*OFFICIAL* Alienware 18 Owner's Lounge Thread

Yes it does. There is an AW logo on boot-up and an AW-themed installation.

 

Hi,
I got 2 questions for those of you who have bought Alienware 18 recently.
(I'm considering a system with ssd and 16gb ram)

1) Do you know by any chance what kind of RAM modules are installed by AW by default in the new Alienware 18s?
I know it's 204-Pin DDR3 1600MHz SO-DIMM SDRAM.

But what brand is it specifically? Are these Dell-branded modules, Kingston, Crucial or something else?
What is the latency CL10? CL9?
Voltage 1.5? 1.35?

I'm curious about this as I might wanna either replace or expand the default RAM after I purchase the system.

2) Similar questions about SSDs:
What ssd brand / model in installed if I select an AW system with ssd?

I have asked both of these questions via Alienware chat several times and
answers were very very vague, they said ram brand depended on demand and they could not check what is installed now.
As for ssds, one rep mentioned Samsung 830 and another Samsung 840 pro, none of them seemed to be sure of what they were saying :S

So I figured I'd ask someone who actually made a similar purchase recently.
Thanks in advance.

- Chris

 

It is suuuuper snappy in real life tasks, not just benchmarks. Very satisified with it

 

what do you folks think? I thought alien head was old and boring so with help of one magiccian we made this

 

That looks realy cool! I wonder if you can do any thing like this on Clevo's.

 

Looks very 'snazzy' Bro - me likey!!

 

still waiting myself. Only lags in game, nothing else.

 

I just ended up calling Dell and they replaced it with the Killer n1202 card. I tried a bunch of different things but nothing helped. Someone here said BIOS A03 fixed their wireless problem. So far the Killer card is a big improvement for me minus it not being an AC card. Everything else is a lot better than the Broadcom card.

 

I tried calling Dell and they insisted that the card actually works and that it is actually a problem on my end (my router, internet settings, etc). One of the reps even told me that the Broadcom 4352 DOES NOT support AC signal and told me to change my router settings to only work in G signal. Is this a joke? The tech reps treated me as if I don't know anything about my laptop and kept blaming me for the problem lol. I know for sure that the problem with the Broadcom 4352 is not hardware, but software, and exchanging for the Killer card is actually a 'downgrade' from the AC card. I actually have an Intel 6300 wireless N card lying around so I'm thinking to install that while waiting for the driver that can fix this Broadcom card. Anyone have any experience using Intel 6300 on their new alienware?

 

Broadcom 4352

found this driver reference
4/26/2013 6.30.223.75
currently this is the dell driver
12/11/2012 6.30.95.31

any comments

http://www.alienwarearena.com/forum...e/-stay-away-from-broadcom-wireless-adapter-/

 

Hello,

this is a quick question , is the m18x-R2 330w adapter compatible with the alienware 18 ?


thank you

 

Yes. They are identical.

 

I used to have the same problem as you, and managed to fix it by going into device manager, click on broadcom's network adapter -> properties -> advanced -> scroll down to WMM and disable it. Havent had "Rubberbanding" ever since, nor laggspikes during gameplay.

Hope it helps you too

Best regards
New AW18 owner and member of this forum
-Lythoric

 

Thanks! They offered Windows 8.1 on disc so I went with that, just hope it's still themed and doesn't 'OEM' my machine. It'll be here Wednesday, so I guess I'll find out then.

 

You are a lifesaver... I just disabled the WMM setting and voila! No more rubberbanding issues or even lag .

 

I was a little off, not much. This is is after 4 hours of bf4..

Max temp 67 after 4 hours...

 

Is there a version of Throttlestop that works with 4930mx?

 

I couldn't play the game until I downloaded the newest beta drivers from nvidia (334? I think, at work, can't check) It would get stuck at the loading screen as well.

 

Long time lurker, first post. I originally found this site by accident. I was looking for troubleshooting info for my Asus G73. I find the site really helpful.

Anyways, the G73 died on my the other day, and it time to replace it. I won't own another Asus product. I find their quality to be very poor, which is rather disturbing, because when I used to build my own desktops I always swore by them.

I will buy an AW18, I just don't know which one. I know I can get the base model, but I working on getting the reps to give me a bigger discount. I really want the mid-tier model with the 4800, 16gb ram and the 770's in SLI. The best offer I have recieved so far has been $300 off. That's right at 10%. I can use the loyalty member bonus and get another 4%. What I'm really shooting for is about 15% off. Then it's a done deal.

Does anybody have any advise, or a good rep. Maybe a coupon I'm missing, or is 10% off the best I'm going to get right now?

Thanks in advance!



I did own an old Area-51, but that well before Dell ever bought Alienware out.

 

I still haven't updated to A03, but over the last two days I keep hearing the fans spin fast at random times, but my temps are pretty low. Anyone else had that? Also the HDD keeps spinning louder!

 

Go with the 780M in SLI if you want to be happy!

 

Without a doubt the 780's are great, but if I get them I have to step up a tier, and I'm looking at $3500 base price. Its really about a $1000 over what I have budgeted. The only way I see that happening is if I can get 30% off. So, I either get really lucky with a rep that will give me a great discount or I get lucky and the wife hits a nice scratchers ticket, lol!

At this point I will be happy with a party hat and a whistle. It beats using this work supplied dell computer with like 2gb of ram.

Too many irons in the fire.

 

Thank you! + REP. This worked and I have been endlessly figuring this out. What does disabling WMM do exactly?

 

Yes, ThrottleStop 6.00. Click the link in unclewebb's signature http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...arket-upgrades/531329-throttlestop-guide.html

 

MMONSTER SPEED... have you gotten any BSOD yet off the clean install? My Evo-1TB addition is getting about 2 random crashes per day.

 

There might be some problems with the EVO drive running in RAPID mode. I had bricked my 18 (most likely mobo) when I tried to disable the RAPID and restart the system, when I saw there was a firmware update for the EVO.

Cloudfire, meanwhile, has no problem whatsoever disabling and updating the firmware. But it's better to be safe than sorry. If you're getting crashes, and I got my system bricked, then it could be a non isolated case, and thus a cause for concern.

To be frank, RAPID barely made any noticeable improvements, apart from the huge numbers in benchmark. Since I use the 840 Pro as boot drive, and the EVO as storage for all my games, realistically RAPID for me is just another load on the RAM and the system.

 

Try updating.

 

I updated when A03 was released, and mine just started doing this today... Seriously getting annoyed, it's so loud it hurts my ears, I think they are breaking when they do that.... lol.........

 

Erm what? Everything appears to be fine, expect the fans and that is really random. I 'm avoiding A03 as some people complained about it.

I doubt the machines are "Breaking", but it is really annoying!

 

I'm running 32GB of RAM and the Rapid only uses 1GB of that so it doesn't seem to be much drag on my system, I am able to disable Rapid with no problem and I was still getting BSOD with Rapid off, so its an isolated glitch for now. Hoping the release next week of W8.1 will solve some of the crashes since you referred to W8.1 beta was somewhat less glitchy.

 

Having a system not overheating will definitely be worth tolerating any extra fan noise as far as I am concerned. Even when they are running full blast they are not very loud.

Has anyone checked to find out if A03 made it to where HWiNFO64 works without disabling the GPU fans yet? If that is fixed also it is a big plus. Before A03 you could manually control the CPU fan, but doing so turned off the GPU fans and caused overheating of the GPUs. Once this is fixed, anyone that does not do any performance tuning and finds the fans too loud for their taste can simply use ThrottleStop to make them run slower than normal. And, those that want them to run full blast can do that as well.

 

Erm, my system doesn't overheat listening to pandora while studying... It's been doing this all yesterday, and today (during boot up=definitely no heat then?)

And to be more specific on the problem, which is highly abnormal, all of a sudden it makes a VERY LOUD noise that hurts your ears for anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds. And by very loud, I mean like Sirens. I am not even sure if it is the fans or not, but what else would it be? It sounds like the computer is about to explode when it does that.

 

No, you have some really weird stuff going on there with your machine, Brother Elmo. There is nothing loud about the fans even when they are running blast, so you need to call Alienware Support and get that fixed. These are the basically the same fans as the M18xR2 and they are not capable of being "very loud" or hurting your ears. I thought you were exaggerating to be sarcastic, but if it is really doing that something is wrong. It would be cool if you had a way to make a YouTube video and share with us what is taking place. I would love to hear what you are experiencing. Without a better understanding of this it is hard to offer even good speculation about what the problem might be.

 

So, I finally got it ordered.

Did I get a decent price?

1
210-AAOW
Alienware 18 BTX Base Mod
$2265.30
1
370-AANN
16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
$0.00
1
580-ABEK
English Keyboard
$0.00
1
490-BBHU
Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M with 3GB GDDR5 - NVIDIA SLI Enabled
$0.00
1
658-BBOD
Broadcom 4352 Driver
$0.00
1
400-AARR
750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s + 64GB mSATA SSD Caching
$0.00
1
619-ACMQ
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, English
$0.00
1
429-AAFS
Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVDRW, CD-RW)
$0.00
1
555-BBEQ
Broadcom 4352 802.11 ac 2x2 and Bluetooth 4.0
$0.00
1
470-AAKG
US 125V Power Cord
$0.00
1
340-ABEU
Documentation, English
$0.00
1
421-1723
Soft Contracts Dell In-Home Hardware Agreement for Alienware
$0.00
1
950-3337
1 Year Limited Warranty
$0.00
1
950-9797
No Warranty, Year 2 and 3
$0.00
1
954-1690
Premium Phone Support, Initial Year
$39.00
1
995-6083
Dell Hardware Warranty Plus On-Site Service, Initial Year
$0.00
1
995-6103
In-Home Service after Remote Diagnosis, Parts and Labor On-Site Response, Initial Year
$0.00
1
951-6520
Accidental Damage Service, 1 Year
$99.00
1
338-BCHZ
4th Generation Intel(R)Core(TM)i7-4800MQ processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.7GHz w/ Intel(R)Turbo Boost)
$81.02
1
391-BBDS
18.4 inch (467.36mm) WLED FHD (1920 X 1080) TrueLife Display
$0.00
1
451-BBCB
8-cell Lithium Ion (86 wHr) Battery
$0.00
1
450-AAKK
330W A/C Adapter
$0.00
1
640-BBLG
Alienware Command Center 3.0
$0.00
1
320-BBDZ
Anodized Aluminum
$0.00
1
328-BBEK
Shipping Box Alienware 18
$0.00
1
658-BBOI
Resource DVD
$0.00
1
389-BCCZ
Windows 7 Label, OptiPlex, Fixed Precision, Vostro Desktop
$0.00
1
340-ACQQ
Not Included
$0.00
1
340-ADGB
Placemat English
$0.00
1
332-1530
Dell.com Order
$0.00
1
332-1530
Dell.com Order
$0.00
1
658-BBNX
Additional Software
$0.00
1
340-ACQQ
Not Included
$0.00
1
630-AAAU
Software: Microsoft Office 2013 Trial
$0.00
1
817-BBBP
None Required
$0.00
1
730-5447
Thank You for Choosing Dell
$0.00
Item Sub Total $2484.32
Item Ship Charge $0.00
Item Tax $99.13
Item Total $2583.45

basically 17% off.

I'm happier than a rat in a bag of cheetos!

 

I will call them tomorrow since I have tomorrow off -- and I'll try to get a video of it when it happens. It started getting really bad when I was doing last minute studying this morning, yesterday (when it started) it was doing it for 30 seconds max and then stopping-- but this morning it did it for 2+ minutes until I finally shut down the machine to get it to stop, and when I powered it back up it continued for about 20 seconds until it stopped. I am going to back up all of my files before this thing explodes in my face, lol!

 

Could it be the fan bearings? I know that my G73 would howl when the fan bearings started going out. I have replaced the gpu fan twice and the cpu fan once and it made the same noise every time. You could hear it across the room it was so loud.

Just an idea.

 

Yes, it could be a fan bearing, but being so loud as to cause ear pain is a pretty harsh noise. I've heard them chirp and squeak, squeak, squeak once in a while, but never loud enough to actually hurt my ears before. That would be pretty wild.

I am included to think it might be a bad HDD bearing. I have heard that become extremely loud and shrill a couple of times before with desktop HDD that had a bearing failure. I have heard faint intermittent squealing sounds coming from a failing laptop HDD before as well.

 

I think Mr. Fox is right about the HDD bearing. I had the noise issues with my AW17 after it got 3 weeks old, the same with my current AW18 (also 3-4 weeks old). While mine isn't as loud as yours, it is noticeable in a quite environment.

I turned off my fans completely and then to full; at both cases, a noise other than the fans was present. I noticed through HWiNFO64 that the HDD keeps spinning all the time, even when the system is at IDLE, it keeps spinning. I am waiting for my SSD to arrive, so I can get "rid off" the HDD. WesternDigital HDDs are awful in my opinion.

I still get random fan "spikes", even at <50c temps.

 

Yes, compared to other brands, I have had a disproportionate number of less than great experiences with WD HDD (internal and USB) over the years and I typically avoid them. At one point they were my preferred brand and I never had any issues with dozens, then suddenly that changed and I don't know why. Back when I was still building quite a few custom desktops I had about 6 WD HDD fail in one year, plus 2 DOA, and it got to the point of steering clear of them as often as possible. I have 2 WD USB HDD (Passport) and they are as slow as molasses with proprietary crapware.

I do not believe Dell is using WD drives, but really any brand could have a defect. It almost seems like HDD are to be getting to be less dependable as SSD grows more popular.

 

The 750GB HDD that came with the AW 18 is a Western D drive.

 

Really? That's not making me too happy. I think this one has either Toshiba or Hitachi... can't remember. I suppose they probably use whatever they can get in bulk for the best price. If it works, it works... if it doesn't, it doesn't when in comes to average consumer grade HDD. It seem like most of them are all that great any more. Only the expensive enterprise-class HDD are reliable for the most part.

 

Quick question: the stock drivers for the 780 sli are still the best or something changed?

 

Ive had pretty good luck with the scorpion black drives biut thats about it. I have Dell send replacement drives for optiplex machines (clients of mine) that have failed wd drives at least 5 times a week. Im a seagate spindle guy...

 

So I got an email from newegg this morning it lists 256gb toshiba sad for $149. I knwo it is the older version. BUT my local Best Buy got two of the new Pro series Toshiba's that just came out. They sell for $309. Well For the heck of it I showed the them email from newegg and they matched the prices anyway! So I got two of the new 256gb pro drives for $149 each! m about to install them in raid 0 in my 18 to see how they are

 

Well, my Hitachi HDD is running just fine (and I think it's pretty damn fast to be honest).

 

Nah, I don't think so, since the fans shouldn't be making noise during system boot up??? It sounds more like something is malfunctioning with the slot loading disc drive (Which I haven't even used o.o) ... Idk, I'll figure it out, lol Thanks!

I kind of want to find out what's wrong with it before I call tech support, because usually I get an Indian sounding guy who doesn't know what he's talking about and just insist on sending the computer back to them so they can fix it... Last time I sent my computer to HP, it came back damaged, and they wouldn't claim responsibility for it or try to fix it and they said the shipping companies logs showed no signs of abuse =.='' I have no experience yet with Dell...

 

That's weird that you mention that, because my computer is also like 4 weeks old o.o... What did they end up doing about it? Or are you just going to figure it out yourself?

 

Did anyone see this? Crazy thing) 2133Mhz RAM CL11 and 1.35v
Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance Performance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 2133 Laptop Memory Model CMSX8GX3M2B2133C11

It could be perfect if the worked on new AW18)

 

This should work fine. There is no documentation on the Corsair web site and minimal information on specs at NewEgg. I called Corsair Tech Support and they say that there is no reason that it should not work perfectly on the M18xR2. I asked them about the SPD and this RAM does not have XMP profiles, They told me that 2133 is the highest JEDEC in the SPD. The guys I spoke with even had very little information about it right now because it is brand new. NewEgg is the only place that has it in stock... asked about buying it direct from Corsair they don't even have it on their shelves yet, LOL.

CL11 already works fine with my Kingston HyperX 2133... no need for the Corsair RAM to do that. Check out the attached images. I think this would be a waste of money for anyone that has already upgraded their stock RAM to 1866. I don't think I am going to spend $210 ($105x2) for this right now. It would be pretty nice for the 18 since it is 1.35v but I cannot see a point in doing anything on the 18 until after Alienware releases a good BIOS and fixes the messed up fan profiles.

Spoiler

 

Does any form of memory overclocking or changing memory speed work in the AW 18 yet?