*OFFICIAL* Alienware 14 Owner's Lounge Thread

Oh thanks so much Drake! I knew this would be the perfect place to ask.

I was getting worried about that. I guess my previous motherboard was indeed faulty. The new one seems to be working well. I disabled Turbo Boost and made sure there was no overclocking on my laptop, plus added a cooling master notepad X3 and temps seem bot be running around 56°C for my gpu. I'm open to ideas to keep it cool.

 

Finally got my shipping info. Here is to hoping for this week delivery.

 

my alienware 14 arrived today, not bad 9 days in total from order to delivery. but I don't like it

 

I noticed you also got M15x and would love to know more of your dislike on your new AW 14

TIA

 

Man don't say that. Mine should arrive tomorrow. What don't you like about it?

 

aw 14 is a lot smaller than the aw15 and I mean lot ! you can fit the 14 completely inside the aw15, but I can put up with that as I bought it for uni so not a problem, what is the problem is the constant errors and failures im getting, to do with port 0, drive keeps disappearing, system keeps crashing nonstop
rapid storage reports failed drive and or port 0, asks me to reboot then its wholey hell to get it back, so I've either got a failed/failing drive or a issue with sata port 0. when the system is up and running its fast then its a race between a snail and this aw14 and I believe the snail would win as it just stops and runs super slow...
my guess due to the drive or port 0.
almost every program crashes with corruptions and I get prompted to reinstall. I was lucky I was able to completely do the initial backup when the system arrived yesterday so I have done blooming loads of restoring, but still same errors/faults. I will ring dell tomorrow and have it shipped back for a refund, im within my 7 days distance selling act and I will simply buy another.

sorry for delay but im sure you can see I've been busy

 

Well I wouldn't say you don't like it as it is having g some serious issues. I will be posting up my thoughts tomorrow when I get mine.

 

In The Netherlands and Germany you can't order an alienware 14 with a gtx765m anymore, only with a gtx 750m.

So, at last, we will get the GPU upgrade we all have been waiting for with desperation.

 

...........or Dell could just be winding down the 14, soon to mark it as EOL (end of life) as it will be replaced by the 13.....which in my mind is more likely than a GPU refresh for the 14.

 

If that’s the case, I made a good choice to replace mine after 8 months of trouble, an Alienware 14 that had almost all the models issues you can think about.

Last month Dell replaced her and, although it has some of the issues again, like the bleeding spots - Dell will replace the screen - I wouldn’t change it for an Alienware 13, even if it has a faster GPU.

I don’t recognize the body Alienware is known for and the 14 has everything you may expect of an Alienware. The Alienware 13 is to thin and it possible will make less noise to.

I love to game with a beautiful body screaming for more like a monster - even if she screams at 95 C - that’s Alienware to me.

 

I believe it's only a stock issue. LaTam is having stock issues with the AW14, but the US still has many.

 

Same in Italy (i think the store is the same). But i presume they will place GTX 850 into AW14 before AW13 comes out.

 

I hope Dell will come up with at a GTX 860m for the AW14 at least, but maybe it’s the perfect moment to introduce the 900m series for the 14 and a refresh for the most important issues, like a better IPS screen without extreme bleeding spots for instance.

For now it’s a pity and a shame that you can’t buy a beautiful game laptop like the AW14 in Europe with a GPU better than the GTX 750m. But we will find out soon. It’s also possible of course, although I don’t want to believe in it, that Dell will stop the production of the AW14.

 

Soon we will hear about the refresh of the Alienware 14 with 900m series, hopefully before the end of this year (I would guess end of November)

 

It's never coming! Such anger towards Intel, they are boycotting their HQ processors.

Not really, but I wish they'd say something.

 

Hi all!

I got my first Alienware laptop (Alienware 14) about 3 months ago and I could not be any happier.

I have to say I will NEVER buy another brand of laptop ever again.

I got a bit lucky, a guy I know works for Dell and all said he only paid about $400 out of pocket for this laptop and he wanted a PS4 (and I very much needed a new gaming computer) so we did an even trade.

The only thing I would ever complain about with this thing is the screen size and resolution. With 14" and the lower resolution I get a bit aggravated from time to time but when I am gaming I typically plug into my 27" BenQ monitor.

I hope some day I am able to order and buy a model with a larger screen (some day I will be able to afford to by myself on with the 17 or 18" screen) but other than that this thing is a beast and I love it!!

Well, I wandered onto this forum by accident and figured I would stop and say hi

Sam

 

I am wondering if anyone knows. Since I bought my Alienware 14 pre built, if I wanted to take the HDD out and replace it with an SSD and then use the HDD that is in the system as a second drive, is there room for me to do so?

I watched the tear down video that is posted on page one of this thread so I am assuming that I will need to remove the optical drive and replace it with a tray for the second hard drive. Can I buy just that tray? I don't see the point of having the optical drive, I pretty much never use it and I have a USB 3.0 optical drive anyways.

Thanks!!

Sam

 

You can have an mSATA SSD and 2.5" drive in your AW 14. There's one port for each. All of them are SATA 3 6Gb/s.

If you want a third 2.5" drive, you can remove the optical drive and replace it with an SSD or HDD.

 

Thank you for that, I was not aware there was room for another hard drive of any kind without taking out the optical drive.

 

I might be selling the little 14 soon, got my hands on a M17x R4 and wanna try something bigger since I mostly move my system from point to point and don't carry it all day long.

At first was going to look for a R5 system (Rogers bigger brother) but they are still a bit too expensive second hand and I got this R4 model for a very very cheap price.

The 14 has served me well for the last 6 months, one of the best little machines I ever had. So I'm not sure which one I'm gonna keep, the 14 has the advantage of being more portable, the m17x a faster gpu (hd7970m) bigger screen and so on.

This is gonna be a tough one to decide

 

Does anyone know if it's possible to get the 14 setup for english language in Hong Kong?

 

Could the Alienware 14 users out there on Windows 7 lend me a hand? Could you restart from within Windows 7 (Start Menu | Restart) and check your event logs? Do you see any WHEA errors?

Me and an Alienware 18 owner are noticing this issue, trying to determine if it is specific to a problem with our hardware or common to other systems.

Thanks!

 

Only experienced one WHEA-Logger error on one reboot, recent reboots, i dont have it.

 

Hello All
I format my AW14
all i did was update to W 8.1

I want to know what other thing i must do & things i need to download
Like do i need to download Java, Adobe, etc ?

Please Help Thank you

 

Hi iBraveHeart,

If you did a clean install of Windows 8.1 you will need to install any applications you would like to use -- which includes Java, Adobe Acrobat, etc.

 

Remember to check that you are using updated drivers as well as proper installation order ...

 

1. Intel Core i7 4700MQ @ 2.40GHz 44 °C
   Haswell 22nm Technology
   RAM
   8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (11-11-11-28)
   Motherboard
   Alienware 07MJ2Y (U3E1)
   Graphics
   Generic PnP Monitor (1366x768@60Hz)
   HP LV1911 (1366x768@60Hz)
   Intel HD Graphics 4600 (Dell)
   1023MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M (Dell) 42 °C
   Storage
   698GB Western Digital WDC WD7500BPKX-75HPJT0 ATA Device (SATA) recently purchased 2 ND hand seems to be working well,, how do I double check everything?? the warranty has expired since my ownership and now a few problems lost partition-no factory image found aw-re-spawn seems glitchy can anyone help???last thing in the bios unable too enable overclocking mode can bios be bugged??

 

Well hello guy. I'm new to the Alienware 14. Not new to alienwares. I've owned them since they were a stand alone company back in 2003. I just scored an Alienware 14 for $150.00! Yes $150 from the registered original owner. So as it sits I own an Alienware 14, M17xR4, M18xR2 now. Is there anything I should be worried about with this laptop.

 

Eaglefox. I can make you a respawn usb which will build your respawn partition. I just picked up the same laptop you have today for $150

 

If you've lost your recovery partition, the next best thing to do is to perform a clean install - Windows 7 or Windows 8, restore the Alienware look and feel and then download and install AlienRespawn. It will create a new recovery partition for you based on your machine at that point in time, and from there, you can use AWR to create a USB recovery drive that is essentially the same as factory recovery partition. If you had any bundled software such as Cyberlink PowerDVD, you would need to download them and install them again. If you choose to do that BEFORE downloading and running AWR, those softwares would be included in your "user created" recovery USB.

 

That's a negative ghost rider pattern is full. If the recovery partition is corrupt or lost installing respawn will not work. You have to make a respawn dvd or usb before hand. The software on dells site is used just to access the partition.

 

Wrong. You CAN perform a totally clean/fresh installation of the OS onto a brand new/empty drive, update all relevant system drivers and re-install any bundled software and THEN download and run AlienRespawn and a new recovery partition will be created on said hard drive. You can then use the UI of AWR to create recovery disks or a USB to return your machine to that particular state.

How do I know this? - mainly because I have done it several times myself, along with many other users on this forum.

 

only if you didnt erase your hiden recovery partion. I just went through this on saturday with an M18xR2 that had both partitions wiped and deleted.

 

Well to the person who is needing this advice or wanting this advice. You can try Steviejones113 method and let us know. When you need the Respawn USB if your recovery partition damaged or missing let me know and i will make a copy and mail it to you.

 

I will be the first to say I stand corrected. I don't know when sell revamped the software. The old software never rebuilt a recovery partition. But this new software does! AWESOME!

 

Told ya!! - glad it worked for you. It did use to be the case that AWR would not create a new partition, however, the newer version does.

 

Sorry to ask a dumb question but can someone please educate me on what this slot is used for in my Alienware 14,i looked everywhere and can't figure it out. It's driving me nuts lol

 

Yes Please!!! thank you, how do I contact you too exchange information???

 

Yes Please!!! thank you, how do I contact you too exchange information???

 

Hello Steviejones133,, you made a great video about disassembly of the alienware 14..therefore I have certainty your knowledge of OS is also strong.. recently after an Microsoft update I'm having sys config troubles--my Intel Core i7 4700MQ only shows up as a single core cpu with 1 thread not 4 each!!!! also my system will shut down instead of sleeping, or hibernating.. how do I fix this??? or what is causing this?.

 

Do you have a screen shot? Its usually something like this.

@ Samuel: Its something about a TV tuner slot for AW 14 but its good that you have that slot. My AW14 doesnt have that.

 

You can try and restore your machine to a point before the update. Open system restore and select a time before the update caused issues - you should be fine then. Make a note of the update number and do not install it again if it is causing problems.

 

I already tried that.. no success there! it was a big update no way of figuring out which one was the culprit. aren't some of these updates necessary? how do I weed out the unnecessary ones?? also have other issues that I believe are all related, so how do I sort this out???

 

The important thing is Windows security patches. Do not install anything from Win update if everything is working properly. Only if there is a feature you want. If you are / want to install patches then make a recovery points between each patch. Easier to troubleshoot.
Try to reset the bios to default settings and see if that helps the processor issue ..

 

Hello all. It's been awhile since I've posted, but I hadn't had any issues until recently. Here is the setup, then a pic of the issue and crossing fingers you'll have a 'simple' solution for me.

2013/2014 Alienware 14
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M with 2GB GDDR5
750GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s + 80GB mSATA SSD Caching
4th Generation Intel(R)Core(TM)i7-4700MQ processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz w/ Intel(R)Turbo Boost)

All that stuff is from the order sheet. Anyways, I'm not sure what I did or what patch was applied that caused this, but this is what I'm seeing in the included screenshot. My Dev_Cache shows to be Disabled and Bootable is set to No.

Any recommendations / hints on what I should try? It came loaded with Windows 8, but recently did the free Windows 10 upgrade, and wanted to re-enable the cache drive if possible.

 

Enable in IRST ?

 

Has anyone upgraded to windows 10 yet, and what do they think of it on the system so far?

 

I just installed it yesterday, everything seems to be running great so far. I think it's much improved from win 8.

 

I would like to replace the thermal paste on the CPU and GPU.

Does anyone know if it is possible to remove the heat sinks from either or both.

Also, I had found on here about 2 years ago a tear down video that was awesome and very detailed that showed step by step how to tear down the Alienware 14 to the motherboard, I am having a hard time finding it again. If anyone has that link or knows where I can find it that would be great.

Thank you, have a fantastic weekend!

Sam

 

I found the tear down video.