Alienware 17 R2 Laptop has over time gotten worse

[Captdoe1]

Hi all,

In late 2016, I received the laptop I'm currently using, a refurbished Alienware 17 R2, as a gift from my dad. At the time, I was talking much about how I was interested in building a desktop but lacked the space. My dad then heard from a friend about Alienware laptops, researched the brand and found this laptop listed as refurbished for a very good price (as far as I know). It worked very well for a long time, running games like GTA 5 at at least 60 fps (which is all I'm looking for), but I soon ran into poorer and poorer game performance. It is now at the point where I cannot run GTA 5 at the lowest settings for more than a few minutes without major frame drops or being stuck at a very low FPS.

I would just resume looking into a desktop, but I still don't really have space for it, and I need to save money as I have to really focus on paying for school. With me having extra time because of the quarantine stuff going on now, I would like to figure out if there's anything I can do to get this laptop up to the point of being able to run games again, even if games like GTA are at the lowest settings. I do not know much about desktop/laptop hardware, so any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

These are the specs I've been able to find:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4710HQ CPU
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M
8 GB RAM

[mimizukari]

Buy new, not refurbrished.

You should play GTA 5 fine on a GTX 1060 and any modern hexacore or better CPU with 12GB RAM or more.

You'll spend more fixing a reburbrished laptop than you will fixing the problem, don't even try. If new you could do basic trouble shooting like cleaning out fans and reattaching connectors/etc.

[Captdoe1]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

Buy new, not refurbrished.

You should play GTA 5 fine on a GTX 1060 and any modern hexacore or better CPU with 12GB RAM or more.

You'll spend more fixing a reburbrished laptop than you will fixing the problem, don't even try. If new you could do basic trouble shooting like cleaning out fans and reattaching connectors/etc.

I was able to play GTA at decent settings and FPS for a while. With past laptops, I've sometimes cleaned out the fans and it helped a bit (but I don't think they were refurbished). Should I give it a try?

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by cispierce(a.k.a Captdoe1):

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

Buy new, not refurbrished.

You should play GTA 5 fine on a GTX 1060 and any modern hexacore or better CPU with 12GB RAM or more.

You'll spend more fixing a reburbrished laptop than you will fixing the problem, don't even try. If new you could do basic trouble shooting like cleaning out fans and reattaching connectors/etc.

I was able to play GTA at decent settings and FPS for a while. With past laptops, I've sometimes cleaned out the fans and it helped a bit (but I don't think they were refurbished). Should I give it a try?

try as you might, efforts will probably be in vein... Yes, a refurbrished machine will work for a little while, but you should always buy new hardware, the parts fail for various reasons and you can't be sure that you have multiple issues.

[Captdoe1]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

Originally posted by cispierce(a.k.a Captdoe1):

I was able to play GTA at decent settings and FPS for a while. With past laptops, I've sometimes cleaned out the fans and it helped a bit (but I don't think they were refurbished). Should I give it a try?

try as you might, efforts will probably be in vein... Yes, a refurbrished machine will work for a little while, but you should always buy new hardware, the parts fail for various reasons and you can't be sure that you have multiple issues.

Alright, thanks

[Red™]

I recommend avoiding Alienware/Razer product. They tend to get quite hot. Try looking in Acer Nitro, HP and ASUS (only ASUS ROG. Don’t buy the TUF. Their thermal are terrible).

[_I_]

its old, make sure the fans are still working and clean it

[xSOSxHawkens]

Originally posted by cispierce(a.k.a Captdoe1):

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

try as you might, efforts will probably be in vein... Yes, a refurbrished machine will work for a little while, but you should always buy new hardware, the parts fail for various reasons and you can't be sure that you have multiple issues.

Alright, thanks

no offence to Kurumi Tokisaki but he/she is full of BS...

Properly refurbed electronics are plenty fine, as are used ones. Most things dont just die or wear out like they are making them out to do.

Check your temps, check your clock speeds, check your settings, post a video with all the listed info and we can help ya out.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Age of the laptop, 3 things.
Format and clean install the OS
Replace the battery
Likely needs a fan/heatsink Dusting/Cleaning

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by xSOSxHawkens:

Originally posted by cispierce(a.k.a Captdoe1):

Alright, thanks

no offence to Kurumi Tokisaki but he/she is full of BS...

Properly refurbed electronics are plenty fine, as are used ones. Most things dont just die or wear out like they are making them out to do.

Check your temps, check your clock speeds, check your settings, post a video with all the listed info and we can help ya out.

gaming is highly intensive and wears parts out almost as soon as their warranty expires... refurbrished parts aren't good for gamers as you're putting wear on parts which have already been worn.

[xSOSxHawkens]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

Originally posted by xSOSxHawkens:

no offence to Kurumi Tokisaki but he/she is full of BS...

Properly refurbed electronics are plenty fine, as are used ones. Most things dont just die or wear out like they are making them out to do.

Check your temps, check your clock speeds, check your settings, post a video with all the listed info and we can help ya out.

gaming is highly intensive and wears parts out almost as soon as their warranty expires... refurbrished parts aren't good for gamers as you're putting wear on parts which have already been worn.

Where do you get this...

"wears parts out"

BS...

80-90%+ of consumer electronics now days are solid state electronics (not to be confused with solid state drives, same term, different use). That means there are little to no moving parts.

Only parts in a PC laptop or desktop that "age" with any noticable speed are mechanically moving parts, IE fans and mechanical HDD. And since most modern machines have mechanical units that have 10+ year long lifespans on both HDD and Fans its a moot point.

Next most common point of failure in *old* electronics will be Cpacitors, but again, thats a non-issue in this converstation. He isnt talking about a Y2K machine here thats going on 20 years old with failing power rails due to capacitor aging.

This is a solid case of you having read something somewhere and are now taking it far too litteral. Do electronics *technically* age faster under "heat*, yes, they do. Electron migration is increased, etc. But the chances of that happening, even under extreme (read mining) loads are slim to none.

You should never have experiance that, and if you have its likely something you did wrong, or due to defeact in the device.

FFS, I still have my first main gaming rig bootable, and it runs on a motherboard from 1995...

[Autumn_]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

Originally posted by xSOSxHawkens:

no offence to Kurumi Tokisaki but he/she is full of BS...

Properly refurbed electronics are plenty fine, as are used ones. Most things dont just die or wear out like they are making them out to do.

Check your temps, check your clock speeds, check your settings, post a video with all the listed info and we can help ya out.

gaming is highly intensive and wears parts out almost as soon as their warranty expires... refurbrished parts aren't good for gamers as you're putting wear on parts which have already been worn.

Computers aren't like socks, they don't just 'break.'
And under normal use, they'll be fine, gaming isn't ""Highly intensive"" lmao...

I've had a couple of referbs, either bought of amazon, or referbed by myself, and they're fine.

OPs issue is what almost all laptops suffer from.
Poor thermals, which are now worse because of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ paste drying / being pumped out.
All OP would need to do, is clean the fans out properly, and repaste the CPU and GPU with some decent, non electrically conductive, or capcitive paste.
And, I'd be willing to bet his issue is resolved.

The other issue I'm thinking is bloatware, he's probably got lots of software running, that ♥♥♥♥♥ adds up

[Captdoe1]

Thanks guys - sorry for a late reply - I will try to find some of the old things I used to use to clean laptops

I have noticed that the fans are really dusty; I have not cleaned them in a while and did not notice how bad it has gotten. I actually had a USB vacuum specifically for laptop fans, but I'm not sure where it went. I do not have a fan pad, so hopefully however I clean the fans will be enough.

I also have figured out that I have not changed the thermal paste since I got the laptop - I found some thermal paste that was bought a few months ago - since it's not new, does thermal paste go bad? Is it still safe to use?

[Autumn_]

Originally posted by cispierce(a.k.a Captdoe1):

Thanks guys - sorry for a late reply - I will try to find some of the old things I used to use to clean laptops

I have noticed that the fans are really dusty; I have not cleaned them in a while and did not notice how bad it has gotten. I actually had a USB vacuum specifically for laptop fans, but I'm not sure where it went. I do not have a fan pad, so hopefully however I clean the fans will be enough.

I also have figured out that I have not changed the thermal paste since I got the laptop - I found some thermal paste that was bought a few months ago - since it's not new, does thermal paste go bad? Is it still safe to use?

It depends on the paste, but generally, if its less than 2 years, it should be fine.
Just look, if it's goopy, it's fine.

Some pastes harden, when they go hard, they're useless.

[Ad Hominem]

Open that bad boy up and clean it out. It's probably just full of dust that it hurting thermal performance. If that doesn't work, maybe it's Windows rot, just do a format and fresh install. Start new.

AFAIK as long as thermal paste is still pasty and liquid it should still be good to use.

[nullable]

Yeah, I'm gonna side with people who are saying clean it out. This sounds like a potential thermal throttling issue. A cooling pad might help too. Or if any of the fans do happen to be defective or worn out replacing them might be an option.

The only challenge is that it is a pain in the next to work on laptops...