*OFFICIAL* Alienware m15 R4 / m17 R4 Owner's Lounge

Undervolting is still an option??

 

It says so in throttle stop, I just have a slight 60mv undervolt. However, I JUST GOT A BLACK SCREEN. Had to hard reset so...

 

Got two "live kernel events" code 117 and 141. Both video TDR timeouts.
I was just browsing not any other heavy stuff. It ran several 3Dmark loops without issue.
I don't know too much coincidence, may be the bios

 

Won't believe it, but I just tried to play some old Days Gone and found that the brightness controls didn't work!? (Fun+f9/10). Restarting the laptop worked it out.
Too many coincidences! Or I'm getting paranoid... Aghh

 

Much Appreciated I give it a try

 

Just see my subsequent issues. May not be related but I'm just saying...

 

****ing Alienware command center, I don't know why I cant change my thermal options, there is just a spinning icon on it... uninstalling and reinstalling does not work either.

 

you'd have to define better binned. if you use frequency for voltage level, intel certainly is better binned, hence it can go higher clocks on 14nm, as it should given it is like 6 or 7th gen 14nm from 2015.

rather than binned at lower power limits, reasons likely a few.

1. intel overvolt their chip a lot and this has been the trend for awhile now. those chips can undervolt quite a bit especially at low clocks given 14nm is so optimized already.

2. 14nm simply uses more power, in this case current, so power limit will restrict it's performance far more than it does for zen3. AMD chips are like 100% more efficient so you can have it perform similar with half the power of intel's chip (ontop of overvolt from 1.), but that does not mean its better binned.

3. intel chip scale well unlike ryzen in your graph is because ring bus frequency can scale much higher than infinity fabric, which holds AMD's CPU back, tied to ram speed where as intel does not have that issue. fast ring bus + high cpu frequency + not held back by ram as much, would scale better.

 

That is the max all core on 10870h. It will not go higher max all core on 10980hk is 4.5 I believe max on the new 11980hk is 4.6 I believe

 

Just by looking at the specs your going to throttle on power. The gpu is 90w I believe and the cpu could hit 120w that's 30w to power everything else that's is if the power can maintain 100% efficiency. Goodluck unless you undervolt. Plus the lcd has issues with flicking when using cpu and gpu at full capacity I wonder why.

 

hello everyone. finally, my laptop arrived in Russia. I ordered it on April 30, and received it on June 3. at $2547.99, it was the best deal in the world. I will test it soon)

 

So has anyone tried the new vbios 1.4.0?

Any issues with throttling and 100c cpu burns, stuttering frames and such?

 

Any of you with this laptop with the 3080 16gb game at 1440p low/normal settings on cod Warzone? Curious what fps it gets at those settings. Thanks for your input!

 

I got it. There were some issues at the beginning, but they didn't came back. Been functioning just fine. Didn't see any improvements either...

 

Can anyone upload their RTX 3060 vbios from the m15 r4?

 

I've been running it. Haven't noticed any changes, good or bad.

 

My very disappointing M15 R5 is on the way to Dell's returns department, and an M15 R4 is on the way to my house. Has the 10870H//3060/32GB/256GB (I have a new 512 GB to put in). Total price after cashback is $1126, which is significantly cheaper than my worse-performing R5, which was $1420. It seems everything except CPU is an upgrade.

R4 pros vs. R5:
-Much better cooling
-Much better speakers
-Much lighter
-Durable and robust magnesium alloy chassis, refined over several generations - no creaky plastic chassis
-G-Sync and Advanced Optimus
-Per-key lighting vs. 4-zone
-Better keyboard
-Much better glass touchpad
-Bigger Tron light strip
-More ports, Thunderbolt 3
-Looks better
-Supports 3 SSD's
-Probably a better motherboard to support higher-end configs - which translates to better audio output, better longevity, fewer quirks, etc.

R4 cons:
-Slower CPU in multi-threaded non-gaming tasks
-144hz vs. 165 hz
-A hair bigger (yet looks slimmer, sleeker, and more modern)
-Soldered RAM (which doesn't affect me since I got the 32GB config)

 

Could you please be more specific about 1.4.0 bios? I'm currently on 1.3.1 and undervolting in throttlestop works perfectly. I've seen some reports on reddit that after upgrading to 1.4.0 throttlestop cannot really undervolt cpu and temperature goes up significantly. So I'm really scared of upgrading to 1.4.0

 

Everithing working fine, i have the updated from 5d, nothing have changed...you can try update and if you dont like..you can downgrade to 1.3.1.

 

Upgraded to 1.4.0, undervolting with ThrottleStop continues working just fine.

 

Has anyone figured out a 1440p panel for this laptop yet? Has anyone modded their heatsink for better Liquid metal contact with longer screws yet or with a copper shim??? I suggested this before. Dell sent me an offer on this laptop with a 10980hk 32gb ram and 3080 with per key keyboard and 512gb nvme 360hz screen for 2500+ tax. i felt it was too expensive as they stated it had a scratch and dent

 

What was your results?

 

Hello i change the pads all 1mm thikness and cpu-78-80°, and gpu 53-59maximum

 

CPU is still that hot? is that in gaming or idle? Gaming i still think thats too hot.

 

80 for this Intel CPU is actually very good under load. Mine is not repasted, but deeply undervolted -0.120, anyway I see 80-86 all the time. Without undervolting it can easily reach 100 (or drop frequency to 2200 mhz).

 

I've read ppl getting 60 max on gpu and 78 max (without undervolting) after liquid metal repasting and replacing pad with higher quality

 

It all depends, personally I think repasting is overrated, especially considering you have to remove motherboard on R4 before repasting. 78 max means nothing without knowing specific details, because by default CPU power limit is 45w, and frequency will be down to obey it. For example Prime95: without undervolting and standard power limit 45w - frequency will be around 2400 MHz, with undervolting 2900 MHz . In both cases CPU temperature will be below 80. But if I run some serious graphics demo together with Prime95 - temperature will be much higher and fan noise as well.

 

On hard games is the temp with 28° room temp, no other fans and stock

 

Possible the gpu is 60, 61 it s because i removed that stupid sticked coper with glue from gpu memmory and now

And its i9 10980hk

 

I believe it was 4.4ghz all core on a 10980hk 78 max temps I have find it again.

 

what i wanna know what are your temps and did you do any mods?

 

What are the timings of the soldered RAM?
You may be affected if the timings are bad, as would be expected. You would also be affected if the RAM fails, or if there is a desire to upgrade to 64GB later on.

 

Just wanna make this post as I was struggling to find a 165W RTX 3080 VBIOS from the M17 R4 to flash onto my M15 R4.

Not sure if it's common knowledge, but the update package for the M15 RTX 3080 VBIOS ( https://www.dell.com/support/home/e...ode=wt64a&productcode=alienware-m15-r4-laptop) contains the VBIOS for both the M15 and M17 RTX 3080 and 3070.
So if anybody with a M15 RTX 3080 wants to flash to the higher 165W TDP variant, just download the file and run it, but when it asks if you want to proceed, don't click on anything.

Instead open up windows explorer and go to your appdata\local folder (just type %LocalAppData% in the file explorer location bar) and copy out the 17e7bar1.exe to another location (you have to copy it to somewhere else as the VBIOS_FLASH application will clear the files when you click on No).

You can go back to the VBIOS_FLASH application and click No to close it.

Then just run the 17e7bar1.exe that you copied out into a safe location, follow the prompts and your BIOS will be updated to the 165W M17 version.


If you ever wanna flash back to the original 140W VBIOS, just do the same but run the 15e7bar1.exe instead.

I found it a relatively safe and easy way to flash it, and making sure the HDMI and displayport all still work the same

 

Hey guys. Did anyone with an M15 R4 get the cherry mx keyboard before they discontinued it as an option?

 

The Alienware m17 r4 uses excellent memory. Take a look at the tests. For comparison, I brought my old ASUS laptop on the same HM470 chipset with removable memory, where the values are worse.

 

Thanks for sharing. The memory supplied by AW in recent years has consistently been of "value" grade, i. e. possibly the cheapest and slowest on the market. Here you can see that the CL is 21, whereas Kingston's HyperX Impact, their flagship gaming RAM, is CL17 at 2933. That's about 20% faster than the value RAM soldered into the laptop, and obviously there is no way to upgrade.

Not sure the comparison with the Asus is relevant or fair - it's basically the same RAM, but the AW laptop has a faster CPU which probably affected the result.

 

Theres gotta be a way to edit those timing. Typhoonburner or unlocked bios with memory settings.

 

How did you overclock the 10870h on your m17 r4 to 4.5GHZ??

 

One of the reasons why I'm sticking with MSI until another brand introduces advanced bios into their laptops.

This is my Aida64 bench for comparison


Memory overclocking brings around 3-15% improvement in games from my testing. So a pretty substantial boost compared to what you typically from overclocking desktop ram.

 

Not that we know of and I doubt it is possible. Nobody has come up with a way to unlock AW BIOS in several years since they started encrypting it. Even if you could edit the timings, there is no guarantee that the value RAM would be stable that way.

 

im sure we would able to get get it down at least to cl18-cl19 at it worst CL19-19-19-38 or so heck if even 19-21-21-40 would be better

 

I didn't overclock anything. This is the factory settings. Perhaps it shows the acceleration per core.

 

Slowly I continue to test my laptop. So far, I like everything)
Here are the CPUZ tests compared to my ASUS, the advantage is both per core and in the additional two cores.
As well as tests of three m. 2 drives.
I destroyed RAID0, deleted the standard Win10 Home system, installed on a small m.2 2230 Win10 Pro. I specifically ordered a three-drive configuration to get a complete Solid-state drive thermal shield for each ssd. Because I saw on reviews from bloggers that cooling plates are put only on pre-installed drives. I didn't want to look for Solid-state drive thermal shield on sale later.
The small disk is slightly slower than the others, but I think it's not critical.

 

I just bought an Alienware m15 r4. I currently own an r5. The one I bought has a 10870h and a RTX 3080. I will likely end up keeping the r4 and I wanted to see if any of you guys had the 144hz panel? I'd like an option for advanced optimus cause the battery life on my r5 is crazy. I'll get like 8 hours light usage. So who has a 144hz panel? Have you tried swapping for a 300hz? Does anyone have any experience with the 10980hk and the 10870h? I am kicking myself that i didn't grab a top end cpu model but they only had them in lunar light and i prefer darkside. Thanks for any replies guys

 

The m15 r4 comes with 8GB vram and m17 r4 comes with 16GB vram so does this vbios interfere with anything? Did you run any benchmarks?
Thanks

 

You got it with the 300hz panel is it?
How long can you use it with slight load?

 

I haven't gotten it yet but it does have a 300hz panel. I had a m15r3 with a 300hz panel. It is pretty bad, 2 hours, but who can really expect much out of a dgpu connection. I was curious if anyone got it with a 144hz and whether it would be worth buying a 144hz panel

 

I’m planning on doing it as well.
It’s either 144hz panel or UHD OLED panel to get better battery.

If you have the QHD panel on your R5 you can test it on your R4.

keep us posted

 

I plan to. I did try the 2560x1440 240hz on the m15r3 with a 2070 super and it did not work. It may have been cause of the 2000 series. So hopefully since its the same generation advanced optimus works.

 

My m17 r4 arrives tonight. I will be testing temps without mods then modding if required. I will install Collaboratory Liquid pro on GPU/CPU and encase both with silicone (mobo green chip area) To keep lm from spreading anywhere if i put too much (which i know im good to not put too much) also to enhance cooling a bit. Repad entire laptop with 12-16W/MK pads (depends on MM size) I got 12w/mk 6x200mmx200mm 0.5- 1.5mm pad 32 bucks and 16w/mk pads for 45 bucks 1.5-2.5mm (these are smaller and i dont remember the size) to install. I also purchsed stainless steel screws and washers to replace ALL screws in the laptop and will be installing longer screws on gpu and cpu to ensure contact with lm and pads. Ill let everybody know how it goes after a few days as i wll surely take my time to do this and test. If you guys got suggestions hit me up. @Papusan @Mr. Fox (besides telling me to return it lol) My wife bought this for so i dont wanna seem ungrateful i wanna justify returning for her sake. i want her to see that i gave it a go at trying to make it work


10870H (Will be undervolted and max to All core ability via throttlestop) + mentioned mods
3080 16GB (will be undervolted and overclocked via Mr.Fox methods youtube) + mentioned mods
360hz Screen
32GB Ram
2X 2 TB NVME 2280
512GB 2230 (will be upgrading to 1Tb if i decide to keep it to max out space)
Area (4 Zone) keyboard unfortunately ill have to upgrade and buy the per key one since my wife bought this
Windows 10 LTSC Updated April 2021 (Still 1809) Papusan recommend updates only
Only required apps installed + games