15 R3, throttling, heat, issues

Question

The products I own are Alienware 15 R3 and Inspiron 7577, had them for a painful whole year now, and I believe the problems are not with only these two 'gaming' laptops, but with Dell in general - with the design, engineering and manufacturing. Since it is an Alienware thread, I will only talk about that particular one here even though many problems can be found on the other one also. So, the 'gaming' Alienware 15 R3: it was brand new and it was having issues straight out of the box, it was hot as a waffle maker, it was loud because of that, it was stuttering on the games that were out before the particular notebook was even built. The $1000+ machine was throttling out of the box. Want to have it checked by Dell 'professionals'? - pay up; if you take time and search around the issue you will soon find out that Dell mostly either return the laptop without any improvements or sometimes even make it worse. And you know what the reason is? It's not because it is a faulty unit, not even because of the thermal paste that they shamelessly apply at the factory, it's mostly because of the design - the heatsink has a tripod construction on a CPU die which does not allow for a good contact resulting in uneven temperatures between cores. Straight out of the box people report temperatures reaching 100 C and core differentials of 20+ C, when it shouldn't even reach 85 C, re-pasting doesn't fix the issue and you know what's the best part? Dell say that it's okay. A couple of weeks after the purchase I begin noticing black dots on the screen like push marks, but those usually appear bright, mine were dark like something was pushing from behind the screen. Well that's because there is apparently some junk right inside of it, which I saw falling down behind the protective layer. Not even talking about light bleeding. The touchpad right click stopped working just now despite the fact that I used it 8 times in a year max to check the mail when I didn't have a mouse around and now it just did an oopsie out of a sudden which was my last straw. Ah, also the bolts inside are made of cheapest metal possible so they get destroyed the first time you try to disassemble the unit to clear the vents or repaste (believe me you will have to do that a LOT). You know what will happen if you ask for explanations? The support is going to ask for the service tag and that's it. Nothing is going to be done. If you browse the website you will find options to chat with 'the support' but whoops, that's not covered by the warranty. You will find the return conditions but whoops, the page does not exist. Just the 'professionalism' I hope I knew of before I decided to buy anything from Dell. I will never in my lifetime buy another Dell product again nor would anyone of my circle of relatives; I'll do everything in my power to make sure that would never happen.

HellsDisciples · Answer

My 15 R3, and my wifes 15 R2 has been flawless.. and our dell G7 7588 is also been flawless... sorry you got burned by automated manufacturing. It happens to every company from ASUS and there ROG line to YES.. Alienware... While some companies are better then others when it comes to support, that's a given.

RAF65 · Answer

Hi

I cannot agree with you but I hope I won't have to change my mind at all in the future.

I've had both Ali 15 R3 and Ali 17 Area-51m - the first one for more than two years already without any problem.

I always wanted to have a good laptop and it was the right decision.

Alienware-Joe · Answer

ap5p,

Hi! We see that our automated forum agent sent you a message asking for some information. Please send that information to us so we can open up a case to better assist you. We're sorry about the whole ordeal you've been going through. Perhaps we can do something to help you out.

Ryzen_Mike · Answer

Lol same issue with my M15, heatsink doesn't make appropriate contact, the countersink screws stick up out of the heatsink. A big enough gap to stick 1-4 credit cards in. Uneven temperatures across all cores, excessive thermal throttling even at idle. To make it worse I read on other forums where users got a replacement laptop without the above issues yet when I file a service request I'm told its my fault and its not covered under warranty. This is the first dell laptop I bought the thought of buying another is ridiculous.

pics of my heatsink https://ibb.co/album/gogPFa

post of other users with the same issue https://imgur.com/a/y1nms4l

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/a6b82j/aw_m15_i_think_i_understand_why_the_heatsink_isnt/

Alienware

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