Tag: alienware

Alienware 17 R5 – Notes

General Notes on the Dell Alienware 17 R5:

10-20-18
Base unit came with GTX1060 6gb, M.2 Sandisk 2280 128Gb, 1Tb 2.5″ Hard drive…

Quick comparison to an older unit, no dual HDD option, no DVD/Burner drive, less USB drive slots, no SD card slot, but lots of newer VR friendly options, faster CPU and faster/more current GPU

Benchmark results, see this link,

M.2 upgrade device that worked for me – in Slot 2:
WD Black M.2 2280 500Gb PCIe nvme [$129]
Note – Sandisk V-Nand will NOT work for Slot 2
Slot 3 is M.2 2240

More to come, pics, and videos

Dell Emc Windows 10 recovery usb image download link

 

Alienware 17 R5 Benchmark

Using the software Superposition Benchmark – click here to download.

For CineBench – click here to download the free benchmark software’

Compared with my custom main workstation PC, using a dual card 8Gb GTX1080 and 4Gb GTX970

With same workstation, just with the GTX1080 8Gb card

From above, it seems my main PC as l have researched is limited a bit when a 4Gb GTX970 is in it.

Also note the processor is much older, compared to that in my new laptop below.

Below is the Alienware 17 R5 Results

NVIDIA CUDA 8 with LinuxMint

Notes, screenshots and results using, installing, testing Nvidia Cuda on Linuxmint 18.1

“CUDA is a parallel computing platform and programming model invented by NVIDIA. It enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU).“

References:

Additional Notes:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:maarten-baert/simplescreenrecorder
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install simplescreenrecorder

 

Tests done on my custom built Workstation PC as well as Alienware 17 laptop – all GPU specs below.

Quick comparisons [not the focus of this post]  :):

  • Puget systems laptop, with a GTX 980M 8Gb  – 91 billion int./sec, 1819 Gflops
  • My Alienware 17 with a GTX 860M 2Gb – 43.3 b.i.p.s, 866 Gflops
  • My workstation with a GTX 970 4Gb -> 146 b.i.p.s, 2919 GFlops.

Screenshots in no particular order.

 

Below result from Puget Systems test on their laptop, for comparison

Below my results

HP Laptop screen problem

I own a HP Pavilion dv6500/dv6625us laptop which l bought exactly a year ago, my first hp laptop (prior to this l’ve owned 2 DELL laptops which l only replaced/gave away when  l needed a technology upgrade and they still work). This laptop now has a strange annoying LCD screen problem, it goes black, shows the hp logo and anything else in the faintest gray which you cant really read, and at times it flickers like a dying flourescent tube light. I sent it to hp support about a month ago, and they shipped it back with a letter saying its fixed. Now for the last 2 weeks the problem is back again. Googling shows this is a common problem, and if l dont get this permanently resolved (sent a support email today) – this will be my one and ony hp laptop. See also this link: http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread39242.html Problems like this are very irritating when you use a laptop as a mobile office for most of your work.

My quest for a new laptop starts now. Its down to the Alienware area-51 m15x – which is more affordable compared to the M17. The M17 does come though with a ATI CrossfireX GPU enable option. Why l’m researching and blogging about this at midnight shows how dependent my work is on a mobile computing reliable powerhouse.
Update: Got back my laptop, and it works okay so far. The motherboard as well as lcd display was replaced. One thing l have to say about hp support, the response and shipping of a return box is very fast.