The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
I'm buying a laptop soon, and I'm really interested in this one, but it just seems like people are having too many issues and complaints about it. It's doing me from buying it for now, and I'm considering the upcoming Asus g501 and current HP Omen as alternatives.
I just wanna hear some positive reviews coming from normal users. What issues have you had? Are they fixed? Any issues at all (fan noise, temps, display, bugs...)? Just tell me what you think of the laptop, good and bad
I have the 17 which is basically the larger version of it. The first one had some issues like a stuck pixel and light bleed. The replacement I have received is pretty much perfect. Just stay away from the A02 bios and wait for A03. It's a great laptop and I would highly recommend it. I use an external keyboard so I'm not the best person to know about surface temps but since I run my graphics through the amplifier the computer whenever I touch it always feels extremely cool to the touch.
Surface temps can be pretty bad. So far, my keyboard can reach as high as 40C. To put that in perspective, my Clevo P650SE tops out at 34C (you can find the keyboard temps in my
review).
The
NBC review had it in the high 40s. So it definitely has surface temps issues. But given the cooling solution, that's to be expected.
Even more annoying is that even when idle, the keyboard gets warm. When idle, the Clevo is cool to the touch.
That's bad news to me. Might need to pass on it, but I don't really know what 40° feels like to the touch. Do the fans kick in easily? I'll be working a lot at school so I don't want to make too much noise in the library or in class.
I didn't find the fans to be an issue, relatively quiet.
And not everybody is bothered by the surface heat. Compared to certain other models out there, it isn't any worse. But compared to pretty much all laptops I've ever owned, it is much worse (the exception being the Lenovo Y50).
I had an amazing experience with my AW15. Keyword is "Had" and the reason being is that mine had manufacturing defects out of the box involving constant WiFi issues. I thought "no problem, replace the WiFi NIC", but opening up the chassis revealed that the antenna cable that connects to the WiFi card was stripped and exposed.
So it was unfortunate that my experience with the AW15 was short-lived. But performance wise, I loved every single minute of owning it.. in fact I'm thinking about ordering another one and giving it a second chance.
Don't let other people's negative experience deter you from this notebook, though. It really is a great machine coupled with good battery life and it isn't as heavy as one would think ( although that's subjective from one person to another )
Temperatures are completely fine with the keyboard surface running warm even when idle, but it's nothing alarming.
I've had a few disappointments with the 980M but I'll get over them. Otherwise, I love my system. The 4k screen is amazing even when I set it to 1080p. I actually got GTA V running at 4k with the 980m and after some tweaking, my FPS is usually 40 at minimum. That's pretty good for a laptop. I just got my 240w psu today so all of my benchmark scores have went up. The heat of the laptop doesn't bother me at all. Compared to some other laptops I've used (cough*Razer* cough) the heat is actually not that bad.
Really bad. One fan vibrates first thing I noticed, was just backing up first before booting into windows, almost didn't bother to let it boot and put it back in the box. Can hear it going through desk/table. Guess I was unlucky, as the other fan is perfectly fine.
Let it boot into windows, and BSOD when launching the pre-installed steam app. BSOD again about 10 minutes when going for steam again. Got steam running, was ok for about an hour, then the machine BSOD third time. That is without any of my stuff installed what so ever, just a few hours out of the box.
Seems the Dell diagnostics reported bad USB, didn't say much else. Re-tested and didn't show up again. I would recommend running the diagnostics just as a safe guard, in case something is wrong in which you may not know about.
The bad fan was a instant deal breaker, then then 3x BSOD with in a couple of hours of brand new out of box was the nail on the head. Called Dell, going back for a refund, not risking a replacement. My old M17x R3 is far better build/quality than this, even with it getting old now by 4 years.
Jammed the AW15 back in to it box the same night I got it. Now it just sitting there in the box waiting for Dell to pick up up and take away this POS.
Came with A02 right out of the box, wouldn't of thought they would ship it with a beta BIOS, unless A02 is not beta anymore.
If was you say is true, then that is madness. Why would they ship it software driver untested that causes such a thing?
Changing the above BIOS and driver does not fix the faulty vibrating fan on the left hand side unfortunately.
They did ask if I want to return and replace or a refund, I choose the refund as they didn't say I could use this one in the mean time, also I became immediately suspect about their quality control, plus didn't want to wait another 12-15 days. Some how they thought they could get another to me in 5 days, saying they already have another brand new unit the same custom spec on standby which I found hard to believe.
Has been 2 days now, unit is sitting in box, still waiting to hear from Dell for a pickup. Not going to change my mind now, otherwise could of been 2 days getting a replacement.
It's not all bad, it is a nice machine, although unacceptable issues out of box has put me off it.
1. A02 isn't beta, but some people have issues with it, some people ran it fine. My laptop ran A02 without any issues for a while but I have since downgraded to A00 because the fan profiles are better.
2. Just like the BIOS, some people have no issues with that version of Intel RST, some people do. At the end of the day Dell (and pretty much every other OEM) always has outdated drivers on their website. I prefer just to go directly to the source and get the drivers from them. Never given me an issue so far. That's just the nature of software and firmwares...there's a billion+ combinations and Dell/Intel/nvidia/Microsoft etc simply cannot test it on every system. So you can have a driver/update that works fine on the vast majority of systems but then completely screws up for some people.
3. No that just sounds like a faulty fan.
4. If you get a replacement you can continue to use your current laptop until the replacement arrives. Once the replacement system has been delivered you have 10 days to return the old one. The shipping will be paid for too.
5. It's possible. Dell sometimes pre-orders parts for popular configurations or someone else ordered it and then canceled their order before it shipped. Now dell has all / most of the parts on hand to give you a quick build. But like I said, you can continue using your laptop, playing games, etc you're not out of a laptop when you get a replacement system.
Last time a looked which was about a month ago before receiving the unit, it was on A02 was beta. What if I actually want to use A02 due to the fan profile being much quieter, I don't mind a bit of extra heat. Id much rather prefer A02 than than a louder fan profile. Is there any options if I don't want to actually downgrade?
Is the RST related to what version of the Intel ROM that is used in the BIOS of A02?
Fan certainly is faulty. If I were to get a replacement I could learn to live with it if could use in the meantime , but they didn't say that, they said will need to be collected and returned right away and I would have to wait for the new one.
Not sure what Dell are doing, although I have lost 2 days now by choosing the refund option, think at this stage the wheels are already set in monition, not sure if it can be changed now, that will likely cause delays between departments at this stage. Although shipping company hasn't call me yet and I essentially still have the unit in the box sitting on the floor at home, which will be at this stage sitting on the floor over the weekend as company doesn't work during weekends here and in a few hours will be closed till Monday.
Unrelated, how can I overclock the 970M in this thing, the core slider is locked (memory will overclock, that all), as in doesn't do anything when core slider moved, even if I use Nvidia new 350.12?
The AW15 is pretty much the same hardware, only the GPU/display option and a SSD drive option being the only real difference, or shipped BIOS. With the drivers being old and all the same, basically what you are say, is everyone has the BSOD "power driver state failure" issue unless they upgrade to drivers directly from Intel for the storage driver?
I'm saying that some people have that BSOD and upgrading the intel RST driver to the latest one usually fixes it. For some people the driver version on dell.com works fine, for others it doesn't.
Not fully sure just yet (return pickup for the AW15 has been delayed, so decided to use it over the weekend), seems when ever I have GPUZ open the BSOD may occur. This is out of box configuration, nothing else installed, and if I update the Nvidia drivers then still get a BSOD. Will investigate a little further, before I install the new Intel RST driver, the
AW15 out of box RST driver is
13.1.0.1058 and the
newest on Intel's website is
13.6.0.1002
I got one and I'm pretty happy with it. There are some small issues, like the higher than expected temps and a tiny barely perceptible yellow tint on the right corner of the screen. but, it also offers the best value in a gaming laptop, so I can overlook that
Received mine today morning. Absolutely perfect with amazing battery life. I'm getting around 6 hours on wifi on medium brightness. After reading everything here, I was ready to be disappointed but it's just so perfect. I have the 980m with 1080p display. Display also has amazing blacks.
Has anyone tried out the ao3 BIOS yet? I heard it's really not that great.... Why would Dell even come out with these if they just seem to raise temperatures.
I'm running the A03 bios (flashed to try and deal with other problems) and haven't noticed any difference in temps (and it didn't fix any problems either that I can tell)....so unless you have a specific issue you're trying to deal with, I'd hold off...but to each his own.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
