New Alienware 15 coming. What do I do when it comes.

Besides drool.

I was going to get a Gigabyte P55 for price. My wife told me to get the Alienware. {Yes, I did marry well. She is also a great cook and makes more money than I do }. No more trying to play Fallout 4 at less than 20fps at the lowest settings modded to be even lower.

FWIW, I got it with the 6700HQ, 128GB SSD boot, 970M. I got the SSD mainly for fast shutoff. I am a Paramedic and my old laptop takes too long to shutdown when someone calls 911. I don't like the idea of putting the laptop back into the bag before it completely shuts down.

Will I need to remove half a ton of Win10 bloatware?

It looks like it comes with a 180w PSU. I've read that this is fine with a 970M but the 980M needs a 240W psu. Is this true? On a related noted, I have a Sager 240W psu for my soon to be backup; Will the old PSU work for the Alienware without damaging it {if the Alienware starts to fail or need more power}?

I understand Alienware loads a few programs to the units it sends out. Autopsy, spawn{?}, and a few others I cannot remember. Is there a page with a list of these and what they do?

Anything else I need to know?

Thank You

 

Getting mine in a few days and have been trolling the forums for stuff to do on it. I've formulated the following when mine arrives in 3 days:

1. Downgrade BIOS to the most stable and reliable version (1.2.2)
2. Buy and install a fresh copy of Windows 10 Pro to avoid bloat etc
3. Get all the latest drivers from their respective manufacturers

 

Play some games?

 

Absolute a must:

1. Clean install your Windows.
2. Go to Dell's website and enter in your express code and download all the latest drivers.
3. As for your BIOS, depending on what it ships with, if it comes already with 1.2.8 for example than just stay on 1.2.8. It has been evident that there are trends of things going south when messing with the BIOS. I'd just leave it alone and run it for a while...The BIOS on the AW is the most goofiest I've ever seen.

 

Forgive the elderly {relatively anyway} noob.
Is a "Clean Install" a re-install? Do I install Windows over the previous install? I guess I should have googled that first.
I know I am using common sense here, but wouldn't a new system come with the latest drivers?

Thank You all for your help.

 

Yes it means a FRESH install :
-Create a USB installer for Windows (use either Rufus or The windows tool).
-Boot from the USB disk that you created (No need for s serial number for Windows, its already included in your Bios).
-Delete all partitions from the hard drive and start install from scratch.
-Install the software from Dell's website (except the killer suite and Nvidia drivers that you can get from their own websites).

If you want to keep the partition for Dell's recovery, you can either make a full backup of your disk before performing the fresh install or download the recovery disk from Dell's website.

This way, you have full control over what to install without any unexpected issues.

 

you don't need to buy the windows, the machine comes with a license, although it is not a pro license.

 

I am not a fan of fresh Windows installs. I just take the default load that it came with and install the latest nvidia driver direct from nvidia and if the wifi gives you trouble update the wifi driver. I've sometimes actually replaced the wifi card with Intel 8260 to resolve wifi issues with certain routers. I do remove bundled anti-virus and use the built in stuff from Microsoft.

Other than that I just install the games I want to play and play them. no benchmarks, etc. Just use the system for the reasons you bought it.

I also do not update the bios unless there is a specific reason to do so.

Just my personal bias to make thing as simple as possible.

 

Wait, did I just read that right?!

How on Earth would you not agree that a clean install is the way to go? Especially as Dell put so much effort into making one of the buggiest stock installs I have ever come across....

Sure, you can remove some software and update the drivers but underlying issues will still be there plus, by the time you've removed software and updated drivers etc you could have just done a fresh install, reclaimed control of your hard drive and have a guaranteed clean slate. Windows 10 installs in about 20mins, even quicker with an SSD.

I fully agree about the BIOS, even more so with these machines as yet again, Dell put a whole heap of effort into making buggy releases....

 

Fresh install is always better, backup any important files if u have, download ISO from Microsoft, most probably Windows 10 Home Single Language X64, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
and all the current drivers which comes on windows update is new and works without any issues, you would need these 3 though, alienware command center, sound blaster 3D recon driver, Nvidia driver with GeForce experience if u use them, and 1.2.2 is the safest BIOS, but also remember to change your SATA to AHCI instead of RAID in BIOS before u install windows 10, creating ISO with rufus is the best option..

 

So you guys don't recommended flashing the BIOS down to 1.2.2 regardless of what comes pre-installed? I'm getting my laptop in 2 days..

 

The opposite, I WOULD recommend it. Some say 1.2.8 is ok but I had reboot issues so rolled back to 1.2.2 and been fine ever since.

 

1.2.2 and 1.2.8 are the only ones I'd run....I have exactly those two on my AW'S and it's been fine.

Powered by: Quad Core Exynos + 6820HK

 

I haven't needed to do a fresh install since windows 8. I buy a new system every couple of years and just use what it came with unless there's an issue. I haven't had strange reboot or hanging issues since my ASUS G73 and even then I just backup up my data and reset to factory and started as new since it have worked fine for 15 months and then started acting up.

You guys are more than welcome to do so but if it works fine with the default load I see no reason to change it unless I have a problem.

BTW I have Bios 1.2.3 and haven't had an issue.

 

I always perform a clean install since it gives a fresh start and more control over which/what SW goes in or out.

Are you using an S7?