Unsatisfied with the support given from the Alienware Support!

I've been experiencing severe poor GPU performance from my Alienware for at least 6 months now and I still have not found a solution yet! I purchased my system back in July 2012 as follow:

M14xR2
Windows 7 64-bit
Intel i7-3610QM CPU @ 2.30GHz
16.0 GB RAM
750 GB HDD + 32 GB SSD
GeForce GT650m 2GB

Back then I didn't really play games on it yet, so I couldn't find any GPU problems (I mainly use the machine for audio-production). I updated the OS to Windows 8 (through the update program for $15) and everything seemed fine! Performance is really good in desktop, etc. However, whenever I play League of Legends, the machine cannot play on high settings! I have to lower the shadow setting to none, and environment to low to be able to have above 60 fps during the game. Yes, I have optimized it in the Nvidia settings to use the dedicated GPU grpahics, and yes I have plugged in my AC adapter while having the computer in 'high-performance' mode. Also the numerous contact I had with the Alienware Support Tech, they would control my computer online and re installed the drivers and bios (by actual Alienware agents) in their particular order and still I experience very poor GPU performance.

I've updated all the drivers, etc. and even done (requested by Alienware) the Unigene Heaven Benchmark. I also ran the same benchmark on my friend's Macbook Pro with the EXACT same GeForce GT650m except he only has 1GB memory, and still he scores higher than my M14xR2. So today after being redirected at least twice, this agent told me that my machine was optimized for Windows 7, so performance is poor in Windows 8. That sounded ridiculous to me, especially because I updated Windows 8 with the drivers that were supplied on the official website! He then proceeded arguing that my laptop is compatible with Windows 8, but does not guarantee optimal performance as it was shipped with Windows 7.

The strange thing is, my NVIDIA GeForce Experience software recommends me to play very high settings with League of Legends (as my machine should easily) however I only get 20-30 fps in game then. Unfortunately, I don't play any other games but League of Legends (another reason why the tech guy claims to be a software issue).

I should note that I have done a complete clean install/format with Windows 8 at least 20-30x and with just the drivers installed and still experience bad performance.

As of right now, the tech guy send me a Windows 7 installation disc to install Windows 7 on it to see if the issues are still there.

I posted this thread, hoping that somebody could come up with a better solution, because I'm really fed up that my machine has not been optimal for the last 6 months.

On the left side you see my friend's Macbook Pro performance, while on the right side that's my current M14XR2

 

All good information, but I don't see anything about temperatures. Can you give us some numbers to work with? You may be experiencing throttling.

 

When I run like every app possible (Ableton 9 + VSTs) League of Legends on the background, Skype, all Office programs, Media Players. Adobe Premiere and Adobe Photoshop at the same time, my CPU runs 90C max! But under normal circumstances, the temperature should be around the 80C (high performance) while when using in power-saving, it's around the 65-70C.

Motherboard runs 28C at all times while Graphics is always around the 61C.

Hope that gives you more information.

 

90C is too high, it might be that under the game stress the CPU is overheating and causing throttling. Have you tried repasting the CPU and GPU?
Sorry about the issues with the support personnel.

 

Do you think if I repaste the laptop, my performance should be good again? I doubt it though, because after having talked to them, they recommended me to go back to factory recovery, so I went back to Windows 7, and still the performance is very poor. It's very strange, because the machine really detects the video card, it's just not "performing" that way. I'll give them another call tomorrow and see what we can do.

The 90C only happens if I truly push this machine to the limits, normal usage the temp. is around 80C in high performance. Is that normal stats?

 

It should help.