*OFFICIAL* Alienware m15 R2 / m17 R2 Owner's Lounge

PSA: r2's are now available on the Dell outlet site. I just picked up a 2080 w/OLED for a great discount, now let's hope it performs as well as expected. This isn't even remotely my first 20xx laptop, so my expectations are tempered

https://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlin...J+KGB4k+Fv4UpiOwvc/9J/l8N/QQuRUokufnGzccN1T60

 

Hi guys. Have AW m17 r2 9750h 2070 max-q. Have a question why my fans always on even when I choose thermal silent in AW command center?! On yours AW the same?


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I’ve never had this problem, my fans follow the command center profiles I set them to.

 

Just got yesterday my Alienware m15 r2.
My first impressions are A LOT better than I had expected.
The machine feels a lot more sturdy than I had expected. Because the Area 51M didn't feel as sturdy to me. And that was because of the heft and the larger internals. While the m15 has the same chassis material and thickness, because it's smaller and slimmer, it's obviously a lot more sturdy, apart from a little screen flex.

I was immediately able to pull off a CPU undervolt of -150mv, which is very nice, did some benchmarks, all ran fine. Not too crazy of a score on the i7 9750h. standard stuff, but I'm not reaching 100 degrees. But wasn't able test for tooo long, and also realized that control center fans were on quite. So will also have to see with different values. But wasn't able do much yesterday, didn't have much time, also did had to swap my drives. I cloned the main drive to my samsung 970 and made that my OS drive. Will do more testing tonight.
Only had some time trying overwatch for a moment.
On my external monitor (1440p 144hz) I would get 120-140 fps on the practice ground. Which is about what I would expect with the stock 2080 max q.
Also didn't manage to get a correct color gamut on Youtube HDR videos on the OLED monitor, when I enabled HDR, even if I did try to run chrome through nvidia GPU, will have to see if I can manage that. But not that important.

So yeah, so far. Have an amazing first impression. It feels like a real portable laptop, It's really powerful. It's great!
And delivery was SO fast.
Ordered 26th, shipped 28th form China, Got it yesterday (3rd of December). First time I got an alienware machine so fast.

 

Awesome! Yeah I ended up keeping my 15R2 and returning the Maingear Element. I was not a fan of the keyboard and for the price it felt pretty cheap to me.

 

Great news! I am happy to ear about the built quality and the good temps on stock paste. My system will shiped friday. I hope it will be just as good as yours. Now have fun testing.
For the color profile you can try this ICC file (oled panel for M15R1 on notebookcheck,net): https://www.notebookcheck.net/uploads/tx_nbc2/0HHFM_156WR04_01.icm

 

Yesterday I did some further stuff. So I did update the Bios.
I did some tests with the GPU today. I see that I am getting the performance I am expecting, But GPU usage fluctuates a lot in the 95% area, never reaching 100% due to power throttling. I suppose due to the max 90watt that it has. Also the temps are very low because of this. I've yet to see 70 degrees celcius on the GPU. So I did an overclock instead of an undervolt. (without changing the voltages as it already is power throttling). so 100mhz increase on the core clock and 150 on the memory clocks. And I got a nice bump in performance (will do and post some benchmarks later on), and the temps still don't reach 70 degrees. The overclock seemed stable, though not sure it's stable because it almost never reached 100% of usage, or if it simply can handle it.

On a side note. My wifi disconnects occasionally. I now disabled the killer network service, and will see if that solves the issue. Also have some issues with Dell SupportAssist. I like that app. Not the best, but still convenient, but it gets stuck updating. I tried to fresh install it, but now it says it cannot be installed on a laptop that isn't Alienware or Dell. But not a big deal.
Also I have this annoying issue, that when I use an external display I cannot disable my laptop its own monitor (I want to because I want to increase the lifespan of the OLED monitor). If I disable it. Almost everything gets VERY choppy/laggy (apart from the mouse). I don't know if it has to do because my external monitor is 144hz. But it seems like a known issue on laptops, and haven't found a clear solution yet.

Also I don't know if any of my issues have to do with the fact that I changed my SATA operating mode from RAID to AHCI, which I did when I swapped my own 970 pro in there as my System drive.

But still very satisfied. IMHO the performance difference is TOTALLY worth the Size difference in comparison to the Area 51M, of course this is my subjective opinion. This is most certainly my purchase of the year, the Aorus AD27QD, came close, as it is a great monitor. But the m15 r2, is in person better than I had expecty, as the Area 51M felt a little clumsy, plasticy, I had similar expectations of the M15 r2.

 

LOL, all you have is issues. First with the Area 51M and now with the m15. Maybe it's a sign that you need to look for another brand.

 

In my experience, there simply is no laptop without issues. Perhaps there are, but the its rare. I just have a threshold of problems I can live with. The wifi dropping I can not live with. But then again, dell has overall better support in comparison to the competition. Especially with the next-business day on site support. It will be fine. If that's the only things I have to worry about. It's hardly a problem, and wifi, worst case scenario the chip will be changed, which is trivial, Or it's a software issue, which I should be able to manage.

 

Hard to find a laptop that feels and premium as AW. AW knows how to make you feel like you have a premium machine.

 

That is for sure. I got the model with the normal RTX2060 from Amazon as I had a gift card and sadly there are no dark side of the moon models on Dell right now.

 

Okay, so this is my result on timespy with
CPU undervolt of -150mv
and GPU overclock of +100mhz core and +150mhz Memory (no voltage change)

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/41639897?

With fans running at full speed at all time, these were my maximum temps:
GPU: 58 degrees (this is normal because of the power limit of 90 watt it is reaching)
CPU: 84 degrees (I find this to be a little high considdering the undervolt, and cosiddering the CPU benchmark is rather short, but at least I'm very happy it's not in the 90s. But then again it's also normal it goes so high as I was surprised to see that the short turbo power limit is set to 90Watt, which is insane for a laptop CPU, I'm more used to seeing values such as 58 watt. as the TDP is 45 watt to begin with)

 

Im gonna help you with the choppy feeling when you disable the built in monitor, if you go into device manager and disable the intel uhd then enable it the choppyness will go away, on CPU side if you did undervolt with throttlestop limit your shot and long power to 45w you will have even better temps with same or not so less cpu performance, if your cpu does not hit constant 98-100 then you are ok! These chips were designed to run hot in the trade of slim case. Yeah and if you capable of re-paste i suggest you, my m15 r2 with 9750h and 2060 runs same or with even lower temps then you wrote. I suggest you kryonaut, (avoid artic mx-4 the viscosity is too sloppy for notebook use)

 

Spartan,

Check your PM

 

What PM? I have PM disabled and thus didn't receive anything

 

For some reason, since yesterday, command center on each startup tells me in need 30 seconds, just as it does from time to time. But after the 30 seconds when I give the Admin rights, the UI is still spinning and I cannot do anything. Uninstall and reinstall didn't fix it unfortunately, nor did rebooting. Any ideas?

 

Usually you have to wait for a couple of minutes before attempting to launch it until its services are started. Or you could star them manually via services.msc and then launch it. OR you can set their status from Automatic (Delayed Start) to Automatic to prevent this.

 

It already is running. It's the AWCCService right? I also tried restarting it. stopping it. No difference. I always get to see this:
https://i.imgur.com/cXlsfcG.jpg

Simply cannot get into Command Center anymore. I thought perhaps that it was due to the OC Controls. I uninstalled that. And it didn't even try to reinstall it this time.
I really want to prevent calling dell again. pff.

 

Give me your TeamViewer ID

 

Okay, I found the issue I think OC Control service doesn't start.
Reinstalling OC Controls didn't work. And am for the moment not sure how to solve this.

Because I can find the file mentioned in my pc under
C:\Program Files\Alienware\Alienware Command Center
and
C:\Program Files\Alienware\Alienware Command Center\OCControlService

That service doesn't even show under my services. Weird

EDIT: Problem solved. it seems like there was an issue with my overclock profile.
And uninstalling didn't removed the profiles. So after an uninstall, removing all additional files solved the problem.

 

We spent some time together last year and I was needing to discuss something.

 

XTUOCdriverservice is the service Name for OCControl service. That is the one you want to restart manually in services.msc.
I recommend you do like SPartan said. AWCC in services works better when status is set at Automatic start (not delayed) and XTUOCdriverservice usually at Manuel.

If this doesn't work you have to uninstall AWCC, OCcontrol, Realtek audio driver. Delete all the files left in all de directories you can find and delete all the files in regedit before reinstalling.
1-Ordinateur\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Alienware\Alienware Command Center
2-Ordinateur\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Alienware\OC Controls
3-Ordinateur\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Dell\AWCCService
4-Ordinateur\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Alienware\System\AFXCapableDevices

Reboot, reinstall AWCC, OCcontrol and realtek audio driver.

 

Thanks, though the problem is solved. Had to delete my overclock profile files manually. And then the problem got fixed.
Now the only problems that remains, is the wifi dropping like 2 to 3 times a day, which I then have to manually reconnect after like 15 seconds.
And I guess use throttlestop instead of intel XTU, because intel XTU undervolt resets after each reboot.

 

I use throttle stop for the same reason, for the WI-FI i would try to download the drivers directly from Killer website and see if it makes any difference. I will have my system next tuesday so i will be able to help you better.

 

Apparently my event viewer tells me that the cause of wifi dropping is this:
"6062 - Lso was triggered"
Never heared of this, and couldn't find a solid solution online for this. But I will try to install the killer drivers instead of alienware. Hope it helps. Thanks for the suggestion

 

Hi there, I am interested you temps.

My can spike to 100 degrees even with Undervolting CPU -150V GPU -50V PoweMax-20V

While gaming power limit trotlling decrees CPU to 3,2-3,6 GHZ per core

 

You can run a much higher overclock on the vram. Typically +550-800mhz is achievable on Max-q gddr6

I run +140 core and +800 memory. Give it a shot.

 

During gaming, I tested Borderlands 3 and overwatch. Both not so very CPU intensive games. the gpu temps float around the 70-75 mark, depending on how long I play.
Only during loading or whatever, when there is a short burst of CPU usage, it gets to like high mid / high 80s. And I game with the performance fan profile.

Honestly I rarely reach 100. I only get in the 90s or that rare 100 whenever There is a sudden high CPU usage during normal use on the balanced fan profile. The fans are too late to kick in, causing the temps to reach in the 90s.

Now these are all done with an undervolt of -125.
Even though I was like stable at -150, On throttlestop I did the TS benchmamrk, and would see quite a lot errors, like 15 on 64M. So I dropped it down till no errors would occur even on 1024M.

So yeah going good for me. Aprart from the fact that I don't like Throttlestop. I have to create a service on my own that starts throttlestop, on startup and on wake, which I find annoying.
Intel XTU worked so good on my previous laptops. On the alienware Area 51M and M15 R2. It keeps dropping.

Probably yeah, I will have to do some stability tests. I have no isses for the moment on my current overclock. although the benefits from the higher memory clock is in my use cases negligible. But I'll see how it goes.

 

Also you should try this fix and see if it helps;
1-Device manager
2-Left click: Network Adapters
3-Double click: Killer wireles......
4- Power management
5- uncheck the box: Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power
Hope it helps

 

Interesting, will try. Though so far problem didn't occur again yet after installing killer its own drivers. Will try it out.
Also does Balanced vs High performance have any other changes to the pc behaviour apart from all the stuff listed such as process power management, pci express, ... Where you can choose stuff such as maximum performance or maximum battery life?
Because I'm currently running on balanced. Where performance wise, everything is maxed out, when plugged in, but left stuff as is for balanced, to have better battery life, without having to switch profiles every time.

Nonetheless thanks a lot @Normimb

 

I use throttlestop for that reason also. I don't need to adjust powerplan. When i am on AC power my windows setting is set to performance (AWCC also) and SPEED SHIFT- epp is set to 0 for maximum performance. When i am on battery power, throttlestop switch to a battery mode that i already set to be 180 in SPEED SHIFT-epp.(use the option button in throttlestop to set it)
What i recommend you do is benchmark with cinebench R15 for cpu speed. Use HWinfo to to analyse CPU clock speed, CPU temps and Core V (voltage) while the test is running (lower voltage=lower temps) . Now the results will vary depending on how much you reduce performance in SPEED SHIFT. Remember 0= max perfomance and 255= min performance. You should use the same test to set your undervolt.
Ultimatly you wan't lowest possible Core V for maximum core MHZ speed. Your CPU (9750H) should run 4GHZ x 6 cores, constant when you run this test for best performance.
Your score in R15 should be more then 1200 ( i have had 1281 for the 8750h after LM) i would aim for 1300 if you run the test in priority mode.
Your temps should be below 80C while you are running this test. Compare your temps with different undervolt you make.
Also it is very important that you undervolt the CPU Cache in throttle stop (usually the same amount for the core) this would lower my temps a lot with 8750H.

New exchange system arrived. First results are encouraging.
System is well built like QUiCKSORT mentionned before.

Minimal Thermal Throttling at 48 overclock.
Stock paste.
-135 undervolt CORE and CACHE.

Will probably LM next week but it runs cool at 42 GHZ with just an undervolt.

I will post more results nex week.

 

I have an m17r2 w/9750h and 2070 max-q.

Got my machine. Undervolted the CPU Core/Cache by 160 and the Intel GPU by 50. I also disabled turbo boost.

Command Center set to High Performance with Balanced fan profile, my idle temps are: 50-52 package, 48-50 core. It's been sitting idle now for ~20min and it's up to 55-56C but it eventually drops back down. Gaming with Performance fan setting in Apex Legends I get between 66-74C on CPU and GPU.

My idle temps seem high from what others have reported. My living area is at 25*C. Do I send it back, or try and repaste first? I've got some Kryonaut available.

 

Please don't repaste. First you shouldn't need to disable turbo boost. You should be able to play this game without thermal throtling from factory only with an undervolt like you did. If you can do that you have a great system. My advice is don't touch anything. If you get blue screnn while gaming, get very low frame rates, cpu temps above 95C then consider returning or repasting. From what i read i believe you have more reading to do about testing (no offense). But those M15/17 R2 seems to have good cooling spec from factory and you should probably keep it like it is.

 

Without disabling turbo boost i'm hitting 100C. I find it humorous that you're going to LM yet dissuade people from repasting. Your system idles at 38 and it's an i9...

 

My average idle is 49C with peak of 70c depending on wich fan profile i set. I believe it's normal temperatures. If i repaste it will be for the purpose of overclocking only, wich you cannot do with you CPU sorry. So if your system can perform without thermal throtling while gaming i recommend no repaste. If you hit 100C then yes you should repaste. And if you repaste then you should go LM (conductonaut) and the Kryonaut you do the GPU. There are risk in repasting. You might damage your connectors etc...while doing it. You have to consider if it is worth it before you do it and read a lot about how you will do it before you attempt it. I have done at least 30 repaste and broke at least 4 connectors during all those repastes. It's your decision but be sure you really need it before you attempt the repaste. By the way my system reach 99C too sometimes, depending on different settings. Sometimes the undervolt is not well applied, conflict in software etc....

 

FYI, Even though I'm thechnically not reaching 100 degrees when the fans properly run as they should.
The moment the Turbo boost kicks in, with the short turbo boost Max TDP being 90 watt, the fans are too slow to react, so not when gaming, while the fans run properly, but when I'm doing normal stuff. E.g. if on chrome I quickly open like 3-4 heavy ish tabs quickly, it can hit 100 degrees for like 1 or 2 seconds, after which the fans kick in, and it's fine again.

This is kinda annoying, but understandable, considdering the CPU jumps from a TDP of 45 to 90 watt, which is insane. I tried lowering that to 70 watt, which gave me roughly 80-90 less score on Cinabench R15. I'm considering to keep it that way, just to be more comfortable. This way it can get to the 90s when there is a sudden spike on CPU usage, but the fans kick in before it has time to reach 100.

I tried with a custom fan curve, but somehow, it doesn't work, it runs like always on 70-80 percent of fan speed, regardless of the CPU temp it feels like.

 

Hi there. I find solution for leave my AW m17 r2 silent and cold, I use two options with thermal quiet mode and power balance on AWCC and battery in Windows better performance, also undervolt -135V.

My laptop silent, cpu drop’s to 2 ghz use only one core instant, funs not used, one core used. Enjoy the silence.

Have one question, I can’t find haw to get 4.5 GHz on my Laptop. I am stuck on 4.0 GHz on 6 cores, and even in Bios can’t find enable turbo boost, can some one explaine?


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i7-9750H is locked to 4.0GHz on all 6 cores. This is all you'll get.

 

Looks like dell not honest enough to customer’s.



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Same for me. When Turbo boost Kicks in, i get sudden spikes in temps. Depending on my settings it can reach 99C for short period of time. This doesn't happen if i am on performance mode or full speed mode while benchmarking CBR15. But while gaming i think it gets hotter, i will have to test next week.
When you lower TDP, run the CBR15 test and look at your current clock speed ( all six cores at 4GHZ is ideal) if it drops below 4GHZ during the test for some cores then it means that the TDP is too low for that test. Then increase the TDP by 5 untill you you see constant 4GHZ on current clock speed while the test is running. This will give you the best score in CBR15.
Also i find something interesting while testing. Sometimes after the computer crashed (to agressive undervolt or overclock) the performance mode gets disabled in the Bios. If i try to turn it back on it won't allow me (weird behiavior). The solution i found was: F9 (reset default) and then it allows me to turn it back on. I find that performance mode in bios combined with ThrottleStop undervolting and overclocking gives me better results in cooling and better performance.

4.5GHz is for 1 core only (Turbo).
4 GHz is for 6 core running at max speed.
No overclocking possible.
Marketing stragegy dell and all the others including intel don't explain it very well when it come to sell.

 

Hi guys. Have Alienware Vindicator v2 17, it’s to big to my AW m17 r2. Some one know is AW Vindicator v2 15 is fit for AW m17 r2 model?


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So i repasted yesterday with LM(conductonaut) CPU and Phobya Nanogrease GPU. I am happy with the result for the CPU. I have tried overclocking in CBR15 and here a my results:
4.2, 4.3,4.4.GHZ= temps are between 75c to 85c and stable (by stable i mean constant clock speed no droped)
4.5 GHZ = temps high 80 and stable
4.6 ,4.7 4.8 GHZ = temps low 90 and stable
4.9 GHZm = temps low 90 but unstable. some of the cores drop to 4.6 during test.
when doing this test in loop for a long period of time= No thermal throttling until 4.6GHZ. At 4.7 and up Thermal throttling.

I was able to get 2045 in CBR15 at 48MHZ for one test only. Not a big improvement over the 2034 for stock paste.

For gaming i was able to play BF5 for 1 hour at 4.2GHZ constant and stable. The GPU was also overclock 100 core and 300 memory.
Below are the results of my gaming sessions. I am happy this M15R2 can play this game at good temps. I am not sure i did a great job at repasting but i thik it helped a little bit. I have also find that the new command center it is important to set the Fan profile to FULL speed for max CPU performance. Anything below will reduce GHZ while gaming. For example at performance fan i would notice the clock of the CPU reduce to 4 GHZ instead of keeping a constant 4,2 at full speed. And there was no thermal throttling in both mode.

 

How do your stock temps (both idle and load) compare to stock, before the repaste?

 

Unfortunatly i did not record any gaming sessions with stock paste but i remember it wasn't so bad. Spikes to 99C but average temps were in the 80-90 for CPU.
IDDLE is the same for GPU (45c 55c) and CPU ( 55 65) depends on fan profile you select.
LOAD. The main difference is i no longer see spikes to 99C while Benchmarking the CPU. There is now a SLOW constant progression in temps untill it reaches it's max depending on how much i overclock the CPU.

Previous system was a 15R4 (LM also) and could not get as good temps while gaming. For comparaison my 15R4 CPU would be 95C BF5 and GPU 87C. This new system is much more powerfull then my old one (8 x cores insteand of 6) and it runs 10C to 15C cooler.
I finally have an Alienware gaming laptop that can be use for gaming and that is what is important to me.

(Now i have to fix some BSOD i get in windows 10) LOL

 

How did you adjust the TDP on your machine? I thought these things were locked down so you couldn't do more than undervolt them with the likes of intel xtu and throttle stop.

 

Well you always have a Max TDP that is locked through Bios, which you cannot exceed. And I think for this CPU it's 90 watt.
What I did, is only change the "Turbo boost short power max", which is by defualt 90 watt, which I changed to 70 watt. Because 70 watt is also the default setting for "Turbo boost power max".
The difference between these two is that the 90 watt can only be sustained for a "short" time, because it's putting too much strain on the CPU. Again by default on the m15 r2 it's 32 seconds.
So if your pc were to consistently doing something that requires an uninterrupted turbo boost. It would use 90 watts for the 1st 32 seconds (which directly translates into higher clock frequencies), and after that, it will drop to 70 watt (which of course also means that the clock frequency drops).

So I basically simply set the short turbo boost watt and the normal one the same through Intel XTU

Is it normal that 1 of my Core temperatures is significantly higher than the rest?
Doesn't matter single threaded or multi threaded (e.g. booting chrome, vs running cinebench). There is always one core (core 2 on core temps), that is the quickest, and the only core to ever reach 100 degrees. All other cores al have 10-15% lower temps.

Is this a thermal paste issue? If so, I'm not very good at doing a repaste, most definitely not on a laptop where thermal pads all have to be leveled + the motherboard being flipped.
So I most likely will call dell on-site support for that, and let them apply a thermal past that I bought myself (which they do offer to do).

It's just last week or so, the cpu felt like reaching 100 degrees a lot more often. So I downloaded Core Temp, and saw that result, and am conserened, thinking that one "bad core" holds back the cpu its real potential. Or is this normal on this laptop?

 

10-15 C degrees difference means either bad paste job or uneven/not flat heatsink. Could be both.

See also...

m15 Uneven core temps. Tech said it was okay but I am hoping for a second opinion.

 

Repaste will help you but you will need LM (conductonaut) for best results. Dell did put a better paste in these laptops compare to previous generation (looks like MX4) and they put a lot! So if you go for repaste i suggest LM only for CPU and Kryonaut for GPU. GPU runs cool with normal paste. I was affraid to repaste too but @littlezip reassure me it wasn't to difficult. The flip motherboard it is nothing difficult, people exagerate the difficulty of it.
I recommend you buy a IFIXit screwdriver Kit, watch @iunlock guide of how to repaste (15r3), don't replace the thermal pads. If you have any other questions you can PM me and i will help you. I took somme photos of the process.

 

Well I think I might go for it after all.
Though I've never tried LM, I'm also a person that doesn't care about getting every single mhz of performance out of my CPU. I just want to have good performance (I paid for it after all), and want no headache. If lowering 5% performance, means a temperature drop from 100 degrees, to strictly below 90 degrees. I'm fine with that. It's just that with how it currently is, it's rather unstable. I've had cinebench R15 result into 1150 score, but also 780. and more often around the 980-ish range.

So you are 100% positive that I most definitely should go for LM? I actually want to go for the most reliable solution in terms of the coming next 3 to 4 years, also something that doesn't corrode the heatsink/die lid (And I do already have an iFixit kit, VERY useful)

 

LM only will give you what you wan't = less core diferential and better temps. It will last and you're heatsink is in cooper so no problem. You will need some protective tape on the CPU side. I use «kapton high temperature tape» for protection in case of a spill. The picture i included is the perfect amount needed for this repaste (i opened it up after and there was no spill). I include some photos to help you thinking how you will do it. Download the service manual: https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/alienware-m15-r2-laptop_service-manual_en-us.pdf.