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

Yeah disabling the 960 and rebooting doesn't fix it. There's some flaw in their firmware logic for switching it off.

 

[QUOTE="tg_chris, post: 9992119, member: 659306" I can't remember off hand but a 512 GB SSD is I think good for roughly only 476 GB usable in Windows after formatting. So with that being said it's probably what I listed before.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the sharing. That kind of sucks..50GB is pretty expensive to lose. And I assume even if I reformat and reinstall the OS, I can't claim those back? Can't imagine the squeeze if I gotten the 256GB version instead.

 

Absolutely consistent. I literally can't turn it off on battery. Basically if I start it from unplugged it's 12-16000 discharge rate every time. I plug in for 2 seconds and unplug and it's like 7-8000 instantly. I can't find a way to power this thing on without this horrible discharge crap. Once it's stuck like that the only solution is a quick plug unplug.

Check out the discharge rate from a quick plug then unplug in the image.

 

Hello,

My son (excuse my paternal pride) got into the chemical engineering program at Berkeley and I want to give him a reward for his birthday in a month. I'm leaning towards the AW 13 because:

1. It will stand out, in a more masculine way, against all of the Mac Airs on campus.
2. He's a gamer. It will play games better and he can get the separate amplifier for more performance.
3. I am not a man of unlimited means and the AW 13 looks to be a great bargain.
4. It's more portable.

Can anybody give me any advice?

Where to buy? Ebay? Amazon?

SSD seems necessary at this point in human evolution, but many come with conventional hard drives. Do these hard drives have an SSD cache?

I don't want touch screen or the ultra high resolution. I see more downsides than upsides to touch/ultra high resolution.

Thanks in advance.

 

A. Buy through Dell themselves. Dell also does price matching, so if Amazon or newegg or some official retailer sells it cheaper, price match.
Also, you can be able to haggle through Dell to get a cheaper price.
B. If you he wants to save money, go with the HDD (it doesn't have a cache) and he can get a good sized SSD (256 GB to 512 GB) and an external enclosure. The laptop does scream for storage upgrades. However, the SSD upgrade through Dell is $50, but it comes in a new format known as M.2, which is a bit pricer than regular SSDs.
C. If you want to get the 1080p, go for it.

 

Thanks. So, call Dell and tell them, "I'd like a deal on..."

Also, the SSD is an M2? That means that it can have both a regular hard drive and an M2 SSD?
Are you saying buy with regular hard drive and get an M2 SSD or buy one with a regular hard drive, swap it out for a 7mm SSD, and use the regular hard drive with an enclosure?

 

SSD: Nope, it's you either have an M.2 SSDs (well, up to two of them) or you deal with a regular laptop SSD or HDD.
So what I'm saying is if you want to save money, but the HDD now, get the SSD and enclosure later (or rather, have your son get it). I other words, your second option.
I mean, if you want to get the SSD now, go ahead. But remember that it will be in a different form factor, M.2.
Calling Dell to save money: I suggest heading here.

 

No, you must choose between M2 SSD (1 or two) or 1 HDD or 1 SSD. There's not enough place in the M13.

[Edit]-> Game already answered...

 

Thanks. I'll order with regular hard drive, unless they're giving a good deal on SSD.

 

Thanks man, I guess I will wait and see. Aw13 is just not as unique as mx11 used to be

 

Here I got irritated enough to post my first ever video on YouTube for this stupid issue:

 

@tg_chris
while I agree the battery has issues, ill tell you this i still get about six hours when the dgpu is off no matter what the discharge rate is or what windows predicts...
also i feel these battery measuring apps aren't real time and only give you an estimation of the discharge rate, unplugging and replugging the charger only resets the estimated discharge rate...
lastly try measuring the battery time with a stopwatch on your phone i would bet that the 14k discharge rate and 7-8k discharge rate would last the same time 5-6hrs on same loads, sometimes the discharge rate goes down to 2k that's when i get 8-9hrs(see attached pic)...

 

appreciate all the feedback about battery drain issues with this laptop, gang. in fact, you've made my job a little easier. between an hp omen 15, an Aorus X3 Plus, and this one, I've decided not to go with the Alienware. The only thing I liked about the Alienware over the other two was the possibility of better battery life. The Omen is gorgeous (and cheapest) and the X3 is, well, super fast. To that end, while I received my Aliernware 13 box today I already requested to do a return without even opening the device. Will be furious if Dell attempts to charge me a restocking fee, given that I've spent thousands with them. used the chronic battery drain issue as my justification. that said, if dell cracks the drain problem in the next couple days before I get an RMA sticker, I may re-evaluate the laptop. Omen battery life as it stands at best is 4 hours, will be testing the Aorus when it arrives tomorrow. Cheers.

My 13 configuration BTW (unopened): 960M, i5 Broadwell, 512GB SSD, 1080P, 8GB RAM

 

Trust me the discharge rate is accurate. I let it drain one day and it was right on the money. When it's draining at 14000 it drops rapidly. Like I said before this is my second unit that had these bizarre discharge issues. The plugging in is the only thing that forces it to change. Once the discharge rate is stuck high it won't change regardless of turning it off or not. I've never seen anything like this.

 

My mission wasn't to deter someone from buying one. I'm trying to figure out how this is even possible and get Dell to admit the problem and fix it. I actually love the system, but I am on the road a lot and I can't have battery life this inconsistent.

I posted the video on the wall and suddenly I get someone asking for my service tag to investigate. It's amazing how social media has changed the way companies choose to support you.

 

Yep. I hate it for the most part. The only time I like it is when it's not plugged in and I'm looking for it to plug it in.
I keep meaning to put black electrical tape on it.

 

I would unlist (not make private, but make it so that only those with a link can watch it) that video if I were you, then. You might get unwanted attention. I mean, when I made a video about the ghosting issue the 1440p panel had (it seems to have been fixed), I did not make it public. All I did was link it to this thread. Ironically, it has more views that some of my other videos.
That, and Alienware already has your video under their watch history, so they can watch it anytime so long as they don't clear their history.

 

What attention would be unwanted?

 

Okay, I think I meant unwarranted attention. The video's purpose is to show a problem with the battery consumption the 13 has, but someone might think of something else instead.

 

Trolls love to post hate comments even when they have no direct knowledge of what they are hating. It seems worse on YouTube and Facebook than anywhere else. I queue all comments on my YouTube channel for approval and ban lots of attempted trolling. If I don't like what they have to say, or how they say it, I ban them from my channel and delete their comments before anyone else can view them and respond.

You probably already confirmed their identity as an Alienware employee, but for the benefit of other readers that may not know better, NEVER give your Service Tag number to anyone that you are not 100% sure is a Dell/Alienware employee and NEVER post it for public viewing.

 

Hey its fine, the primary reason I would pick the 13 over the Omen or Aorus was the promise of more battery life. The Omen is more powerful with its i7, and the Aorus is certainly moreso. Truth be told the Razer Blade 2015 was the one I wanted most (have owned every iteration of the Blade except the last two year versions), but its cost prohibitive at this point. Only picked up the Aorus to try out because it was a great open box deal. That all said, its hard for me to sit here in my office with the Alienware 13 not even opened up to play with for a little while. I just don't want to make doing a return harder than it has to be, and am gonna do all I can to avoid a restocking fee. If the Dell Rep I speak with tomorrow gives me an OK to open it up with the promise I can still return it without owing a fee I may still try it out.

 

Hi all,

I'm thinking about buying one of these. My only concern at the moment is the trackpad. I read several comments that the trackpad is bad, unresponsive, jumping cursors, bad two-finger scrolling etc.

Can you confirm the bad behaviour?

 

I've never posted on YouTube so thanks for the tip. Yeah I private messaged Alienware's official page and no I would never give my service tag out otherwise. I got a response from the support team after sending them the video. I think they are as baffled as I am.

 

Trackpad works great for me. There was an update to the Synaptics drivers in February I think that fixed those issues.

 

@Game7a1
Need help please,I followed your instructions to mod the 347.88 driver,but the driver can not be installed, after run the setup and click to start the install,it says failed in the result window,and the 347.90 could be installed directlly without any mod but when installing the graphic driver I just go a BSOD and restart automaticlly,Could you please help me?Thanks a lot!
My Alienware 13 is I7 5500U and GTX960m,Thanks again

 

Have you tried the 350.12? Try launching it and check the clean install option.

 

I can confirm that 350.12 version works on the i7 960m for me. Did a clean install from factory.

DJ

 

350.12 is ok，but it blocked the overclock，so I want to have 347.88 installed，thank you very much

 

I hate the trackpad. I curse it just about every time I use it.

I don't do any fancy two-finger scrolling or pinching or anything.
It's just very hard to get the pointer to stop where you want it to.
If I'm lucky enough to get the pointer where I want it, I often have problems clicking.

Never had a problem with my m11x, MSI netbook, or my old Dell laptop.

 

Funny, I didn't get any alerts from this.
You shouldn't have to follow my instructions (though it sounds as if you messed up somewhere). The instructions are primarily for Broadwell owners with the 860m, not 960m. That said, I would uninstall your drivers and reinstall them. You can use either 347.90 or 350.12. 347.90 has overclocking unlocked. You can get a 347.90 driver here.

 

I have a request if someone can do. Try 3Dmarks API overhead test, under Windows 10 if possible but if not doesn't matter still DX11 data is helpful too. I want to see how it compares with results from anandtech just for reference and comparison. Really curious how 4x PCIe 2.0 would mean for DX12 draw call overload.

I will have access to a similar setup (not AW13, but probably ASUS GR8 or EN760 Zotac, these are mini PCs with similar specs, I have AW Alpha too which runs 860m on 16x PCIe 2.0 and 2.9GHz i3) next week and try myself, would be interesting to see how future looks like for ULV+860m/960m.


http://www.anandtech.com/show/9112/exploring-dx12-3dmark-api-overhead-feature-test/3

see, 750Ti tops out at ~7Million draw calls per second, almost no difference between 2C/HT and rest either, now 860/960m have somewhat lower freq and in that test they are using much faster CPUs and on a PCIe 3.0 16x. I like to see how close we can get to that here considering the weak CPUs in all of these similar systems paired with 860m/960m. It would be great if someone could help.

 

I got this on "the bay," refurbished for 1099:

Processor:

Intel Core 5th Generation i7-5500U (4MB Cache, up to 2.9GHz w/ Turbo Boost)

OS:

Windows 8.1 Home x64 & Reinstall Disc

Display:

13.3" FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS-Panel Anti-Glare 350-nits Display

Video:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M with 2GB GDDR5

Memory:

8GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz (2 DIMMs)

Hard Drive:

256GB M.2 SSD

 

Thank you！I got it with the beta driver you provide，thanks again！！！！

 

I am a noob when it comes to over-clocking but how much more performance can I squeeze out of gtx 960m, since it's basically a over clocked gtx 860m?

Where can I find instructions how to perform a over clock?

The other thing that would be interesting coming up is how DX12 can boost mid-range GPU like these? Would be happy if can get another +10fps or maintain same fps at higher graphic setting

 

That sounds bad

 

Have you reinstall the touchpad driver (from Dell or from Synaptics)? Mine works fine, bar the fact that it disables itself after logging in at times.

It's actually easy... well, for me it is. I use Nvidia Inspector.
One word of advice: don't crank up the memory clock too much.

 

gtx960m do NOT have much improvement，it provide 7% more performance than gtx860m，and with overclock，the firestrike got 4042 and 3dmark 11 got 5050，you can google the toturial of nvidia inspector for the instruction of overclocking

 

Hey guys, I just ordered an Alienware 13, and in the Dell order confirmation I got in my email it describes it as:
210-ADIC Echo 13 CTO Base. I was just wondering if this is normal and if anyone else saw this in their order confirmations? It doesn't say 'Alienware 13'.

 

That's normal -- They nickname their chassis design "Echo" and your machine is "Configured-To-Order" I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Good luck guys. I have given up on this thing. Support saw the video and they don't see a problem. Other people have it, but apparently Dell just doesn't care. I just can't deal with random battery life. I am toying with buying a third to see if it still has the problem. Anyway I love the thing but $1500 for something with battery discharge issues is just a killer for me.

 

Ok that's great to hear thanks for the clarification!

 

will this m.2 ssd work on my alienware 13

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-850-E...e=UTF8&qid=1430748768&sr=1-2&keywords=m.2+ssd

 

Should work fine the 250 Gb 850 Evo works great.

 

I don't blame you. I probably would have done the same had I noticed the problem within my 30 day return window.

I really need to start bugging them about this. Just been too busy lately.

 

Yeah I'm still in the window. I've been experimenting today. Try this: Start yours up on battery and let it sit at the Windows login screen for at least 45 seconds. Then login and check the discharge rate. I wish I were kidding but this seems to be a driver issue. I can get the normal discharge rates consistently by letting it sit there. I think I've wasted too much time on this!

 

I'll try to remember to try this tonight.


I'm sure this is problem that everyone has but just haven't noticed it yet.

 

Yeah I agree. Then again not everyone cares for the longer battery life.

 

Figures. When I try to make the problem happen, it doesn't.
I was first going to log what I normally see, then run your test. But, at the moment, if I log in right away, I get ~-19942, ~-14805, and then settles down to ~-7585 (10 second intervals) and stays there. I've saw this same behavior 3 or 4 boots in a row.
If I wait 60 seconds before logging in, the battery logging starts at ~-7585.
(I put a shortcut to batteryinfoview in my startup folder.)

I
I'll test it some more later.

 

Following on this, I tested ZBOX EN760 (4200U+860m) on 4x PCIe 2.0, Windows 10 10074 and newest win10 beta drivers that just came out.
got
1.1m ST DX11
1.2m MT DX11
4.5m DX12

Monitoring with GPUZ, GPU hit 99% load during DX12 test and bus interface load was at about 86%. So while PCIe bandwidth is a concern seemingly GPU got overloaded first, CPU usage was in 60s.
I have to test AW Alpha too to draw any conclusion but some trouble with that for now. Love to see some 5500U results to see what a much faster CPU does with similar PCIe 2.0 4x

 

That's better than mine. Mine will start at 9k and rise to some random number like 12-18. If I wait 45-60 seconds it's consistently 6-8k. It's still random but at least it's workable. There is something wrong though with a driver and the login time should never matter.. Sigh.