*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R5 Owner's Lounge

This whole generation is such a mixed bag. If I would want to buy a laptop now I would op to wait for the next generation. Because every hexacore laptop that I saw except 1 was not great when it comes to thermals. Until I saw the latest notebookcheck review on the MSI Titan, also the same huge temperatures. Intel should be called out on delivering such crappy CPU.

Just saw this review of the Aorus X5 V8. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Aorus-X5-v8-i7-8850H-GTX-1070-Full-HD-Laptop-Review.305300.0.html 90c for both CPU & GPU and it cant keep its boost clocks.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigab...070-Max-Q-Full-HD-Laptop-Review.296594.0.html < also 90c for the CPU during load

https://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-G...-GTX-1080-Full-HD-Laptop-Review.303182.0.html < 99c under laod as well, even this thick MSI laptop

 

Thanks for your post rinneh. I wanted to post some of the links I found too to prove it is not AW heatsink. It is Intel so stop blaming AW. The reason I return mine is because it is really time of waiting now. Many brands released i9 laptops to chase the market with or without testing its thermal performance. Its effects are going to be seen.

Hi11zone, I have not used HIDevolution but according to what people say they will do their best. The question is if the best is going to be enough for an i9. Hope your temps are fine because it is going to show that thermal paste/pads is the main problem and not the heatsink. You gonna have their warranty anyways. If yours is fine, I may re-order and re-paste myself. I was actually waiting for yours to decide but I have to accept or reject refund in a certain time.

I could do the re-paste on mine (I am only waiting for the electrical tape) but there is no reason to waste my pads and liquid metal now. I think it is better to send it back/refund and wait for news. But to be honest, I do not see how a heatsink (laptop or even desktop) could prevent those 1 sec spikes (not enough time for fans to react). In addition, I also saw power limit throttle (in addiiton to thermal throttle) during Intel extreme tuning utility CPU stress test and stock clocks. I think this is not even related to temps but power supply.

 

Next gen will come with 8 cores. And same unlocked expencive Core i9 branding. And notebooks will only shrink in size. Not increase.

Don't put all the blame on Intel for this mess. The OEMs must take it's big part of the blame who accept this going into their notebooks. On top they is unable to engineer adequate cooling. And it's their own chassis design. Intel doesn't design for them. Only give them some guidelines (Max power draw + wattage). Up to the OEM veryfi if their cooling is good enough.

Stock clocks but with a small undervolt (-55mv). Coffee lake is known for a lot more. 20.5C ambient and Cpu temp maxed out around 51C. As stated above... Don't put all the blame on Intel!!

 

Of course I blame OEMs but this is what they have been given. They should test what they use and not just use everything new for marketing reasons. Or should it be a Dell CPU? I saw you and others pointing to MSI direction blaming Dell and AW thinness while the same issues exist on the thicker laptops. By the way ambient temps on AW 17 R5 and i9 are about 35C (without reducing the volts).

 

We pointed toward MSI because their laptop cooling is GENERALY better than other OEMs, especially Dell.

As much as I would like Alienware/Dell to be back to their prime, they are not and it's a fact. It is not a witch hunt, as much as some people here claim it is.

I'm glad @rinneh posted those links because it shows that clearly, there's Something wrong with the CPU.

 

You have a CPU that is repasted with liquid metal I presume? in a thick and large chassis and running CInebench. I mean If i stress my CPU with Prime95 alone it also stays around a low 60c which is great for a fairly thin laptop and has been repasted (not with LM though).

But the MSI's in general cool pretty well, thats what they are known for, even though I hate the rest of their chassis. Their cooling has been top notch the past years. Even that thick machine with a large heatsink etc cannot keep it cool with stock paste. I blame that on Intel. It is well known that Intel has trouble shrinking their fabrication nodes and because of AMD they still pushed 2 extra cores onto an existing design and now they are stuck with a mobile CPU that still wants to eat 90 watts under load when boosting.

I have the strong feeling that the i9 is an incredibly inefficient CPU. 2 power supplies for a single CPU & single GPU system? I think you would agree with me that such a setup is ridiculous for the performance it offers.

What is the power draw with your current CPU by the way?

This is a disassembly of the MSI laptop, the heatsinks are enormous and there are 3 dedicated heatpipes for the CPU. I cant blame MSI for these bad temps, they did all they could in such a big laptop.

 

You talk about Cpu Idle temp? Todays processors doesnt use much wattage in idle state. Almost nothing. Watt= Heat.

Read my older post... http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...r5-owners-lounge.815492/page-14#post-10716224

Up to the OEM how they will put clocks for unlocked chips. See... [email protected]

@rinneh You forgot that AMD increased TDP for 2nd gen R2700X (105w). And they run on 12nm.

 

We have posted links before pointing to Intel hexcore CPUs getting wildly hot, like https://www.extremetech.com/computi...g-issue-cluelessly-suggests-stop-overclocking

However I think that the AW 17 R5 has additional heating problems, some probably related to assembly, but also bad design, eg the PCH at 95C+ ?, the SSD at 95C+ ? , keyboard at 52C ...

 

PCH: has no heatsink hence the high temps. It is unacceptable that there is no heatsink but easy to put one on it (eg. rasberry pi one).
SSDs: if you use a slow SSD no need for heatsink and temps are normal. If you use fast SSDs (eg. samsung 960 then a heatsink really improves things). Fast SSDs from Dell come with a heatsink but mine did not as it was a slow hynix one. I am not sure if Dell NVME heatsinks are any good. I hardly see temps more than 67C on my 960s under full loading (it was reaching 99 without a heatsink).
Keyboard: I do not know about it definitely runs hotter when in full load especially on the CPU side.

 

Did you tape it off on the outside of the chassis or inside on the heatsink? This can make a difference. I have a 13 r3 and I also notice the vent temperature differences.

 

Are you saying some heatsinks don't have this problem? I've had 4 heatsinks all the same result. Can you fix the contact issue?

 

Errm, were these on the Alienware 17 R5 ?
If yes then I tend to believe that the heatpipes are crap.

 

No, 13 r3 but the problem is present on many models.

 

Increased the undervolt for stock clocks to see if I could lower the temp. The score increased as well. 1457cb for stock clocks and temp maxed out 43C. 18C ambient temp. 2C degrees between hottest vs. coldest core.


Still cooling headroom for higher clocks before temp will be a problem.
47x on all 6 cores - Cinebench R15 - 1579cb maxed out 51C.

 

I will put a PGS Graphite tape along connecting top and middle pipe as per your pic. Will report back how it impacted temps. Alienware 13 r3 I also have cold air coming out on left side. I have soft one side sticky PGS 1950 W/Mk left from PCH mod (100x80 mm). This could be big. Please give me your opinions and ideas before I take LM heatsink out. ATM my GPU/CPU temps are perfect (65-70C during FPS games).

BUT... CPU could go lower and GPU would definitely follow lol

 

Outside

 

Might get better results if you do it inside. If you do it on the outside the hot air could blow it back in the case.

 

It is not hot air, it is cold air. Hence we have tried to block it and divert it to the rear vent which is hot. Unfortunately I did not detect increased air flow at the rear when I did that, so I may have been fighting against the fan and the geometry of the cooler.

 

the effect would be the same. even if you tape it off from the inside, or the outside. it's just the chassis ( a few mm ) that sits between the air and tape. moving the tape to the inside means just moving it a few mm to the right.

maybe your heatsink is not attached firm enough. i've always had warm air coming from the left vent. if there really is cold air blowing out you vents, something is seriously wrong. it could mean that one of your fans does not pull all the air that sits beneath your chassis, or spins fast enough. either way feeling cold air, while your cpu or gpu is overheating means something is seriously wrong.

 

i second that - theres something wrong with your heatsink or pastejob
With my i9 - even with the crazy high temps i was getting warm air from the left vent... the spikes in temp were due to a delay in the fan spinning up and just the way the CPU's run with high load over a short period (it appears just on one core)

 

These two came from the factory with good contact. They are both stock models that came from Best Buy. In the past, I also had a 6700HQ + 1070 that had poor contact, and a 6820HK + 1080 that had good contact, and a 7820HK + 1080 that had poor contact, all 17 R4's. So it has certainly been hit or miss for me.

 

Had long talk with donald they cant get even 80c temps, i cancled my order il look at i7 version

 

What's the best temps they could get?

 

I would like to mention that while we are here blasting Dell for the overheating Alienware 17, someone who's been reading this thread they may get the wrong impression, Dell have excellent products, and do have the best customer service and best technical support I have experienced recently.

 

Same here. Next day collection and polite enough to chase up after each of my calls.
I think you have to understand these cpus run hot and it's just about managing that the best you can in an enclosed space. Obviously the thinner you get... The harder it is to dissipate heat.
Someone posted the hellos 300/500 in the other part of this forum and they have the new gen cpus but look terrible.
Alienware is probably the best chassis you will get with good customer support.
The i9 appears to throttle in every instance I've seen it and every one is struggling. You can wait until the next gen but by the time it filters down to mobile components... It's going to be at least a year I think.
I've waited a while and like jayz says... It's just about buying the best you can at the time.

 

I cancelled my AW 17 R5 order a few days ago as well.

For me, it was due to the terrible thermals I keep reading about, plus the fact that I ordered through Dell Canada and they updated my order to say that the estimated delivery date would be all the way in early July. They told me they would take care of cancelling the order and monitor things on their end (because it involves getting the unit shipped from the USA).

Funny thing is that it looks like Purolator actually tried to deliver the laptop to me today (but I was out, so they stuck a depot pickup notice on my door). Unbelievable...I have NO idea what Dell Canada is doing, and due to a very poor setup with how they handled my order, it was near impossible tracking the delivery progress of my laptop.

Anyway, I picked up a refurbished Acer Predator 17x in the meantime at a great price (7820HK/GTX 1080) and so far it is all the laptop I need and seems to run reasonably quiet and cool. I am not a huge gamer, so I have no doubt that it will be enough for me for at least the next 3 years or so. My previous laptop was an Inspiron 17R SE which has served me well for over 5 years. But I finally decided to get something new to get up to speed with the latest games, just for the heck of it.

 

The i9 was getting 90c+ with under volt in the shop, dell has great sale I got new alineware 17x with i7 8750k. 1070gtx oc 32gigs ram 2 year prem 2500$ be here by june1-6

 

Sorry ment to quote 90c+ with throttling. They said they woudnt even build it if they coudnt hit 80c. So thats why I cancled i saved 1700$ today

 

What temps did they say then... Sorry I couldn't make sense of that with double negatives.

Have you ordered anything else instead?

 

I'll have to attempt this myself. I think taping it off inside would be better. Remember the side is cooling 1 heatsink vs all 3 in the back so it's guaranteed to be hotter back there. I not a firm believer this mod would even help in the first place.

 

Sorry, they were hitting temps of 90+ even with best thermal and pads and yes I order this

 

That's basically what I'm going to order with the ips screen.
Probably will get the wifi card upgrade and pcie ssd. (will put my own sata ssd or another m.2 in later for storage)
It should be fine for temps.
In the 15r4 section I think someone had it and it was good with temps when slightly undervolted.

 

To clarify, I said we had yet to receive the Alienware 17 with Intel® Core™ i9-8950HK, so we don't know what can be done with temps. I said the Grizzly Conductonaut + Fujipoly Extreme Thermal Pads can only do so much, and I doubt we could reach 80C. That is what we get with the MSI GT75 8RG TITAN-094, and it has a MUCH better cooling system.

Once we get them, and we can't tame the temps to under 90C, we won't ship, and will recommend a different model, like the MSI GT75 8RG TITAN-094, that does achieve quite nice temps.

 

You explained it much better then me, sorry about that.

 

Thanks HIDevolution good to know , will keep
An eye for your results when you do get one in



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One question. Which one is the next best CPU for AW 17 R5 with good thermals below 90?

 

I7 but only comes with 1070 oc from dell but hidevolution can do 1080

 

Well it's gotta be the 8750h? There's no other option right?

 

Correct

 

I found an option with 1080 and i7-7820HK at the link below but the screen options are crap

http://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/lapt...enware-17/spd/alienware-17-laptop/n00aw17r430

 

Yea your correct, to get better screen you need to upgrade your selection, should of clarified.

 

Ok I found 8750 with 1070 at the link below as you said. Why they do not offer 1080? How did I get mine with 1080 and 8950?

http://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/lapt...c2MCwiT3B0cyI6W3siSWQiOiJHUUc0Q1UwIn1dfV19Any reason?

 

From a sales stand point? I would do that to promote the i9. That is my guess.

 

All the old gen has good specs particularly with ram, but the compromise is the screen and you can't customise as much. Guess it is to force you to move to the newer gen.

 

Which from my point of view does not work for them now.

 

Even if I select 8950HK it does not give a 1080 option...

 

That's true.
I have a question about expanding space.
I was going to get the 256 m.2 from alienware and then add in my own storage.
From a thermal point of view do sata ssds run cooler?
Speed isn't a major factor... But also.. Can I add in another drive like a EVO or a wd black.. , there are 2 pcie m.2 slots right?

 

You can add whatever you want. I removed the crappy hynix (it was as fast as my SSD on my old M17X R2, good tempswise though) and put two samsung pm961 (one 256 for OS and one 512 for data) and one 950EVO 1TB replacing the slow 1TB HDD. I used easeus clone disk to transfer everything to my new fast NVME. But you have to use a heatsink for fast NVMEs. I found some cheap ones from amazon which work surprisingly well (otherwise you gonna get temps over 90 when stressed...)

 

• 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i9-8950HK

• Windows 10 Home 64bit English

• 16GB, DDR4, 2400MHz; up to 32GB

• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X

• It's there!

 

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