*OFFICIAL* Alienware 13 R3 Owner's Lounge

Guys, for anyone experience lag and stutter due to nvidia's optimus, this fixed everything for me:

 

Just a quick update, after finding out I didn't have to actually pull the board, I went ahead and re=pasted with AS5. Temps went down about 6-8c ish [89c instead of 96c on overwatch, but a random spike to 91 after I had shut the game DOWN /shrug]

AS5 needs time to cure, so it'll be interesting to see where the final numbers lie, but if you're comfortable with the teardown, seems to be well worth it even w/o liquid metal.

Also, I noticed something very interesting with the stock paste: It was DRY--as in the alcohol took it off in patches that I had to brush off the counter and throw away.... and it didn't get on me at ALL. I get using pads, but WOW did they use the cheapest garbage available.

 

I'd be surprised if this fixed the hiccup that occurs when Optimus kicks in and the hyperbole in that title in that video deserves an eye roll. Really? FIX ALL ISSUES? DDU is well known for clean installing drivers but how do you account for the hiccup that occurs when people install drivers, and heck, Windows 10 itself, from scratch.

Not a knock on you but be careful what you watch haha.

I'm gonna make a tutorial on how to reformat your PC and call it "FIX ALL VIRUSES" since that's all it takes to be a computer technician nowadays.

Just ranting lol I love you <3

 

It's not really paste its almost like a pad but not quite. Speeds up the manufacturing process. It's not as crap as we like to think it is and LM or AS5 isn't the 2nd coming of Jesus as much as we like to think it is either (though its better). Anecdotally, Dell has replaced the heatsink on my machine using the same garbage paste and temperatures dropped into very acceptable less than 90c range during stress testing (can't say the same for the PCH though!).

I think its important that when you do the before and after comparisons on temperature that you have your chips at maximum multipliers and fans on full blast otherwise your baseline numbers are completely subject to the whims of power management and the fan controller. The test you use needs to be stable and repeatable; Overwatch is an online game with constantly changing conditions.

If your repaste isn't doing it, and it probably won't really if you're over 90c to begin with, look into a new heatsink. That fit and finish on the heatsink is that important. 90c isn't death for these machines it often seems like the fans don't go into full effect until it hits that actually. What are your average temps during a stress test? Go into the bios and turn on fan and cpu performance modes when you test so your results are nice and stable so you don't have to wait for the CPU to run into a spike before the fans come on.

Anyways while I'm at it you could verify this for yourself. Ask Dell for the goop they use and put it apply it on your own and compare it to the compound of your choosing. If anything the way Dell puts the goop on is inferior and not really the goop itself.

 

YYYYYUUUPPPPPPPP. I would murder so hard in Heroes of the Storm for it.

 

That is really interesting I think I'll dual boot 7 to see for myself!

 

haha I was skeptical at first too, but it really worked for me dont know how or why and thought I would share. Also I noticed that I get some general OS lag with geforce experience.

 

Like I said, it's crap thermal paste. If they replaced your heat sync with something that was smoother and your temps improved, it simply shows that the paste isn't getting into the grooves and valleys it needs to for maximum cooling efficiency which is EXACTLY WHY AS5 works better-- because it fills in better.

I mean, yea. . I could probably take it back apart and sand down the surface, but that's a lot more work than just letting the thermal paste actually do it's job.

At the end of the day, it's within my comfort level, so I'm probably not gonna go all out stress testing etc to see what synthetic benchmarks will do to it... The fans no longer hit full under gaming, and what little heat soak i was getting in the chassis is gone, so I'm just gonna call it a win

 

It's probably a little bit of everything, not the least of which might be that your skill at application exceeds that of the factory. My hunch that its more of that than it is magic paste since I've personally seen the Dell goop work well. But yeah once you've got it apart may as well use a better paste but if you were to use the Dell stuff again I think you'd still see improvements. Don't mistake this for me defending the stuff though. I agree. It does suck.

 

Probably gonna pull the trigger on the 13 this week.
Was tempted to go with the Aero 14 instead since it looks so much nicer, but my past experience with Gigabyte and the overall better performance of the Alienware has swayed me.

Anyone know if Dell is having a sale coming up, maybe for Fathers Day or graduation, or any other reason to wait?