*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 Ranger (2013) Owner's Lounge Thread

Unfortunately Haswell and later Intel Mobile series processors only support DDR3L, and not standard 1.5v DDR3. I was rather annoyed by that when I first got my 17, but managed to sell my old 2x8GB@1333 kit for only $10 less than I paid for a new 2x8GB@1600 DDR3L set, which made up for it. Buyers on eBay are crazy.

Anyways, do NOT put any DDR3 ram in a AW17, it causes the laptop to fail POST.

 

Curious if it is possible to have an mSATA SSD for the OS and a SATA SSD for caching an HDD?

EDIT: is it also possible to use one SSD to cache multiple HDDs?

 

Awesome! I don't pretend to be King of computer knowledge, and really hope I don't come off as a know it all, it's not my goal, and I'm sorry if I do. You might be surprised at how many people make the mistake of thinking a mobile part was equal to the desktop counterpart. I'll admit, a long time ago, I did. Until I started doing more research and found out it's not the case, so now I just make sure others know and understand it too.

With either card you should be able to run most games on "High" at around 60fps or greater. Some of the latest games out. (I'm talking about you BF4) you may need to dial down the detail settings some to maintain a 60fps but I'm not 100% certain as I am not really into those games. Personally, I can't tell from anything past about 45fps even then between 30-45 it's a little hard for me to tell, so when I see 60+fps to me I'm just happy I'm playing at the detail settings I choose. lol. I've also read that there isn't much difference between "High" and "Ultra" in most games. I don't know if that exactly true. But on a few games I tested (can't remember which ones) it seemed to be true. When trying a game out on a new gpu, I do tend to push the "ultra" setting to see what happens, but a lot of times I dial it down to the "high" settings as I feel more comfortable seeing a higher fps then a lower one. It's just a personal opinion I guess.


Anyhow, you should be fine with a single of either card specially since you understand about them.

 

Not 100% certain with Alienwares (or even my laptop to be honest) as I never wanted to do it, but in all honesty, it's probably better to just get an mSATA SSD of decent capacity (at least 120GB if not higher) and use it for your os and most used programs. (Photoshop, Office, what have you) and use a fast 7,200RPM HDD for games and media.


Caching to an SSD- caching would only put the most used files on the ssd and unless you plan on getting a decent capacity (again a 120GB+) or running the same thing day in and day out it isn't really worth it, especially if you run a lot of software/ games. Once capacity runs out on the cache drive it will wipe older stuff out, thus making it so it'll need to re-cache the old stuff again. So if say you had a 20GB SSD as cache, game files and program files would fill it up until it was full, then the oldest files would be erased. Also let's not forget that caching would also mean it's caching the OS, so a good portion may be in use by the OS, just like normal. While the lifespan of SSDs have come a long way, using any SSD as a caching device is bound to wear out faster as it's constantly being written to in larger chunks. Unless you went with a higher capacity drive, which case you might as will used it as a Boot drive for Windows.

The cost of SSD's have come down in price even if you don't want to go mSATA you can pick up decent 120GB SSD's for under $100.

Best setup in my opinion would be for Alienware:

120GB+ mSATA SSD- OS Boot drive and a few of the most used apps.
750GB+ 7,200RPM HDD- for games and media
Any extra HDD for other media

Baring that:
120GB+ SSD- OS Boot drive and a few of the most used apps.
750GB+ 7,200 RPM HDD- everything else

My current dream setup (with my Sager):

2x 1TB mSATA SSD's
2x 1TB SATA SSD's

But that would take about: $2300 extra on top of the cost of the laptop. No thanks.

Current setup:

120GB mSATA SSD for my OS and for Adobe, Office, and a few other odd programs
750GB 7,200RPM HDD for Steam games, general games and lesser used software
750GB 5,400RPM HDD for media (music, movies) and anything I may download

Yes it is a pain to reset this setup whenever I re-install windows, I won't lie. But until I can afford to buy a larger SSD it works and I don't have any regrets, other than not being able to afford a larger SSD. lol. Steam is relatively easy on setting up multiple drives for games. iTunes is pretty much already setup. I just need to back up all my data when a re-install happens (or I do a monthly backup as well. sometimes 2x a month.) Then restore when I re-install.

 

Help needed please. I connected my AW17 to an external monitor and all was fine. Set it to use external display only. Left the room for five minutes and when i returned the external screen was black. Since then i have been unable to get any display at all. I have tried hard reboot, F8 but no luck. Any quick fixes available?

 

Did you try power drain ? Try to start epsa as well.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

i'll wait till someone gets an alienware 17 with the AMD R9 M290X and see what they think. I am also hoping that there will be drivers for it soon.

 

Thanks it fixed itself. Switched on today and all was good. Will try epsa if it happens again.

 

So I encountered an issue. I have a really fast internet connection and all. But randomly it doesnt let me play certain multiplayer games, notably Hearthstone through the battle.net and many other games on steam. This however flanctuates as I am randomly able to play these games again. I updated my wifi card to the latest version as well as the Bios etc.

Is this an issue with my wifi card? Please note that during these event I have flawless internet speed as always. It only affects logging into games. Is this an issue with my ISP?

Ty guys for this help I already received in these forums ~

 

(post in wrong thread)