*OFFICIAL* Alienware 18 Owner's Lounge Thread

Estimated shipping date was far out... its on the way
Shipped On: 30/09/2013

 

All who think that the LCD cable bracket should be screwed onto the case or motherboard, say "Aye."
...

 

Usually the LCD cable connector is pretty strong and doesn't need any screws but I also feel dell should go Lenovo route (earlier models) and LCD cable should be screwed on to the motherboard.

 

Im about to delete windows 8 and install windows 7. Can I use the same drivers on win7?

 

Wow... it didn't take long for you to decide that Windows 8 sucks. I thought that immediately, but spent a great deal of time (and a little bit of money) tweaking it to make it a nice OS. It is definitely easier to just skip all of that mess and go with Windows 7 instead.

But yes, most of the drivers, if not all, should work. Most Windows 7 drivers also work well for Windows 8, and some of them actually worked better for me than drivers designed for Windows 8.

 

Thanks for swift response.

I dont want to admit this, but I havent even used my Alienware 18 yet. Too busy and was waiting for parts. So its been sitting in its box unused for 2 weeks now. Its a shame really

On the bright side, I just finished my project at work so now I have a ton of free time. So tomorrow Im extracting the product key from win8 since Im like you Fox, hate Win 8. Then I will repaste everything. Im not sure if Dell use good paste or do it properly, but atleast I have comfort that its 100% when I do it myself. Then I will install EVO ssd, and windows 7. Then all the drivers from the CD because they most likely work like you say. Then I will calibrate my screen with Spyder which Im really curious to see what will do, especially since it can calculate % sRGB.

So yeah, tomorrow is the day

 

Dell actually used decent paste. Sometimes thy put to much but most if not all OEMS do. For the most part Dell does a really good job.

 

Good lock with that brother cloudfuego.

 

Dell's "paste" actually is not a paste at all. It is a square patch of a solid phase change "thermal interface material" (TIM). It melts into place and provides precisely the correct application for the job to be done right. Barring improper assembly, it does an excellent job.

It is not only highly effective, but it is not a mess to clean up if you do end up needing to repaste. It comes off very clean, in clumps almost like wax. My stock TIM on the GPU heat sinks is about 9 or 10 months old now. With all this time of crazy overclocking my GPUs still run nice and cool.

This photo is an example of what the factory TIM and thermal pads looks like on brand new GPU heat sinks. No fuss, no muss. In this example are 7970M heat sinks.

 

FWIW, I updated to the latest Nvidia drivers and it made my 18 default to external display only when turned on. Scared the crap out of me at first until I realized the computer had indeed turned on. Just hooked it up to an external monitor and set it back to the default. Just a heads up in case anyone else has the same issue.

 

Sorry for the late response. Dell tech came and installed the Killer n1202 card and I opted to use the driver package from Killer's website instead of Dell's. I'm happy to report that everything is working FANTASTIC! My download speeds aren't fluctuating, multiplayer game doesn't have lag or rubberband issues and even the range is better than the Broadcom 4352. Finally get to enjoy this beast, couldn't be happier . If you haven't already done so, I would call support and have them send you a replacement.

All sorts of stuff. Random lag spikes in multiplayer games, slow downloading and the wireless range were the biggest issues I had with the AC card.

 

Oh snap Cloud has jumped the AW train!

What is going to happen to this world haha.

W8 sucks beyond boundaries, at least for gamers.. it'll be interesting once they release W8 SP2

 

I have heard that the paste from Dell is actually good so I would do some temp test first to determine if you need to pull everything apart and re-paste.

 

Anyone playing the BF4 beta? My 18 is absolutely tearing it up, performance wise. Granted, a lot of the final graphical touches still aren't there, but I'm averaging 80+fps and hitting over 100fps for brief spurts occasionally. Fully expect it to be playable at max once the finished game is released, though it might be beneficial to back it down a notch for online play.

FWIW, my stutter/rubberband issues were fixed when I updated to BIOS A03.

 

W8 realy isn't that bad to be honest. I honestly prefer it over W7 because it is (well atleast it feels) faster. Also, all my Steam, Origin and UPlay games are working flawless. Just install something like Classic Shell or Start8 and you got everything you need.

 

I'm also playing BF4 beta. And my 18 is tearing it up as well. 64 player matches are no problem. I play with vsync on and even with intense action going on it still holds 60fps no problem.

Good to know that BIOS A03 fixes the stutter issue. I received the Killer card before I found out about the BIOS update. It's not a big deal for me, I just want good connection and the Killer card is doing it's job. Love this machine, quite the beast

 

No not bad, but as I said, for gamers it is bad. Delays, most games are built for W7 so they don't really shine through in W8.. and best of all loads of benchmarks disappoint in W8.

 

Yea, I was insanely close to grabbing a Killer card before I updated my BIOS. Was getting terrible stutter issues with BF3.

 

Dell just went back private... now I am excited what will come next for AWs!

 

For those who wanted a passable teardown video, here it is:

Extreme unboxing: tearing down the Alienware 18 - Laptop & Notebook computers

 

Nice! I was expecting to see comments from AW haters tbh...

 

Well, W8 does seem to have a huge performance impact on BF4. Some guy went from 40-50 FPS on W7 to 80+ in W8.

 

Exciting indeed, but with less leaks now

With some games are going to be exceptions, as I said, most games (as of now) were made for W7 and optimized and not further updated to fit in W8.. so yeah, but oh snap is BF4 taking milking W8.

 

True... but then again, Dell may finally make Alienware a premium "sub-brand", like VW has Audi and Audi has Lamborghini

All the benchmarks I saw for Win8, they are on-par with Win7 +/- 1-2 fps. W8 uses the same Kernel and core OS as 7, but they made it a bit more light. Only in much older (2+ years old) games there may be a decrease, but even then, your hardware should provide you 1080p/60 at ease

 

W8 3D graphics performance is about the same as W7. Where W8 performance takes a hit is with the CPU. Any game that can truly take maximum advantage of the CPU will typically perform slightly less when running W8. BF3 and the Crysis franchise are examples of games where a more powerful CPU and high clock speeds can make a big difference and BF4 may be as well. I know that CPU benchmarks are usually better under W7. It's easy to see that with a dual boot machine. Something about W8 has a tendency to hinder CPU performance. It's not huge, but it is enough that you can tell. If you can tell, then it's too much in my opinion. There is no good excuse for Micro$oft allowing that to happen.

The hardest part for me to tolerate is the sucky W8 Modern UI and full screen adware apps. Thankfully, the vast majority of W8 atrocities can be effectively emasculated with registry tweaks and third-party utilities to become like a W7 service pack with a few extra features. The lack of UI customization with an untweaked W8 is unforgivable. The over-utilization of white and limited pastel color schemes is unpleasant and feels like a cartoon bomb went off inside of my computer.

 

You said that there is studdering do you mean rubberbanding like in this video i took? thats a latency issue and if you know some way to fix that please let me know as I thought it was just a network issue with the beta.

Battlefield 4 1080p Multiplayer Beta Footage - YouTube

 

I'm running Win7. Bf4 is bouncing between 75-120 FPS in 1080p. Playing very well... Don't care or the beta map much, to much fog/mist...

 

Rubber banding is not only from latency but also due to server side issues. I have had the pleasure of massive rubber banding in bf3 where my ping was jumping between 20-30 at 100mbit line (fastest in Australia) and yet there was massive rubber-banding. Turned out server was having issues.

Most recent example is au 24/7 metro servers, they kept getting ddos attacks and had massive rubber banding and lag issues, in the end, it would become so bad, that the server connection would just crap itself for everyone.

For bf4, I can't even play it, just gets stuck at loading, but I am in no rush at this moment, I am over the issues with bf3, and will wait before I jump to bf4.

As for win7 and win8, well we all know the cycle ms goes through, one good-one bad. Wn7 was very good after vista, which I got no need to remind everyone about and now win8 is the bad cycle, so for me, it's best avoided and wait for win9

 

I totaly agree with the last part. But to be honest W8 realy isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I mean, I think it's realy good (but I am not a hard-core benchmarker or anything), and it does everything it's supposed to do. If I had to choose between W7 and W8 right now, I honestly wouldn't know which one I would pick.

 

Hi guys wanted to check with you on something...those are gtx 780m sli or gtx 780m owner in alienware...can you tell me the part number for it? and for gtx 680m also thank you

 

I'm kind of on the fence with it as well. There are things to like about both. I tend to favor W7, but there are some things I like about W8, too. I got used to the collapsible "ribbon" menu at the top of an open window and like the quick access to system tools using Win-X menu. Living exclusively on the W8 desktop and avoiding the Modern UI, the experience became very acceptable once I found mods to fully enable Aero transparency and take control of theme colorization. It's ridiculous how much effect was needed, but once it is heavily tweaked it ends up being pretty nice. Where W7 is the clear winner is there is little or nothing to dislike about it and W8 requires considerable effort to make it acceptable. It's the greatness of the tweaked end product with W8 that places me on the fence. Untweaked, it's a no brainer in favor of W7 for me.

Look at post #4 on the first page of the Alienware 18 Owner's Lounge (this thread) and you will find a part number list. You will find a similar part number list linked in the opening post of the M18x Owner's Lounge.

 

This is the issue that I am having with BF3. It's not an isolated issue either as every server that I try has annoying rubberbanding. I updated to the A03 BIOS and that did not help with anything so I am still not sure if it is an inherent problem with the Battlefield games or something with the 18's network card. Everyone can't be having this issue though or these games wouldn't be as popular as they are. =/

 

Have you tried other games or try downloading a big file off the internet? Maybe one of the drivers from dell to see if it's just BF games. The issue was everywhere for me, multiplayer games, downloading, streaming video. If you already updated to A03 and it's still not fixing your issue, I would suggest calling Dell. Unless you really want to keep the AC card and not go with an N card. Since I've gotten the Killer n1202, I've had no problems at all. Might want to give it a shot.

 

The only other online game I have tried so far is Hawken and the rubberbanding is there as well. I might just have to have Dell swap the cards out if that is going to be the only solution. I am still on Dell's stock WHQL 311.48 driver so I may try updating to the new Nvidia beta driver and see if that could be the culprit. This issue makes online gaming almost unplayable unfortunately so I would really like to fix it.

 

I spoke to few server owners for bf3 and ddos attacks are still happening, which are pretty much the major reason for these issues.

I only play Aussie servers and few servers are still having constant ddos attacks and as such, rubber banding, lag, crashing are common on these.

 

Once again I totaly agree with you. Untweaked W7 is definitely the winner, but when W8 is tweaked, there's not much to hate about it.

 

[
the fog only happens when you topple the skyscraper
I downloaded bios A12 for my M17x and you guys rock, I have noticed an improvement of about 10%, rubberbanding still exists in Conquest games but thats a serverside issue, nothing I can do about that. Domination runs fine, see the difference in my latest video !
Battlefield 4 Open Beta Multiplayer Footage 25 minutes High Quality With Skyscraper Collapse - YouTube

 

haven't seen any posts on A03 fan table revision
i am seeing max CPU package temps of 90 degrees c
max GPU temps of 80 degrees c
playing CRYSIS 3
max fan at 4200 rpm
this seems high for longevity

 

Holy cow, those seem high?! I need to double check the temps on my 18 but i am pretty sure my gpus' max out around 55-60 and cpu 65-70'ish. I fire it up and log some temps later today.

 

My 18 shipped today so I guess I'll have to wait till Monday.Not bad 10 days from date of order

 

I'm seeing max temps of 83 degrees c playing metro last light. the 780M run very hot.

 

There's no way your 780Ms run that cool. They run insanely hot, even at stock. Overvolted and overclocked mine idle around 55C, and hit the mid 80s during gaming.

 

Maybe I'm thinking of my desktop.

 

If he doesn't overclock and overvolt it, it runs at mid 60s for some games. Like Dota 2. I just use 1 GPU for it, and the GPU stays at mid 60s with Vsync. Vsync is also another factor. Without Vsync the temp will be higher too.

 

Did anyone find A03 to help with the fan tables?

 

Not for me. Temperature still about the same. The delay in fan response, and the leap in fan RPM is still there.

 

no that is why i asked other than the idle 1800 rpm i see no change
if anything it may be slower on the attack
seems like a unnecessary risk for BIOS flash for minimal if any change

 

Any of you guys find the fix for the Broadcom Wireless Card problem? I just flashed my BIOS to A03 but I still experience rubberbanding and lag spikes on BF3... Any advice..?

 

Question - I was considering upgrading my 18 to Windows 8 Pro. This may sound sill, but does Dell offer an Alienware themed version of Windows 8? Windows 7 has all of the Alienware logos and backgrounds during installation/boot up and I was wondering if Dell offered a version of windows 8 that was the same.

 

I haven't seen any noticeable change with the fans after the A03 update..