Ask Alienware's General Manager, Frank Azor, Anything on AWA! - Part Two!!

Not entirely sure why a perfectly good thread was closed by the previous thread creators request, but here's a chance for the people who did find it pertinent to carry on discussing the above topic. The previous thread can be found and read here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...al-manager-frank-azor-anything-on-awa.770195/

As the thread was not closed because of anything other than OP request (as the link below denotes) I don't see a reason why any mod should shut this thread down - it's a topic that should be in public view as it was very relevant and the lack of continued response from any Alienware official on the topic is dubious.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...r-anything-on-awa.770195/page-38#post-9981798

People need to be aware of issues that vary from region to region, regardless.

 

Thanks brother. I think we need to keep an open discussion going on AW recent tactics of temporarily acting like they care. We need to keep the fire to their feet..

 

Fixed


Also, why doesn't desktop AlienFX cards work with 3rd party motherboards?

 

I just copied you pathfindercod.... This was great said
Thanks brother. I think we need to keep an open discussion going on AW recent tactics of temporarily acting like they care. We need to keep the fire to their feet..

 

What you mean with that it doesn't work? It doesn't install?

 

I agree. This discussion should remain open. Thanks.

A lot of good conversation was interrupted.

 

The AlienFX board that controls the lights, fans and the active venting (select units) rejects to connect with a 3rd party motherboard.

In the case of the Aurora/Area51 Dell you can trick the card with performing a jumper switch to trick the card to work. The Area51 AlienFX board requires a 10 pin power connector which NO ONE USES and there's only 1 modder in the US capable of making a retrofit power cable to use with 3rd party modular PSUs.

While that's fixed for the time being, Dell decided to cockblock enthusiasts from getting the latest alienfx software/CC to work with 3rd party motherboards (hardware ID lock).

Whatever AW said about "enthusiast support" or "upgrade" is lies and you should not believe them. Dell's greed will try to force you to buy a new system in order to upgrade rather than swapping the motherboard only. Dell overprices the motherboard (Aurora X79 mobo on ebay is 140usd less, Dell wants 600), the motherboard is made by MSi and they buy the cheapest version to rebrand and gimp the BIOS of overclocking features.

When AW haven't got bought out by dell you can opt for a passive RGB controller board for the AlienFX, that works without software and you can manually change the color for the LEDs. If you are willing to pay premium for their system, you can opt for an active software controlled card similar to the modern AlienFX/CC. At least in the past they gave enthusiasts an option to upgrade their machines without losing the bling.


tl;dr - greed / douche

 

I have made a test project that interacts directly with the AlienFX board, without the need of having AlienFX installed. If you want to test this software let me know, maybe we can solve this issue and you can have your lights working.

 

I can see that you guys are exchanging the 180W adapters for the new Alienware. Can I get a 240 W adapter for the same reason in India. I own an Alienware 15 with gtx 980m


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Still awaiting official answer on M18x R2 bios fix for the 980M

 

I doubt that they will do anything for us. They just don't care about us. Big companies only see the money, we already spent the money, so helping us won't make them have more money since the 18" model is discontinued. I already lost my hopes on Alienware....

 

While I think that's their plan, it's only going to come back and bite them. Why on earth would I again part with a large sum of my hard earned money, only to be screwed out of being able to upgrade it. Of course that's the least of the new machines problems. But fool me once...

 

I feel you brother, but unfortunately there are people who love to get fooled and that's why those kind of companies keep getting fat instead of growing stronger.

 

My biggest issue was the continual "You are wrong" theme thrown in my face from every representative I dealt with when questioned about the 180/240 PSU for the 980m.

If presenting THE article, on Dell's website, will not convince Dell's own representative of the correction, I don't feel comfortable ordering from Dell/Alienware anymore.

 

Precisely. Unfortunately, Dell EMEA and Dell US & Canada are two different entities. I have learned this the hard way on many occasions. Whilst the US side is willing to bend over backwards to please, EMEA are absolutely horrible to deal with.

 

I've found this to be mostly true. Pretty much any issue I've had, Dell has resolved. Refunds, credits, shipping a 240w PSU, sending me recovery media...I may have to try a few different CSRs before finding one who understands the issue, but once I do, everything is resolved quickly and free of charge.

So far, anyway.

Too bad they can't do anything about the surface/keyboard temps.

 

They could have placed the CPU+GPU at the edges like they used to in the older models... Dumb decision of placing it underneath the keyboard for covinience sakes caused this!

 

Apparently my comment was removed from the video on YouTube. This "new" Alienware disgusts me.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...r-anything-on-awa.770195/page-74#post-9981591

How could Frank Azor allow this to happen? His idea of management is weak. And apparently Alienware's engineering/design team can't do basic math (in regards to power requirements). Who came up with the 180W PSU idea? Alienware's are not ultrabooks! Now they're trying to hide the fact that they messed up and are continuing to sell a flawed/defective product. Makes absolutely zero sense. Alienware is gone.

 

Except that they're doing exactly what other gaming laptop manufacturers are doing.

Sager NP8652 / Clevo P650SG - 980M and 4720HQ has a 180W PSU
Gigabyte P35X v3 - 980M and 4710HQ has a 180W PSU
Eurocom M5 Pro - 980M and 4710/4870HQ has a 180W PSU

etc etc etc

All these laptops use a 180W PSU that pulls extra power from the battery if and when its needed. Hence why the BIOS default is express charge. The reason why it doesn't work as well on the Alienware is the funky BIOS that the laptop shipped with (A00/A01). A02 fixes the problem and with a 180W PSU there is no throttling except for thermal ones and the firestrike scores are roughly the same...granted the A02 bios has a couple of temperature problems and I have 3x 240W PSUs so I've since downgraded to A00.

Hopefully A03 solves this problem once and for all.

 

Over the years I've been here, never have I seen Alienware directly address an issue. I'd be surprised.

And I don't give a crap what other manufacturers are doing. Alienware is not meant to be like others. Frank Azor (I assume because he's the new GM) has pretty much destroyed the brand and put it on a path leading no where but cheapness.

 

Hopefully so, they need to fix their fan tables on the newer bioses. Since I have the 240 watt I'm using A00 as well.

 

I agree lol.

On the A00 the fans turn on a bit too often but its not bad at all. On A02 its like..silent...silent...OH GOD THE CPU IS AT 90 FANS AT FULL BLAST

AW has always had funky fan tables and I'm not sure why...my favorite one was a BIOS version on the R1 in which the values were so close to each other the fans would spin up and down constantly as you were playing a game. Got annoying really really fast lol.

 

From that context, I guess if someone asked you to stick your head in the fire, you would.........just 'cos that's what everyone else is doing. And you wonder why I used the term "sheep"......

 

And yet again you come up with absurd analogies. I would say I was surprised but I'd be lying through my teeth.

Alienware competes directly with those companies for gaming laptop sales, hence they're going to make their products similar to them. Clearly something must have made a whole bunch of various different OEMs decide that the hybrid BIOS was the way to go for the future. Maybe it was the EU ruling on high wattage appliances, maybe it was that nvidia lied about the tdp requirements for their chips whatever it is something made every single OEM who designs a similar laptop use a hybrid BIOS. And it cant have been cost...a 240W probably costs cents more to manufacture than a 180W one and either way they'd have passed the cost on to the consumer anyways.

If it was only Alienware who did this then you'd have a point...but I highly doubt they all lost the ability to do basic addition with this generation of laptops.

This has nothing to do with consumers or sheep.

 

The competition has past since been like this. They didn't change. Alienware did. It's pathetic.

That's what made Alienware standout in the first place, and exactly why we loved Alienware. It was unique in pretty much every aspect. Now it's only aesthetically unique - basically a cheap ultrabook with a fancy mask.

 

I think 'sheep' is a pretty good analogy for an unoriginal copy cat ethos. The competitors have always danced to Alienwares beat. No longer are Alienware pioneering anything unless someone is happy with to tethered to a desktop to get the uber powerful laptop experience.

 

Should Dell make a similar advertising to AW15 and 17R as Msi creating earlier( the term "sheep"......) ? Why not ? ... Msi turned completely over and used a power supply with more watts in the new models. Strange that Dell did not learn of all the criticism Msi got for their brilliant turbo boost...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gt70-dragon-edition-2-core-i7-4930mx-laptop,3545-12.html
Edit: The genius of the 180w power supply to MSI; The power supply increased the watts to 200w when the battery was empty.

 

I'll try it out once there's an opportunity to use my Aurora R4 chassis.

Thanks for the info.

 

Before sarcastically using the word genius, maybe you should understand power supply efficiency first. It's not supplying 200W to the laptop...that's not how efficiency works.

The PSU is supplying <180W to the laptop, but because its only 80-90% efficient its pulling 200W from the wall.

 

Sigh, once again you show a lack of technical knowledge and continuously post incorrect crap.
No power supply is 100% efficient. It pulls a more power from the wall than it can actually put out because they are not 100% efficient devices.

 

Are you completely with?
Modern ? Sad ...
Read ................... Also read the reviews of this ....

This should also Dell done ... Following after Msi like sheep....

 

Yes...200w FROM THE WALL.

So its supplying <180W to the laptop but since its only 80-90% efficient it draws 200W.

Your 240W PSU will probably be drawing somewhere around 270-300W from the wall at 80-90% efficiency.

This is normal and how every single power supply works.

 

Do you want to actually speak understandable English if you reply to my post please?

"At the wall" means it pulls that from the wall, it doesn't mean it delivers that to the laptop, I don't see what point you're trying to make.

 

If the battery drops below 30% READ.................

 

YES when the battery drops below 30% it shuts off the NOS system and then the PSU supplies the maximum power it can which is 180W.

The system likely needs more than that but the PSU can only supply that much.

That's normal...I'm not sure what you're getting at here lol.

 

Ohhhhhhh now I understand, sorry.

Yeah that's probably just down to a buggy bios lol.

 

Say what you want, but this is not a good system ... What about heavy oveclocking and use of a mod vbios and xtu with increased volts ?? No wonder Msi stopped this nonsense.

 

They want to use Dell PSUs so they don't need to manufacture whole line of Alienware PSUs. It's like that:

1. Get 180W Dell PSU
2. Put Alienware sticker on it.
3. Place label - For use with AW 17R2
4. Price +200%
5. Send to customers
6. If throttles just modify battery system so the battery will die in months and user will have to replace it in order to have full performance(!)

 

Dell think it's Ok to use the same psu on Aw15 and 17R2, as they also use the same motherboard...

 

They even use same MoBo? Really? It has to look weird inside 17R2 ...

 

If this is true, then that proves how desperate Dell is for getting money. Now I see why they killed the 18 model, it is impossible to share the mobo with any other model. Shame on you dell...

 

I feel like its a complete waste of our time talking about these new AW15 and AW17 R2 line-up , they are not Alienware "High Performance Computers" anymore, instead a crapware living under shadow, for me atleast !!
This new CEO & Co just killed off the brand once and for all, heck they contradict their own statements about the 180W psu fiasco and that GA concept complete waste of the desktop GPU and $$$.

I guess they will never learn their mistakes at all, after all those ideastorm requests concerning AW 2013 Fan profiles and our plead to release a BIOS patch for Maxwell upgrdes they just act they acknowledged the issue as we all know they just want us to shut up. Really this timeframe is very very bad for mobile gamers / entthusiasts and AW owners, Following that deadly move from Intel's BGA crap push Nvidia clock-block after a coldwar they seem to fix it but the new 350.12 block along with that OC-bit block cancer spreading to System Level BIOS --> Here.

I feel sad this is happening to mobile market, more sheep consumers more cruel ways of killing the performance on Mobile platform, all just because of greed. Once a brand is established they plan on to switch to the flip side and kill it once and for all.....

Really unfortunate..

On OT, that new macbook they call what's that for a 1200$ a stupid palm size mobo with all that fancy keyboard & unibody AL ..?

EDIT : Seems like Frank was there since the Alienware was born..this is really a shame to the brand and users.

 

Just how is that an absurd analogy? - it relates that Dell are doing something 'just because' other manufacturers are doing it. You yourself said that above. Just because other manufacturers are doing it does not make it right or a good idea - hence the same statement about sticking you head in the fire just because others are doing that. As for comparing with sheep - well, of course sheep follow where the majority of the flock are going - if you cannot understand the comparison, I don't know how to make it simpler for you to comprehend.

As Dre said below, Alienware was not meant to follow the flock, it was supposed to stand out from the crowd and not fold to what other manufacturers were doing.

 

Frank is no newbie, he is an original member of the team of four that designed the AW brand. http://en.community.dell.com/members/alien_2d00_frank/

So, he knows the history and where AW came from, he's just sold out .

 

Hypothetically, if the prices stayed relatively the same +/- 1%, but Alienware returned to the MXM non-BGA nonsense, would we still be so complaint filled?
Or, if the MXM non-BGA status was maintained, and the price dropped ~15%?


I sold my last Alienware machine in 2013, right when the new Alienware 17 was coming out, and the forums seemed...as cynically optimistic as I remembered (I ended up trying an ultrabook again instead). But now I have returned again, and the forums are very negative as regards Alienware. The only clearly positive post about Alienware was in the Marketplace about how the M18x was the best machine Alienware had ever produced. That's the only one.

This most recent tax return was going towards a new laptop, and originally I was all for my fourth Alienware! But given how knowledgeable some people are here, I sided with them and went the Clevo route. Sure, my P650SE is also a soldered monster, but the price difference between the deals offered was ~$500 CAD.

 

But thats the thing...I doubt this decision was because everyone suddenly decided to copy each other or that alienware went "oh look gigabyte went with a 180W PSU we will do that too". And it was because they were led to believe that 180W would be sufficient. And I'm willing to bet you that it was nvidia who probably said something along those lines.

I mean look at what nvidia have done:

1. With the 800 and 900 series nvidia claimed amazing power saving, talking about how these GPUs would mean laptops would finally last hours on the discrete chip or while gaming...and yet both the 880 and 980 chips use more power than their predecessors.

2. Nvidia also blocked overclocking a month after the chips were released. Sure they tried to blame that on the OEMs but it was Nvidia who released the reference driver with overclocking disabled, not OEMs who released their own modded driver. And then with 350.12 they actually went back and blocked OC again!

3. With the desktop 970 they intentionally misled people about the memory and then tried to pass it off as a "oh yeah sorry that wasn't communicated effectively, what we actually meant was this completely different thing"

So I'm willing to bet you that nvidia lied about the TDP requirements for the chip and then tried to pass it off as "oh its a problem with the vbios / drivers and it'll be fixed" which is the same ******** they claimed with overclocking. It's hardly the first time they've lied or intentionally misled people about something and this is coming from someone who has only ever bought nvidia GPUs...I so wish that AMD was a bigger player in that market.

And then on the other end of the scale you have Intel who also likes to fudge their TDP values to make their chips seem better than they are. So now you have a bunch of OEMs who test out the engineering samples that nvidia / intel gave them and went "oh 99.99% of the time the laptop uses less than 180W and the other 0.01% we can just have the battery supplement it and since nvidia said they were going to disable overclocking you don't really need any overhead for that" But in reality it's the opposite.

 

I don't care if they charged more for MXM / Non BGA hardware. It's worth it in the long run. However, seeing how Dell have done a runner on supporting older upgradable models, whatever they do is too little too late - "I'm done". You had your chance and you blew it, not just for this gen, but for future generations too.

I'm watching very closely to how Clevo handles their customers with future upgradability. If they capitalize on the enthusiasts flocking to their products and maintain openness to upgrades, then I'm all over their next SLI product so long as it is upgradable and powerful.

 

I doubt clevo is going to do that and for a couple of reasons:

1. Skylake will be the last non BGA processor from Intel. That'll be it for LGA sockets.

2. It sure seems like nvidia is going to introduce their own new socket design that won't be MXM for Pascal. Just looking at the little sample pictures that nvidia has released that doesn't look like an MXM board. So it'll either be BGA or some new socket that won't be compatible with any other MXM socket.

 

We'll see. I'm more interested in a desktop chip being offered if no alternative. X99 is still a thing and Clevo managed to bring X79 into a DTR format. As for Nvidia, I don't place too much stock in their roadmaps. But I'm sure they'd like to move to fully proprietary arrangement.