17 - R4 - 6820HK - 1070 - anything to look out for?

Hey guys I might be getting a used 17 - R4 coming to me soon

I just wondered what the main concerns of this laptop was? I plan on changing the thermal paste / pads if the temps are bad stock wise.

things I like about this laptop, well I don't know for certain but from reviews I've seen.

• sturdy
• reliable?
• great cooling when it works

what I like about this particular laptop is the 6820HK is the last certified windows 7 chip, I dislike win10
also the little bit extra cache from the 6700hq

I plan on hopefully using this laptop to replace my desktop? how many people use the laptop as desktop replace? has anyone got one hooked up to a 3440 x 1440 100hz g sync monitor acer X34A?

other little things I like is the gtx 1070 laptop edition has more cores than the desktop counterpart also it can be clocked just as high from what ive seen

even though I use Liquid metal in my desktop I would not use it in the Laptop imo it isn't a ''fit & forget'' application so I would go for the next best which from my experience is coolermaster mastergel nano

also the thermal pads maybe some 10-17W/mK depending on price

ultimate goal would be to repaste / pad then have a cooling stand for the laptop to provide even better thermals.

I have a lot of experience with desktops but I hear people on this forums say when repasting laptops need more paste? is that true would love to get some feedback.

also new to this forums so HI everyone!

 

As far as I could sae they overheat,
still they are sturdy, one more thing is that lcd backlight bleeding I saw posted on this forum are disgusting...

 

Kaby-lake models are better...

 

*tried to post a picture... that didn't work, haha.

I pretty much have the same setup you are describing and have been using it for about a year. It is great as a desktop replacement and I haven't had to repaste or do anything funny. I have a 4 year warranty (3 left) and figure if it runs hot and it has to get replaced... its on dell not me. The HK processor is a beast and I typically run it on OC3 from the bios. The 1070 is surprising. I had been using an alienware amplifier with a 1080 in it but sold it recently due to the crazy high prices and I figured why not make a few bucks. After going back to the onboard 1070 I am realizing that the frames are almost the same as with the AGA... pretty amazing. I use the new alienware 34' monitor with basically the same specs as the x34 you have and average 90fps on most of the FPS games I play on ultra settings. I could OC the gpu but eh... its fine for me.

I have traveled with it, about 6 flights last year and I learned that its not worth the trouble of lugging it on vacation. The occasional lan party, sure, but going through airport security and carrying it around is a royal pain. I have the base fhd display and the 99wh battery is great if you run it not overclocked. The fans hardly activate as well which is a plus.

All-in-all don't let the guys around here worry you too much. I feel that they are OCD about having ice cold cpus and gpus. Nothing wrong with that and if it floats your boat, go for it, but I just hate when it scares people away who would otherwise never really look twice or care.

 

I would like to see 90 degrees Celsius ice...after numerous...NUMEROUS...reports, screenshots, etc...don't be scared, just prepare physically and mentally for almost certain issues out of the box...just do it!

 

space spiders

 

Again people tend to post negative experiences much more often than positive (i could show you some interesting papers about that. Also they sold more than ten thousands if not hundreds of thousands of units. If it was that widespread you would see it pretty much anywhere. Now I saw about 50~100 users total complaining about this. Thats nothing compared to the actual sales numbers. I have 6 of these machines in my environment. All dont have core temp differences higher than 5c and certainly not 10c.

Also check this poll which show very varied results on this forum with users that bought the early batches. Its not a high sample size at all. Also you even voted there without even owning a machine. Just wanted to see the results uh? Reddit also tends to be more favorable for some reason.

 

I owned machine, just keep up the good work Dell frontman LOL
Patethic...

Dell is screwing their buyers with 2 year old flawed heatsink design A.K.A. "tripod"...and that is obvious design flaw...
Just imagine some company that tries to sell desktop CPU cooler with " tripod" design...what a joke...

 

Well I just assumed you didnt. because you surely didnt talk about it like you knew your stuff. no offence.

As I have explained to others. the pressure is 3 screws on one side and for on ethe other. both sections dont move individually of eachothers obviously. The problem where and always have been too thick thermal pads that have been rectified. There are tons of laptops with 4 screws on each side that also show uneven core temps because of that exact same reason (next to warping of the heatsink). @iunlock has confirmed this and as far as I know had multiple heatsinks in his posession to actually test.

By the way there are desktop sockets with just a 2 point heatsink mount. they worked perfectly fine as well. Its all about implementation (AM2 and AM3 socket). Some server sockets from intel btw have 3 point mountings, which work fine as well. please dont discuss things you dont know anything about).

 

LOL when I was asembling AM2 PGA Athlon you were asking: "Mama, mama what is that man doing"?
BTW that PC is still working....
And there is a reson that retarded design was abanoned long time ago.
Unified heatsink doesn't mean GPU part of the heatsink will fix and give significant support to CPU part of the heatsink.
Dell patethic frotman failed again...

People don't be fooled, "tripod" is fail design...

 

Just for your information, i am from 84, i was overclocking Pentium 1's manually by placing jumpers on a motherboard.....

Also if you believe the gpu side doesnt add support, why would bent heatpipes affect the cooling then on the CPU site? Right because through the heatpipes rigidness the support is transferred, you have only a section of about 8mm where it is only heatpipe, the plates itself are quite large. You would be daft if you think that the pressure on the GPU side wouldnt have any impact. No go fetch me some more results regarding core temp differences in recent assembled machines.

 

In 84 I was in Olimpics LOL sweet child of mine
Sorry those recent buyers are rare breed...
I heard they got some kind of issues they have hard time to warm up their CPU it behave strangely on too low temperatures

 

With your age i would expect more mature behaviour. Also you have no basis to state on that recent buyers without issues are a rare breed. Only the people at dell know the sales numbers and rate of returns.

 

just an update I did end up getting this laptop & as expected it does run hot, core 0 and core 2 hit 97c while running heaven benchmark for the GPU and realbench h264 for the CPU

I pretty much thought this would happen but hopefully nothing a good repaste / repad won't sort out, pads ordered will keep this updated

btw this 4k screen is amazing

 

That sucks, early machine I suppose based on looking at the specs. But a good repaste would sort it out indeed. Check @iunlock his guide. One row of pads needs to be replaced with very thin ones or good thermal paste.Or a solution would be to order the latest revision heatsink for about 50 euro on Aliexpress

 

And at the end when he fails to have reasonable perfirmance he should cash out additional 450$ for "repaste" job

 

Its easy enough to do yourself, every person can decide that for himself, or go to another shops. or exchange it with dell.