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

Ahh I thought the display had 60Hz support as well -multimode... well said

 

Kudos, flashed my vbios back, no more battery issues. Good job guess ill just have to use evga to up the temperature limit now!

 

Glad to hear that!

 

This review was just published, not a detailed one but again shows poor performance in PCMark, but solid in real-life games. Unlike LaptopMag's review, where thei similar specs laptop took them 30+ seconds to boot, this reviewer says <10s were needed..
Alienware 17 review: gaming laptop with a Haswell processor - PC Advisor

 

OK about the 180 watt adapter, I looked on the dell site and it looks completely different than the one's being shipped out, why is that?

Dell 180-Watt 3-Prong AC Adapter with 6 ft Power Cord for Select Dell Inspiron / Latitude / Alienware Laptops / Precision Mobile WorkStations / Alienware / Optiplex Desktops : Computer Accessories | Dell

 

2 new reviews of the Alienware 17:

Alienware 17 review: gaming laptop with a Haswell processor - PC Advisor

Notebookinfo.de translated

 

Can anybody outline how to optimally set up EVGA? Since I reflashed my vbios to stock I've had the same crummy 3Dmark results with EVGA temp set to 85 and without it. Is there anything else I need to change? Never used this program before!

 

Yeahh.. Indeed.. Gonna call and see whats happening

 

The latest NVIDIA driver seems to have improved performance for the 780M. It is a beta driver.

 

I'm waiting for my 3D model as well (in about a week). Your case will help me a lot as our AW17 may be a little different from others in term of tweaking. Anyway, enjoy gaming.

 

I'd suggest you set up the on-screen display that comes with it and select to see voltage/clock/FPS. Now you should see if anything weird is happening in real time

 

Make sure in task manager you don't have multiple volt whatever programs running at the same time. Some people reported to have 4 of these programs taking up like 12% of processing power each. You can just end them or ask those who had tis issue how they got rid of it. Also are you still running 311 drivers or 326 Beta (if you did some restarts after your vBios problem Dell auto update may have tried to reinstall the 311 drivers).

 

Tried that just now, EVGA is the only one running, and yup I'm still on 326.19 beta. Strange how nothing seems to be sticking. My GPU temperature refuses to go over 75 degrees, I even put a 50mhz OC on the clock offset to see if that worked, and it seemed to when I checked GPU-Z. So I don't get why I'm still getting high 6000's instead of the 7500 I got on SVL

 

New AW17 with 3D, Had throttling issues from the start. Flashed to SVL, throttling stopped, 3DMark improved by 10% still using org dell drivers. Have had the boot on Bat issue, black screen, since flash. Flashed back to org, fixed battery issue, but throttling returned. Flashed back to SLV, to get rid of throttle, battery boot is a necessary evil. The new 326.19 beta drivers improve the score by 2-3%. BTW, I did test the new drives on the old vbios and it still throttled. I love the rig though, it’s a bit better than my m18x with a single 680m that’s overclocked. Only gaming issue I have is World of Tanks locks up, display driver crashes, after about 10min. I have found that keeping the afterburner settings bellow +100 cpu, and +120 mem, seems to work. I am disappointed that I cant overclock more, the 680m is a beast.

 

Are you running in Optimus mode? And when you say your temp refuses to go above 75 is that due to throttling, or it isn't getting hotter due to good thermals. If its throttling at 75, thats weird because the Dedicated mode's cap was 77 by default. Normally I don't care about benchmarking and scores, but I picked up 3Dmark 11 on steam sale + coupon for $5 so I could help others out. With EVGA and 326 Beta drivers I get a little over 7200 without any changes to the clocks or card settings.



Try creating a default loadable on startup profile with EVGA. Set to what temp you want (I like to keep it just under 90), and if you want overclocking, then press CTRL and 1 to set as profile one. Then in settings check launch with windows, lastly under profiles tab make 1 your automatic profile and then restart you computer. If that doesn't work to raise your throttling level, then I can't pinpoint your problem.

 

Has anyone tried repasting their GPU to avoid this "temperature limit" on the 17? GPU's usually operate below 70C with a repaste, even while benching. Seems like a reasonable solution to me.

 

This would be good to know. A large delay in getting to the root cause of the 580m throttling at 78C was spent on fan profiles and beating dell up to increase it. Turned out to be a crappy factory paste job in most cases. On mine (and I saw pics of others) a piece of thermal putty that was supposed to be across the VRM's was misplaced and actually stopping another part of the card touching the heatsink. Dell just blanket authorised a replacement heatsink complete with pads and paste for any 580 owner having heat issues.

Although I'm sad to hear all these problems (put me off getting one ) could it be that simple??

 

I didn't really need to, my card doesn't go over 74 C without artificially raising the temps via blocking the vent (still use EVGA so I have enough room to do overclocking in future or run something full load for hours on end if I need to). However Dell's default temp limit in optimus mode is 66 C (I don't have optimus mode due to some weird glitch where I get the same GPU switching as the AW 18). 66 C is an unreasonable temp, and even with repasting I find it hard to believe any full load on the GPU can keep under that.

 

Yeah that 66c bit is where I don't understand why they did this. Maybe because on the iGPU (in optimus) it should not get any hotter than that? Problem is it kills the NV card. That they need to fix IMO.

At least it sounds like your thermal solution is fine

 

It's probably an efficiency thing. Everyone is focusing on efficiency these days. They probably wanted to extend battery life or something.

 

Nope, I don't believe so as I have the 3D bundle, I thought that made it impossible to run in Optimus mode?
Ill try your suggestions with EVGA, thanks for them if not, I will flash to SVL and test the performance in games I play regularly compared to stock bios. If there is a notable difference ill stick with SVL and deal with the battery issue on those vbios.

What I meant by not going over 75 degrees was I can't actually get it to go over that, which should mean my GPU isn't throttling, but ill check OSD during a run and see what is happening

 

Yeah, reduce the carbon footprint or some other treehugger principle. All the latest GPU's are all about more clock per watt rather then balls-out performance...

 

So guys just a quick question here I already call dell and haggle for the price so I got the price for 2800 tax included with 280 dell card. is it a good deal?
I have it with the spec
Item Description

Alienware 17
16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
English Keyboard
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5
Broadcom 4352 802.11 ac 2x2 and BT Driver
750GB SATA 3Gb/s (7,200 RPM) + 64GB mSATA SSD Caching
Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit, English
Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVDRW, CD-RW)
Broadcom 4352 802.11 ac 2x2 and Bluetooth 4.0
US 125V Power Cord
1 Year Alienware Basic Support
Alienware Command Center 3.0
8-cell Lithium Ion (86 wHr)
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4800MQ processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.7GHz)
Dell.com Order
Silver-Anodized Aluminum
17.3" 120Hz WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) TrueLife Display w/3D Bundle
Alienware 240W AC Adapter

 

Can I please ask you who your agent was? I'm having a terrible time trying to find a salesperson who will give me even a $1 discount! I am looking for your exact setup.

Thank you!

 

What's up with this booting from battery problem? I've flashed my 780m, and I also have the 3D screen, and I've got no problems booting from battery only.

 

I get P7400 with the base config without EVGA. From what I read the throttling (without Optimus) happens above 77C and a run of 3DMark 11 shouldn't make your laptop go above that limit.

 

Just ran another whilst looking at the clocks of my card; they were all over the place, going up and down all the time. This seems to be happening as soon as the temps reach over Optimus level of 66 degrees, but I have no idea how because Optimus doesn't work w/ 3D bundle. Temp never goes over 75, but throttles before then... The clocks remain max all the time when I play games so I'm not overly bothered about it, it's just a bit annoying!

 

Dell needs to fix these throttling issues somehow. The 66c throttle should not even apply in any circumstances as you say.

Does changing the temp target in evga help?

Guess a benchmark program is just one step too far for the current temp limits

 

Surprised it's only an issue with the fluctuating clocks & throttling on 3DMark11, because some games are bound to tax your GPU to 100%, just as 3DMark11 does. Loads of games tax my GPU to it's limits unless it's a poorly encoded game (Batman Arkham City with PhysX) or CPU limited.

 

My system is a bit lower than yours. But it included the 780 and standard everything else which brought the price to around 2300 or 2400. But I got 100 dollars right off the back from a discount and a 200 dollar student gift card. Also I told them I was going to cancel my order and told them not to ship it (they still shipped it) and when I received it they offered to refund 225 dollars. Which lead up to 325 dollars discounted (and hopefully I will still get the 200 dollar gift card but I am not keeping my hopes up).

edit: I don't advocate getting a discount through threatening to return the system. I told them to cancel the order and to not ship it, they still shipped it. I bought another laptop and once I found out they still shipped it I was pretty pissed. They emailed and gave previously mentioned discount. I then decided to sell my laptop that I had already bought to a friend who needed a laptop in a remote location.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes: Takei, the extortionist.

 

Well I was definitely going to return the system, I don't advocate getting a discount like this. But a made sale with a lower profit margin is better than no sale.

 

I'm just messing with ya.

 

I got a P7100 with stock GPU and 326 beta driver update. Might have a play around with EVGA later and see if how much I can increase it.

Quick noob question; Is it possible to set up one of the macro keys on the 17 to open a specific folder?

EDIT: Sorted, for some reason it wouldn't apply the folder shortcut until I rebooted however if I applied a shortcut to an application it worked instantly... strange but its working so im happy!

 

Has anyone tried the Brodcom AC wireless card on an AC router network yet. I'm curios if its worth getting a new router for the wireless speeds they advertise.
Another thing... I think I found out why I get the AW 18 graphics switching solution instead of optimus. I found these lines in my HWiNFO64 system LOG:

Video Adapter -------------------------------------------------------------


nVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M ---------------------------------------------------

[Video chipset]
Video Chipset: nVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M
Video Chipset Codename: GK104M
Video Memory: 4096 MBytes of GDDR5 SDRAM
[Video Card]
Video Card: nVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M (GK104M) [DELL]
Video Bus: PCIe v3.0 x16 (8.0 Gb/s) @ x16 (2.5 Gb/s)
Video RAMDAC: Integrated RAMDAC
Video BIOS Version: 80.04.AF.00.03
Video Chipset Revision: A1
[Performance]
Processor Clock: 135.0 MHz
Memory Clock: 162.0 MHz (Effective 648.0 MHz)
Memory Bus Width: 256-bit
Number Of ROPs: 32
Number Of Unified Shaders: 1536
nVidia SLI Status: Enabled
Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&SUBSYS_05AD1028&REV_A1

[Driver Information]
Driver Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Driver Description: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M
Driver Provider: NVIDIA
Driver Version: 9.18.13.2619
Driver Date: 12-Jul-2013
DeviceInstanceId PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&SUBSYS_05AD1028&REV_A1\4&D590A51&0&0008

Could anyone else run HWiNFO64 and save the log to see if they have that line? How I enabled SLI I don't know, but I would like to be able to replicate the process

 

I have that line in the log too. Granted, a different laptop, but I would think that it's 'enabled' by default even if you only have one card, like we both do. I'd be surprised if that was the reason for you quirky laptop graphics switching behaviour.

 

Ok, thanks for the info. I guess its back to the drawingboarbd.

 

Ouch, 85 C when playing Metro Dark Light on Very High, 16xAF, Tesselation Very High, advanced PhysX.

Acceptable framerates though, around 44 fps.

 

How hot is your CPU getting? Is your GPU OCed? Optimus or discrete mode? How loud are the fans?

I'm hoping that a more aggressive fan profile can keep temperatures lower.

 

Hello ppl,
Alienware has released its new line of laptops but unfortunately they aren't available and haven't been launched yet in India.
Alienware used to offer the BEST high-end laptops in india but unfortunately it seems that they have discontinued their laptop series.
I request all of you to pls sign this petition for the sake of my health and happiness. thank you.

http://goo.gl/5DWUR

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU. SPREAD THE WORD.

 

now i have to go and post this on all threads. sigh!

 

I bought my Alienware 17 on Thursday, this is my first alienware. I'm really impatient for this beast of a laptop to arrive. How long did the Production stage take for you guys?

 

5 long days... On the 5th day, I had a chat with Dell on their online chat tool. I told them my current laptop broke and I need one for work, so if possible to prioritise the order. After some social engineering and being friendly with them, their support person said he will try his best. The next morning, my order was shipped Now I am waiting for it -UPS said it is somewhere in Europe xD with my estimated delivery day Monday.

 

So their systems aren't made at their hq in Miami? Because I live right next to there and got my sleeve 1 day later after I got it with basic shipping.

 

They're assembled in China, well, mine was. took 2 days to deliver, 5 days to build. Not as long as I'd thought!

 

Mine is already on the 10 working days. Still hasn't arrive yet. How long does it take to arrive excluding the EDD?

 

All companies, including Apple, Lenovo, HP, etc are using China for their manufacturing. Their US/EU HQs serve either for logistics/ administration or/and for repairs. Only smaller manufactures, such as Clevo/Sager assemble in their own HQs...

 

Thanks, again I am just really impatient as I currently don't have a pc. I may chat with them later to get the production status.

 

All right, I just ran 3D Marks again. I was using the newest beta driver and raised the Temp target to 80 degree, the GPU Clock Offset + 40MHZ and the Mem Clock Offset +150MHZ.

My score was 5008 with a max temperature of 77 degree.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700MQ,Alienware Alienware 17

I assume this is a good value (I'm by far not a professional in this field).

 

I'm the same as you Athonline. Should hopefully have mine in Ireland by the time I'm home from work monday I've been glued to the ups site for the last two days. UPS send their stuff through places you wouldn't even think have air hubs.