I recently purchased an Alienware m17 R5 AMD with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. It is this years’ gaming laptop from Alienware/Dell and I am seriously due a new laptop since my Dell G7 is a few years old now and some of the numbers and letters on the keyboard no longer work correctly.
I looked at “professional” reviews and YouTube videos about the very model I was getting and thought this was going to be a great purchase for me. I have never owned an actual Alienware before this one.
And if I really had to choose, I wouldn’t buy another one. In fact, I’m returning the one I have to get my money back. And I haven’t even owned it for a whole month yet.
Sure, it’s sleek and has the 17 inch screen (not in 4K, but whatever), fancy light up keyboard and the alien head and Tron ring light (both totally a waste in my humble opinion) and many people seem to like it.
I probably would have too if I could play games like Jurassic World Evolution 2 or Ark Survival Evolved or even Sims 4. With all three games the game would crash or the entire computer would freeze. I couldn’t even play Jurassic World at all. Sims should have run smoothly but it was choppy and would randomly kick out completely. Took me over an hour to even get to the part where you start to play. I only got through creating my avatar and barely grabbed a house.
Ark, funny enough ran the best on this thing. Unless I did anything really intense. Ride a wyvern? NOPE!! Switch maps (on a unofficial server)? NOPE! But if you want to stay at your base and maybe tend to the garden, it might be allowed. Just don’t plan on going into any inventories or anything like that.
Now I know Ark on it’s own has problems. And the Unreal Engine seemed to be what was tossing out the most errors (D3D device lost Error: 0x887A006 – Hung is what was happening). And like a good human I googled the error and applied every single fix I could find out there. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. I’m not even exaggerating. NOTHING got the game to run correctly. And to note, there were plenty of fixes to be had as I am not the only one who had this problem.
Jurassic World was throwing the ‘Exception unknown software exception (0x000fdead) occurred in the application at location 0x00007FFA0528474C’ error which when you clicked OK would exit the game. Although I did finally get this game to work….as long as I didn’t have it plugged in. WTF?
That’s right. As long as I did not have the laptop plugged in with the charging cord that came with the system, I could play Jurassic World Evolution 2. Plug it in and it would freeze the ENTIRE system or I’d get that error. I didn’t try this with the other two games as when I went to do so, it decided that even though it is connected to the wifi or ethernet it wasn’t going to actually SEE the internet. Which is a new problem that I almost yeeted the fucking thing out the open window over.
I did try talking to support about it as well. They took forever to get back to me, and mind I only have 30 days to return the system, so that seems like an asshole move on their part. And one thoughtful official mod on Dell forums suggested I google the problem and try the fixes that pop up.
GOOGLE THE FUCKING ERROR AND SEE WHAT OTHERS DID TO FIX IT.
This was from a Dell employee. Uh…….. fuck you.
Were the drivers up to date?
Yes.
Did I run anything else when I tried running said games (Steam, Xbox or UbiSoft)?
No. Played them straight from the hard drive.
When I did a video stress test, the Nvidia GeForce passed with flying colors. The AMD Radeon did not. The Wireframe Stress Test and Transformation and Lighting Stress Tests for both went well. It was when it got to the second part of the test, the one with the marbles on a marble slab that the AMD couldn’t run. As in black screen and it ran all night without completing. I know it didn’t turn off as I did have the laptop plugged in and in the upper left it said AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics FFS: N/A
And yes. I ran both video card stress tests plugged in AND unplugged. AMD failed on both.
Asked if there was a way to disable the AMD graphics card. Never got an answer. So I’m returning it. Once I get my money back, I will then choose a different laptop. I really wish I could afford a Clevo, but sadly right now, my budget is Dell stuff as I have credit through them and it’s the only way I’m getting a new laptop.
It may still end up being an Alienware, but an older model that I know works well. And if you are sitting there asking your screen why it is I’m not using the laptop’s warranty to have Dell fix it; the answer is simple; I cannot afford to spend much time in the US which is the only place I’m going to get good service. Mexico doesn’t have the parts or service people. And it may take over a month to fix.
Nope, not kidding.
Husband is going through this now. His laptop is overheating and the really expensive warranty he has on the system claims next day fixes, but we were told that it would take four weeks for parts to come in to fix it. So instead he decided for them to swap out the system for a new one… which we had to have sent to the US as the one they would have sent to where we are was actually a model (or three) lower than his current system.
This year, Dell/Alienware is not at all impressing me. Not a single bit. I may actually see if I can get credit somewhere else so I can broaden my choices (sorry Apple, not looking anywhere in your direction) but that’s not really going to do my credit much good.
But you know what?? I could play the Microsoft Solitaire Suit with no problems at all. Both plugged in and just on battery!
Joy of joys.
Until next time, I am quite aware of the teaser poster Steel Wool has dropped about the DLC for FNaF Security Breach (which I didn’t even try to install on the new system, nor anything else I normally use tbh – which is why there’s no customized banner for this post when I posted it), and I have quite a few thoughts on it. The best is that it’ll be free for those who already own the game and there’s a new character!
Cheshire Anthropology 