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    I got one and it should arrive tomorrow questions :)

    Discussion in '2015+ Alienware 13 / 15 / 17' started by calranthe, Jun 22, 2016.

  1. calranthe

    calranthe Notebook Enthusiast

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    Due to a house move and just getting tired of building my own computers (first pc was a 386sx) decided that I wanted a laptop, now I was going to go with a clevo but things happened and tomorrow I will be an Alienware owner for the first time.
    17 6820hq 16gb 980m 8gb 1920*1080 version. Also ordered the amplifier and a cooling stand, because I will be gaming at 1080p (all kinds of games from The Division to Elder scrolls online and fallout 4).

    What would be a good card for maxing out 1080p?

    Any suggestions on what to do first with it I have only really owned desktops, things like is it best to charge it before turning it on (will be using it 99% of the time plugged into the wall).
     
    calranthe, Jun 22, 2016
    #1
  2. Galm

    Galm "Stand By, We're Analyzing The Situation!"

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    The 980m does a pretty good job at 1080p. So I wouldn't recommend like a GTX 970 or R9 390 that much because they aren't too much faster than the 980m. The higher end cards like the Fury or 1070 will crush 1080p gaming for a while. (The 1070 performs slightly better than a 980 Ti from what I've seen)

    That's quite a beast!
     
    Galm, Jun 22, 2016
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  3. calranthe

    calranthe Notebook Enthusiast

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    So try out the 980m see how it handles things and wait for the 1070 to lower in price (once the stock levels increase)
     
    calranthe, Jun 22, 2016
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  4. Galm

    Galm "Stand By, We're Analyzing The Situation!"

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    Yeah that sounds like a good plan. It'd just be stupid to pay a few hundred bucks for something like 20% faster than your current card. The 1070 is like over double it though so that's a lot more powerful.
     
    Galm, Jun 22, 2016
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  5. calranthe

    calranthe Notebook Enthusiast

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    The only part missing from my build is an ssd so I am going to pick up a samsung 950 pro 512gb m2 and then transfer the OS
     
    calranthe, Jun 22, 2016
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  6. Mickbt26

    Mickbt26 Notebook Evangelist

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    Another bit of advice. DO NOT UPDATE THE BIOS.
    It's uncertain at the moment, but it appears that the latest Bioses are causing the machines to brick randomly after being updated.
     
    Mickbt26, Jun 22, 2016
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  7. JerseyBoy

    JerseyBoy Notebook Consultant

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    JerseyBoy, Jun 22, 2016
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  8. calranthe

    calranthe Notebook Enthusiast

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    It arrived and slowly doing all the updates, I bit the bullet and did the bios update my reasoning being if it went boom better to happen on day one when I have not spent time customizing and enjoying it.
    Everything went fine.
    Already had a samsung 950 pro for another build (not being fully recognized will tweak it) as in it shows up in bios, shows up in windows but samsung magic does not recognize it and when I try to install the nvme driver it can not find it (but I can install and save to it) will try reseating it.

    Kinda slow atm probably due to the os not being on the m2.

    Will write some more once I have messed
     
    calranthe, Jun 23, 2016
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  9. calranthe

    calranthe Notebook Enthusiast

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    Found out the problem bios was set to raid config. all is good now.
     
    calranthe, Jun 23, 2016
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  10. DeeX

    DeeX THz

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    Agreed here.. even though many have had no issues with the current latest 1.2.2 and 1.2.8 have been good for most people and give no reason to switch from them.
    With that said if your system arrives with 1.2.3 I would change to either 1.2.2 or 1.2.8 as 1.2.3 has been pulled from Dell's servers.
     
    DeeX, Jun 23, 2016
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  11. calranthe

    calranthe Notebook Enthusiast

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    Having issues, any game I try that uses the 980m at high or ultra (the forest, the division, 7 days, 3dmark) either do not run al all or big screen corruption then machine freeze until hard reset.
     
    calranthe, Jun 24, 2016
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  12. calranthe

    calranthe Notebook Enthusiast

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    Looks like the mb is wonky dell engineer coming out on monday.
     
    calranthe, Jun 24, 2016
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  13. DeeX

    DeeX THz

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    What are your temps like? Is this a brand new machine or one from the outlet?
    Use Intel Extreme tuning utility to monitor the following:
    • Power Limit Throttling
    • Current Limit Throttling
    • Thermal Limite Throttling
    P.S. +1 for the 386SX. My first computer that was actually mine was a 386SX.
    It didn't even have Windows it had a knock off called "Geoworks" over MSDos. LOL
     
    DeeX, Jun 24, 2016
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  14. calranthe

    calranthe Notebook Enthusiast

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    Temps seem fine it was an outlet and first thing the Dell technical support told me is this one was returned for this exact problem I could have just returned it but it came with 3 year premium support and I think of it like the runt of the litter that some one gave up on before hehe.
    None of the diagnostics show a problem except for the dumps and it only shows up on games like the division forest 7 days to die so I can understand it was returned they ran tests and sent it back out.

    Usually driver fails 3-5 times in a loop once game engine kicks in then artifacts on screen and pc freezes up.

    Oh man I remember Geoworks upgraded to a 486DX25 and after purchasing the parts built it and did not have enough for the cpu heatsink so for 6 months my mainboard was balanced on the lid of the case with a normal eating knife laid across the cpu as the sink.
     
    calranthe, Jun 25, 2016
    #14