What to do when I receive my gaming laptop

Flashie08

Flashie08

Flashie08

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7 Dec 2016
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Hi all,
I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new laptop next week:
- Alienware 17 R4
- Core i7 6820HK
- 17.3 inch QHD (2560 x 1440) 120Hz TN+WVA Anti-Glare 400-nits Display with Tobii IR Eye-tracking
- 16GB DDR4 at 2667MHz (2x8GB)
- 1TB PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s
- Nvidia GTX 1080

I have gone for the highest spec to future-proof it as much as possible and to enjoy recent games at the highest setting (I'm more of a strategy buff but will be playing Deus Ex amongst others).

My question is, what should I do when it arrives? I guess I will film opening it just in case it has been damaged in transit. What tests should I run to ensure it is as fast as it should be, everything is working well and there aren't any heating/cooling issues?

What should I install (I have got McAfee antivirus subscription already) and what settings should I tweak? To keep things simple, I am just transferring some files from my old laptop via a USB.
I am not very IT savvy so don't trust myself to do a repaste at this stage. I am trusting that the laptop will be more than powerful enough for a while yet without having to repaste.

Thanks for any help!
Alex
 
Flashie08 said:
What should I install (I have got McAfee antivirus subscription already) and what settings should I tweak?
Alex
Click to expand...

best tweak for mcrappie, is cancel your subscription, shatter the disk, burn the CD case format any drives you installed it on and post a public apology on any forum you used the word ..... MCRAPPIE ......

though I should like them cos their crappy software trashing machines has made be soooo much money over the years!
 
Flashie08 said:
I guess I will film opening it just in case it has been damaged in transit. What tests should I run to ensure it is as fast as it should be, everything is working well and there aren't any heating/cooling issues?
Click to expand...

through it to the wall & check if its fine or not... What type of discussion it is? Check for updates, start performing as many as possible operations to check if its working fine.
 
edscdk said:
best tweak for mcrappie, is cancel your subscription, shatter the disk, burn the CD case format any drives you installed it on and post a public apology on any forum you used the word ..... MCRAPPIE ......

though I should like them cos their crappy software trashing machines has made be soooo much money over the years!
Click to expand...

I got the McAfee free. Is it better than nothing or should I just not bother installing it or get something else?
 
gemlover said:
through it to the wall & check if its fine or not... What type of discussion it is? Check for updates, start performing as many as possible operations to check if its working fine.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. I've said that I'm not IT savvy so I am looking for advice from people, preferably more learned than someone whose best suggestion is to "through (sic) it to the wall" and "performing as many possible operations..". I'm not confident in doing re-pasting but I need to know if there is any need for concern over heating and/or performance.

I've seen people refer to Firestrike scores so I'll probably give that a try
 
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3dmark / pcmark. Run the bench tests see if you are getting in region of what you should be for the spec.

Run something like bench32 to make sure the two drives are performing as they should etc.

Other than that, enjoy it.

Edit; Also, from working in IT for years most if not all anti virus vendors go in full circles of being crap and then good. Plus have multiple products catering for consumers, business and enterprise customers which again all perform differently.
Everyone has their own opinion though as you have seen above.
 
uninstall any bloatware that might be present (my Asus had a crap ton).

I used ATTO Bench to make sure the SSDs were performing as expected, and used MSI afterburner with the in-game overlay enabled so I could check my FPS (g-sync locks me to 60). And also GPU/CPU usage along with their temps just to make sure it's not going to overheat due to poor thermal contact or something.

Other than that, enjoy it!
 
I usually do a clean reformat on my machines, gets rid of all the crap (I think companies just use the same image for their os installations, so some of the software might be outdated etc)
 
Thanks for the tips. I do think I'll be looking at cutting out the bloatware.
I'll look at bench32 for the harddrive too!

Changing jobs at the moment and may not be starting next one until early Jan. If so, I'm going to have plenty of time to enjoy this when it arrives at the end of next week! Been holding back on gaming time ready for this - really excited!
 
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