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

seems like a decent price to me. Whoever got that same config for $1500 is the luckiest person I have seen in a while. Not sure how he managed to get the price that low.

 

Or we may need it again to, but for the opposite reason this time, limit the temperature of the GPU.

 

A little bit OT but for those of you who need some more games to test the new BIOS

Donate 1 dollar and get 6 origin games (Dead Space, Burnout Paradise Ultimate, Crysis 2 Maximum Edition, Mirror's Edge, Dead Space 3, Medal of Honor). Donate 5 $ and you'll get BF3 & The Sims 3 in addition.

https://www.humblebundle.com/

 

Almost like EA doesn't want to be the most hated entity on the internet anymore!

Also, Dead Space, Burnout, Crysis 2, Mirror's Edge and Medal of Honor all have Steam keys IN ADDITION to Origin keys, if that was holding you back.

And EA gets none of the money, it all gets split between HumbleBundle and various charities.

 

So I am on my second Alienware 17 (1st one replaced after a day as the video card was DOA). Now this one is giving me the dreaded double beep post and will not boot up. Looks like memory or the motherboard. I am in all honesty disappointed in the quality of these newer models. The older R3/R4 that I have used in the past never ever had as many issues. They are sending out a tech hopefully Monday to get it replaced but what should I do going forward??

 

Wow, that's awesome value, although it does make me feel a little greedy, wish I'd donated more now!! (Battlefield 3 & Dead Space 3 were the ones I was most after). Thanks for the link!

 

My experiences were just the opposite. I owned the previous models and had several issues with them, and now with my Alienware 17, I am not experiencing a single issue. I suppose it's just the luck of the draw, huh?

I wouldn't give up on them just yet.

 

+ Rep!

Bought it, even though I have a few of the titles already AND no longer have a gaming computer (right now). Might end up just giving it away, as I purchased as a gift. At least it helps out various charities. Great post, mate....

 

yeah ) I tried using optimus and stress testing via MSI kombustor, it seems that MSI now only chooses the integrated graphics even though I tell it to use the Nvidia card. So I'm still going to switch to dedicated mode since I run into the risk of using the Intel card instead of Nvidia.

 

Yup same here. My R3 was a nightmare. Bluescreened like crazy but only on battery. Spent about 10 hours with Dell on remote assistance... Never could fix it! I managed to unload it last month and luckily the buyer has been happy overall. Probably using it plugged in all the time lol.

 

Paid $2030 after taxes for mine (see config in my sig) plus I will be getting 10% cashback in egift cards
(with Dell 30% mystery coupon)

 

Those of you who had the chance to use those Mystery Coupons are a lucky bunch...

 

Yeah been waitting on these for a long time.
I also got the AW 18 in my sig with it.Ended up costing me $3700 after taxes (with 2years warranty+accidental) and I'm still waiting on 10% cashback from Dell Advantage (5% Dell Advantage + 5% extra by using DPA)

Pretty insane

 

Thx for the reply guys. Oh man, the dell mystery coupons make a huge difference! How often do they come along and what are the chances of getting better than 10%? Shoul i hold off for that???

 

OK so I have a question to those of you who have over clocked their system with EVGA after having flashed their vbios. Wondering what you guys are setting your power meter at? I'm setting mine at 100% and then have temp target set at 90 unlinked( temps don't go past 80) I'm finding that after increasing the GPU clock +100 and memory +100 that it doesn't seem stable, will benchmark just find with 3D Mark11 however will have random in game crashes every hour or so. Wondering if this might be related to me needing to increase my power a little more( not voltage just power meter)?

 

I added these images to post #2 for those wanting a closer look at the guts of the 17.

 

Hi, I'm pretty certain that it's crashing in games for you because the overclock is just too high at the current voltage you have set (stock voltage I guess). It's possible an overclock will get through 3DMark11, but then fail in games after a couple of minutes or even a couple of hours. This just proves that the system is overclocked too far. I think you can either lower your overclock or increase voltage to gain stability. You might find that you're more likely to throttle at increased voltages either due to increased temperatures or bumping up against any power limit that you've set. If you do overvolt, be careful, do it in small increments, overvolting is quite an easy way of wrecking a card if you push it too high.

 

So, after installing the A04 BIOS, I noticed when I opened NVIDIA Inspector (show overclocking), the GPU defaults were already applied and the temperature limit is set to 92C. Did Alienware finally address the throttling issues? It would seem so. I was able to play BF3 on Ultra without any issues and without having to use NVIDIA Inspector.

 

Just updated to A04 also, noticed their is no thermal limit anymore. I think Alienware finally listened to us

 

Same here. BF3 fully maxed runs great!

 

How many frames a second?

 

Hi.

What 3DMark 11 scores do you guys get now with BIOS 04 and stock VBIOS?
Could somebody please run 3DMark 11 and record the clocks and temps with GPUZ?

I would really like to see that.

Thx

 

I keep vsync on and it stays solid at 60fps when I turn vsync off it's over 90fps constant

 

Got a P7396, the link to the 3DMark website should be in one of the previous page. As for temps and clocks, under 73 C and 849 MHz for the GPU.

 

We have definitely have a fix, actually improved my score a little bit also. Didn't run Nvidia inspector in the backround and achieved 7439.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4800MQ,Alienware 068R5X
Bravo alienware for listening, bravo!

 

Yep, the new BIOS definitely helped. Now I'm waiting for NVIDIA to release a new driver...

 

Re: A17/780M
A04 gets rid of throttling for me (stock Vbios), at least up to 79. I did a repaste and can’t get the temp above that yet, will test more thoroughly later today. BTW before the repaste, I could easily get the temp to 88. A brief overclock test (+100/+200), resulted in throttling at 72. That is with the stock Vbios. I will try the modified Vbios later, as before I had the “boot to black” issue with it.

 

Mine barely hits 72C from the factory. That factory paste job you had must have been a pretty poor one.

 

My temps weren't to bad from the factory. But when I opened it up the cpu had paste every where it had run out the sides onto the hold down and board. The gpu wasn't as bad but the paste was uneven hard and soft in spots. So re-paste both. Runs a couple degrees cooler but mostly feel better knowing whats in there now. :thumbsup:

 

Yea i've never seen mine above 71, i'm going to order some artic silver diamond and just re do both for my own piece of mind!

 

Guys, had a strange problem with my lappy.
After a while he started to reboot randomly, checked temps but were all below 70° C..
Updated the new bios, now everything seems fine, only the CPU fans keeps cooling and blowing really loud

EDIT: Just rebooted randomly again... Please help..
Did a hardware test in bios but tests were all ok...

 

I have been trying to find out if I can use the middle 3.5mm port on the left side of the computer with a mini toslink to toslink cable http://rsk.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pRS1-11374326w345.jpg and get 5.1 sound form it. I have read that in the past this might damage the computers speakers. I know the older laptops came with an adapter. I am currently using the mini display port for audio to my receiver but my computer recognizes this as another monitor and will not allow me to use the equalizer in my sound properties. It makes me go through the nvidia control panel and bla bla bla. Long story short, can i use a mini tosink cable in the 3.5mm port and get 5.1 sounds safely. Thank You

 

Mine went up to 85.

 

Run Alien Autopsy to see if there are conflictions/issues

 

Mine got up to 77C today after playing BF3 on Ultra for an hour. It's also hot in my room during the summer because the ventilation in this home sucks.

 

Well, mine started to hit the 90's and shutdown. I opened the system and saw the heat sink connectors on the video card are broken, just one heat sink screw didn't screw in. I gave dell a call, and they are gonna send someone to replace my video card, heat sink, and fan.

 

Whoa, well, that's good they're fixing it. I hope the technician knows what they're doing.

 

Hopefully since its so easy to pull a card he is as smart as a child.. honestly its pretty easy to replace you should be up and benching in no time. :thumbsup:

 

Make sure they re-paste it properly as well.

 

Tried that, nothing special came out.
Did a clean install, now everything seems fine.. Still seriously worried...
Mailed my account manager off this.

 

I will, they did an awful paste job when I got it.

 

Perhaps I can solve this problem with Amazon.com: Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro II USB Analog & Digital Audio Adapter: Electronics ???

Thanks for the help!

 

Hi everyone, I got my alienware 17 last week and everything is going great but I noticed that the CPU fans on the right side is not spinning up as much as the fans on the left side. My CPU (i7 4800mq) gets up to 85 degrees Celsius but my GPU stays around 65 degrees. Is this normal?

 

Thats normal, CPU will get hotter than GPU usually. Depends on what you are running, but youtube/videos and skype etc will use CPU power. 85 sounds ok for a CPU.

 

Isn't left the cooling for the CPU and right outlet is for GPU ? (Positioned in front of your machine)

 

Like DDdenizz said that's perfectly normal.

Yups!!!

Sent from my Nexus 7 (2013) using Tapatalk 4

 

If it is 85C while gaming, that's normal, but if it's 85C while browsing the web - that's not. Anything above 90C is not destructive, but should be alarming to you. Just keep that in mind.

 

Has anyone else had trouble with updating there NVIDIA drivers up to the latest revisions? My 17 came with the 311.48 driver but as soon as I download any of the newer drivers, for instance the 326.19 driver upon reboot I get a BSOD and then have to restore back to the original driver.
Another issue that's plaguing me is the clash between sound output devices, I often get dips in sound quality and volume as it struggles to define what sound settings to use whether it be via Dolby or the Alienware Audio. I've re installed the drivers and the issue still remains, usually rectified upon a reboot.

 

You need to mod the inf for the 326.19 to work. The next version, 326.29 and above already contains the string(s) for the 780m.

 

Have you tried a clean install for the NVIDIA Drivers?

First uninstall the Dell Drivers, the system will then ask you to restart and will load with the default Windows drivers, and then you should install the latest beta from NVIDIA, both 326.19 and 326.41 worked for me.

Alienware Audio is just another UI for the Windows audio stack, an inferior one IMHO. Dolby is a Digital Sound Processing software that compensate the deficiencies of the Klipsch speakers and turn them into something relatively OK.