*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 Ranger (2013) Owner's Lounge Thread

Thx Flash-Fire. The Mini DisplayPort over our laptops is ok for G-Sync?

 

Only having an 860m myself I haven't tried.

 

Guys...do you know if our laptop screens are FlickerFree? Just curious...

 

Both cards use an mxm3.0 slot so it is compabitble card wise. and unless you go to the 980m the gsync is a waste. gsync is a nvidia thing

 

Do these laptops have 1 or multiple m2 SSD slots in them?

 

They have non.

1 mSATA and 2 SATA 3

 

And you can put in the 3rd 2.5" ssd if you remove the odd. Aka 4 ssd's

 

Oh yeah! Totally forgot about the ODD.

 

Sorry I guess mSATA is what I was talking about. Surprised there's only 2. A friend of mine has a MSI 17 inch Stealth with a 765m I think that he got not too long after I got my AW and it came with 2 mSATA SSDs in raid with a 1tb HDD. The laptop died and will not power on and seems like a motherboard issue and as a last ditch effort I was hoping to remove the 2 SSDs and put them in my AW to try and boot into the OS and save any data that might be there, I'm afraid that if I try just the one SSD I will end up losing everything that was on there but at this point I guess there's only one thing to try. Thanks guys.

 

You can buy a M-sata to 2.5" ssd converter. Just put the m-sata ssd's into the converter and plug in Should work.

 

Anyone have issues with the power button LED not working? Lately mine has seemed to sporadically go on and off. Just recently I noticed it was on and I hit ctrl alt delete and when I hit delete it shut off (laptop still has power and is receiving a charge but the LED shuts off). If it is on and I touch the chasis at all between the keyboard and monitor it seems to go off. Is there a cable that could be loose or something?

 

There is a cable and might be a bit loose but to reach it you need to remove the palmrest. So, you need to remove your rams, ODD and hard drives, don't forget to remove the big ribbon cable under ODD and then all of the 8*2.5 and 3*2.5 screws for the palmrest (there are 4 screws labeled "D" as in display for the screen and no need to remove these) and you carefully take your palmrest out and take care of the carf reader ribbon while removing he palmrest.

The LED cable should be on the bottom of your palmrest, reattach it and then put everything back.

 

Also here's a teardown vid by HIDevo, It's pretty easy task once you do it, Done it a couple of times.

 

Hey all. I have a possible dead GPU (see post - http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ad-possible-dead-gpu-aw-17-r1-gtx780m.803281/) but I was curious how simple it is to upgrade from a 780m to an 880m if my 780 is in fact bust. Is it just a case of removing drivers and switching them out?

 

Yeah should be a pretty straight forward switch out, just make sure you have the 3 pipe heat sync, if not you'll want to change that too.

 

Ordered an 880m so hopefully its as simple as using DDU and swapping parts over. I have the 3 pipe heatsink too so no need to order a replacement for that

 

Be sure you are on latest bios. 880m is default graphics in the 2014 revision of last "proper" Alienware 17 models.

 

Yeah i'm on A14 at the minute, think thats still the most current BIOS. Thanks

 

Remember buying top notch high quality thermal pads and paste for your new 880m. I don't understand why you went for 880m, as 780m is a better graphics. But good luck sir.

 

Thanks. Any idea what the thickness is of the current thermal pads on the AW17 R1?

 

It's a long time since I worked with old 780m in my AW17. And 880m pads layout has not been on my table. Maybe @woodzstack or @Ashtrix can help out.

 

Just order these and you are good ( 1mm and 1.5mm), Compare the thickness to the stock pads on the existing HS and then place them, Plus also double check on the pads by placing the heatsink on GPU just to ensure all the pads are flush and no air gaps, if required you might need to order .5 or 2mm depending on the depth/z-height at some points, I did the repaste job a long while back and didn't remember the exact positions of the 1.5 and 1mm on the HS for 980Ms, So be careful as the 880M is a very HOT card, Should have gone for 970/980M..

Don't go for Fujipoly they are very hard, those Phobya pads with either of those 1/1.5mm thickness should work out unless you plan to dremel the HS for the Zotac 1070..

 

Cheers for the help guys. I got the 880 cheap which is why I went for that over a replacement 780. Id have much preferred a 980 but I'll use what I can for the time being

 

Hi guys, I've been heavily invested with my Alienware 17 ranger and I've managed to successfully increase the GPU fan speed of my laptop. I've done the upgrade for both the modded CPU fan XN0G5, and the perfect fit GPU fan THPDJ. I noticed that even if I replaced both fans, they are still restricted by our unit's BIOS making it lose its potential to run at higher speeds.

I researched on PWM hard mod thru various forums and videos on the net. What I did was to remove the connectors of the 2 in the middle. I had to be careful in removing both connectors from its plastic clips using tweezers.

Then the moment of truth came when I had to test and boot my laptop. Its either I screw something up in my motherboard or I'll be successful in maxing out my fan speed. As soon as it turned on,the GPU fan was blowing really fast, faster than when I forced to run it through its max 3400 rpm through HWINFO before without the mod. It now has a sharper sound and I can feel more air blowing. I believe that it's running at 11.4 CFM.

I'm using a Radeon R9 m290x repasted with ic diamond. When I play nba 2k17, I used to get a max temp of 86 degrees Celsius. With this mod, I played the game again and I was able to decrease the temps to 76 degrees Celsius.

Not bad at all. I plan to do the same with my XN0G5 CPU fan soon and I'd be happy to share my findings.

Here are pictures of my results:








my next goal is the PWM 12V switch to be able to control when I want to max out the fan speed and when not to. Anybody here who can guide me on this? Thanks!

 

Hey dude, I know it's been quite a while since you last posted this but I'd really appreciate it if you could write a guide on how you were able to achieve this mod.

 

I just pulled an 880m out of a second hand Ranger (I plan to upgrade my 860m) and it looks like the green pads are 1mm & blue are 1.5mm. If you need pics of where the pads go let me know.

 

Hey guys, so I was thinking about trying to sell my AW17 in my sig and was curious if you guys had any ideas what these are worth these days or what they go for? I will probably try to post on the marketplace here first. Specs are in my sig, will come as is like that unless someone does not want the SSD or something. What should one ask for for one of these machines? I see somewhat similar ones on ebay but the range of prices they are trying to sell for varies and it doesn't mean they are actually selling.

 

So, guys, just to get a confirmation on this based on every thread that I've read around here: if I have a AW17 R1 from 2013 with regular fullhd screen and a 780m in addition to Intel's integrated video card, I CANNOT upgrade to a Geforce 1060 because of the card-screen connection, right? (I would need the 120Hz screen instead).
So a 980m is basically my only option.
Thank you.

 

@woodzstack can help you in deciding.

 

yup, thanks for the mention man !

 

You should be able to use OPTIMUS to load the 1060N, but no guarantee's with that, it would be on INTEL and NVidia making it work together, and neither can get thier own devices working 100% so I personally do not support it, because it's a gamble.

otherwise you basically need 120Hz eDP cable and screen of which forces you into dedicated mode and UEFI which is perfect for the card.

Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

 

Thank you for your help! I can't take that gamble with the sort of money involved. Shame, I liked the idea of a less power-hungry card, running a bit cooler. I think my 780m just went up in smoke and I hesitate to double down with a beast like the 980m.

 

get the 120Hz screen, and get the eDP cable and then get a 1060N or 1070N !
You will have to mod the heatsink for the 1070N and the chassis, or you can just make pads to fit the 1060N.

980M is still a great choice mind you.

 

I'm afraid that's too much modding for my limited skills If I do this, I would prefer to go for the most plug&play option!

 

Well, can make you a deal on a 980M for being a NBR member, but I think you would have already gotten one if you were gonna go that route.

If your looking for teardown guides or a how-to for the screen replacement and cable and 1060 install you can find it all here on the forums, if not a 3rd party like myself or others can easily do the labour portion for you.

just don;t take it into some repair depot or electronics store if they do not know Alienware very well, I hear about small repair shops all the time not being able to do squat all.

 

Oh, no I would never do that. I'd prefer to everything by myself or with the help of some friends. It would be great to have options and professional help such as you guys, but I'm in Europe and there's not much of that here. Plus, customs and taxes on items from overseas make it difficult to buy from Canada/US, sadly.

 

if you are unsure at any junction just post your findings here and ask people for advice, generally NBR is a godsend for tips and tricks and how-to's for Alienware.

 

@Mana Cerace , This might be handy for you to setup the GPU after the upgrade & Make sure you are running Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 in Full UEFI - In Boot options set the UEFI CSM to UEFI only and then Install either of the OS onto a fresh disk formatted as GPT, this is a MUST for the Alienwares going for Maxwell and Pascal (For Pascal . It's the BIOS issue here, Alienware abandoned the AW17 so we have to use this method only. AW18 got the final BIOS update from Dell which helps it to boot with Win7 as well for Maxwell GPUs.

Also get the Triplepipe HS + M17x R4 fans & new thermal pads preferably Phobya pads or thermal grizzly pads.

 

Hi just bought a 17 ranger from UK eBay got the 1400×900 screen to upgrade the screen to 1080p whould I need a 40 pin or 30 pin connector thanks ..

 

Hi anybody know the part number for the 1080p screen thanks

 

I've got the 1600x900 screen no is B173RW01 v.4 looking for the screen no for the 1080p thanks

 

Hi also looking for a 3pipe heatsink thanks

 

So is it ok by now to update to Windows 10? It's been awhile since I've heard about any issues. But don't wish to brick my screen.

 

I think it is safe to do so. Go to the Software Thread , and look for the Windows 10 installation guide.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...stallation-guide.781178/page-45#post-10573278

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...are-free-edition.804247/page-63#post-10580512

 

Ok, I just knew that there was issues with updating causing issues with the screens bricking. I figured I'd wait awhile before attempting.

 

But never use EVGA PrecisionX or you will brick the screen.

 

I do

n't ever use that, but do like to use msi afterburner I use it for basic overclocking and monitoring temps, is that ok?

 

Should be good. As well also Nvidia Inspector.

 

as @Papusan said, MSI AB was never reported as a cause of problems to AW laptops' screens.

 

Sounds good. Thank you!