*OFFICIAL* Alienware 13 R1/R2 Owner's Lounge

What do u mean u can't game at lower resolution? I intend to get the 1440p display as well .

 

You can game at a lower resolution and eliminate the black bars.
Right click on the desktop=> gfx options => Screen adjustment => "switch to full screen/Scale to Full Screen" (rather than "keep proportions"...tss)
The options will appear once you select a lower resolution. If you select "Full Window" in a game, the game will act as if you are playing at 1440p, which you don't want.
This issue is more of a Windows issue rather than a computer-specific issue.
At the same time, Nvidia hasn't released a driver that is compatible with the 860m in the Broadqwell 13 (and you van find the reasoning in the previous pages of this thread).

 

what's everyones battery life with the aw13? if i have it on power saver plan and just let it sit there and watch the estimated battery time it's stating something over 3 hours. with 99% charge. dafuq...

anyways, so as usual when i buy something from alienware i'm imediatly forced to mod something. this time i really was like "i'll just buy an a13 plus g.a., get a gtx-something, put the card in the g.a. and game away. well... in my complete stupidity (well, i guess the bottle of wine i had already downed didn't help either probably ;-) ) i ordered an asus gtx970 strix with the directCU II cooler.
since the g.a. is so huge that you could easily store a can of beer and a fair amount of whatnot besides the graphicscard i didn't even think about the need of reading up on which cards fit. i knew which cards are supposed to work, but didn't read about the size.
plain and simple, the directCU II cooler's huge heatpipe keeps the g.a. from closing. after i got rid of the plastic "fins" under the hood of the g.a. (up on the roof), it's a bit closer to being able to close completely (about 1.5 cm left). it doesn't affect the performance of course etc. but i just like things being nice and neat ;-) so now i'm thinking of getting my dremel out and cut an opening in the top of the g.a. so that the heatpipe can fit through the opening (like the air intake on a muzzle car ;-) ) and afterwards use some aluminum mesh to make a shaped "cage" which i will attach to the g.a. from the inside.

soooooooooooooo, no "plug'n'play" for me xD ^^ haha oh well, who needs free time anyways lol

 

Some claim to get over 5 hours browsing and using other light applications. Up to 3 hours gaming.

So, apparently 960M notebooks are going to start hitting the shelves this week and next week. Will be interesting to see how things go with Alienware. More issues or a smooth transition...?

 

hmm, i will check using batterybar later on what it says. thanks for the info!

well i have a guess but it isn't smooth transition ;-)

 

Look at the power consumption instead of the time left. It'll give you a better idea on battery life.

 

yeah thats what i meant with my last post, not that i'll sit there staring at the time chanting 'go go go' ^^ will report back later on =)

 

Do you have a hdd or ssd? The hdd will suck up a lot more juice than the ssd.

 

i had one m.2 yesterday when i noticed the 3 hours. since today i got two m 2s in there. i'm on my way back from work, so i'll be testing in a bit.

 

Just know one thing.
Battery consumption can be constant. You either get sub 4 hours with a constant battery (maybe 5; very rarely will it be higher) or at least 7 hours if battery consumption is variable. This is from my experience.

 

you mean that it depends on the battery? sorry, my english isn't all that good at some points, so i didn't really get your answer.

so now it's 95% charged. it says (atm) 5 hours remaining (ok). it's in powersaver mode brightness of 1080P screen two clicks above the lowest. discharge rate according to batterybar 12601 mW. battery capacity with 0.0% wear still 51680mWh. but i'm typing from my macbook, so the aw13 is litteraly doing noooooothing at all.



oh i forgot, since i unpluged the graphics amplifier at work and took the laptop home, my 860m seems not to be recognized anymore. well, bios shows it, but the device manager in windows shows a yellow "!" next to "Mobile 5th Generation Intel PCI Express Root Port 5".


FU Dell... -.-

oh and i know this driver %"/&(*"/*"(&/ is a known problem and we just have to wait for this POS company (or as it seems nvidia) to just release usefull drivers...i just wanted to vent a bit ;-)

 

Hi!

Do you know if the Alienware 13 is compatible with PCIe M2 SSDs? like this one: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-sm951-m.2-pcie-ssd,4045-8.html

If yes, does the A13 supports two-lanes M.2 drives or four-lanes M.2 drives?
Thanks!

 

Constant = same.
Variable = changing.
In other words, a constant battery consumption is one where it stays the same no matter what you do. The opposite is said for variable.

It would be a waste since the M.2 speeds are SATA III, so I would get a SATA III M.2 (that, and PCI M.2s may not work).

 

aaah i understood. strange, maybe bad drivers in combination with windows 8.1..atm i'm disabling any service / tool (like the autostarting one drive) i don't need..

yeah also i read in another forum that some of the pci-e m.2's don't work in the aw 13

 

That's odd, deadbydawn...are you using Haswell or Broadwell. Your battery consumption seems little high. Mine is around -8,600mW and ocationally dips down to -5,274mW and bounce back to -8,600mW.

Idle = 5,274mW
Netflix on IE = 8,640mW

I am getting around 6 hours battery life streaming Netflix. The brightness of 1440p is set half-way...and it's still bright. Power-saver battery setting with Alienware-FX disabled.

 

i'm using the I7 broadwell. what are you using? woah 8600 mW...then I wonder what my system is doing while doing nothing. yesterday I didnt get lower than 12000mW. I have 16gb of HyperX Ram in it, as well as a second m.2 (Kingston again), but other than that i didn't do anything special. as soon as i'm at work i'll have it start again and will ckeck out within task manager what tasks are running, but as of yesterday there was really nothing special. i will uninstall malwarebytes as well to test, even though i removed its setting to actively guard the system.

 

seriously? i took out the kingston m.2 (sm2280s3/240g) and now the discharge rate is around 6490mW. funny is, battery bar extimates a battery time of 2:55 (even less than when the discharge rate was 15000+ mW, but windows estimates around 7:31 hours.
will put back in the m.2 and check again.

EDIT: put the kingston back in, now discharge rate is around 8360mW. battery bar still thinks around 2:51...windows says around 5:46h.

i'm a bit puzzled:
1. taking out and putting back in the second m.2 seems to have cut the discharge rate in half.
2. if this is a legit result i'm getting, loosing around 1.45h due to a second m.2 is quite something one has to think about before deciding on putting in a second one.
3. battery bar and windows seem to have quite a bit of a different oppionion on battery life...i mean almost 3 hours difference..dafuq!

EDIT2: now i shut down the machine, screwed the m.2 casing and the bottom cover back in place (was using it without it before to quickly test if the change of m.2 made any difference. powered the laptop back up, now discharge rate is and stays around 6886mW. batterybar pos still says around 2:44h, windows is more on the 6:50 side.
lol ^^

 

now i started marvel heros and after this f.e.a.r. to see what happens to the discharge rate and it's still 6886mW.. i doooooon't get it... -.-

EDIT: discharge rate ist still stuck at 6886mW, no matter what i do at the moment. in the meanwhile i uninstalled battery bar and am watching the charge rate in hwinfo which is -6.886W

 

Yeah, this is what I meant with discharge rate (battery consumption) being constant. Nothing (except for gaming*) will change the battery consumption.
Getting around 7kmW means you would get at most 7.5 hours.
* Gaming does affect battery life, but batterybar won't be able to change the discharge rate because it can't. It's not reading it correctly. It does give a wrong reading on battery life in time, so it's most accurate (and this isn't me being positive here) measurement is discharge rate/battery consumption.
This all said, this would mean there's a problem with the EC (embedded controller) and its power control functionality.
It can also stand to reason as to why some 2015 laptops with certain displays are affected with ghosting.

 

yeah that sums it about up, i left the notebook just sit there with powersaver, alienfx disabled but no display shutoff configured and by the time i left and shut it down it showed 1:25h left which makes around 7.5h in total.
strange was only that hwinfo even showed a bat. consumption of 6886mW even when i started the game f.e.a.r and left it on for a moment. maybe it can't even read the bat. consumption right, because in those 6 hours i left it sit there, min. av. and max consumption was 6886mW.
ooh problems with the EC controller on alienwares, i think i remember this isn't a first timer maybe in bios A458 they will fix it, but maybe not ^^
i had really bad ghosting on my aw18 i had but it was a 2014 though.
i still find it amazing what fisherprice-fingerpainting-engineering and also quality-control is taking place at dellienware ;-)

 

lol, just realized you already gave the answer conc. not changing of the discharge rate ;-)

 

i posted over on alienwarearena concerning what happended to me using a workaround-driver posted by alienware_lizano. here's my post and the link tho it is the following: http://na.alienwarearena.com/forums...-software/alienware-graphics-amplifier-faq/20


"
so i tested this workaround on my alienware 13 with GA (asus gtx 970 strix in it) posted by alienware_lizano. step by step

here's what happens to me:

i boot with attached GA, check nvidia system panel, everything ok, gtx970 shown, no 860m shown. i check in gpu-z, everything ok as well.

i start the performance test (everything maxed out) within the game f.e.a.r. (atm it's the only thing i have installed on this), results in: (min fps / avg fps / max fps) 35 / 75 / 170

i shut down the laptop, detach the GA. boot the laptop, check nvidia system panel, 860m showing, everything ok. check gpu-z, same.

start f.e.a.r. again, performance check, test the same settings as before. results: 38 / 63 / 101

i figure, hmm, strange that the results are this close to each other (except if this game is sooo heavily on the cpu side and gpu change doesn't make such a big difference). so just to check, i disable the nvidia 860m in device manager. run test again, looks like a gif, so it's definately wasn't the intel HD runing the tests before.

so one more test, i disable the nvidia 860m again, shutdown, attach GA, boot, verify the gtx970 is showing. run test again, result: 40 / 93 / 188



so for me this seems to have done the trick. i'm really not sure what to think of the performance, especially since this is suuuuch an old game.

but i don't loose the 860m after i untattach the gtx970, and when i reattach the GA i have the gtx970, and i do not have to reinstall anything.

will check with different performance tests later on.

no my next concern is my directCU II cooler not letting me close the GA, where i will probably mod the top cover of the GA in order to close it completely.

"


EDIT: figured out what i did wrong conc. the performance: the laotpo was in powersavings mode... d'oh! in high performance, with the GA attached the results are:

119 / 170 / 201

boom!

 

Very interesting, I didn't know adding another M.2 would affect the battery much. It looks like the battery is working better after taking it out and putting it back in?

 

I also was using the Broadwell i7, 8GB Ram, and 256GB M.2

 

well not really in the end, after another reboot it it was abooooout the same. but my aw13 isnt too sure if it likes the second m.2 i guess, every now and then suddenly it's gone (not shown), after a reboot it's there again.
yeah i dont know why though, tried everythong, didnt help, took one out, discharge rate back to normal, second one back in, still normal. strange thing ;-)

 

Hey guys, I got mine and am being forced to sell it already! (I planned to use it at work and my boss told me to get something "more professional"). Does anyone know if the trackpad on the AW 13 is the same as the one on the new xps 13 (1080p model - as the one on the 1800p screen is different and glass). Instead of having a "work" computer and a "play" computer, I rather just have 1 laptop that is good enough while I am away from my desktop and I figure I can make due with an xps 13 seeing as the most demanding game I play at a hotel is LOL which will run on just about anything.

If anyone has any questions for a 1440p owner or wants me to run anything, LMK, I want to really put this through its paces before I sell or return it. This little beast is awesome, just wish it wasn't so flashy (even with the alien FX turned off).

For the record, this screen is awesome! It reminds me of the XPS 11 screen which is very vibrant and reminds me of an amoled display.

 

Just received my computer today now thinking about sending it back for replacement. Everything seems to be fine but the screen. Does anyone here notice that the left and right sides of their screen look grayish, darker at the sides?

 

Which screen? I have the 1440p screen and do not have the issue. I even used one of the dead pixel/color test websites to verify that the screen is good.

I just noticed your sig, you are using the 1080p, so disregard the top part. As for the screen, possibly give it a few hours to warm up and get settled? I had a samsung laptop that had a weird border around the screen that was greyish, top, bottom, and sides... it went around the entire border. I eventually had it replaced, but my GF had the same issue and after 2 weeks, it went away.

 

For those with Broadwell systems already, is Dell going to release video bios upgrade then for driver to properly recognize 960m? How much faster would it be vs 860m and would it or can it be custom over-clocked since the cooling is more than adequate? If only they used 965m instead...

 

It's just an overclocked 860M. Minimal improvements. I hope they offer the one with more VRAM.

 

Well, there is something interesting about the 860m in the Broadwell 13. It's an OEM edition (yay for rebrands?).
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2536/geforce-gtx-860m.html (The one in the Haswell 13)
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2659/geforce-gtx-860m-oem.html (The one in the Broadwell 13)
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2635/geforce-gtx-960m.html (Coming later this month for the 13 most likely).
Yeah... a vBIOS flash wouldn't be too hard since it's the same GPU variant, something I did not know. Not like that was a requirement, though. It just shows that Alienware already has the GTX 960m.

 

Yeah yeah, I posted a few minutes ago, but I got some good news. And maybe some bad news.
Good news. Driver 347.52 works, so if anyone wants it, go grab it here. I installed it, and it worked. Going to do some benching and such.
Possible bad news. The GTX 860m we have, which I will now call OEM 860m, has a different Hardware ID than the GTX 960m, which happens to appear multiple times.

I don't know if this will prevent us from flashing a 960m vBIOS or not. I'm not too familiar with vBIOS flashing.
Another thing I can gather from this is the 13 will have the GTX 960m soon since the IDs are already present in Alienware's Nvidia driver.
EDIT: Real bad news. Performance isn't as good with the 347.52 driver as with the 347.25 driver. Must be because it is a beta driver. It's not heavy decrease; the performance is slightly worse.

 

Thanks Game

 

Running the GTX 660 OEM I have in my X51 in the Graphics Amplifier. I'll be doing some benching with it and posting results in the Benchmark Thread.

 

Maybe I am missing something..
or they reuse Hardware IDs

but according to this https://developer.nvidia.com/sites/default/files/akamai/gamedev/docs/device_ids_may11.txt

06E0 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9300 GE"
06E1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9300 GS"
06E2 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8400"
06E3 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8400 SE "
06E4 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS "

 

You're looking at it the wrong way. I bolded the differences. The main ID is still 139B.
But the more I think about vBIOS flashing, the more I think it is certainly possible since with a vBIOS flash, the Hardware ID would change as well.

 

Well I just found an easy way to install official Nvidia drivers. It does take a bit of work, but it's not hard. These steps are meant only for Broadwell owners. Those who own an Alienware Alpha too can follow these steps.

1. Download official Nvidia driver.
2. After extraction is done, cancel installation.
3. Find the .inf file in the official driver folder (NVIDIA) that has all the hardware IDs (mine happened to be nvci, but yours could be different. just Crtl+F "GTX 860m"). Leave the file open.
4. Now then, search for nvdm.inf. This file will be in your current Nvidia driver folder (you might want to do this step before 1, but it shouldn't matter).
5. Crtl + A, then Crtl + C on nvdm.inf
6. Crtl + A, then Crtl + V on nvci.inf (the file you found in step 3)
7. Reboot and disable driver enforcement if you haven't (Winodws 8.1 users only).
8. Install official driver
9. Ta da, you are done.

I'm currently running 347.52 because of these steps, so if Alienware doesn't update their drivers in time when the overclocking driver comes out (we can do some overclocking on the memory, but we'll have to wait until the overclock-enabled vBIOS comes out), you can follow these steps and be happy.

 

Check this http://article.fd.zol-img.com.cn/t_...FT8dOaIEX6uAADNXMJG_WoAAWViAGPCm0AAM10151.png
Says: ID: 10DE-139B
Shaders: 640 (Nooooo!)
Clock: 1097
Memory: 1253
Boost: 1176

So 960m is indeed slightly OCed 860m. Curse you Nvidia.


Taken from http://translate.google.it/translate?hl=it&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://nb.zol.com.cn/509/5098908.html

 

Ehh, we knew that already. But the clock speed information is new. It seems the base clock speed of the GTX 960m is the turbo clock speed of the GTX 860m in our laptops (and others). What's weird is that the memory speed is the same.
The good thing about the GTX 960m is that it should have an overclock-enabled vBIOS.

 

when this laptop arrives with the 965m?

 

Most likely never. The 13 will have the GTX 960m will the GPU releases.

 

Does anyone know how do you remove the alien splash head at startup?

Just got this laptop and still working out the kinks. This is my first experience with Windows 8.1 so there is a lot to learn and tweak to get it the way that I like it.

Finally got FSX to stop crashing and Rise of Nations will have to be rebought from Steam to have a working version. Looks like I will have to go out shopping for some new games to work with windows 8.1.

My first impression of the laptop is that I love the speakers and the keyboard. The cooling is unreal compared to my Sager. When running FSX on the same settings the Sager is much louder and doubles as a second house heater the Alien is much quieter and cooler.
Still have to find out the real battery life and the display is not as impressive as I had hoped but maybe I am just not used to matte screens, time will tell .

 

Amazing Alienware become apple whata ****ty notebook btw alw 13 its better than macbook i want a potable laptop with discrete GPU i dont know if pick a msi gs60,ge60 or alw 13. I think this alw laptop its a bit overpriced 1400$ for i7 dual core processor... Worth the money this laptop? Maybe sager or msi its a better choice

 

You cant turn it off

 

You're comparing two 15" laptops to a 13" laptop. The 13 was never meant for you to begin with if you were looking at 15.6" laptops.
As far as I know, even the Clevo 13" laptop will have the GTX 960m. That would mean that no 13" laptop has a better GPU.
I would suggest posting in the "What Notebook Should I Buy" section. You might get a better response than here.

 

@Game7a1
do you think it would be wise to return the 860m broadwell version for the 960m version or just stick with it;
because if its just a rebrand why bother anyways , future updates should fix things or it could be a third revision of the 860m, higher binned too maybe...
also any tips for battery i get like 2hrs if im lucky gaming or otherwise...
Edit: I came to America literally to buy this laptop and im leaving in a month and i dont want the short straw...
also i got gamestream to work just needed to install beta shield hub on the shield and beta geforce experience on the system...

 

If you want to overclock, it could be wise to return it. Our GTX 860ms are overclocked-blocked, and the only way to fix that is by flashing a overclocked-enabled vBIOS, be it one for the GTX 860m or GTX 960m.
If you don't want to overclock, keep it. However, I am hoping Alienware provides current owners a way to go up to a GTX 960m, but I remain in doubt.
As for battery life on gaming, I got nothing. You could impose a Frame rate lock and maybe even disable turbo while on battery (set max CPU performance to 99% in advanced battery plan). But other than lower brightness, disable AlienFX, and disable Wifi if not playing an internet game, that's about all I can think of.

 

If the hardware is the same ill keep it since I do love my system, ill try flashing the vbios if and when some genius would provide the instructions, also the wait time would be too much anyways...

Lastly I couldn't find the 347.25 driver on this thread so ill post a link,...
https://latam.alienwarearena.com/fo...-alienware-laptop-nvidia-graphics-card-driver

 

That figures; each new notebook that I buy seems to have one less thing that I have no control over, in a few years what you buy is going to be exactly what the notebook builder wants you to have .

 

Got my alienware 13 i7-5500U, 8 GB Ram with a 256 GB SSD, and the 1440 touch screen the other day.

I have noticed a white flicker when the computer is not plugged in.

Is this a known issue? Have tried several drivers to fix the issue to no avail. Currently on 347.25 driver as the other ones wont install or crash any program that uses the 860m.