Alienware 18 problems.

Hi guys, am encountering some sort of problems on my Alienware 18.
Specs: Alienware 18 2013
CPU - Intel core i7 4900MQ @ 2.80ghz (8M cache, Turbo up to 3.8ghz) *I turned on the oc level 1*
Ram - 16GB dual-channel ddr3
Graphics - 2x NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780M SLI with 8gb ddr5 memory *on svl7 vbios*
Storage - 750gb WD Black (RAID), 80gb Intel SSD (RAID)
Running on windows 10 64bit

Problem 1: Sometimes when I alt tab out of games, my display driver will be having this specific errors, display driver stopped responding and has recovered. I'm able to heard the sound of the games but screen shows that I'm on my desktop. Have to close the game and re-launch it again. *Using 353.84 driver, tried quite a lot of drivers, can any one recommend me a stable and latest driver?*
Checked on reliability monitor and found this error. This error occur everytime when my display driver stopped responding and has recovered.


Problem 2: Notice some very minor occasionally hang when I'm gaming *fps dropped I think* Anyone knows why and any ideas to improve or fix it?

Problem 3: I can't seems to install Alienware command center, it will fail when it's installing, any ideas why? *I did a clean reset on my PC and all the alienware files are gone.*

Please help me out, I pinned high hopes for my A18 but ended up it's giving me problems and also I'm a pc noob so couldn't solve it by myself. If you need more information, do let me know.

Thank you for your times, awaiting for your help.

 

What is the date on that hardware error? Is it August or December. I have exactly same setup as you and I got to say this machine works flawlessly compared to my last M18X R1. Soo smooth in games, its like magic. Only time I had any lagging in game was when I was creating a USB stick with Windows 10 while gaming. It acted up a couple times and been work flawlessly for a long time now. Very happy with machine. I dont have any specail vid bios. Just the motherboard bios 12. 359.06 display driver and latest Dell Win 10 audio drivers.

 

Oh and I got rid of that weird Raid setup it came with stock. Put in a SSD as a C:\ drive and use the 750GB for a Data drive to store games.

 

December, just happened to me. As I got this A18 less than a week.

How I wish that my A18 can work flawless for me too..

How do you get rid of the raid? For now, I'm using ssd c drive to store windows and hdd to store my medias, games etc.

 

And also, how many watt ac adapter you are using? Thanks!

 

330W PSU. You need to Ctl-I on boot and go into the Intel Raid bios and delete the raid. Of course that destroys all data on the drives. THe data still apears to be on the drives in Windows, but it doesnt function. I just format the drives and use them for data only.

 

Do you recommend me of deleting the raid? But will my windows be gone? Eg: i can't reset to factory next time.

 

Hope you can elaborate more on it. Cause I don't really understand what you mean by 'i just format the drives and hse them for data only'

I presume only C:\ will be affected?

 

I launched Alien Respawn and made a USB restore drive. That contains your operating system as it comes from the factory. Yes if you delete the raid you will have to reinstall Windows. I would only recomend doing so if you have a big SSD to install as a new C drive to put Windows on. So unless you get a new SSD you should leave your system as it is. Are you running any type of Antivirus software?

 

Nope, not running any anti-virus software.

Anyone can help?

 

Anyone? Could it be my gpu hardware issues? If yes, i guess I have to give dell a call.

 

Go back to your previous Windows version and test if this work better. So you can rule out any hardware problems.

 

How do I go back? I didnt back up on win 7,8. Because previous owner upgraded it to win 10.

 

Just google revert from windows 10 the process is super easy. Looks looks like you just go to setting then recovery then click revert. Then you can make a usb boot drive using alienware recovery and do a fresh install if you like. Fresh installs of windows seem to be less buggy than just upgrading. Also it sounds like you don't have a raid if your c drive and media drive are separate drives.

 

Hi can anyone help me? I encountered this weird fan sound , even when i'm not gaming at all. Any ways to solve it? And also, I do not hear the weird fan noise when I'm in bios menu.

 

If you have Dell support agent aka Alienautopsy uninstall the bloatware from Dell.

 

I don't think I have this application as I reset my windows and clean all the drives. Any others solution? This weird sounds is really so irritating.

 

Could it be faulty fan? Should I call dell up?

 

Run 1, 2 or all 3 fan's all the time? What about the temperature? Although the fan's is broken so should not the fan run constantly. It is the temperature that determines when the fan should start and stop... Have you tried to re flash latest bios?

 

Hi, out of the sudden the weird noise is gone, now all I heard is normal fan running noise. I have no ideas why too. Any of you guys has any ideas?

 

You are sure it was not Windows maintenance that starts sometimes? Perhaps stress test so that the fans can get run at full blast? Listen to how they work.

 

It was a weird sound coming from the right of the A18. But apparently the weird noise stopped now. No ideas why.

Just ran FurMark and the fan sounds normal it doesn't have that weird sound, max gpu temp was 93°C and the scores are SCORE:4796 points (79 FPS, 60000 ms) *I changed my screen hz to 80mhz, never use the default oc for cpu, vsync adaptive is on and on svl7 vbios* is the result good?

And what's the best nvidia control panel setting for sli gtx 780m? Eg: SLI rendering mode, because I set it to Force alternate frame rendering 2 and Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration I chose single display performance mode. Is my setting alright? Please advice, thanks.

 

Never ever run FurMark. This stress test is banned by vbios modders and Nvidia. You can kill your graphics card with this garbage of a stress/benchtest. Test rather with 3Dmark11 / 3DMark or Heaven. Wprime 1024M + Cinebench 11.5 / R15 benchtest for the processor. What is best for Sli setup can other in the forum answer you on. But forget Furmark
http://www.putme.net/wPrime155.zip
http://downloads.guru3d.com/CineBENCH-11.5-download-2475.html
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/3dmark-11-basic-edition-download.html
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/3dmark-download.html

 

Thank you for your reply, yeah I used furmark once and stopped using after seeing how bad it is.

Bump, need someone to answer my nvidia control panel question. thank you!

 

Just ran heaven benchmark, below are my score

Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0
FPS:
50.4
Score:
1269
Min FPS:
23.1
Max FPS:
80.1
System
Platform:
Windows NT 6.2 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4900MQ CPU @ 2.80GHz (2793MHz) x4
GPU model:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 10.18.13.6143 (4095MB) x2
Settings
Render:
Direct3D11
Mode:
1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Preset
Custom
Quality
Ultra
Tessellation:
Extreme

Max temp stays at 83 for gpu 1 and 81 for gpu 2. In conclusion is it good or bad? Need some advice , thanks.

 

the temps are scary!

 

nothing scary about anything below 90 for prolonged periods of time not saying theres no room for improvement but low 80s is nothing to worry about either!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Any tips on improving the temp? Lets say It's on low 80s when I ran heaven benchmark and mid 60s-low 70s when I'm playing dota 2.

 

depends, namely on:

- cleanliness of your fans and heatsink fins (dust accumulation)
- type of thermal paste used
- type of paste job applied
- ambient temps
- sufficient air circulation, laptop back propped up, machine standing on a flat hard surface with all vents not blocked?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

For lower temperature in heavy use put the fan's manually at max with Hwinfo's fan control. Or switch to a better thermal grease as @jaybee83 pointed out.

 

- cleanliness of your fans and heatsink fins (dust accumulation) I'm new to this, is it easy to remove the back plate to gain access to the fans and heatsink fans?
- type of thermal paste used Am not really sure about this
- type of paste job applied Am not really sure about this
- ambient temps It's around mid 20s - high 20s
- sufficient air circulation, laptop back propped up, machine standing on a flat hard surface with all vents not blocked? I put two bottle caps at the back, will it helps?

 

Can teach me how and what should I set for hwinfo's fans setting? Thank you.

 

shouldnt be too difficult, just remove a few screws and u got access to the internals, clevo-style just make sure u have some new thermal paste at the ready and inform urself via youtube videos, service manual for your machine or other sources how to properly disassemble your machine and do a repaste

edit: right, i forgot were talking about an alienware here not a clevo, still, same points stand for this machine

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Here is the link on the Alienware 18 Teardown and GPU Repast

and here is a guide for HWiNFO64 Setup Steps http://imgur.com/a/UYC3s#0
Both created by @Mr. Fox
The manual for AW18 http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/alienware-18/manuals
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@jaybee83 <edit: right, i forgot were talking about an alienware here not a clevo, still, same points stand for this machine >
I expected that you posted a few pictures of lid opened on your laptop so that @Mahdara saw how a AW18 looked inside

 

haha, good one@papusan

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Thanks I know you like it. And happy Christmas

 

merry xmas buddy

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Thanks everyone, will try to take a look at the videos. Here wishing everyone merry christmas and a happy new year!

 

For my birthday on Jan 12, 2014, I bought an Alienware 18, core i7, 1TB of SSHD: 3 250 GB/ 1 250GB in RAID config, 32GB RAM, 8GB NVIDIA GPU, 64bit Windows 7 updated to Windows 10. It WAS a nice machine and worked great until about three weeks ago.

The most recent update of Windows 10 (Mid Jan 2016)--right around my birthday--Windows 10 updated....
....ALL my third party software (statistical and scientific) was GONE! My Microsoft Office 2013 Pro was GONE! All my icons for short cuts were grayed out and went to nowhere. I tried to do several restores to previous restore points with no success.

No newbie to computers, I teach stats at a university--and in all my years have had minor issues with upgrades/updates but NEVER have I had this kind of destruction that I did not do.

I have heard/read that others have had problems with the new Windows 10. Has anyone here found a solution or at least another discussion?

 

Read the treads... http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/nbr-windows-10-clean-installation-guide.781178/page-3
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/why-i-dont-like-windows-10.779540/
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/windows-10.762434/page-238