

 

Hey guys, would anybody be able to recommend me a good backpack to be able to carry my M17 around? Preferrably something that could be bought readily through amazon. I have been debating on the Alienware Vindicator 2.0, but it just falls short on water resistance. I want a backpack that is not only well padded, but also water resistant to truly provide all around protection for my rather hefty laptop.

I am currently looking at the Kroser 17.3 inch water repellent laptop backpack, as well as the SOLO ALTITUDE backpack.. I also plan to put my M17 in a laptop sleeve for additional protection but yeah, I am unfamiliar with the internal laptop compartments of both of these backpacks, hence why I am a bit apprehensive about pulling the trigger on one of them.

On a side note.. The Alienware Vindicator 2.0 is just such a good looking backpack and it has the added benefit of being readily available in my country.. But the lack of proper water resistance just gets me.. Could anybody comment on its water resistance?

 

I bought the Everki Titan to use with my M17.
Here is a video of what you can expect:


Here is the amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/Everki-Check...=everki+titan&qid=1557255191&s=gateway&sr=8-1

 

Yeah, I am considering the Everki Titan, but I would prefer a backpack that is less bulky and heavy. I want something that is not too comedically huge that it would be akward to bring to work, and at practically 2 KGs, this weighs almost as much as my laptop itself. I would like something much lighter...

This backpack from KROSER is what I am going for:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077RV492Y/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza

Although, I am also very much interested in the SOLO Altitude backpack here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y147WRY/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_7?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

I am debating on which one is the best option.... I could also go for the Vindicator 2.0 and just grab a seperate rain cover... but I would want something that could still hold it's own without it. I am also looking at the EBAGS Professional Slim laptop backpack.. so many choices..

 

I have an older Everki bag that has held up very well.

 

If AW can do a 55" 120Hz OLED monitor, you'd think this 17 could come with an OLED panel option. /sigh

 

Does it even exist yet? I presume the reason they don't offer it is because no one has it. They have been pretty good about adding screen options as they become available and to be fair the 55" isn't available yet either as they are still ironing out all the kinks.

 

My thinking was a 55" monitor didn't exist yet either. But you are correct they'd need to talk to SDC or LGD about making one.

 

Does anybody have the part number for the cpu/gpu heat sink assembly?
I lack the tools to open mine at the moment.

Cheers.

 

Hey guys
I can't find this answer anywhere, Im about to get a RTX2080 M17, Does this laptop have windows hello????

 

Finally got my Customized Alienware M17 (I7-8750H , RTX2060) from HIDEvolution And it is such a beautiful laptop. I am quite pleased with it so far. My highest temperature was 89 Degrees when I tested it in an non-air conditioned environment with an ambient room temperature of 32-37 Degrees Celsius a couple of hours ago. This is with me playing videos, whilst also downloading games and files, and even running my World of Warships in the background. The Grills and bottom did get very warm, but my hands do not normally touch those areas anyways so it does not really matter to me. Also, I did not point a fan at the laptop itself to see how badly it would heat up.

Currently, I am in an air conditioned hotel room, and my highest temperature is 87 Degrees Celsius, that is whilst playing World of Warships, downloading BF5, and running multiple tabs up in Google Chrome. This time the grills and bottom are very much tolerable. The fans did get rather loud, but at least they are fulfilling their purpose.

The Liquid Metal Application from HIDevolution is truly doing wonders for this laptop by the looks of it.

I would continue to experiment with the laptop, and perhaps attempt to undervolt it to hopefully yield even better results.

 

Are you in Hell?

 

That is an error, my bad. Corrected it to 37 Degrees.

 

That's the normal temps on any laptops at my place.

 

That was a bit of a joke, since (s)he said HIS/HER temperature was 77C

 

Guys how are you taking care of your battery? I always plug my laptop in and leave it in. Is there a setting that protects the battery even when its in a always plugged in state?

 

No need to do anything special in that case. In terms of broader battery care, I did disable Express Charge.

 

For longevity you need to charge cycle it. Once every 3-4 weeks run it down to about 10%. Shut it down and let it cool. Plug the ac in and let it charge fully without turning on the notebook.

 

According to this:

https://batterycare.net/en/guide.html

fully cycling the battery isn't about increasing longevity (it actually slightly decreases it), but rather serves to recalibrate battery life estimates.

They say it need to be done every 30 cycles. Useful app BTW. Tracks the cycles, notifies when cycle is needed, shows power draw on battery.

 

From my experience of managing a fleet of laptops in many businesses over the years this procedure was done routinely and we averaged 4 years per battery. These machines were used on battery and ac randomly everyday.

 

Have you tried not performing this procedure on a subset of identical laptops in order to observe the difference, if any? Just trying to be scientific here and strictly speaking your claim proves nothing. My AW15 battery is fine too after 3.5 years with a similar usage pattern and no explicit cycling.

 

It was mandated by cooperate when I was the IT manager for Eaton Cutler Hammer southwestern Midwest manufacturing plants. I managed approximately 12,000 laptops and 26,000 desktops. According to their studies and recommendations from our suppliers it helped. I believe it did.

 

Are you sure all those laptops and studies were running on Li-ion batteries, not Ni-based ones? In other words, do you believe the information below provided by BatteryCare and broadly corroborated on the Internet is incorrect?

"In lithium-based batteries memory effect is in fact a myth, it only applies to older Nickle-based batteries. So fully discharging and charging the battery is completely useless and even harmful as we will see below."

 

where is express charge?

 

It's a BIOS setting.

 

Hopefully this one has 90Wh battery and SODiMM slots.

 

Per their page (and sometimes they make mistakes) the battery is 76Whr on the new m17

 

No comment.

 

Hey guys, anybody here got the Alienware M17 with an RTX2060 OC Ready configuration, what are your GPU clock speeds? I have noticed a performance drop ever since I updated my BIOS, and uninstalled and then reinstalled the AWCC.

 

Hello recently acquired my m17 thought i would share my results maybe it will help someone. Out of the box this thing ran warmer than i would of liked so i did some reading and found out undervolting might help. Downloaded throttlestop and started at -.125mv and worked my way up to -.160mv before it became unstable then I backed it up a bit and settled in at -.150mv. I ran it through about 20 mins of cinebench and repeated 3dmark a dozen or more times with no crashes so i will run it here for now. Simply undervolting dropped the CPU temps about 10C, adding a cooling pad dropped them even further by another 8C give or take. The Gpu never got above 75C so i didnt mess with that. Benchmark scores all improved as well. Might be able to drop a couple more degrees with a repaste but im happy enough with my numbers for now.

3d mark firestrike

out of the box
Core Temps (94,87,96,86,92,88)
Score 16889

-.150mv
Core Temps (85,79,84,78,81,79)
Score 17248

-.150mv + cooling pad
Core Temps (77,70,77,70,73,71)
Score 17725

3d mark timespy

out of the box
Core Temps (98,92,95,89,93,88)
Score 7662

-.150mv
Core Temps (86,80,86,80,83,79)
Score 7786

-.150mv + cooling pad
Core Temps (79,74,79,72,76,72)
Score 7880


TLDR undervolt and cooling pad dropped my temps by 15-20C

Specs
32GB 2x16GB DDR4-2666MHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 8GB GDDR6 with Max-Q Design
1TB PCIe M.2 SSD + 1TB PCIe M.2 SSD
Windows 10 Home 64bit English
Killer 1550 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0
8th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H (6-Core, 9MB Cache, up to 4.1GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
17.3" QHD (2560 x 1440) 120Hz TN, 400-nits, NTSC 72% color gamut
90 WHr, 6-Cell Battery (integrated)

 

I'm waiting to see the thermals of this new model cuz mine is a real toaster even using a Coolermaster Notepal U3 + Opolar LC05 Laptop Cooler.

 

Mine is as well, despite it being repasted with LM, undervolted, and CPU boost clock limited...

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that your LM application has a problem. Your idle thermals are terrible.

 

Sigh... Oh gosh.. >.> I hope not but yeah.. I am having a bad feeling about it. Anyways, here are my thermals whilst unplugged and doing some minor browsing. Ambient temperature is 29 Degrees Celsius.

 

It seems unusually high. Even on >45C my idle temps are on 50C on AC and 44C on battery.

 

It's not abysmal but def in the high side. Correcting for ambient temp difference I would expect to see minimum package temp in the region of 42C.

 

Sigh, currently running on battery at this time. I do have throttlestop enabled, and I am doing some minor browsing using Google Chrome.

 

One of the cool features of TS is that it allows you to configure and auto switch a battery profile with Speedshift 196 in addition to the UV.

 

I am not sure if I got something wrong here, but what is the deal with the "new new" m15/m17?!?

In February I ordered the "new 2019 m17", which I got about 3 weeks later. Now it turns out they are releasing yet another one, not even half a year later? Which to boot looks much nicer and probably performs better thermally?

Are you kidding me? Not even half a year apart? Why release the "Jan 2019" m17 in the first place?

I feel violated, seriously. One year apart fine, but not even 6 months?

EDIT: They still even list the one I bought as "New" on their site... My poor forehead vein...

 

Dell wanted new design and thinner models. And you get soldered on ram (inboard). Max ram capacity is 16GB because that’s the max you’ll get due the same reasons.

A nice way to force you to buy Dell’s maxed out specs for this model.

 

Ok thanks, that soothes by vein a bit

I need 32Gb so on that front I'm ok.

 

Won’t happen due how they have put together this 17 inch Alienware gaming book. Want more ram then you are forced to buy the even thinner Dell XPS model

 

No I meant my rage level went down a bit since I cannot use the new one anyway if it can only house 16Gb

Although with the new 32Gb modules now available I guess it's just a matter of time, but I can live with that (since it might take some time).

 

It's going to be either "no 32 GB for you!" or "gimped and overpriced 32 GB for you!" on this one.

Even if there is a SODiMM slot, which at this point is a bit unclear (sounds like there might be, but Dell won't be offering any SODiMM for it - ridiculous), adding mismatched (including a different size) RAM module will result in poor performance if it works at all.