*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R2/R3 Owner's Lounge

What happened to your system anyway? I hadn't seen anywhere that you were having problems.

 

Getting whea uncorrectable errors could be a bad power regulator on the motherboard or a bad CPU.

 

Well dang! I definitely hope you have better luck with the next one!

 

Hopefully, I'm hoping it will ship this week, I have a good feeling it will be ok this time.

 

I like it, I can't compare it to Asus or MSI / clevo etc. but I have an older unibody macbook pro and the 17xR3 and this is pretty comfortable and easy to use. I feel like the keys have good bounce and I don't accidentally hit the trackpad. The only key I accidentally hit now and then is the macro keys when going for escape, but it doesn't happen that often.

 

It's a rather standard 17" laptop keyboard layout, aside from the macro keys. Not sure I understand the question. The keyboard can get uncomfortably hot under load.

 

I don't find the keyboard layout to be at all bad. I mean it does take some getting used to. I never found the keyboard getting any hotter than my Asus G73SW's keyboard. I'd say they were about equal. I experienced no discomfort.

I like the macro-keys, they're neat IMO.

 

I feel that choice would be fully up to your individual preference.
I think you might be hard pressed to find more 15+" gaming laptops without a num keypad, so if you really want the centered keyboard then by all means.

My own personal 2 cents, but I don't believe anyone complains about the presence of a num pad unless its buttons are changed ie layout/commands/size.

as for the macro keys. well... you could pop the keys off (I think you can. I haven't taken mine out of the box yet. been tinkering with my desktop). If from the start you were missing keys or keys had altered commands, you can't really change those and are stuck with it.

 

Really? I'm also getting this but I 'm still thinking that a clean Win 8.1 installation will solve it.

The keyboard is comfortable IMHO also if under heavy load can make your fingertips sweaty, the hottest zone is the display base wich becomes really hot.

I'd like to use this macro keys but I cannot get it to work neither with TeamSpeak: for example if I assign Ctrl+1 as Mic mute when I set that on a TactX key it don't work.

 

I also had this constantly with my original and replacement system. I would also get the driver power state failure blue screen. This is one of the reasons I ended up just returning it.

 

I got one or two of those BSOD myself.

 

**** now I'm thinking its just bios a02 and not the system, I don't get these with a01. Confirms my suspicion that a02 was a knee jerk reaction bios and not thoroughly tested.

 

Well dell shot themselves in the foot on this one. I'll choose which system I like most when it comes

 

I had these BSOD issues with the default BIOS.

 

I downgraded to A00 yesterday and still experiencing some BSOD, you just need a clean OS installation trust me, I'm not doing that because these days I'm waiting the technician for fixing speakers, replacing motherboard and giving me 240w PSU.

 

I actually did do one already :\

 

There is a guide on this forum about that, some Dell drivers shouldn't be installed because they bring instability to the system.

 

thinking I should just install my own copy of windows instead of doing the respawn then

 

Hey guys, UK order here, Dell in the UK uses Walsh Western to ship for us Brits.

Their tracking however is less than helpful, can anyone aid me in knowing what the hell "plan commited" means, my tracking status changed to this at 11am GMT this morning.
Also does this mean my Alienware is likely to meet my ETA of tomorrow?

EDIT: Now it says,
WWI - LUTTERWORTH ORDER DISPATCHED FROM HUB.


I am hopeful I will get it tomorrow now

 

Use this guide to perform a clean Win 8.1 installation: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/how-to-installing-fresh-win-8-1-on-alienware-15-2015.771894/

If you still have multiple BSOD after this it means that your machine is faulty.

 

I reverted back to bios A00 for the time being and run it on balanced power mode while on the desktop and it eliminates the crashes, I may do this as a last ditch attempt before sending it back, I ordered my replacement system 2 weeks ago so it should be shipping soon but I may try this still.

 

Thanks everybody for the answer !!

 

@Velegor

I've been playing around with the AW17.
Prev notebooks have been only 15.6 prior. I've had notebooks with and without numpad.
Personally I enjoy having a numpad because I need it for, well... crunching numbers.
I do see the appeal of not having it for a more compact footprint (mentally), which is why my mechanical keyboard is without.

One thing I noted - as someone just coming into AW and 17.3 laptops - is the AW17's width and depth are big. like really really big.
This translates into a longer space from edge of laptop to center of keyboard. As shown below.

On my last 15.6" notebook, I could comfortably rest my palm on the palm rest and reach the keys.
On the AW17, I'm resting my palm and forearm on the palm rest to reach the keys given the longer length from laptop edge to center of keyboard.
The travel distance is also really long from keyboard to track pad. May not be comfortable for everyone.
For those with metal watches or bracelets, this may also translate into faster wear and tear on the matte palm rest.
I would be curious what the distance is for the AW15 and clevo's now to see if they are more appealing alternatives as far as size goes.
TBH, I did not think of this prior to my purchase. I'm still weighing in the overall laptop, but I would definitely take this into account on my next purchase.

I'm still running all the benchmarks, but I must add that the build is very nice. Like all the parts fit together so well and I really like how responsive the keyboard and track pad are. Arrow keys could be larger though. They're the same size of the function keys. I don't understand why some gaming laptops shrink the arrow buttons...

Display is absolutely gorgeous. Absolutely.

 

@Logispice
Great keyboard review!!!
Have you experienced ghosting on your screen? A lot of people is complaining about it on 15" with 1080p IPS panels.

 

Ah sorry, been busy running benchmarks and also I just got ff14 so... lol, haven't tried an fps yet. I've been preoccupied with camping a server. (if it exists, you can camp it)
To be honest, I probably wouldn't know ghosting if I saw it.
But from what our forums have discussed, I think what we know is that there are only two 17.3 IPS displays out in production.
I forget what thread we discussed this in and I can't seem to track it down, but I believe the AW17 screen was also used in some of the other brands, like Asus or MSI.
If you visit those boards, they have mixed reviews on the ghosting. Some people have it and some people say they don't.
Personal opinion is subjective, but there have been videos showing ghosting so it certainly exists.
You could try searching for them and watching to see if it's as significant to you.
You could also look into the truebrite. I don't know what its stats are but you might try asking around.
As mentioned, at this time I wouldn't know ghosting if I saw it. I haven't played anything to involve it, and I'm not certain what to look for.

I suppose in the end, you'll have to consider 3 choices: TN, IPS, or 4k, and would you be happy with what you have now or do you see yourself potentially swapping the screen out in the future. Your initial choice may limit your capacity to upgrade your display moving forward, based on what display connections are available given your selection.

a couple side comments,
My laptop's audio works just fine. Comes out the front.
No BSODs yet. keeping my fingers crossed. That's definitely a deal breaker.
No light bleed on my display. as mentioned the edges are brought together with immaculate precision. like parts just fit seamlessly without gaps.
Cover certainly feels very cool to the touch. I can tell its plastic, but when I first touch it, it's cold like metal.

A big con however, is that it does indeed run hot. speedfan is showing me core temps up to 150F during benchmarks (yikes!).
I don't know if my fans are working or not. I don't hear anything out of them. No ramp up or spinning.
Does anyone know how to troubleshoot if fans are spinning besides sticking something in there or taking it apart?
Also are there any built in way to modify fan profiles? I don't mind if they're loud profiles. I'd rather hear them than not so I know they're working.

 

You consider that hot? I've never had a laptop that runs cooler than that under load, especially from benchmarking.

 

Thanks I'll chek for the ghosting videos , and again, great components review !

 

Ahaha, looks like I spoke too soon.
Benchmark was PCMark. I guess that wasn't enough to activate the fans.
Was just running 3dMark, and the temp jumped up to 190F (88C).
Good news, my fans do work. Fans kicked in. Yay! It's not broken!
Bad news. Boo... it does get hotter.
I didn't realize 150~ was cool. I learned many new things today.

 

My Alienware arrived this morning, only had time to run two games, Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012, and Radial-G (an Oculus game).

NFS runs at 60fps maxed with super sampling off, and Radial-G runs at the full recommended 75fps.

I have the Alienware 17R2 970m, and first impressions are pretty damn good.

 

CPUs tend to get really hot. I know it's common for all machines (not just alienwares) to get 80-90 C under stress.
The GPUs shouldn't be getting over 70 C as long as it is new. Over time it will slowly get hotter until you do a repaste. The stock paste in the alienwares, I'm told is not that greatest, so if you repasted you may see it a few degrees cooler.

That being said, when I ran furmark for 10 mins on my last AW17R2, the temp went up to 65C at most on the GPU. This is a good temperature, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

if your cpu is getting too hot during games (as everyone with this alienware and maybe with every laptop), I suggest to remove the "overboost" feature (avoiding cpu clock frequency to reach 3,5ghz) simply by turning down the processor "max power level" and "min power level" from 100% to 99% under advanced settings of energy management options.

With these settings my fps during game are the pretty same and cpu temps become lower up to 10° celsius

 

Hmmm good to know. Thank you very much.
Ahaha, I am considering the repaste idea. On one hand, I have a small container of ICD.
On the other hand, I have a new copy of FFXIV, a camped server that just opened up, and a temporary break in between work assignments.
I may opt for repasting in April, when the 850 EVO m.2 is released. I'm still testing things out on this laptop to decide whether or not I'll keep it.

Thank you very much! I will definitely adjust the power levels. I'll probably run a benchmark afterwards too, just to see what affect, if any, it has.

Ran some benchmarks with new min and max temps.
I don't know what's not approved with the graphics driver. Is that just something on 3D mark's side of things?

http://www.3dmark.com/pcm8hm3/92697
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/6273646

 

anyway my temps with the AW15 model and bios A02 are the same as yours (with cpu power to 100%)
A02 bios also has increased the cpu temps, this is clear.
Do a test with cpu power set to 99% and let us know the results.

 

- that's 7 sad faces.
So I was in the process of adjusting the CPU when suddenly out of nowhere BSOD driver power state failure. It happened once afterwards as well.
Similar to Halogod's description, it occurs in low load situations. Once while I was in control panel and the second as it was sitting on my desk.
I will be returning this laptop.

It is a real shame too.
The laptops exterior is so nice, like panels that fit to the exact shape, screws with machined tops (I really like that), a nice and strong hinge, and a cover that feels nice and cool. Everything about this laptop just felt very nice to use. Like even the corners were curved in a way that it just cradled into my palm - which is helpful given how big it is. Keyboard and trackpad are responsive. Display is absolutely amazing. Sound was very crisp.

But sadly, BSOD. So early on and so frequent as well. Twice in one day within an hours distance away. Once without any user input being performed - that's never a good sign.
I would really like to keep this laptop, as there is nothing else out there I like right now under $2000 USD. Unfortunately, I will be returning it.
I suppose I'll go without a laptop for awhile. On the plus side, as I've been searching for a laptop, I've been upgrading my desktop which has been neglected for some time. I've grown comfortable with having a desktop again, so perhaps I won't be in as much of a rush to buy a laptop as I was a months ago.

 

I should note that I hadn't made any changes yet. I'd just opened control panel and was browsing through it when the BSOD came for me.

 

Nice picture ..

 

@Logispice

If you think the finish and build quality of the R2 are nice, you'd really enjoy the R1.

 

If I'm not mistaken, Dell has the R1 up for sale again in the U.S.

 

Ah, I did see them offered. I actually considered the AW18 too but decided against it being that it would be way too big for me.
In a similar thought, I opted for the AW17R2 over the AW1 R1 due to the size of the R1.
I'm also in the process of trying to find out what model 17.3 IPS were just confirmed for the sager notebooks.
I'll give the R1 another look, but I'm no longer in as much a rush to purchase a notebook as I was before.
All in all, I can't say the AW17R2 has been a wasted effort.
It's helped me confirm what I'm looking for in a laptop, and what I need to avoid.
Like maybe distant keyboards...

I'm now also reconsidering a 15.6 notebook. The display size is well worth the money, but I may need something a little smaller so I'm not struggling on a daily basis.

 

Driver power state failure is an issue with a driver, not necessarily hardware related (though it can be in some cases).

A very common issue of it is with the intel rapid storage technology driver. I'd suggest downloading the latest intel rapid storage technology driver from intel.com and then follow these instructions to uninstall and reinstall it: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...chnology/e3c4b6d6-56ba-4ac5-be50-89843c9d9b22

If the BSODs continue then, let it make a memory dump (don't restart until the BSOD does) and download WinDBG and get it to analyze said dump. It'll tell you which driver is causing the issue, and then take it from there. Another way to check is to open device manager and see if any hardware has a yellow triangle, though this isn't always accurate since sometimes you can get a BSOD and device manager looks fine.

 

Thank you cookie. I'll give that another try. I've uninstalled RST, rebooted notebook, and will be letting it run over night (set it to download some huge files). I'll give it 3 days to see if there's any BSODs. Will be downloading the debugger in the meanwhile and see what it tells me.

I really want this to work. It's a really great notebook otherwise.

 

so a quick look at windbg showed the problem connected to pci.sys.
unfortunately, as I was going through the steps to fix it, I got caught in a BSOD driver verifier detected loop.
I should have safemode corrected it, but instead I just reset the pc.
On the bright side, I haven't gotten any BSODs since.
On the dark side (of the force), I wiped the dump file and didn't get a chance to really look at the specific details.

It's one of these things
Arg1: 0000000000000003, A device object has been blocking an Irp for too long a time
Arg2: ffffe0005f185060, Physical Device Object of the stack
Arg3: fffff8010d85b930, nt!TRIAGE_9F_POWER on Win7 and higher, otherwise the Functional Device Object of the stack
Arg4: ffffe000645cbc60, The blocked IRP

but really, that's not too helpful without the specific driver...

but anyhoos, no more BSODs so far. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I really want to keep this notebook if I can.
I've got big plans for this notebook that I want to be able to follow through with. Repaste, Win7, SSD, HDD, ram...
Okay so maybe not that big, but I had plans!

 

Hopefully you get to keep it without issue. It's a bit sad to see such a nice laptop being returned by so many people on this forum.
It has a lot of potential, but crap like this really sets it back, if only alienware would fix it.

 

It is a nice laptop. I'm just super happy I haven't gotten these issues (yet. Never hopefully). No crashes, no BSODs. Just a painfully slow HDD that I am replacing this week. Seriously, I can't believe they put a 5400RPM drive in here. Loading Civ 5 takes ages. Loading anything takes longer than I am used to.

I replace the drive this weekend with a nice msata drive I have in my PC. Bought an adapter for it so now I just hope it works really nicely and I'll have no issues at all changing over. Ha!

 

Hi
I've put my last post in a wrong thread (it was about light bleed on AW17r2). Now I've just noticed a dead pixel (red pixel on a black background) in the same corner where the light bleed occurs. Should I contact Dell? I had two Sony Vaio laptops before and never had any problems with screen panel quality, so this is a bit disappointing, considering I've paid much more for my AW.

 

That sounds more like a stuck pixel.

Try gently pressing the area around it or running something like www.jscreenfix.com or various stuck pixel youtube videos.

If that still doesn't work then contact Dell and they should replace the panel for you...if you stand your ground and force the issue they can ship you a new replacement system.

 

Since it's coloured, it's probably more likely a stuck pixel. Run this for a bit on it to see if it becomes un-stuck:



Edit: Cookies beat me to it

 

Little random but razer blackwidow just arrived in the mail. With the matte black, large size, and angled edges. it matches the AW very well.
It's nice when things match.
Feeling more and more eager to keep the AW17. Day #2 of no BSOD.

 

I'm also considering to replace my panel, this week they already replaced my frontal speakers and the motherboard but this issue still persists: sometimes after monitor turns off, when I move the mouse to wake the monitor it shows vertical yellow lines and blurry edges, before you start to talk about artifacts and dead GPU let me assure you that after all my stress tests on both Intel and nVidia GPU (wich I also replaced) I'm totally sure that it's not graphic card related, it happens only in this specific case. I'm not sure if it's some problem with Optimus switch between GPUs or maybe something driver related.
After the monitor turns off again or when I reboot the lines disappear.

These are some photos I took with the phone: https://drive.google.com/folderview...BYM1Jxb1hOM1dScGZkck85OEdzWUlLcUU&usp=sharing

What's your opinion guys? (Apart from the fact that I own one of the most problematic AW17 of this generation, still loving it)

@Logispice My multiple BSODs about WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR disappeared after replacing the motherboard, apparently.

 

You should have got them to completely replace your laptop with a new one.

The parts they replaced are going to be refurbished. Now there's nothing wrong with refurbished parts but you essentially just paid for a brand new laptop and the vast majority of it is now refurbished.

Since you're still having issues I would seriously suggest making them send you a new laptop and possibly even push for some free upgrades. There's absolutely no reason that a brand new laptop should be giving you so many errors.