*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R1/R2 Owner's Lounge

Got it. So you are saying Dell could have done a better job?

No crashes for me so far. Only bootloops due to bad drivers or even worse: a very suboptimal recovery drive. There is a lag after installing the nvidia driver. Every action seems to take one second longer. But if I remember it correctly I had this problem with other notebooks. Might be an Optimus phenomenon.
After following a strict order and using a brandnew Microsoft recovery the system works fine.

 

Yeah I decided to just go with it. I've already waited long enough, so i don't see like putting effort to possibly saving a little bit of cash. I like the idea of them testing it first though

 

Does anyone have a guide of setting up the Alienware 15 when I get it? Such as correct drivers to update, if there is a required BIOS update, etc. I want to set my laptop up for success lol

 

Give me an hour or two I will prepare something.

 

FYI: a good review of aw 15" model from notebookcheck website:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware-15-Notebook-Review.136667.0.html

 

Alright I created a little 101 on how to setup a fresh copy of Win 8.1 on the Alienware 15. Is there a way to stick it? Or should I open a new Thread?

 

I got my Alienware on Thursday, so ive had a few days to use it.

First off, the 1tb 5400 rpm drive is slow as sh*** Do yourself a favor and pick up a EVO 850, no comparison at all

otherwise the screen size is perfect for me, the laptop weight is distributed very nice and evenly.

the laptop is a beast, runs my games very nicely and quiet, can covert a movie in a min and a half.

The only other thing I don't like is the power on the left side, as I am left handed, and it gets in the way at times.

 

what about materials and quality of assembly?

 

Hey Gang,

So due to the screen ghosting, faulty keyboard, crash and booting issues I have issued a return with dell. I'll be slapping the return label on it in the next few days and will be shipping it back to dell and getting a full refund thank goodness. Hope you guys all enjoy your 15, I think I just got a bad batch.

 

Materials and build quality are better than most other laptops out there, but definitely worse than previous AW offerings.

It depends on your point of reference. If you've never had an AW before, and only ever used Clevo laptops or something else, you'll be pleased. If you're upgrading from an older AW, you'll be disappointed.

 

Thank you for the answer. I've never had an Alienware...I'm coming from a Lenovo Y50-70 which has an overall very good build quality..aluminium lid and back cover, soft touch palm rest, but a very annoing fan clicking noise and an ugly screen..

 

want to change out the 1tb that comes with the ssd. I got the 128 plus 1tb option. What size can I swap the 1tb to. is it 2.5. Also it would be just plug and play right since my os is on the 128

 

I've had the Lenovo Y50 before. The AW15 is much sturdier and quieter, and the screen is fantastic. The AW15 is all plastic (apparently reinforced with carbon fiber), and soft touch rubberized palm rests. It feels very solid, though not as solid as previous AW machines.

 

Hi guys I'm nervous from reading all the postings here and I was wondering if you can answer a few of my questions.

1. How do I check for display ghosting effectively?
2. I got the 980m so I was wondering if I should install the new bios provided by dell, there are some concerns regarding this bios on another thread.
3. What other issues should I be looking out for?

 

I got mine thru xotic PC so I added a few things...

I got the 1TB 7200 RPM drive
and a brandless 256GB SSD (with OS installed)

will this be fast enough for me?

 

Absolutely - I'd love to have seen Dell do a better job, especially for a company known to have a premium brand name.

Ah! So where did you find the strict order from? Thanks for offering the checklist.

 

Hey guys, just wanted to say I received my laptop this morning and everything is going well so far. I wanted to ask if I need the intel rapid storage technology installed? I replaced the stock HD with a Samusng 850 Pro so I am confused how to get the maximum performance out of it and how to optimize windows. Also, what are some tests I should run to ensure the laptop is working as it should?

 

I would also like to ask if its normal for the capacity of my 256GB ssd to be reported as 229GB? The factory image takes up about 24GB, so its reporting I have only 204GB left.

 

It is normal, my Evo850 SSD reports 232GB total. The HDD probably holds 250,000,000,000 bytes, which is 250GB in METRIC and PC's use Binary.

Binary = A kilobyte is 1024 bytes,
megabyte is 1024 kilobytes = 1048576 bytes
250GBs = 232.8GB

 

couple of questions please. been a Mac user for years, so these may sound stupid. i did manage to replace my HDD with a SSD tho fairly quickly.

1) when i scroll on chrome using the trackpad.. there is this quick square image that pops in n out. what the heck is that, and how do i turn it off? also, my trackpad seems to not work sometimes. i have to close out chrome, and then it'll be fine right after.

2) how do i go about updating the BIOS?

3) is there a centralized driver update control panel? or should i go to individual sites like Intel and Nvidia and find the latest drivers?

thanks!

 

to update the bios, go to dell's website under support and choose your pc, you will find the latest revision under the drivers and download section.

as for updating the Nvidia card, I always go to NVidia to get the latest rev. same with intel

 

Do you know if we should download that I heard there are some issues with the new bios


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

this trackpad is really bothering me.. it keeps jumping around and sometimes won't do gestures. anyone else having issues? what driver version do you have if yours works fine. this will be a deal breaker, as i'm so used to the macbook's amazing trackpad.

 

If I may ask something about the gestures issue.
Are you trying to do gestures on Chrome?

 

hi, yes. even simple scrolling up and down, the cursor would jump all over the place. i've reset the trackpad settings, and it didn't help. i also keep getting this little square shape that pops up sometimes just when moving my fingers on the trackpad.

and another thing.. i'm not sure if this is just how it is.. but all the lights have dimmed now. i haven't even touched any settings. i went into the alien fx center, and the default alienware blue profile is still picked.

the third issue i have.. all of a sudden i now have light bleed on the bottom of the screen, which i didn't notice when i first turned it on tonight... it's really noticeable when gaming.

sigh.. i may have to get an exchange now, and i just got the thing.

 

Yea that little scrolling "square" sucks. It is a chrome thing, which I have taught myself to ignore. It does not occur in internet explorer, if you can use that system.

 

i can't ever go back to IE tho. i have my stuff sync'd up via chrome, and i use the chrome to phone feature a lot. it's so odd for that to happen w chrome only. hopefully there's a fix.

on another note.. how is everyone's display? do you guys have light bleed also? i'm really contemplating whether i should just ask for a replacement with these issues i'm having so far, but i'm afraid i might just end up with a worse display panel. if you don't have light bleed, could you please check to see what panel you have, if that's possible? thank you

 

The Scrolling issue has got better with time. Went away after a few days and it works great now

 

IMPORTANT NOTICE!

I had some USB 3.0 issues on my alienware 15 same issues I had back on my alienware m14x r1 after having done a clean windows installation. So this time it's probably the same. So The issue was that the usb 3.0 drivers were not installed.

I now installed the "RENESAS-USB3-Host-Driver-30230-setup.exe" driver on my alienware 15. I don't know if it's the correct one; but this was used on all previous alienware models, so yeah, also no issues when installing, the driver recognized the hardware, my issue didn't occur so far. So for the ones that wanted to know I thought I'd share it with you guys.

And the issue was, I have a 3TB external USB 3.0 hard drive. It was prevented from going to sleep, instead it suddenly disconnected. Could even happen when I was watching a movie that had buffered a long part of the movie already. So not a good thing to happen for my hard drive.

Though I'd wish an official USB 3.0 controller driver was posted on the driver page. I hate the fact that the dell driver page is ALWAYS incomplete

 

guys I need help Im trying to swap the hdd to a ssd and cannot get it to work I cannot get the back panel off I have the screws undone and it wont budge. any ideas?

 

mine had the top corners pop out as soon as i unscrewed. then it's just a matter of carefully prying little by little.

 

There are already 2 screws at one side, and 2 teeth to keep it closed on the other side and no, they had to add in 11 other clips that hook in to the laptop all towards random directions. I broke one of the 11. but don't really care. Only one guy who posted here managed to do it without braking, and that by one of those big suction cups. I bought one too and keep it just in case (the day after I broke it though). since that pulls evenly to the clips, it lowers the stress on them, so it comes of easier.

But if you ask me, braking one isn't all that bad. makes it easier to pull of next time, since those are unnecessary.

 

yea so got it open plugged in my ssd now when I turn on the computer windows is not showing there is a d drive anymore. its just showing my m2 ssd os drive any ideas

 

i managed to carefully open it up last night also. really just have to take your time and gently lift one side at a time.. once i unscrewed the two.. the corners lifted.. and from there, i would lift one side a little, then go back to the other and so on.once you get the upper half lifted.. then go to the left side next, leaving the right as the last side to be on.

 

go to device manager.. look at the disk management section. it'll ask you to initialize it. pick GPT and then right click on it and create Simple Volume. you can use the defaults in the wizard afterwards, or rename your drive to whatever you wanna call it.

 

he is Correct, do this, you have to initialize the drive before you can use it

 

this is better that paying $150 for Dell's 16gb ram when ordering

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...587&cm_re=vengence_ram-_-20-233-587-_-Product

 

so does anyone else have backlight bleed? i just ordered a replacement, but i'm not confident i'll get a better screen. how bad is yours, and what kinda panel do you have (if there's a way to check). wondering if this is just the norm for this type of display.

 

I have no bleed but I have 4k screen don't know what yours is but mine is perfect,
BTW GO RANGERS!!!

 

yeah! haha.

i have the 1080p screen, so might be just these displays. supposed to get my replacement by end of week, so fingers crossed and knock on all types of wood. with the rest of the other issues I'm having, it hasn't been a good experience coming back to the pc world from Mac.

 

I bought this and it didn't work on mine and after i called dell they said it is motherboard frailer and end up sanding me new one with 16GB Rom with no extra cost .
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=1970559082&pf_rd_i=desktop

 

thanks, good to know, going to try mine when it comes in

 

I couldn't help but wonder, Why can't I choose the color white for the lights on my laptop through the command center? It doesn't make sense they removed white color from there.
However in games such as dying light where the lights of the laptop actively reacts to the game, it actually can become white when I enable the flashlight in dying light

 

There's a way you can make a custom profile, there's a tutorial posted somewhere

http://www.alienwarearena.com/forums/thread/60089/hardware-software/alienfx-white-setting

 

Yep - I also managed to open up two units (mine and the girlfriends) without breaking any. Took the same approach as above, very slow and carefully. Key was definately once you had the top and left side loose, you could just slide out the right side. Still was hard work!

On another note - does anyone know if there are any compatible keyboard covers for the Alienware 15 out there yet? Is the keyboard the same as any other/ older models that could go for one that already exists?

Thanks

 

Got my laptop and off to a bad start. Get the message: "Your battery has experienced permanent failure and needs to be replaced." The surprising thing is, initially, I was able to switch the laptop on without the power supply for a while, and then connect the AC adapter. Has anyone seen this? I called Dell and they've given me a dispatch number - so I guess I'll see someone in the new few days to replace my battery.

Definitely not what I was expecting. I am concerned if this problem can be an indication of something else as well. Any opinions?

Thanks!

 

I have the 4k screen and I was wondering how I can test for ghosting?
Also when I scroll down fast on chrome the page loads in small blocks from left to right and work its way down is that normal on a 4k screen? It's like the white space gets filled in small blocks


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

It's only happening on chrome so far can someone help me with this?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

When I unplug the machine, the battery starts from 97%, instead of 100%. Is this normal? Is this a bad battery? What's the problem?

Thanks

 

Wonder why you guys picked the 4k panel over the 1080p? even with a 980m that can't be easy to run and scaling must be horrid. Do you drop the games down to 1920-x1080? If so does that not cost performance or look a little off note being at native res? I have opted for the 1080p but I am just querying as I may return for a 4k.

Also I am thinking of Getting 2 new M.2. SSD's does anyone know if the interface is only Sata3? I have two in mind the Samsung XP941 or the Plextor PX M6e, But want to know if I will get the spend worthing buying them for or I should drop down to a Slower M.2. I am also fitting an 1tb 840 evo drive.

thanks guys