Alienware 17 R4, Dell is a mess

How did you fit inside the phone?

 

Hi,

I had the same crappy stuttering issues.
These stem from the fact that the heatsink is not making propper contact with the chokes ans Vrels.

2 solutions: 1) flash the vBIOS to an old one. (No OC)
2) Do a full repad + repaste (with ceramic, NO liquid metal).

Theres a guide online for it. Just search for alienware stuttering in google. I solved this issue without much hassle with customer support. I had a technician come to my house to do the repaste. (Payed for the premium support).

Message me if you need more help.

Hope you get this resolved soon.

Enviado desde mi SM-G935F mediante Tapatalk

 

Hey man thanks for the response.
I tried flashing the vBIOS to the old one, it only delayed the problem (instead of the stuttering to occur 5 minutes in, it wouldn't happen until 10-15 minutes in). For me even if it would have worked, I still would return the laptop. Being unable to update the laptop would drive me nuts. Regardless, dell thought it would be a smarter idea to send me all the system storage but not the laptop (even though the laptop functioned completely fine with the exception of playing demanding games) so I've been out of a laptop for over a month now (31+ days). Still had to make that monthly payment though .

I don't think repadding and repasting would exactly resolve the issue. After doing even more research it seems as though the motherboards have shipped with cheap VRM's that sometimes can handle the heat, and sometimes they can not.
So I feel the right move would be to make sure the laptop can handle the loads at stock, then I'll repaste with liquid metal.

I get my new laptop hopefully on Wednesday (I forgot about labor day here in the US so it wont ship out until tomorrow), this time with the QHD display instead of the UHD one.
So I'm a bit excited, if it doesn't work, well it's a brand new laptop so I believe the policy is I have 30 days for an exchange or a return.

School just started so it's not like I have all the time in the world to game anymore so I'll be patient.

 

UPDATE

So I got the new laptop, stuttering is still present.
Ambient Temperature is about 84 F

Looks like I gotta send this bad boy in and prepare for laptop 4

UPDATE 2
So it had stuttering issues with the back lifted. I decided that maybe making it leveled but elevated further off the desk (used four really thick rubber feet) it should work. Nope stuttering still happened, so I decided to just leave it flat on the desk and BOOM no stuttering. Not even a half our of gaming.

The temperature for the GPU hit 90 C (using msi afterburner).

What makes me really worried is that I haven't even updated the BIOS yet so I'm thinking it's going to easily hit 95-100 after updating it.

This is so freaking strange, it makes no sense.
It for sure needs a repaste

 

Honestly, there is 1 of 2 things you should do.

1.) Give the notebook back, tell em to give your money and tell em to scram.
or
2.) You need to say F*** warranty, and fix it yourself.

I had a very similair issue with my Clevo. The cooling system is garbage and pretty awful, however I liked the notebook and basicially went "yolo". Now it's running cool and great, even tho I do still strive for the 60c under load, so far getting 70s on GPU and 85c on 4940MX @ 4ghz all 4 cores.