Alienware 2015 models, anyone happy with them?

This new hybrid BIOS thing isn't exclusive to Alienware from what I can tell. It essentially draws power from the battery (even when plugged in) to supplement the PSU whenever total power draw exceeds what the PSU can provide. Which, with a 980M, happens a lot. This is why, prior to the "BIOS fix", people were reporting poor performance from their 980M machines - the BIOS wasn't working properly, and wasn't drawing power from the battery, so the PSU couldn't supply enough juice to get the top performance from the system.

They fixed the BIOS by making sure the hybrid feature worked. So now, if you have a 980M and the 180w PSU, you're wearing down your battery every time you game on it.

 

It's a bios that uses battery power when the AC Adapter doesn't provide enough power to the system because they shipped it with an underpowered power supply.

 

To be honest I am starting to loose faith in Dell / Alienware and I don't think I will buy another. This is my 3rd Alienware. My first Alienware Aurora desktop ( in 2009 ) shipped with a dead video card. My second Alienware Aurora r4 ( Purchased in 2014 ) All the USB ports failed about 1 month after I received it so Dell replaced the MotherBoard. And now my very first Alienware laptop 17r2 has a faulty motherboard out of the box. Not a very good track record. makes me wonder where is the quality control we pay a premium for??? As we speak I am waiting for a replacement 17r2. According to dell I should receive it on or before Aug 3rd

 

I have this too (the creaking). Screws are tight. Will see how it goes, may open it an put some double sided tape down there.

 

I don't really notice it anymore, it's only if I push really hard in a certain area. I never hear it when I'm not looking for it.

 

After many years with my old trusty Alienware 15mx, I now switched to the Alienware 15 i7 16GB, 4k monitor, 980 GPU.

I'm absolutely happy with my buy. The monitor is nothing short of fantastic, the heatsink fans are much more quiet than the ones on my old box, the box performs admirably and allows for hi-frame FPS fun even with the native 4K resolution. What's not to love?

Which parts could be better?

The speakers don't handle higher volumes well, there they start to throw artifacts - here, the A15mx performed noticeably better. Also, every once in a while, the WLAN connection slows down inexplicably. Then, a disconnect/reconnect solves the problem.

Other than that: Awesome box. Gets my full recommendation.

 

Great to see you are happy! Do you experience any throttling issues? I'm trying to find out if the throttling issue happens on EVERY machine or just in some cases. My laptop is coming in a few days!

 

Can't tell, because I'm not bothering to check framerates in test suites.

At least, I can't recall any incidents in which the box suddenly seemed to "slow down".

 

not happy at all due to all the trouble on searching for solutions in various forums with the heating problem of this laptop. oh also the F...... bloatware support assist making my fan burst to max rpm and cause lag on start up plus the killer network program causing spike lag on dota 2. so not happy.

 

And that's why I got the Signature Edition.... No bloat, no support assist