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17 R2, did we get hosed?
I bought an Alienware 17-R2 in may. I had my issues with power supplies and my first machine was a dud had to be sent a second. Through many forum discussions there seemed to be 3 things that were allegedly coming for the Alienware 17r2 through BIOS updates.
1. RAID. There are 4 HD slots in this thing and your telling me RAID isn't one of the options?
2. That we would be able to run the new PCIe SSD drives in the M.2 slots.
3. Better cooling/fan profiles since this really is a hardcore gaming laptop.
Then I see the Alienware 17 R3. Oh look PCIe SSD options etc. Fid I just get hosed by not waiting a couple of months? Is there an intention of having these things added? If not can I trade my 6 month old laptop in for the R3 and pay the difference? By the way Windows 10 plus Killer Networks wifi cards stink! Still have those issues.
AntDX316
202 Posts
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November 17th, 2015 17:00
it has m.2. you don't need to raid-0 as a single 950 pro is faster than 4x raid-0 and if you have 2 and there is some sort of data caching corruption on C: you have to reinstall windows
Arthur Ausili
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November 17th, 2015 21:00
I have the A/W 18 and am using 2x 850 evo's in RAID-0. A single M.2 950 is faster and eliminates the quirks that are associated with a RAID array. SSD drives are only getting faster. Having 4x M.2 drives is a nice feature.
jujitsu1
22 Posts
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November 18th, 2015 10:00
I was under the impression from the specifications PDF that the M.2 slots in the Alienware 17 R2 are SATA and NOT PCIe.
eternalkp
314 Posts
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November 18th, 2015 18:00
alienware 17 r2 is only sata. i used to own one, now i have r3. pci-express are not supported in r2. the good thing about the R2 is that it has 4 slots of m.2. the new r3 has only 2 slots. i have samsung sm951 256gb and evo 850 500gb. beside benchmarks, you will not notice the difference in loading time or booting windows.
jujitsu1
22 Posts
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November 19th, 2015 07:00
The r2 was sold for like what 6 months. If I was told the truth I would have waited for the r3 version with m.2 PCI-e. Still waiting for an official response from maybe Dell's Milena. I really would like an official Dell answer on a trade in for an r3 because that is the laptop I thought I would have after a BIOS update, but that doesn't look like it is going to happen now. I cant even find a full set of drivers for Windows 10 on the r2 which is according to the website fully supported for Windows 10.
DELL-Chris M
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November 19th, 2015 09:00
The Dell Alienware Trade In program was ended on December 2013. There is not a way to return the 17 R2 for credit towards a 17 R3. What Windows 10 drivers are missing from here?
jujitsu1
22 Posts
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November 19th, 2015 10:00
Also the drivers for the Killer 1525 do not work with Windows 10 November Update. Causes the system to lose connectivity. Shut down the card and causes the system to crash and ultimately hang. Changing the power option to keep the machine from shutting it off does not work. Uninstalling them from the computer completely and reinstalling them does not work. Nor do the ones from Killer Networks site work. Only way to fix it was to roll it back to before the November Update.
jujitsu1
22 Posts
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November 19th, 2015 10:00
If you let the support page for the drivers look for the drivers for your system they do not all show up. You have to browse for them without entering your Service Tag and then it can be pretty sketchy if it the right one or not. Also if could you answer some of my other original questions. Are there BIOS updates coming for any of the following
1. RAID. There are 4 HD slots in this thing and your telling me RAID isn't one of the options.
2. That we would be able to run the new PCI-E SSD drives in the m.2 slots.
3. Better cooling/fan profiles since this really is a hardcore gaming laptop.
as well as how long was the 17 R2 actually sold for?
Sean
DELL-Chris M
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November 19th, 2015 17:00
1. RAID. There are 4 HD slots in this thing and your telling me RAID isn't one of the options.
* None of them shipped with RAID.
2. That we would be able to run the new PCI-E SSD drives in the m.2 slots.
* The upgrades to the R3 are not going to transfer to the older R2. What would be the point of selling an upgraded model R3 if we were going to rev up the R2 to R3 specifications?
3. Better cooling/fan profiles since this really is a hardcore gaming laptop.
* A possibility. All you can do is check the 17 R2 driver page for BIOS updates.
4. As well as how long was the 17 R2 actually sold for.
Alienware 17 R1 June 25, 2013
Alienware 17 R2 January 8, 2015
Alienware 17 R3 September 16, 2015
5. Also the drivers for the Killer 1525 do not work with Windows 10 November Update.
* The last driver I see from Dell is 7/27/15, version 1.1.53.1210, A00. I doubt that we would release another one. The latest I see on Killer is from 10/22/15, Version 1.1.56.1603. All you can do is keep checking their site for updates.
jujitsu1
22 Posts
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November 19th, 2015 21:00
WOW. So can you tell me what the point of 4 M.2 slots are then? Several people on this forum have asked about it without an answer. the point I was trying to make is that on other parts of the form which I cant find at the moment and sales people before I bought it said that this was the purpose behind having so many m.2 slots was for the eventual upgrade to RAID in a BIOS update.
As far as the PCI-e / SATA issue and only selling a model for 8 months before making the next one...I am annoyed because I asked about this when I bought mine at the end of may and was told PCI-e since it was the same M.2 interface and chipset was just gong to be a firmware update. If I had know it was going to be a new model for almost the exact same price I could have waited.
Fan profiles not happening whatever just another issue that I hope wont burn out my machine when playing games which is what it is meant for.
Lastly you seem to be saying you have no plans to keep an item that is less then 7 months old up to date with an operating system Windows 10 that is only 3 months old. It says on your site that the 17r2 is
Windows 10 is here
Your device is ready for an upgrade. Learn more
Need help finding drivers compatible with Windows 10? Let us help
Can you tell me where it says you wont be supporting any updates to Windows 10. Every time I deal with support they tell me I need to use the dell drivers. Well your saying they aren't going to make anymore new drivers because you have a new model? What kind of product support is that? It is only 5 months into the warranty and still making payments on it but you aren't going to support it? You know that Microsoft only lets you hold off the updates for a little bit of time and forces you to take them. You need to be able to provide your customers with valid drivers for a reasonable amount of time. Even if I bought this when it was first offered it would still be less than a year old? if that is the case I want to call technical support to get a replacement wireless card that is fully supported for windows 10 including the November update because your site says my computer is "Ready" for windows 10 when it can not run the current version of Windows 10 and there is no disclaimer there stating otherwise.
jujitsu1
22 Posts
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November 22nd, 2015 09:00
So. I would hope that Chris M is looking for some response to my long questions. I am hoping it is that or I have to go through some other channels.
DELL-Chris M
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November 22nd, 2015 10:00
So can you tell me what the point of 4 M.2 slots are then?
* No. That was speculation from the sales person. The Alienware product team decided to not go that route. Why? No idea. We are not privy to those discussions.
As far as the PCI-e / SATA issue and only selling a model for 8 months before making the next one. I am annoyed because I asked about this when I bought mine at the end of may and was told PCI-e since it was the same M.2 interface and chipset was just gong to be a firmware update. If I had know it was going to be a new model for almost the exact same price I could have waited.
* Neither we nor a salesperson have access to the "future" road map. There is no way we could know that the R3 was going to come out in September. A firmware update was speculation on their part.
As far as Windows 10 and devices. We can certainly make the team aware that our Killer 1525 driver 1.1.53.1210 has issues with the latest Windows 10 update in the hope that they will test newer ones for the hardware released on that specific model revision. But even then, we would use the latest from Killer as a start, so keep testing their drivers as they release them. Once a new revision of a model comes out, no new hardware is validated for the older revision.
Has anyone tried installing the VM1D6 or G13K7 17-R3 Killer Wireless N1535 + Bluetooth 4.0 card into the 17-R2?
You could also replace the 17-R2 K1D64 Killer Wireless N1525 + Bluetooth 4.0 card with the 81WMJ Intel 7265 802.11 ac + Bluetooth 4.0 card.