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

If you look over here, http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/alienware-13/drivers, it looks like Dell has released a variant of the latest NV driver 347.52. It doesnt included GeForce Experience, but that can be downloaded seperately from here, http://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience/download.

Now I can begin using my new AW13 as I used to use my AW14. Time to GAMESTREAM!

Update: Gamestreaming w/ GTX 860m works fantastically! This little notebook is quite surprising! Not heavy. Not thick. Not HOT. Under regular usage I'm averaging temps of less than 40c. When playing Far Cry 4, the fans don't even reach hair dryer mode like my AW14 did.

 

Hey guys, new to computer gaming in general and my first Alienware was the 13. I have the i7 5th gen/qhd/8gb/ssd configuration of the laptop and feel like I am getting very low frames on a few of the games I have tested so far.

I change the screen resolution down to 720p before I play any game. For example on Wolfenstein during regular game at medium grfx play I am only between 22 to 25 fps. Is it just my laptop or is this what I should expect from the ulv cpu? From the notebookcheck review it seemed as if it was getting better frames than this on more demanding games.

I would def appreciate the feedback. Thanks in advance

 

Make sure you have latest GPU driver, and also install GeForce Experience. If you're really new to PC gaming GFE can pretty much auto tune the games' settings for you to perform best at any desired resolution. Pretty much just make sure you follow the links from my previous post.

IMHO, don't try Wolfenstein at 1440p, this 860m is good, just not THAT good.

 

Make sure everything runs off the GTX 860m. Set battery plan to high performance and set settings in the Nvidia Control Panel to run off of high performance graphics.

 

Thanks guys for quick response. Setting the battery plan to high performance seems to have done the trick, as well I restarted the system after changing the resolution and that seems to have done the job. I wasn't restarting after changing the screen resolution.

Do you guys know if I will have to restart every time I go from one resolution to another? I would leave it at 1080p, but I read previously that it won't scale right at that resolution. Your thoughts would be great.

I'll download the GFE tomorrow and make sure it's 100% good to go.

 

I've never had to restart after changing resolutions. I did have an issue with games not liking when the preferred graphics processor was the global setting and had to use High Performance NVIDIA processor like Game7a1 mentioned. ( In the NVIDIA control panel under Manage 3D Settings)

 

@jaxt
try this, set the desktop resolution to 1080p then right click on the desktop and in graphics options go to panel fit and set it to scale fullscreen, launch game and after your done set the desktop resolution back to 1440p and enjoy no reboots
wolf is kinda playable at 1440p just gets laggy at some points ,1080p should be fine though...

 

Hi there! I've been an owner of the AW15 for a little bit, but a small defect has me a little turned off and its also a touch heavier than I'd like it to be. I've been considering returning it and looking at the AW13 as I'm looking for something that is much more portable, but retains potent gaming performance AND battery life. I've been looking at the AW13 i7-5500U model.
How are you guys finding the AW13 in general? Are you happy with your purchase or do you have any regrets? Any comments you'd like to make in regards to what I'm looking for?

 

I had a 13 and returned it for the 15, I loved the weight and size of the 13, but the screen was just too small..... and you can definitly feel the power, speed difference. Even for web browsing i found myself having to make the text larger and smaller depending on what i was doing, cause i couldnt see it,

i returned it bought the 15, i love the 15

Also to note.... if you look on Dell's outlet store, there are a bunch of 13's that people have returned, but you rarely see a 15 on there site.

My opinion keep the 15 it has a much better graphics card and processor, plus the screen size is perfect for gaming.

If you carry or travel alot, then i would ......maybe get the 13 but if you rarely travel then keep the 15.

 

I love my Alienware 13, I have the one with i7-5500u, 8GB ram, 256GB m2 SSD. On average, I get about 6 hours streaming netflix. If I am casually web browsing and using MS word...I would get about 6-7 hours.
I had not tried gaming on battery, who does? However, I used it for 3D modeling and CAD work (Autodesk Inventor) and it performs well. Also, I love the QHD screen with touch. It is beautiful and I had it set to 150%.

It's a huge upgrade for me from my Dell Inspiron 1520.

 

I had a 17" R2 with a 970m before my 13 with the i7-5500U and the 1440p touch screen. Overall the 13 is a great little machine. I love the touchscreen and use it way more than I thought I ever would. So far I've only played hearthstone and diablo 3 on the 13 but both handle really well. The build quality is great, the system pretty light, and thus far I'm getting fantastic battery life. The only negatives so far are the drivers and the oil collecting area around the keyboard and touchpad.

I ran into several issues with drivers.

The QHD screen flickered when using chrome, solved by installing the newest intel drivers for integrated graphics and turning the the intel drivers to balanced performance .

The alienware 347.52 drivers for the 860m. Geforce experience randomly shows my GPU as unknown after sleeping for a while. I have to reinstall the drivers using the clean install option to get games to function properly again.

 

GTX 960m confirmed... again.
This is with the latest HWMonitor and Nvidia driver, 347.88 (.inf modded).
Driver 347.88 enables overclocking for all mobile Maxwell, including those with the overclocked-blocked vBIOS.

 

thanks a lot, Game7a1 also your battery wear could be because of express charging in the bios try changing it to standard...
btw i tried this, followed your previous instructions and it worked great,
anyways now its time to game...

 

I've had 4% battery wear since I got the laptop. Have been on standard charge for a month I think. Maybe more.

 

Finally got my Alienware 13 yesterday. i7-5500U, GTX860m, 16GB, 256 GB M.2, 3200x1800 Touchscreen. Very happy with it so far!
Also didn't realize they changed the top tier resolution to 3200x1800 when I ordered but very happy surprise and looks awesome!

 

For many years since being a young teenagar I have always wanted to own a alienware laptop. Having the expendable cash sitting in my account I took the leap and purchased a AW13 as the screen inverter is slowly dieing on my 4 year old vaio which struggles to keep up with modern titles even on the lowest setting.

I received my AW13 yesterday. It was purchased from the dell outlet store for £600(refurbished model), compared to £900 new. My First impressions.....being the base model with 1tb HDD, i5 processor and 1366x768 I am shocked AW/Dell can charge £900 new for it in the UK. The HDD seriously affects the performance compared to my 4 year old sony vaio with SSD. The screen....again my 4 year old sony running at 1366x768 has a better panel.

Would I recommend the base specification model to anyone, unfortunately not. Do I regret buying it....no as cost me only £600 so I can live with the compromises made. To get a 13-14" laptop with a decent dedicated GPU cost £900+ and in my current job/career I simply cant justify that price as I don't spend the amount of time gaming as used to.

 

I love my 13 with the exception of the trackpad which I think is beyond horrible. I don't know if the 15 has the same time of trackpad or not. Though even if the 15 did have a better one, that alone wouldn't be enough for me to switch.

 

The i5 has the same touchpad, I loved the touchpad on the M14 r1.

The 1080p screen that I received on mine has grey areas on the left and right side with the middle being bright Alienware is sending me a advance replacement it should be here in about 9 to 10 days. When I checked the bios the charge rate was set to express so I changed it to standard according to battery bar I have 9% wear.

 

Just wanted to note that the 13 does have one of the better keyboards that I have used, much better compared to my Sager maybe even better than the Lenovo x230 that I use at work. Still trying to get a handle on the battery life it seems to be a moving target with this laptop doing drain down runs and trying different screen bright levels.

 

How many hz you can push this laptop monitor?

 

According to the Intel settings 48 to 60 Hz

 

You cant 80hz or 100hz with a program?

 

Hey Game, Its been some time, but since some weeks now I also have the AW 13 broadwell with 860m(960m).
Do I understand correctly that with those drivers you mentioned we can finally use our gpu as a 960m ?

 

I'm seeing a wide variety of power consumption while on battery that I can't explain. BatteryBar reports anywhere between ~7,000mWh to ~22,000mWh when running either the Power Saver or Balanced power plans with brightness between 1-3 notches above 0. I expect higher power consumption when first booting (lot of disk activity), but even when the computer is seemingly idle, BatteryBar's power consumption report almost always stays the same as it did when it booted. At first I thought BB just wasn't updating the power consumption value, but the Windows battery status meter seems to be in agreement with it.

This is really driving me crazy. It's like playing the lotto hoping the computer picks a low number.

Anyone know what's going on?

 

Nope. We would need to flash a 960m vBIOS to do that without any modding.

 

There's no 80Hz or 120 Hz 13" panel in the market. You can change the Hz to 48, 50, and 60 as said previously. On the 1440p panel (not sure about the 1800p pane), you can even customize the resolution.

 

Settings are set by video card hardware.

I have went into the balanced power plan and cut down whatever I could and have the screen brightness at 3 above the lowest level. Power use is showing using 4,958 mv since the start.

Using the same plan yesterday it was 5,986 mv getting 6h and 15 min the day before yesterday the same plan power use was 6,454 mv. Still trying to find the difference I am going to load hwinfo and see what all three plans measure.

 

So can you overclock to 960m levels or would that still require a vBIOS flash?

 

Well you can with the 347.88 driver.

 

Then here we go, Thanks.

 

Stupid questions! Can this modified driver possible do any damage to the gpu or computer? And secondly where can we find this motified driver?
Thanks

 

1. You make the modified driver (I posted instructions earlier in this thread).
2. It really shouldn't.

 

Ah I see that now thank u. In regards to the vbios update. Is that something dell would release as a driver up (I know it's not technically a driver) or something we would need to make ourselves?

 

Don't feel stupid, I was about to ask the same thing. This is why we need an AW 13 dedicated forum here on NBR

 

Hey guys.

Long time lurker here. Learning a lot off you guys. Just have a question

I had a tech come and fix some rattle (plastic cover left in) but it got me a good look at the insides.

Now when I ordered the unit I just had a 256gb ssd.

When we opened it up it looked like an m2 drive. With a slot for another. Pretty much exactly like this video.



Now it looks like I have another slot for another m2 drive. Could someone correct me if I'm wrong. As I thought I was getting a 2.5" ssd

Cheers

 

Nope. It was always an M.2. That's just how it works when configuring an AW13.

 

Yeah, I was excited to see the M.2 drive on my config page when tracking my order. That was when I figured it out.

 

So in that case nothing stoppinge from adding some more storage.

Hooray

 

So, what are the odds that future nvidia drivers will install without having to do this INF modding? will it happen within a couple of updates, or are we permanently stuck doing this? It's the only thing keeping me from buying an AW13.

 

The AW13 with 960m will be fine. No need to jump through these hoops.

 

im actually more upset because of the intel drivers ,they wont install too ,does anyone have a workaround for that too...?

 

Which Intel drivers are you talking about?

 

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/se...00+for+5th+Generation+Intel®+Core™+Processors

considering the fact that the new macbook air has been launched ,intel should have further optimized their drivers in their last update...

 

The AW 13 has the 2560x1440p. The XPS 13 has the 3200x1800p screen.

 

Hmmm... did you install the iGPU driver before the Nvidia driver?

 

Hi, I am getting a good deal on the alienware 13 base model with the low resolution 1300x768 screen for around 720 dollars. I just wanted to ask if it is worth getting it at this price? The only other option i have in this price range is Lenovo y50 but it has an equally bad screen according to reviews. I would appreciate any feedback on the screen quality of this model. Thanks

 

@Game7a1
only the one from dell installs and its quite old , also ive tried it before installing 347.88 and after; finally could you pm me or post a link here of the bios update dell removed a while ago i would love to test it...

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9KNo72EhJnucVZDcnFqN1dnYjg/view?usp=sharing
A02 BIOS.

 

No suggestions? The deal expires today so I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks

 

Does the AW 13 support RAID?

Don't believe I've seen the 720p screen. So, can't give a good answer. It's probably sub-par quality.