Alienware 17 R4 Various Problems

** Update **
So after months of this laptop being strange with all the problems listed below (excluding the screen), they all seem to stem from the same root cause, the motherboard was failing. It failed hard and you can read the thread I have on this, long story short, If you are experiencing these problems you may want to get your board checked visually and electrically.

One problem I didn't include and probably should have, hindsight being what it is, was that I would get device disconnect beeps/sounds occasionally and could never find the device that it thought was unplugging, now I know why.

Thread on the board failure:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-17-r4-6820hk-1070m-dead-motherboard.814172


** Original Post **
Hey Guys/Gals,

I got the system in my signature (BIOS 1.2.1), and I have fresh installed windows 10 pro again in the last couple of days (FCU for the second time). I have used all Dell drivers except for the Nvidia driver. I had swapped my Wireless/Bluetooth module right out of the box.

Problems I am having, Bluetooth completely seizes up, even restarting the service doesn't solve it, have to reboot the system. Left macro keys backlight changes on it's own, this is obviously not set to do that in TactX, cycling the macro profiles through the list will bring it back to normal, usually the sign of things will be going south in the next day or so. If I leave the machine on all the time, eventually the system will completely hang with the CPU fan running full tilt but with the hung screen showing taskman and no load on it.

Does any one here have any ideas?

Last issue, not Dell's fault at all, I changed my screen to a 4k AUO panel, but it has auto contrast going on, drives me mental. I can't find anything in windows to deal with auto contrast. I do not mean auto dimming.


Thanks for reading this medium/long post.

 

Hi, did you follow this excellent guide on how to fresh install ?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/nbr-windows-10-clean-installation-guide.781178/
What was the order you installed your drivers in ? I follow the guide and get no issue. Remember to restart between drivers just to be sure.

Also, I too swapped the Killer Wifi for the Intel 8265. Did you install both Wifi and BT drivers ?
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...reless-Bluetooth-for-Windows-10?product=59484
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...ware-and-Drivers-for-Windows-10?product=59484

Did you read this ?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...y-alienware-r4-tutorial.800153/#post-10428152

I've had some problems too with AlienFX (blinking, no light and eventually the one you're talking about...). If the re-installation of the command center doesn't solve it, you're in for a complete Windows reset (that worked for me).

Hope you solve your issues. At least are your temps alright ?

 

Thanks for the response, the order of installing drivers hasn't really changed since Windows 95, chipset first obviously. Not every driver requires a reboot, if they are internally connected via USB, eg bluetooth.

My temps are acceptable, I even decided to run the laptop without OC to see how that goes. It seemed to me to use the Rift on this machine, I had to OC.

I had reinstalled the machine before xmas, hoping to solve this damned problem and to do the 960 Pro 2TB as my OS drive. I had to reinstall windows 2 days ago because I murdered my registry trying to fix the slew of 10016 errors in the event viewer of which some are back, yay. Warning 37 (Kernel Processor Power) is making me mental too. I am a happier person if I stay out of event viewer.

I like the machine and after 1 year of ownership, it has been good except for this hanging crap. It was never used with factory windows install or the Killer wifi it came with.


What has been your secret to happiness with the machine? I really hope they do a Ryzen based Alienware laptop (I don't think they will) to get rid of IME.

 

Well I owned a 6820 based 17R4 with a 1080 (one of the early models) for 1 year.
At first I was a bit disapointed with it but after several repasts I got it working really well. Did you repast as well ?

If you want to OC I recommend you this thread :
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-settings-for-4-0ghz-to-4-3ghz-stable.787791/
Killer Wifi was terrible at first (especially the software suite) so I too bought a 8265.

BTW did you install Samsung nvme drivers ? I see you have a 960 PRO. It lowered their temps a bit for me (maybe a better calibration) :
http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/

 

No, no repasting, and I had it solidly clocked to 4.1 with no issues. Thermals have always been fine for me, I might have just been lucky. I took mine with a 1070 because I wanted better battery life and I got the 1080 Ti in the Amplifier. I swapped the display myself because it was about a quarter of the cost for me to do it and I have no real need for gsync.

I most definitely use the Samsung driver now. Before I didn't because I was using two 950 Pros in RAID0. I have updated all firmwares of the 3 Samsung SSDs.

I knew the Killer cards sucked, now with the Intel 9260 cards being out, time to upgrade both my laptops again, really it's for the wave2 AC and bluetooth 5, the wireless signal on the 8265 has been perfect.

I keep hoping BIOS updates will help and have kept up with them 'cept for the recalled 1.2.3, hoping for an improvement. Something is wrong, but I can't figure it out for the life of me.

 

Careful with 1.2.3 as it is protected and you won't be able to roll back.

 

Even better, it was recalled. I was holding off to see the performance impact, if any. I run VMware dev machines on this machine because WAMP sux hard for Magento, if I run a Debian VM to do my Magento development, it is a night and day difference in page load times.

PS. I am starting to think that FCU is playing a part in this bluetooth problem. The bluetooth going out has been since the first reinstall. That is also when I found out that Tobii is broken (their drivers are borked for FCU)

 

So after months of this laptop being strange with all the problems listed below (excluding the screen), they all seem to stem from the same root cause, the motherboard was failing. It failed hard and you can read the thread I have on this, long story short, If you are experiencing these problems you may want to get your board checked visually and electrically.

One problem I didn't include and probably should have, hindsight being what it is, was that I would get device disconnect beeps/sounds occasionally and could never find the device that it thought was unplugging, now I know why.

Thread on the board failure:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-17-r4-6820hk-1070m-dead-motherboard.814172