*OFFICIAL* Alienware 14 Owner's Lounge Thread

Hi i recently bought a Alienware 14 from ebay its a manufacturer refurbish that is A1 condition so probably just returned without much or any use its only 5 months old. Anyway i got it yesterday but not had a chance to actually use it yet but going to try it later i was just wondering is it ok to just use the laptop plugged into the mains without the battery ? Or will this decrease the life of the laptop?

The spec is

Core I5 4200M

8 Gb Ram

750GB Hdd

GeForce GT750M 1GB DDR5

Windows 8.1

 

Using the laptop without the battery is no problem, just make sure when you store the battery for a longer period it has a decent amount of charge (around 80% should be fine).

 

Thank you.

Ok sorry need some more help I have just switched my laptop on for first time and so far so good have set up windows 8 and its saying it has a lot of updates to do including some which are optional and that includes a update for the graphics card is it ok to do that update or do I have to update the graphics card some other way?

And I am hearing you need to update the bios ? is that essential to do and if so how do I go about that? sorry just want to get it all set up.

 

Have anyone got problems with the dedicated graphic card on Alienware 14? Mine is GT750M. The laptop is no longer detected the dedicated card, even I tried to uninstall both graphic drivers and install again.....

 

Hello, I put UJ267 in my AW14 too, and i've got the same problem, FN + F4 doesn't work but a right click and eject work.
I try with a fresh install of windows but doesn't work.

Someone got an idea ?
thank you

 

You can elect to update drivers via Windows Update, but I always advise against doing so. You can just easily download and install the relevant drivers yourself directly from Nvidia or Intel. As for the other updates, you can choose which ones you want - if there are any you are unsure about, create a restore point before installing them, as that way you can undo anything that might upset the apple cart.

Bios updates can be beneficial and they can also be pretty irrelevant. Dell will always advise you to have the latest bios, however, sometimes the latest is not the greatest. If your machine is functioning well, sometimes it is advisable to let it stay that way. The latest bios for the 14 is A09 and can be downloaded from Dell drivers and downloads - nothing special you have to do really, just make sure that you have the machine connected to the wall outlet, have no other applications or devices connected, and then simply run the downloaded bios update. The machine will power off, flash the bios and then restart itself. The system fans will go full blast while the flash takes place, but its nothing to be concerned about as it is totally normal behaviour.

I'm running A09 and I have no issues - if you wanted to update, I would say you can do so without worry.

No problems here - have you run any diagnostics? - you could download and run Alien Autopsy which might highlight any problem with the Nvidia gpu.

I'd imagine that as right click to eject works, it is some incompatibility between that particular drive model and OSD - perhaps Dell need to add support for that model to OSD for it to function correctly.

 

Yes, the right click to eject works, moreover, in my XBMC (media center) I have add a function "open tray" and it works too.

so we have to wait an update BIOS or OSD for that model... :-( thank you (maybe do you know if we can write to dell to ask an update ?)

 

Sure, you can suggest things over here: Idea Storm There may be some kind of hack that could get it working, although I don't know of one.

 

No problems here - have you run any diagnostics? - you could download and run Alien Autopsy which might highlight any problem with the Nvidia gpu.


Dell technician has replaced the new motherboard for me. However, they still gave me the old version of 750M which is 1GB . Is there any way that I can get the new one with 2GB (only for 750M). Thanks.

 

Unfortunately, Dell are only obligated to replace 'like for like'. In the absence of similar parts, they will replace with 'better', but in your case, it seems they had stock of the older boards. I doubt that asking them to change again would fly - especially if the board is now working fine. You could always look to purchase one like I did. If you are okay with replacing it yourself, it's a good way to upgrade....you could even go GTX765m if you could find one....

 

I got so much trouble with this machine such as squeaky sounds in keyboard, and the palmrest. They have changed 4th keyboards and 2 palmrest to minimize the issues, not completely solve it.
Now, the worst went to motherboard, so I do not want to risk money again to get 765M.

 

: :hi2::hi2:

 

Hello blacknouvo,
If you send me your Service Tag Via PM I could take a look into it and see what I can do to help you with your keyboard.

 

The squeaky sound goes away with time, had the same issue on my old M14x R2 and it went away with a couple of months.

Still my new 14 has a squeaky spacebar, backspace and so on. So it is kinda of issue since you don't expect a high end laptop with things like that.

 

I have the same issues with some of my keys as well but I think I can live with it because I have had my computer sent in so many times that I am tired of not having it. If the keyboard somehow breaks because of the squeaks then that's when I will send it in for repair.

 

I agree with you at that point.

 

It's a great machine but like the squeaky keyboard it's has it negative points, but keep in mind that no laptop is perfect. But these are the things I don't like about it having owned it for month so far:

Display:
- Grainy, especially on white and grey colors (the matte filter is really an aggressive one since I've seen matte displays that have a more semi gloss look on them without the grain. I can't really blame Alienware since only LG and AUO make 14" ips panels and they both have a heavy grainy type filter). Ow and some minor back light bleeding but it's not that bad on my panel, but I've seen really worse examples.

Sound and soundcard:
- Background noise on the sound card due to the crappy Realtek drivers (no problems with the standard Windows 7 drivers but then the subwoofer doesn't work). And this is a know issue on a lot of laptops with the Realtek chips, no really know solution is offered and I tried a lot. But overall the sound is a big letdown compared to the old M14x R2 and it's mostly down to the software since the THX True studio pro really boosted the sounds quality on the old R2 significantly (when you turned that off the old R2 sounds just as crap as the new AW14, so funny enough it's mostly a software thing).

Battery life:
-Battery life is a lot worse than the old R2, and even with some mods like no turbo boost and so I only get about 3 to 3.5 hours on a full charge while the old R2 did about 4-5 easily. This moslty due to the IPS panel with uses a lot more power than a TN type panel. Look at the MSI GE40 for instance with exactly the same hardware you get about 4-5 hours on that thing easily, but the biggest difference is that it uses a TN panel. Though I happily trade 2 hours on the battery for having an IPS screen.

About noise:
Without cpu turbo boost the noise is really not an issue and a lot less than the R2, even without turbo boost the 4800MQ is still a beast when it comes to raw performance. But a CPU like the 4702MQ would be far more suited to the GTX765m and the cooling capacity of the AW14 without having a lot of noise.

But the positive things like extremely sturdy build chassis, speed, keyboard and excellent touch pad, screen with good contrast colors and resolution and so on outweigh the minor issue's by far.

 

I could agree somehow with you about the soundcard, I am an Electronic music producer so I use many softwares that need good quality sound cards for a better music processing, I have noticed the difference between my Hp ultrabook soundcard (weak) to my new Alienware 14 sound card (above the average). but what I am noticing on the sound card is that you can hear some echoes or sometimes when using youtube, soundcloud and other websites with audio, the main website you are using will sound good but the others will sound without a good Equalization. I would want to know if you can change the sound card on the Alienware 14 for a better one. What are the best Sound cards for laptops (integrated). I know you can buy separate sound cards that will work outside the computer itself and I was thinking on buying on of those but I would want to know if you can buy one to put it inside the alienware. Thanks in advance.

 

You can't change the integrated soundcard it's part of the mainboard and so on. The only option is to use an external soundcard but that won't work with the integrated speakers.

 

what if I want to upgrade my alienware to a better processor and better cpu (Nvdia GTX 800m class), I need to change the motherboard right? what motherboards can fit the alienware 14 and what is the best one?

 

Currently, the cpu can be upgraded 'officially' up to a 4900mq, as of now. As for gpu, the only way to upgrade that is to upgrade the system board/motherboard, and right now, the most powerful option graphics wise is a board with a GTX765m soldered on to it. You will only be able to use official Dell boards as no one else makes them. The Dell part number for the board with a 765m on it is 02KVD5 or 2KVD5. Other than buying one directly from Dell at extremely high prices (I was quoted £600gbp + for one) your other option would be to look at places like Ebay, like I did - that's where I bought my board from at less than half the cost that Dell wanted. Here's one on Ebay right now:

DELL Alienware 14 R1 Haswell i7 Motherboard NVIDIA GT 765M 2KVD5 / LA-9201P | eBay

If you are thinking of upgrading both cpu and motherboard, it might not be cost effective. You could say that a 4900mq would run you around $550:

Haswell INTEL i7 4900MQ 2.8Ghz(turbo 3.8Ghz) MOBILE CPU 4800m 4700m in stock

The board possibly another $500. It might make sense to wait and see if the 14 gets a refresh that includes a Maxwell 860m (or better yet, MXM capabilities ) and then sell your current machine and go for a new 14 with those upgrades already in place.

The only reason I entertained upgrading the board on mine myself was because when the price of my machine (not a refurb, all original boxing and in mint condition with 6mths warranty left) and a new & sealed board (both via Ebay) were added together, it was cheaper than buying a refurbished machine configured with a GTX765m. In the UK, that spec was around £1,000gbp upwards for a refurb or even more for a non-refurb - I got my 14 and the board for around £700 (or ~$1150usd) in total - we always pay more than US prices, so that was s a great price for the UK....I couldn't have got it cheaper, even if I had been looking at refurb's from the US at US prices, which would have had an extra 20% added on top for importing - so all in all, for me, it worked out really, really well!! - it's not often (practically never) I can grab tech stuff cheaper than US residents can get it for! LOL

 

That's not a bad deal , though you will start crying if I told you what mine cost..... I really really got lucky because a local pawnshop didn't knew the actual value.

 

Hahaha, yeah, a great deal in the US, like what I had as a UK equivalent, would be hard for me to beat over here in England. Still, I know that the US is always much cheaper - even at full retail price - than the UK, so I can't grumble on my bargain. Glad you snagged a good deal yourself, too!

 

I got this laptop for some time. Its nice and hefty(I got used on carrying a 2.7 kg old laptop so this one has no issues), medicore sound(soundwoofer works), good 1080p screen. Not hot while gaming, can handle games in 1080p. Fan is noisy when gaming but can be neglected due to high sound of the speakers. I havent experienced trottling.
Specs: Alienware 14 CPU: I7-4700MQ
RAM: 8 GB
GPU: GT 750M 2GB
SCREEN:1920x1080 IPS
WIFI:KILLER 1202 and KILLER e2200
HHD: 750GB WD7500BPKX-7
OS: WINDOWS 7 HOME

Also whats the benefits of the A8 bios, Im using the A7 one.

 

a9 bios is out now

 

Nothing major regarding A08 or A09 - A08 added some microcode for new processor support and A09 pretty much only thing of note was an update to over-current protection for the battery. I'm on A09 and have no issues.

 

I just pulled the trigger on this one


210-ACKB

Alienware 14 Base

16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz (2x8GB)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M with 2GB GDDR5
WLAN Killer 1202 Driver
256GB mSATA SSD Boot + 1TB 5400RPM SATA 6Gb/s
Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit English
Optical Drive : Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVD/RW, CD-RW)
Killer NIC 1202 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0
4th Generation Intel Core i7-4910MQ processor (Quad Core, 8MB Cache, up to 3.9GHz

14.0 inch (355.6 mm) WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS Anti-Glare Display




..

 

Hello all,

It's the first time i am writing in this forum although i have been reading it for almost a year. I've been dreaming of owning an Alienware laptop for at least two years but being from Greece it wasn't easy. The prices are particularly higher than in US and also Alienware laptops became available in the Greek market in the past year or so, with absurd prices usually. To cut a long story short i am in New Zealand visiting a friend and i have set my eyes on a AW 14 which is readily available in a store near me. It's the base model with the i5, the GT 750 and the low res screen (1366x768). The price is 1.620 NZD which is around $1.380. Considering it's a display item i might be able to lower the price a bit more. I have some second thoughts about the gpu, although i hope it will be ok with the low res screen and me not having a passion to play my games in high end settings. I do know that logic dictates to wait till i have a higher budget, to wait and see if Dell updates the AW 14 series as rumours have it and generally go for a higher spec'd machine. But to be honest guys i can barely hold myself from buying it! I apologize for the long post and i suppose what i really wanted was to share my "agony"...

Thanks for listening!

 

Welcome to NBR after lots of reading!

Temptation can be a hard thing to resist, but if I could give you any advice (and this is in relation to ANY Alienware laptop) it would be to get the best gpu and screen that you can at the time of purchase because once you've pulled the trigger, those things (especially with the graphics being soldered on to the 14 motherboard) can be the most expensive and hard-to-source components to upgrade afterwards. I think that the GT750m (check the amount of vRam as it could be 1gb or 2gb) is able to handle most games on that display resolution at medium settings - some games high.

Personally, I think that is a high price for an ex-display base unit - I just had a quick look on Ebay Australia and you could bag a model with a GTX765m, 1080p IPS screen etc for around the same price. Here's an example: Dell Alienware 14 NEW Edition Laptop in Canberra, ACT | eBay

If you don't mind buying from Ebay, you would be able to get much more bang for your buck. I'd be holding off and/or looking at alternative sources to buy if it were me.......

 

Is anybody else having issues with their PSU? I plugged in my 14 this morning about 3 hours ago with a mostly dead battery (I haven't been using it, it's been in sleep mode the whole time), and it's only charged to 76% right now. I'm wondering if the PSU is dying or if there's a setting I can use to speed up the charge rate (if it can deliver 150W when gaming, it should be able to charge faster).

Before I contact Alienware CS, is there anything I can try to troubleshoot it?

 

Dell will probably want to run a remote diagnostic with perhaps a pre-boot assessment (PSA) and/or AlienAutopsy Check-Up. You can do both yourself if you want to see if it throws back any errors with the battery etc. If everything passes, I don't think there would be much you can do about it, unless you are within 12mths warranty - batteries only carry a 12mth warranty. They might exchange a PSU if you can swing it, but YMMV with that, depending on the rep you deal with.

You could also download and run Hardware Monitor: http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html - it will show you the health of your battery in terms of percentage/wear.

TBH, I can't recall if 3 hours is slow from a virtually dead battery in sleep mode. If I get the chance, I'll try and replicate and let you know how long it takes for mine to charge to a similar level.

 

Since I typed that post, the battery has only gone up 6% with the laptop being on and using it for general web browsing. 6% in 30 minutes is much slower than it used to charge. I'll contact CS and see what they'll do about replacing the charger.

 

I just edited my last post with a monitoring tool that will check the health of your battery, amongst other hardware - might give some insight.....

 

I just ran the diagnostics. Everything passed. It just seems like it's charging extremely slow. I'll try running something stressful and see if the battery drains instead of charging.

EDIT: I think the battery monitor is out of calibration. Now the battery says it's 100% charged after just a few minutes. I'll drain it until it dies and then recharge it completely to see if it'll fix that.

 

Hi everyone! I was gonna go through a detailed explanation of the problem I have with my newly purchased AW 14 and then I thought that would be better if I post a photo of my machine and see if you guys could spot the issue and kindly come up with possible solutions.
Hopefully this is not a big deal, however, I, myself think otherwise!

Any advice would be highly appreciated.

Edited: I am not sure whether this is a defect or just a part of the machine behavior/characteristic! So that, if you notice that, it is a defect then, otherwise I can live with that anyway!



View attachment 112760

 

Hmmm. That's a bit like one of those 'spot the difference' quizzes LOL. - The only things that immediately jump out at me are that the Alienware logo is not lit up on the display bezel and the trackpad light is off, but both can be set that way if desired. The only other things that I see is the taskbar colour/transparency - again, that can vary depending on what OS you are running...and your KB layout is not quite the same as mine (UK) on the right side near the enter keys....(your enter key actually has 'enter' on it, mine does not) but again, that could be a regional variation as I don't know if it's a UK machine...

Oh, one other thing - if you are thinking it's the space bar lights are faulty, they doesn't light up.

Go on, put us out of our misery and let us know what's bugging you

 

@Wattser93

Just wanted to let you know that I timed a partial charge on my machine this morning. This was done with the battery at 77% full, machine in use (just browsing in Optimus mode) and timed until 100% charge level was reached. Overall time taken to charge was ~1hr 20 mins. Hope that is of some kind of rough guide....

 

Hi All,

Had my AW14 for a few months now - I love it! It's a bit of a lump - but a good looking lump! Sounds not the best compared to my old XPS15 but think I've mentioned that in another thread already.

Anyway, I just wanted to ask about the amount of heat it puts out - it's ridiculous - and I'm not even talking about gaming. I've not measured the temperature but the back of the laptop (the flat surface below the bottom of the open screen) gets VERY hot - too hot to rest your finger there for any amount of time.

Has anyone else noticed this? The airflow is fine - it's on a flat surface all of the time.

 

Well, things should not be getting so hot that you cannot keep your finger on ANY specific area of the external casing. Where you describe as getting hot is directly above the GPU/CPU, so it will be warmer than other areas - right side of the palm rest will also get warm if you have a traditional spinning HDD. I'd suggest that you download some temperature monitoring apps for both GPU and CPU and see what kind of temps you are seeing and post back. Some useful apps are:

RealTemp - for monitoring CPU temperatures
GPUz - for monitoring GPU temperatures.

There are others, but these two are light and would give you a good idea if you are overheating.

Do you have a lot of fan activity when just browsing etc? - I'm browsing now, in Optimus mode - and my CPU is idling at around 54c (Intel HD4600 iGFX) on a flat surface. If you have a GTX765m, you can run on the Nvidia GPU alone by Fn & F5 - you could check temps in both modes. Personally, right now, I have zero fan activity and everything is cool to the touch. If I'm in discrete Nvidia mode, I do get a bit more fan activity, but that's to be expected when running a discrete GPU as opposed to running on the Intel integrated graphics on board the CPU when in Optimus mode.

Note: If you have a GT750m, you cannot toggle between discrete and Intel graphics - it's automatically on Optimus 24/7

 

Thanks for the reply and the help

I've got Excel, Outlook and Firefox open (3 tabs) - the fans going on and off every minute or so and the temperate has peaked at around 60C on the GPU - it doesn't seem to make a difference switching between Intel/765M - as an aside is there a way to tell which mode you're in easily? When I press FN+F5 it just tells me I've switched modes but doesn't say what to

CPU runs at around 54C on all 4 cores. It still feels VERY hot round the back (and lukewarm on the right palm rest)

 

Sounds pretty normal, temp wise - they look fine. Around the rear will feel a lot warmer as that is where all the hot air gets vented from. Still, I've just put my hand on the rear of mine and whilst it is warm, it's not so hot that I cannot keep a finger on it. My right side palm rest is also warm to the touch because I've got my 750gb spinning HDD installed right now, not my SSD - traditional spinning drives output more heat due to moving parts etc.

As for telling which mode you are in, if you right click on the desktop, you will see the following if you are in Optimus mode: (Note, if running the 765m only, the Intel Graphics will not show up as an option, just Nvidia). If you are running the 765m only, the machine does tend to be warmer with more fan activity.

 

That's a similar charge rate to mine. The PSU is 150W and the battery is around 70Wh if I remember correctly. Theoretically, we could charge our laptops in 30 minutes (hard on the battery, but doable). The PSU is large enough to support the PC at 100% when OC'd and still charge, so I don't know why we can't enable a "fast charge" mode to give a quick charge up to 75% capacity in a short period of time the way Lenovo is doing now with some of the Thinkpads.

 

Well, the first possible solution that comes to my mind is reinstalling the Alienware Command Center you can use this tutorial. Let me know how it goes!

 

Thanks guys for sharing your ideas on the issue. Nobody has yet noticed the defect That worries me. If you look closlely you would notice both zones 7 and 8 which represent ALIENWARE and touchpad lights are set on black colour in command center, that is why they don't lit up.

The problem I am talking about is visible on zones 2,3 and 4. I chose high contrast colours on purpose to see how the alienfx system can manage the setup. Zones meant to be red, blue, red from right to left. But as you can see there is like a colour confusion here. Zones are not clearly separated based on the defined colour. Zone 3 which has to be blue is more like light viloet while zone 1(should be red) is literally pink! Surprisingly if I change zone 2(supposedly blue) to red both adjacent zones will turn red!
I thought each zone had its own dedicated light system but from what I get it is like all zones share the same light, only can be changed slightly when all zones colour are set to lit up differently!

BTW, I uninstalled and then reinstalled command center but no lock!

Now just wondering if anyone else has came across this problem! If so how did you solve it?
Is anyone one of you nice enough to take a photo of his/her AW14 while running on the same colour setup! That gives me ideas on how yours lit up! Thanks in advance

 

Go ahead and send me your Service Tag Via Private Message, if re-installing the command center did not solve the issue this might be caused by the actual LED's.

 

For what it's worth, I just took a picture of my KB set to the same colour scheme and it is exactly as posted above. The right side is violet instead of red.....well, oddly enough, the area around the cursor keys is red, but the rest is violet. Sorry about the blurriness of the picture in the spoiler, I just grabbed my camera and fired of a shot. See below:

Spoiler

It'll be interesting to see what the reason is behind this, or if there is anything that can be done to resolve it. Red should be red, not violet.

 

Hmmmm... I am getting this as well and if I put red in zone 3 only my CTRL key is red.

Edit: Still the same after Command Center reinstall.

 

I guess we all have the same problem. One solution may fix`em all.


Well part of me is happy cause I feel like I`m not alone on the ship , part of me is sad cause after paying nearly 1700 AUD I was ready for a flawless laptop from dell and what I have is not what I expected!

Beside an sticky left button and a bleeding display, that was the very first thing that drew my attention after an hour working with my alienware. This is actually the replacement laptop that I was offered by retailer due to the serious backlight bleeding problem I had with the first one.

Anyway I will have a dell technician tomorrow for onsite service. He is gonna replace the palm rest, this has to solve the sticky left click issue. He will be inspecting the LEDs as well and will let me know whether or not that`s the machine`s fault. So stay tuned for further updates.

@Alienware-Wasserman thanks for offering help. I just can`t find how to shoot you a private message!

 

I'd be thinking that this KB problem is down to one of two things. Either the KB lights are just not up to being able to separate colours accurately with complex/multiple colours OR there is a glitch in the AlienFX code when a particular colour scheme (as tested) is used. Seems odd that the LED's can handle red or blue, but when the neigbouring colour is strongly different, they freak out and no longer stay true red.

Three people have tested the same scheme here, three people have the same result. Too much coincidence that we all have faulty LED's, so my guess is AlienFX software.

@Aidinmak - to send a private message, you need 5 or more quality posts on the forum, once you have reached that level, you will have full forum privileges and if you click on the user's name to whom you want to PM, you will see a box appear with the option to send PM amongst other options.

 

Another weird thing is if I do red, orange, and yellow from the left the first zone is red but if I do it from the right the top of the first zone is a darker orange but the arrow keys are red. My computer has been sent in enough already because I cannot trust the tech in Florida to fix it because all he does is break it. I will wait to see if Aidinmak replacement fixes the issue. I not sure if it's the same for you guys but I kind out found out that reseating the bezel fixes some lightbleed on the screen because my replacement was doing the same the same and I snapped up the bezel and snap it back and it fixed the lightbleed so it was way less.

I am starting to think this after trying other colour combinations. Blue, Red, Red, Red and Blue, Blue, Red, Red get the same pink and blueish purple fade affect in between colours. I have had trouble with tron lights in the past but those had a greenish hue fade affect but those were only on the lower tron lights.