Using the Blade 14 as a DTR

Hi guys, I recently bought an Alienware 14 due to a nice discount. However, its been giving me a lot of minor issues and I'm thinking about returning it. The design and portability of the Blade is really appealing, but I was hoping to use the laptop as a desktop replacement when I'm home (due to the amount of travel I do, building a desktop would be a bit of a waste, I would just like the "desktop experience" when I'm home). So, I had a couple of questions:

1. Can the laptop handle heat well when the lid is closed? As the vents are located behind the hinge, I'm wondering if running an intense game or program with the lid closed will cause problems with heat in the long term. Any comments on CPU and GPU temps in general would also be appreciated.

2. Can the laptop wake from sleep by USB input? Like if the lid is closed and the computer is hooked up to a monitor, can the laptop be woken up by external mouse or keyboard? Surprisingly, the Alienware 14 is unable to do this and its very annoying.

3. How is the WiFi with the Killer card on the Blade? I'm mostly concerned with latency. The AW14's Broadcom AC wireless card has horrible latency issues and regularly spikes to 50ms when pinging my router that is literally right next to the thing. This has resulted in me rubber-banding around in a lot of FPS games.

4. How is the idle noise? I don't mind it the thing is a hairdryer under load, but I'd prefer quiet at low loads.

I know a lot of this has probably been covered in the owner's lounge, but I was having trouble finding all the answers I was looking for and thought a dedicated thread might also help other people who want to use the Blade 14 as a DTR as well. Anyways, thanks in advance for any info you guys can give me

 

I also have an aw14 and I love it. But the blade size is wonderful with small PSU. However, the reason I went with the aw14 because I like to be able to put my own 2.5" ssd, HDD and msata for a true desktop replacement. I also use Ethernet cable. Dell support is also amazing.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

You'll need a good USB dock/breakout box as the Blade 14" is seriously deficient in ports.

Personally, I would leave the lid open - not because of the laptop's internal temperatures but what the heat might do to the LCD. You can put a blank screen on the internal display if you like.

You can try changing what closing the lid does in power options. This might work on your aw14 as well.

Don't know about the wifi, but the Razer has a special gaming mode that turns off all unnecessary stuff and optimises what's left. It might be the local network discovery stuff that's causing the latency peaks.

From all accounts, the noise is very good. Barely noticeable under load, and silent under light loads.

 

Does the Blade actually generate enough heat to damage the LCD when closed? Must be pretty hard to even touch the thing when its running hot then

 

It gets incredibly hot and you can't really touch it around the power button. That said, I think it is designed that way because it only gets warm around the keyboard and palm rests. It really isn't anything out of the ordinary if you've owned a MacBook Pro, that's just how these aluminum computers dissipate heat.

As far as it being a DTR? If you are running an external monitor at 1920x1080 or less you can't go wrong. I don't think I've ever used a computer this fast, its almost as if it loads apps before I can finish clicking I think the only complaint I have is that NVIDIA doesn't make Shield gaming available to laptop cards!

 

I contacted Razer Support they said their is no issue using our Blades with the lid closed. I have done it numerous times as my setup includes a laptop cooler, external keyboard/mouse, 27 '' inch monitor. When my laptop is docked I play with it closed all the time with no heat problems what so ever.

This laptop actually stays relatively cool considering the size & aluminum body design, my previous Razer Blade R2 ran much hotter and I would leave the lid shut with that one as well.

This machine is my desktop replacement / daily work machine. So far it is performing EXTREMELY well. I had it in my budget to purchase a dedicated desktop PC as well as purchasing my blade if I so desired. I quickly decided against it, as the extra inconvenience of having two PC's overshadowed the marginally better performance I would experience in some games.

I have always been of the mind that anything over 60 FPS is meaningless, and the difference between a mix of a High/Ultra setting and the maxed out settings is usually quite marginal.