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

Well, i'm in love for SSD drives, and i'll never get back to mechanicals HDDs... i don't like the idea of having a damn slow HDD in such a fast machine! Call it a waste of money, but for me it's all about speed and reliable hardware.

 

Did you consider setting up the two 1TB SSD's as RAID 0, then partitioning the 2TB logical drive into two equal 1TB partitions? You would double your speed , but still keep your separation of OS+Data and ISO's.

 

Very nice gift well before the Christmas day, that's what i like to do to my self as well.

Happy unboxing !

 

I did considered it, but i guess i don't trust MLC drives that much, the risk of losing everything just because of one drive's failure scares me...

Btw, i just finished installing the panasonic (mat5h1ta) UJ-265 BD-RE drive :-D

 

Welcome man.

 

This is probably the simplest of things, but I cant figure out how to disable the lights on the t-pad. AW Command Center won't let me do it and would prefer to just leave it dark.

 

I don't think you can turn it off, but it is in the system BIOS. I don't know why they put it there.

 

I wanted to turn it off too, but no luck so far. I've given up.

 

Its quality mate. Fantastic screen.

 

Does anyone know where I could get a decent teardown video for the Alienware 17 R5?

Also - I disagree with greatgulah - I think the Alienware 17 R5 screen is adequate at best. The resolution is brilliant, the colours and good and the matte finish is great but don't think it doesn't exhibit all the problems of TN screens: poor viewing angles and loads of backlight-bleed around the edges.

I couldn't figure out how to disable the Touch Pad light but it only irritated me for about ten minutes - I plugged in my Logitech G700s receiver after that. I was a bit annoyed though because just about every review I read prior to purchasing commented on how silly the touch pad light was and followed that up with a claim that you *could* disable it.

 

You can disable touchpad light in the Bios.
As for teardown, why not use the Manual for the Alienware 17? ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-prod...laptops/alienware-17_Owner's Manual_en-us.pdf

 

Heres a pretty good teardown video, no GPU or CPU removal though:

Alienware 17 Teardown (YouTube)

Hope it helps

 

Hey o/

Just got these results with 3dmark11: max temp gpu 76, 3dmark scores: p7147, graphics 7028, physics 8771 and combined 6216.

I have tried searching the forum but get 1000's of irrelevant result so I do not know how this compares to others on here.

This is with stock paste. Any thoughts: do you think I have room for O'Cing? with that Temp should I bother attempting repaste?

Cheers folks

 

Got yours then bud

I didn't really qualify my comment. I have nothing to compare it to. I knew the last screen had a glassy finish and considering I play mainly in the dark I didn't want reflections, very distracting. The matte finish to me is a plus and what I was hoping for. The colours work and fu HD with the 780 its like heaven. Coming from 720 on a 32inch tv from xbox its night and day better.

 

You can turn it off through the BIOS buddy.

 

I briefly looked and it just said "auto" and "on", didn't see "off."

If you can, that's good.

 

Quick question . I have an alienware 17 with 256gb boot drive. Under windows disk defragmenter it shows all my hard drives including the 256gb boot drive . It says all drives that can be defraged are listed. Question is is it ok to use windows defrag to defrag my 256gb boot drive.
Thanks

256gb is an ssd

 

Hmmmm, it it's only auto and on, why not just set it to color black. Alienware seems to have mistaken off for black. hahahaha

 

I don't suggest you defrag your SSD. there are claims that it will shorten the SSD life. anyway, there is no reason to defrag an SSD.

 

That's kinda what I thought . It's my first computer with an ssd . Anyway on another note I'm really loving my alienware 17 so far .
Thumbs up.

 

I really like the cut of the Alienware 17's jib but the highest model with the 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4800MQ processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.7GHz) and the 780M (if i select it) is a bit out of my budget.

I like the one with the 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4700MQ processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz) and the 770M as that's a bit more value over the Alienware 14.

 

That GPU is a lot better than what the AW 14 has to offer.

 

Ah well. The lighting doesn't look very good and I dislike the fact that light shines through down low when you press the mouse buttons. A bit weird that it's the only light you can't turn off in the Command Center.

 

What light are you trying to disable? The touchpad? You can only do that by disabling the touchpad

 

Yes, that's the one. It's certainly not the end of the world, but it would have been nice to have the option to disable the lights, like you can with the other lights.

 

so the mid-range AW17 is a good option? I plan to buy in feburary when I arrive in canada cos the prices in Australia are terrible. Even better if there's a deal going on at the time.

 

You might as well wait until Alienware comes out with a new revision. It will only be a few months longer.

 

true, hoping for a decent GPU to play BF4

also with the DVD drive being slot load can it be swapped out with an aftermarket slot load blu-ray drive?

EDIT: just read the manual and what??!!? you can replace the GPU?!?!!?

 

Yes, Alienware PC's are upgradeable, as long as the new hardware is compatible. Upgrades do not void the warranty, but the upgraded part itself is not covered, obviously.

You should also be aware that Technical Support will continuously mention, "If your upgraded part is the problem, we can't help you." and may use this as an excuse to avoid providing you with adequate service (depending on the representative). If you want to upgrade components, avoid situations like that by purchasing the parts through Alienware's Upgrades and Parts department.

 

where the heck does one get a 780m GPU?

 

It would be a complete waste of money to go buy an Alienware 17 (in February of next year), and then buy a GTX 780M. If you want to get an AW 17, get the 770M and upgrade to the 880M next year. Or wait until the next Alienware 17 is released and buy it then, which is probably your best option at this point.

They always release the new lineup/revisions during the second quarter of the year (April, May or June). Trust me, if you're looking to buy something around February, just wait.

 

true though where can you get the cards as is?

 

You may be lucky enough to grab one from Dell/Alienware parts department, as I mentioned earlier, but you'll pay for retail price for it. However, it will be covered under warranty. Otherwise, try eBay.

 

Anyone achieved to get downsampling working?

Right i have an Alienware M17x R4 and i tried CRU (Custom Resolution Utility) . But after i change Resolution to anything higher than 1920x1080 the screen goes black.
Would realy love to have downsampling working on Games like Dota2 and Torchlight 2.

 

You have to select GPU display scaling in the NVidia Control Panel before you can set Custom Resolutions higher than your native res. So, NVidia Control Panel -> Adjust Desktop Size & Positon -> 'Aspect Ratio' -> 'Override the Scaling Mode set by Games & Programs'. Then you can create your custom resolutions from within the NVidia Control Panel without black screening, although still if you set the custom res too high, then you still might get black screens. Max custom res I can get is 2400x1350.

 

Forgot to mention:

Im using a 7970m. Ist still possible with an AMD card?

 

Ah, I don't know, you'll have to use the power of google, or I noticed you posted in the M17xR3 forum too, so hopefully someone else who knows will come back to you.

 

In my everlasting struggle against high temps, I've noticed that my "Intel PCH" temperatures get somewhat worryingly high. Playing BF4, my CPU temps hover about 70 C, GPU never go above 73 C, but the PCH temperature reach 81 C. First of all, I haven't really understood what the PCH is, but also is there any way to lower them?

 

Those temperatures aren't concerning for BF4.

 

So, I've noticed some "screen glow" on my laptop as of the past week or so, and I thought it would go away, but it hasn't. I'm speaking with technical support and I'm trying to get a new screen sent out.

 

Ouch using HWMonitor, plaing BF4 last night my max temps on a couple of cores reached 86 degrees :-/. Guess i should do a cpu repaste..

 

Battlefield 4 is a poorly optimized game and has improved drastically since the Beta, but still has a long road ahead. Reaching 86C in BF4 is not unheard of for a CPU, especially in a laptop. I don't think you have anything to worry about. Anything at or above 90C warrants a re-paste, but maxing out in the mid-80's, at 86C? Not really... That's an acceptable range for such a demanding game - 86C and below.

A re-paste will still help, though. Go for it! But I don't want people to think that's too hot, because it's not. Not for such a demanding game.

 

I'm not scared about the GPU or CPU temps, I'm more curious about the implication of the higher PCH temperatures and if there's a way to lower them, though I barely understand what PCH actually does to be honest.

I saw CPU temperatures reaching 90 on stock paste before I did a repaste so I see 20 C better temps now. For me that definitely feels worth the minor hassle. t's not difficult if you read up a bit and are a bit careful about it.

 

Yea i'm easily capable of it, build all of my own pc's etc. I would absolutely think it would be worth the small amount of time it takes to do lol. One thing that does drive me a little nuts is surfing the internet, playing some music watching a youtube video here and there, i hate hearing the fan spool up a couple times every minute lol, maybe this will warrant me 5-10 degrees in that department and help.

EDIT: Anywhere from 43-53/55 browsing are my cpu temps.

 

Just picked one of these up yesterday and I am not fond of Windows 7. Everything else is great. Want to add SSD and Windows 8. Is mSata better than traditional SATA for the OS? Also, do I need SATA III 6.0 or 3.0?

Thanks!!

 

Hi all,

I've just ordered this configuration:
Alienware 17
Intel® Core? i7-4700MQ
WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) mate screen
16GB DDR3L 1600MHz
750Go SATA 6GB/s
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5
Win 8 64 bits Pro
4 years premium warranty

Will replace WD HDD with 2 SSD (1 OS, 1 DATA)
Anyone has a link to a good CPU/GPU repaste HowTo for this AW 17 model ?

Can't wait !!!!

P.S.: order is "in preparation", how much time does it take to go to next step, "in production" ?

 

Hi all,

I have ordered this configuation on Sunday last week. Please note, that I am currently living in Japan and therefore had the opportunity to customize my machine at the local alienware/dell store in Akihabara (Only 2 of this kind in the world!)

Alienware 17
Intel® Core? i7-4900MQ
WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) TrueLife w/3D Bundle
16GB DDR3L 1600MHz
750GB SATA 6GB/s +256GB SSD
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5
BlueRay ComboDrive
Broadcom 4352 5G Wifi + BlueTooth 4.0
Win 8 64 bits, English
3 years premium warranty
1 year accidental warranty
+
Mobile Edge vindicator slim hard case

Costs (w/tax): ~370.000 Yen equal to 3600 $
BUT got an 40.000Yen discount (~390 $) + 30.000yen from parents ^^ Christmas ftw.
So in total 300.000 which is around 3000 $

So I am fairly new to this forum. Anyway I wanted to ask you guys for some kind of checklist in terms of installing the necessary driver/bios and overall making sure if the system is functioning properly.

Also I heard of issues regarding Broadcom. Sadly DellJapan only offers this option. Any suggestions if I encounter such? Disabling the WMM should suffice?

Thanks in advance. Btw. this forum encouraged me to buy this laptop. Also former owner of the m15x.

 

To be honest, my idle temps didn't change much and are similar to yours. It's mostly when under load that I noticed improvement after repasting.

 

Congrats, I'm sure you will enjoy it as much as I do mine.

Regarding general repasting, which you might already be familiar with, there's a ton of resources on the internet, my favorite probably being this one which proves that toothpaste, lipstick and especially mayonnaise does a good job as a thermal paste replacement, while chocolate is not to recommend Thermal Compound Roundup - October 2011 | Hardware Secrets

The Alienware 17 owner's manual is a great resource for disassembling the laptop

ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-prod...laptops/alienware-17_Owner's Manual_en-us.pdf

The Alienware Services channel has added some useful videos on youtube for working inside the AW17, Alienware Services - YouTube


Good luck!

 

Hi there - welcome to the forum and hope you enjoy your AW17 when it arrives - waiting is the hardest part.

This is a checklist that I followed when mine arrived - seemed to go ok (until I put some malware on there - DOH!)

0.25) create backup disk/USB drive (takes a couple of DVDs and I think an 8G USB drive)
0.5) Put AVG free virus software on there.
1) update the BIOS/Drivers from the Dell website
1.5) update GPU drivers from Nvidia
2) update windows 7 (actually this just happened automatically)
3) install temp monitoring software and GPU benchmark software and use these to find out if my past job is ok.
3.5) put Bioshock infinite and test temps with game on ultra settings
4) ?repaste depending on results (using youtube vids and instruction manuals and hopefully not F@@king it up!)
5) Possibly use NVDIA inspector to overclock whilst looking at temps if I am feeling adventurous/confident
6) Set up Macro buttons as Vol up and Down.
7) Callibrate screen.

I've decided to hold off doing the repaste - I'm really happy with the gaming performance and highest temp I have seen is 83 whilst playing farcry3 on ultra settings for hours.

It really is a sweet machine - enjoy!