*OFFICIAL* Alienware 13 R3 Owner's Lounge

i called today, and the customer care agent said several frustrating things

1) the date i was assure of before was an estimate
2) my ETA is from the 9th to the 16th, that i might have to wait till the 16th (that would be 18 days)
3) my system is still not built, because of parts shortages (the only thing i changed on my build was my sales agent upgraded my NIC for free to the 1535)
4) dell only sends noticed for the confirmed status and once you ship, not for delays (um you got one, so hes lying)

somebody else in my houses ordered a laptop from Microsoft over the weekend and is receiving it tomorrow. this is so frustrating.



edit

if you havent noticed by now Dell has trained their employees to pass the blame, they will tell you its not their department and transfer you or make up a lie to get you off the phone. this is my second time ordering the 13. you have to be firm with them

i have heard that they "closed" their Canadian side, but yet the sales rep who helped me called me from a Canadian number and had a very obvious Canadian accent.

Likewise most US callers are forced to talk to outsourced people.

 

Apparently this is due to them being left in Maintenance mode from production.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/5gr0gq/battery_not_charging_past_60/

Theres been a few other people affected by this. Replacing the motherboard seems to be Dells default position on ANYTHING. I remeber this from having a Dell a few years back. Any issue will be met with "we need to replace the motherboard". They wont actually do any diagnostics and the guy on the phone doesnt know ****.

 

My oled version is in the delivery truck woohoo! Just lucky to live in the town where these shipments apparently enter the Netherlands and they were smart enough to put it in the delivery truck the same day it came into the country

 

Lucky you. Mine is still in transit(Utrecht). I probably have to wait another day.


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Mine shipped on the 1st from China, sohoping for an update either today or tomorrow to notify me that's in landed in uk.....

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I installed my PM961 SSD, and it didn't show up either. Haven't done this in a while, but figured it out. Not sure if you have done this yet, if so, please ignore me! You need to search for "DISK MANAGEMENT" and select the windows function, and it should show up there, and you need to set up a new partition using this. You should be good to go.

 

When you are in windows press the windows button + r and type in diskmgmt.msc then hit enter and it should show all the drives that are in your system even if it doesnt have a partition.

 

It is well passed the time frame that Dell lists on its website for dispatching the machine and all I know so far is that it is delayed without any info on the machine or it's whereabouts. Rather unacceptable.

How about UK order guys? Has anyone received their machine already?


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Paging @Pmarti9069

Don't send your Dell back!! See if you can do this fix. Hope it's not too late

 

Mine has just arrived. Two days BEFORE eta. In UK
I'll post some pics and further info in due course. First this that strikes me is excellent build quality and its a reassuringly heavy little bugger!

 

Oh yes. Don't know that method input but yes was already aware it's not in there. How I do this is by right click "this pc" and then selecting manage. Then selecting disk management in the storage section. Does your pm961 show up at all? Coincidentally I'm about to order a pm961 just because I'm certain they work.
Was going to check if I was missing something or will it show as simple as that in bios.
But if it's working for you. I'm taking the pun and going to get my money back for the other drive.


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Yes, my PM961 shows DISK MANAGEMENT, and in BIOS, before I set up a partition. One note is that when physically installing, the screw to hold the SSD in the motherboard was missing. Was it the same for any else?

 

I noticed this from the teardown video on youtube. There is no screw supplied and generally speaking you don't receive one with a new SSD. Time to dive in my PC screw collection, otherwise we're screwed

 

Hey buddy! Just to get this clear: your new disk doesn't show up in bios and when you put back your old disk it still doesn't show? If this is the case there must be a setting in bios that you overlooked. But if the drive from Alienware works when putting it back in and the new drive doesn't show in either ports in bios then yeah, probably a faulty drive.

 

do you guys notice any lag/stuttering when clicking on the power/battery indicator at the bottom right? my i5-6300hq R3 stutter every time I does that or sometime when I closed certain apps, its quiet annoying!

 

do you know if FHD version has same glossy screen as OLED version ? or is it matte screen ?

 

Matt screen

 

My shipping ETA has changed to tomorrow

 

I added a second SSD and there was a screw present for me to unscrew and use to secure it...

 

Ok having messed around for a couple of hours I'm really happy with this machine (except anticipated gripes of being forced to use windows 10 grrr).
I have IPS screen, 512GB and 16GB RAM.
HDD is a Toshiba.
One of the biggest unknows for me, and the reason why I went with the IPS over OLED, was battery life.
After a few tweaks it is showing 5.40hrs on 20% brightness. I am absolutely delighted by this and expect that I can tweak this by undervolting. Well happy.
I read another poster suggesting the bottom bezel just above the alienware logo (bottom middle of screen) has come slightly away from teh screen face where the glue has not quite set - this is the same as mine but I pushed it back and it hasnt come unstuck. There is also a small gap between bezel and screen at top right hand corner. I have no issue with this at all - no light bleed.
Keyboard does get warm but I suppose thats because the thing has been almost compleyely silent since Ive beem messing with it
Core temps are consistant at 45C - 47C whilst video is playing. Not tested gaming yet.
Very very happy with purchase thus far.

 

What tweaks did you do to get the better battery life?

 

you have conventional HDD? man those things eat battery and pretty damn loud.

 

Could anyone clarify what kind of m.2 ssd will work on this machine? I am looking for the cheapest 1tb drive and do not care about speeds, will any m.2 work?

 

How is the battery life? Really hope it's better than the oled version


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Sorry, force of habit, its ssd (obviously)

 

I assume that's your sense of humor at work, there is no HDD slot in the 13

 

Nothing unusual. Changed various settings in advced power settings, turned alienfx off, turned bluetooth off, turned eye tracker off.
Wifi is on and currently streaming Mr Robot from Amazon Prime. Currently showing 77% with 4hrs 41mins left.
What is also good is that the 0% brightness setting seems to be about the 20% brightness setting of the laptop its replacing (Gigabyte P34G)

 

I believe the cheapest you can get is probably a Samsung 850 evo 1TB

 

since this thread is going so quick...BUMP guys...asking the i7 folks also.

 

Any idea what kind of ram would be appropriate?

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Yep the dell drive works in both even after I put it in after the new one. The new one wouldn't work AT ALL. that's why I bought a new one to confirm. It's coming tomorrow. I can't sit with this 180gb I can set up with it. It's delaying me using my machine as there's not much point putting anything on it to load it all over again. And games are like 30gb and onwards. That's long doing it twice.


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Ok sounds promising. Yes I got both screws. I did think Is it going to be there. And it was. So wanted a Samsung 960 evo. Nearly bought the sm961 from overclockers but talked myself out of it that I'm not going to notice in anyway the extra 950mb write speed lol for the extra cost of £75


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I'm curious about this too. Stuttering, including the power level thing you mentioned, dominated and continues to dominate the GS43VR thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/msi-gs43vr-phantom-pros-owners-lounge.793376/page-83

No one found a 100% solution thus far, though various combos of Killer drivers/switching to Intel wifi/switching to NVidia GPU preferred and many more tips on there help alleviate the problem partially. If this also happens on the AW13, that will be a huge bummer.

 

I got the dreaded "configuration error" call/email after being assured that my PC would be delivered as planned just yesterday. What is this nonsense. Sounds like a scam? Is this official Dell policy?

 

O its definitely there...I got an Aorus x3 plus V5 with the i7 processor, and it never happen. I thought it was because its an I5. I'm tempted to reformat my laptop to window 10 pro to see if it helps.

 

if you have 16gb in there right now, you don't need to upgrade anymore, save your money. I think even 8GB is doable if you don't do heavy Multitask.

 

Yes mine also does that (with i7 6700). Only does it on the battery icon, none of the others.

 

Yep 8 gb. I saw in these forums that the 8gb holds performance back im gaming. Not sure though

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Ah I got you! Weird... you have probably been very unlucky.

 

I dint think you could get these laptop with 8gb of ram, but if you buy Ram just get any reputable company that sells DDR4. I honestly don't think you need it but if you have extra cash go for it. Ram are pretty much cheap these days because there is a point of diminishing returns. once you get pass a certain point it just showing off.

 

Yeh there was one option with 8 gb and oled. I guess ill just try it out myself as 8 gb is more than enough on my current alienware.

Just concerned about matching the speeds, etc if i di buy one.

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I think so but at least the machines good...I hope it's not the laptop been restricted. But there was a user that had the screen bezel coming away or something aswell as the 60% battery max hold. But nearly reordered with 1tb as it would save me £70 vs now if I get same discount. But if I'm gonna do that may aswell wait till kabylake. But I'm covered should a drink fry my laptop with a new board lol.


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Lol, I just noticed on mine that the "Your custom-built item is complete." has disappeared even on my second reorder. I guess they disassembled it lmao.

 

Typing this on my r3! Initial impressions:

- Screen awesome
- Build quality awesome. I thought the palm rest area would be plain plastic but it's kind of rubbery
- Nice keyboard although the backspace click is a bit wonky
- Popped in a mx300 ssd 512G. Needs to be formatted in disk management before it is seen obviously
- Installed acronis I got with the mx300. Backed up boot drive in 3 minutes
- System was running in factory mode, had to use the fn + x method. It disappears really fast from the boot screen so pay attention.
- Very quiet.
- Screen seems to be glued on correctly.
- It's a pita to get the plastic foil from the alien head on the cover. Had to make sure I wouldn't scratch it.
- Lighting in the trackpad looks really cool.

 

Yes, i noticed this as well, only sometimes like the 1st time after a boot up.
This has more to do with Windows 10 then with the hardware.

 

same thing happened to my order,hopefully they won't ask me to cancel it.. what is interesting is that dell website still allows to order same config and it doesn't say OOS..

 

Has anyone played any MMOs on there? Ive seen videos of FPS that look great, but I am curious if MMOs (with a lot of UI stuff) is just too much for a 13" screen.

 

My favorite MMORPG looks awesome. I knew that the oled screen quality would be great but somehow the framerate is very smooth as well, you immediately notice it's fast.

 

Is anybody else's sata controller set to RAID ?
Mine only has 1 SSD in it but was set to RAID mode straight out of the factory, while it should be set to AHCI.

 

Question. Have any of you noticed uneven temps when benchmarking or stress testing the system? It's an issue with the 15's and some 17's so I was wondering how the 13's ran.