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

Hey, I forgot to look what process was being used the most when the problem occured but I'll play some games now and try to see what it is when it comes back. It's annoying because my cursor freezes as well ever 2 seconds so I have to slowely move around the screen. I don't remember any processes being used a lot though. I am also not using anything to set my temp limit. Should I be doing this? lol

 

Yep, that sounds like a plan. It seems like a call to Dell is the right move. Definitely a bad paste job or malformed heat sink, something along those lines - both of which Dell can help you with, especially if you don't want the 'hassle' of repasting the GPU yourself. And the CPU problem is bizarre too, and I'm not sure that will be fixed by sorting out the GPU, I think they're 2 seperate issues. Might be easiest if Dell replace your laptop!

 

You've got bigger problems than the temperature limit on your GPU, so I think it makes sense to sort out your overheating GPU & bizarre CPU behaviour first.

 

What's a too high temp for hard drives? Think mine is between 42 and 48 depending on what I am doing. Also what about the CPU? Again think my max is about 81 for any core or package (though hw monitors did report 86 once!). According to realtemp, my average is around 66 after 30 mins of guild wars 2

 

Ok I have no Idea what happened, but I think the audio for my HDMI in went out. I'm sure it's not my systems that are the problem so that means it's the HDMI in. But how do I fix this?

 

It most likely isn't broken. Just go into your audio settings in your control panel and change around your default devices.

 

Oh my, this seems like forever. Been reading these forums religiously and checking my status of my AW 17 on the website. Ordered July 25, est 8/13, still in production and next day air shipping. Hopefully it finishes soon, anyone hit there ETA exactly, get pushed back or get early?

 

OK so I figured I would play around with Nvidia Inspector after already having EVGA precision installed turned off EVGA and the opened up Nvidia Inspector and hit the default settings button, now for some reason when benching in 3Dmark 11 it is crashing again once it gets to the Physics section not sure what's going on. I have already flashed the Svl vbios and was previously getting scores around 7700 without over clocking just having the power meter set at 100% and the Temp target at 85? Is it possible that I need to reflash? Or reinstall the drivers I don't get it, and no I'm not running Physx unless its running in the background is set to use CPU, CPU temps never went over 85 and GPU never over 77?

 

Is the whole computer crashing, or just 3D Mark 11? 7700 is a fantastic score. I would just go back to doing what you were doing before because it was working great.

 

That's the thing I did just try going back to my original settings in EVGA and closed inspector but it continued to crash 3D Mark 11. The day before I had actually over clocked a little to try that out and got a 8300 in 3D Mark 11 with the GPU boosted +75 and memory +100. I ran it a couple of times and was stable, then tried inspector and boom had issues and this without the overclocking

 

Oh and one more thing I had played Crysis 3 the night before and had used Nvidia experience to "Optimize" the game not sure if this would do anything though

 

You can try re-flashing the original vBIOS, some other user had issues with it that went away after that (you can then try flashing the modded one again to get to where you were, or wait for another modded version as there is bound to be new versions)... but if games work properly and your clocks remain stable in actual games, then you can ignore the benchmarking problem.

 

Thank Thatoldguy & Luis Pardo for anwsers

When I hit Fn+F1, the normal windows screen resolutions page pops up. I know i can change what i want from here. But i tough that hitting Fn+F1 would automatically toggle between screens. Is this possible to change ?

I do not believe it is the TV since this issue was not present when i was using a m17x R4

I have reinstalled the drivers and this issue of non-detection is still present and i tough it would also fix my fn+f1 button, but no. But I didnt uninstalled the old drivers, i just reinstalled with the driver on dell's website.

Power setting is at high performance and I am moving the mouse and it makes no difference. When I hit fn+f1 and i am in the screen resolution windows, i do not see the TV in the available displays.


I have found another issue that might be related to intel HD drivers. When i hit fn+f5 (optimus i believe). I get this message "Switchable graphic key press detected. Chose Yes to enable (a system boot is required) or no to cancel."

When i Reboot, nothing seems different and when i hit fn+f5 again, i get the same message. Is this normal ?

Thx for all the help !!

 

So updated EVGA, turned off Nvidia inspector and restarted my system, now 3D Mark 11 is working again and I'm getting scores just under 7600 again... And all is good in the world lol

 

. Double post. sorry

 

I had some problems before with my CPU regarding temps. Check the screws on the heatpipe of your CPU if it's properly tightened. Mine came with 1 screw loose, temps went down after I tightened the screw. 91c is definetly too high for GPU temps. I play with the room temps at 30c and my GPU temps are only at 82c Max on crysis 3

 

I'd try & have a look at the event log, and see what it says about the crashing 3DMark11. If it's a video hardware error it can say so in the logs. You can access the logs as following on Win7: Action Center->Maintenance->View Reliability History->then click on the day that you had the crash, and then it will list the problems underneath, which you can then click on to get more details.

EDIT: Haha, just read that you've fixed the problem now! Well, it might be interesting to you to look there anyway to see what it says about what caused the crashing, and it'll be useful in the future for you to diagnose problems too.

 

His CPU temps are fine, so I don't think he needs to do anything regarding that, but the GPU, yes, that needs sorting!

 

I know his CPU is fine, What I wanted to say was that he should check the screw of the heatpipe in his GPU. If it happened on my CPU, it can also happen on his GPU. if that doesn't work, he should probably repaste.

 

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Would the event log show software crashes only? My whole system didn't crash was only the 3Dmark 11 that crashed.

I've also been meaning to ask if anyone else has been having issues with their usb 3.0 ports? I have been trying to connect my Samsung Galaxy S4 since I got the laptop and for whatever reason it keeps saying that the device driver did not install correctly? Doesn't seem to be an issue with my new Death adder mouse though or my usb flash drive for that matter? But I don't think they are usb 3.0 devices.

 

The event log should show all kinds of crashes. If a program crashes, it tells you why it did so. So, it will tell you why your 3DMark11 crashed.

 

what is 3d cable number?

 

If you are still interested in how many cooling pipes has 770m here is the answer - 2 pipes.

 

try installing the Samsung Galaxy Pc drivers manually. Probably found on Samsung's support site.

 

any idea on how many cooling pipes the 780m has on the heatsink? or do the 770m and 780m use the same heatsink ?

 

780m has 3 pipes, and it looks to me like the 765m shares a heatsink with the 770m.

 

Wonder if there is a huge different in temps without that extra heat pipe.

 

There should be some difference since heat transfer would be faster theoretically. Though I'm not sure how significant the temps difference is. I'm not willing to try it on my 780m

 

I've got a 780 upgrade coming from dell on Tuesday. Currently I have a 770m. I'm hoping they include the 780 heatsink or that'll be an issue

 

Dell should include the heatskink, or at least they have in the past.

 

About 25W worse capacity. Not sure how that will reflect on temperatures.

 

Guys.. Anyone had trouble with their battery already???

Realized today that mine stopped being charged even with the plug in...
The note went into sleep mode and when it woke up i saw the ambrr light indicating that i was using the battery only..

Removed the plug and put it back in.. It charged till 89% and stopped.. The Bios said my battery is fine.. But something is weird!!
BTW.. Since i received it i only used it on battery once to test if everything was working properly and after that time i use it as desktop mode..

Any clues of what is happening??

 

Mine started with an 85 Wh capacity instead of the 87 promised but aside from that, nothing anormal.

What does Hwinfo tell you about its current capacity? You may also want to discharge it to 8% or so and recharge it to full capacity so that Windows gets a better idea pf the battery's true capacity.

 

Gonna check that and let u know later on..

 

Mine started with an 85 Wh capacity instead of the 87 promised but aside from that, nothing anormal.

What does Hwinfo tell you about its current capacity? You may also want to discharge it to 8% or so an recharge it to full to get i

 

alright let's discuss something interesting such as safe and stable over clock settings once EVGA has been installed and Vbios flashed, anyone care to get us started, I've really been trying via trial and error and don't really understand how to over clock properly and everything I've been doing has been through trial and error with inconsistent results. Everything online appears to be for the desktop GTX 780 and not for the mobile version

 

Hi guys, I am going to buy 17 R5 with Nvidia 770, tell me it will be enough power for today's games at high / ultra settings, or it needs only 780?
How well the cooling system, there are no throttling?
What other problems are in the new line?

 

My 765m seems to handle games fine, though typically not on Ultra settings. High or Very high only on recent games, but I can't argue too much.

Absolutely no throttling on the 765m, and I would expect the same on the 770m. The 780m has some issues, but that's more due to the default throttle temp being set enormously low than any issues with the cooling system. And that's fixable with EVGA PrecisionX, a vBIOS mod, or nVidia Inspector. So not really much of a problem.

Other problems in the new line - incompatibility with 1.5v DDR3 ram, but 1.35V DDR3L is becoming a lot more common anyways. More something to be aware of than an actual problem. Other than that, nothing that I know of.

 

guys please help me i would like use SVL Vbios but i can't download because they need minimum 5 quality post ....but i don't speak english, so....someone can help me. If you are uploading somewhere I appreciate it.

 

Both yes and no. This should give you an idea: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M - NotebookCheck.net Tech

With overclocking and better drivers from Nvidia (overdue) the few games not playable on ultra now should be able to move up to ultra (maybe minus Crisis 3, its a beast of a game)

 

So, here's a question.
How do I order one of these things in the US with a 780M without spending $4,000?

 

C

As far as I can tell you can configure a system with a 780M starting at $2899 not $4000. Will come with the i7 4800QM processor and 8 gigs of ram. This is as per dell.ca and I'm sure the US site if anything would be cheaper. Perhaps you are looking at the option online on the US site that gives you 4 x 256gig SSD in RAID 0 config, which I don't recommend as it has 0 Redundancy, and if any of the 4 drives fails, you lose data stored on all 4

wow just realized after having visiting the US site that you don't have the option to have the 780M without getting the Preconfig option starting at $3699 what are they doing this time around it is beyond retarded. I already got mad at them up here for not letting you customize each category of the build the way they used to but it would seem down there you are getting even more royally screwed. When I questioned one of their sales reps on this, they explanation was simple " All to do with marketing" to which I responded someone that heads your marketing department needs to be fired. Not allowing full customization on a $2000+ rig is simply unacceptable. In Canada dell.ca literally offers no SSD configs, so I'm now left with the task of buying it elsewhere.. which actually might be cheaper but still bad form

 

On the US website, I see 4 different Alienware 17 packages being offered. The last one starts at $3699 after $100 instant savings, plus tax would be nearly $4,000 which is where that number came from. It has a 780M by default. However, the other 3 packages have either 765M or 770M by default with no option to upgrade to the 780M as far as I can tell. But, looking at this thread, a lot of people have gotten a 780M in their build, and I can't believe that they all spent ~$4000, so there must be a way of getting it in a cheaper build that I'm not seeing...unless no one else here ordered in the US. Or maybe they are just really low on stock.
Again,
I will ask a rep if no one knows.

 

If you get the 1920x1080 screen, then you'll definitely have to turn down some settings on the latest games to get a good fps. If you get the 1600x900 with that card (which I'd recommend), then with just a tiny bit of overclocking then it will run games just as well at the 780M on a 1920x1080 screen (1.4 times as many pixels on the bigger screen!). So, if you get the 1600x900 screen you'll be able to run all games on highest details, with occasionally having to reduce antialiasing.

(P.S. I'm confident of the results you'll get because I have the GTX 670MX, which is the same as the 770M, and I have the 1600x900 screen; for instance Far Cry 3 runs on maxed out settings, minus antialiasing at average 48fps, with a minimum of 37fps). (Temperatures don't go over 65degC, but then I do have a different system, so might not be comparable).

 

The screen is FHD, because quality HD + has always been low. 770 is heavily overclocked Nvidia 670MX, according to the tests, its performance between 675MX and 680. FPS on ultra settings, almost all games above 30 (notebookcheck.net).

 

Oh, ok, so you're definitely going to get the 1920x1080? It is a better quality screen for sure, but you'll pay for the fps loss. You're right a 770M is an overclocked 670MX, it's essentially the same card. If you look in my sig you'll see I've overclocked my 670MX beyond the performance of 770M by a good chunk, so I'm aware of the fps you'll get with a 770M. If your heart is set on the 1920x1080 screen then I think you'll see better long term value by stepping up to the 780M, although it does cost quite a bit more because Dell force you to buy a lot of other unnecessary upgrades at the same time!

 

Thanks, I think it suits me

 

Good, you don't always have to have the best of the best. It's still a good system, I've just been trying to show you some of the pros & cons. (Although I've got a feeling you've probably already bought the config that you were considering buying last night! (GMT time))

 

No, I still think

 

Sorry, I don't really know what you mean.