AW17 R3: Does your keyboard get really warm?

Does your machine get really warm on the keyboard? when gaming? when not gaming?

Thanks heaps!

 

bump

 

I can say while gaming for hours, if you put your palms above the keyboards (directly above where the vents would be) it feels warm. Not hot, warm. The keyboard itself, where the f2/2/w/q/w/e and the delete/backspace/numlock area have the remesisance of being on the way to getting 'warm' not hot. The bottom back middle, in between the fans (where the chips actually are) is warm. not hot, but the warmest.

This also goes for hour long renders and 3d cad work. I wouldn't say anything has even once become bothersome in the least, 'noticable' in those 3 spots, and 'warm'.

 

Thank you, what about when just doing normal usage i.e. not using the graphics card? Is it still warm?

 

when not gaming, no not warm at all. Perhaps after a few hours of youtube on battery with cooling set to passive, it gets warm perhaps on the bottom middle back between the fans (which is where the chips are).

And when I saw warm and point out the 3 areas, I mean I literally have to put my hand on those specific areas, and concentrate on feeling heat. I was just playing COD since I posted on here last, until now, and that's several hours, actually trying to feel heat on keyboard side, and I mean I can feel its warmer than the cold metal otherwise, but after 2 hours, its not even warm.

I have had over 10 gaming laptops, and idk if its skylark and Maxwell or what, but this AW17 does not get hot, and 'warm' just means warmer than not feeling heat at all.

Best of all, fans are quiet, with volume at 10 out of 100, I have to concentrate on hearing fans and then its only 'faint'. Lol, its that bad (or good).

Dude, if its heat and fans, do not worry at all. 100% serious. My MSI thermally throttled bad during gaming, did great during rendering (which is more important) and sounded like a fricken hair dryer. My MSI GT 72 was good with heat but still loud and the all metal design got hot (especially on the bottom). The asus JM with 860m was cool and quiet, but turbo boost CPU couldn't be maintained during rendering. The 870 and 880 models asus got louder but stayed cool. CPU would throttle. This Alienware, just perfect !!

 

Thanks this is incredibly helpful

 

NP, better to ask someone with, than find out after the fact. Same boat when determining last year MSI GT70 vs Asus JZ. And even now trying to determine between Dell Precision 7510 or Lenovo P50.

I do know the 2015 pre-skylark laptops got warm/hot and loud, I can tell you (at least with 970m) this is absolutely not the case, not even once.

 

Very cool. I'm planning on getting the Best Buy model with the 4k screen. Do you have that one?

 

According to his signature he does

 

I see you both have it. Do you find programs scale ok for the 4k resolution in 2016? I don't use photoshop just programming and gaming

 

Haha, yea I got mine at Best Buy, unknowingly.

I had and used the MSI GT70 for all my video editing and VM work and such, but battery life/noise made it unable to be work laptop. My main work laptop was a w550s, which amazing laptop, just not powerful enough to do what I needed. So I had 2 laptops ill suited for what I needed them for, and I was tired of having 2 laptops.

So reading about best battery laptops led me to Alienware. Then I found out they had 4k screen option, and I was sold. Configured through Dell, and ready to order, went and price checked, found Best Buy had one in stock and on display.

So, I went to Best Buy to hands on before purchase. I'm very picky, and wasn't completely sold after looking at it. But they also had almost everyother 'gaming laptop' on display, as well as a bunch of slimmer 15" with 960m's. So after almost a full Saturday spent at Best Buy, and working the numbers, I decided to give it a try. It had less ram/hhd/ssd, but was about $100 cheaper. Then also had a 10% off coupon, and movers 10% off coupon, and which led to being significantly cheaper, even after buying a 500gb 950pro m.2 and 2x8gb ddr4 sticks.

So, sorry for the short life story. But yes, started as Best Buy model, swapped out m.2's for 950 pro's, and 2.5 hhd for 2.5 1tb ssd, and the 8gb means 2x4gb (dual channel so thanks for that dell) for 2x8gb sticks. Only thing I would've done different, is gone 2x16gb sticks. Don't run into ram limits often, but probably once or twice a week I'm maxing out 16gb.

Another, awesome, note on the Dell. Is the 240v power brick, is very small compared to all other 180/240 power bricks I've had or have.

 

As for scaling, windows 7 was nicer for options, but I think there was a program I had to dig and dig to make toolbar decent. Can't remember which one, perhaps Citrex VPN client (which sucks at everything), but everything else is perfect scaling. Love 4k for video and photo editing. And with 1080p based VM's, I can have 4 open (top left/right, bottom left/right) all open at same time, just beautifully, and with click of button make 1 full screen and automatically scaled to full screen. I could never go back to 1080p.