1.turn alienfx off and then on by using FN+F12(alienfx) key. 2.immediately after turning on, spam the macro(the Del X key). And voila you are done.This worked for me 100% of the time. BTW if anyone wants rainbow fx theme for Alienware 17R4 contact me at- [email protected].
Alienware's been undergoing a reinvention of sorts, releasing laptops that have a decidedly more mature design. The 15-inch (starting at $1,199, reviewed at $2,299) is the latest in the line to undergo this evolution, and the result is a space cruiser that's damned sexy. But the Alienware 15 is more than a fancy redesign. It's also packing Intel's powerful new overclockable 7th-generation processors, which, when paired with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 GPU, makes for a system that can handle multitasking, gaming and VR with minimal effort.
And if that wasn't enough, Alienware has teamed with Tobii to bring its eye-tracking technology into the mix for a seamless new way to interact with your laptop. However, short battery life keeps the Alienware 15 from Editor's Choice status.
SpecsDesign
Say hello to the sleeker, more sophisticated Alienware 15. Like its smaller brethren, the Alienware 13, the 15 has undergone a major design revamp that removes all the lighting from the Epic Silver anodized aluminum lid, save for the trademark alien's head in the center. But never fear, Alienware hasn't eliminated the beloved LED lighting. It simply migrated to the sides of the lid for a more cultivated look. In order to accommodate all of the specs and ports, the laptop has developed a small protruding caboose made from black magnesium alloy, which matches the top of the lid.
Opening the notebook reveals the keyboard and touchpad marooned in a sea of black soft-touch material that offers a luxurious feel. You'll find the glowing alien head power button residing in the center of a glossy black bar above the keyboard. The matte display is surrounded by a rather thick bezel accentuated by an Alienware logo illuminated with customizable LED backlighting.
There are a good number of ports along the sides of the Alienware 15 accentuated by a glowing LED strip. On the right sits a lone USB 3.0 port, with another USB 3.0 port on the left along with a USB Type-C port, jacks for a microphone and headset, and a Noble Lock slot. Along the rear, you'll find a Thunderbolt 3 port, a full HDMI 2.0 port, a mini DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethernet, a proprietary port for the Graphics Amplifier and the DC power jack.
Say hello to the sleeker, more sophisticated Alienware 15.
Weighing 7.4 pounds, the Alienware 15 (15.3 x 12 x 1 inches) is lighter than the 8.2-pound Acer Predator 15 (15.4 x 11.8 1.5 inches) and the 10-pound, 16.4 x 12.7 x 1.9-inch Asus ROG G752VS OC Edition. The MSI GT62VR 6RE Dominator Pro is a bit more portable at 6.4 pounds, but at 15.4 x 10.5. X 1.6 inches, it's also noticeably thicker. The Razer Blade, with its 13.6 x 9.3 x 0.7-inch frame, weighs 4.2 pounds.
Display
Alienware continues its streak of pretty displays with the latest iteration of the 15. The 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 resolution panel is a font of rich color and crisp detail. Watching the 1080p trailer for Kiki, I marveled at how clearly I could see the delicate fronds of the peacock feathers adorning some of the dancers. The azure, emerald and gold feathers were almost as bold as their wearers' personalities.
Exploring the worlds of Mass Effect: Andromeda was a constant exercise in picking my jaw off the floor. Details were sharp enough that I could see blue-white lightning bolts cut jagged paths along the sky until they met the steel-gray earth, leaving a smoking black crater. When I happened upon an uncorrupted piece of earth, I was taken in by the vivid-green alien plant, caught in a near angelic golden ray of light.
You could use a headset to game on the Alienware 15, but then you'd be missing out on the rich, balanced audio from the front-firing speakers.
Those bold hues are due to the panel's color gamut, which measured an excellent 117 percent of the sRGB scale. It's much better than the 94 percent mainstream average. The Blade, the G752VS, the Predator 15 and the Dominator Pro weren't too far behind at 114, 112,110 and 106 percent, respectively.
With a score of 0.3 on the Delta-E test (0 is ideal), the Alienware 15's display is plenty accurate. It was enough to top the 2.6 category average, the Blade's 2.4, the G752VS' 2.1, the Predator 15's 1.4 and the Dominator Pro's 0.7.
When we measured for brightness, the Alienware 15's panel averaged a gleaming 374 nits, which outshined everything except the G752VS, which delivered an incredible 476 nits.
The Alienware 15's display has Nvidia's G-Sync technology, which allows the display to sync directly with the graphics card for the smoothest performance possible. On the less expensive models of the Alienware 15, the G-Sync display is capped at 60 Hz, but my model offers double the refresh-rate speed at 120 Hz. In my experience, most games ran well on the Alienware regardless of whether G-Sync was enabled or not. However, the image looked a lot smoother with G-Sync enabled.
Audio
You could use a headset to game on the Alienware 15, but then you'd be missing out on the rich, balanced audio from the front-firing speakers. The laptop filled my medium-size testing space with Bruno Mars' smooth tenor as I played 'That's What I Like.' The bass was deep, but not overpowering, allowing for the fullness of the keyboard and the crisp drums to shine through.
Using the Alienware Sound Center software, I found that the Music setting was optimal for listening to Spotify or Vevo. But when I started playing Mass Effect, I went with the Shooter preset over Role Play, as it made for weightier blasts and booms when I engaged the enemy in combat.
There are four additional presets you can choose from, although the majority are tuned with specific gaming genres in mind. Similar to MSI's Nahemic 2 software, Sound Center has Audio Launchpad, which lets you map audio samples to your keyboard or gamepad that can be triggered while streaming. There's also Audio Recon, which amplifies enemy footsteps so they'll never get the drop on you.
Keyboard and TouchPad
While the Alienware 15's traditional keyboard doesn't deliver the loud click-clack that I love on mechanical keyboards, it definitely delivers comparable feedback, thanks to the steel-reinforced keys. We measured key travel at 2 millimeters (1.5-2 mm is optimal) and the actuation -- the force needed to depress the keys -- was 78 grams (60 grams is the minimum). Those measurements allowed me to hit 70 words per minute on the 10fastfingers typing test, which is well above my 60 wpm norm.
As always, Alienware offers a customizable LED backlit keyboard that's simply a sight to behold. Able to reproduce up to 16.8 million colors, depending on your creativity, you can transform the system into a captivating, pulsating jewel-toned masterpiece.
The 3.8 x 2.1-inch touchpad looks small, but I had plenty of room to execute two-finger scroll, pinch-zoom, three-finger swipe and other multitouch gestures. Best of all, like all Alienware laptops, the pad lights up with every gentle caress. The pair of discrete mouse buttons offered springy feedback.
The Alienware 15 can also deliver some smoking frame rates -- with or without G-Sync enabled.
Alienware Command Center
Alienware's proprietary settings suite has been streamlined to four apps. There's AlienFX, which lets you create custom backlighting profiles for your system, while TactX allows you to map commands to the macro keys. You can tweak the power settings with Alien Fusion, while AlienAdrenaline allows you to create custom shortcuts, monitor performance and adjust the Graphics Amplifier, if you have one handy.
Gaming, Graphics and VR
The middle child in Nvidia's Pascal GPU lineup, the GeForce GTX 1070 with 8GB of VRAM can handle just about anything you throw at it. I jumped into a game of Robo Recall on the Oculus Rift, for a robo-smashing good time. The game ran smoothly, despite my frenetic teleporting around the board, which allowed me to pluck a copper-colored bullet from the air and chuck it at an oncoming robot, causing a slew of sparks and smoke to stream from the new hole in its chest.
When we ran the SteamVR performance test, the Alienware 15 got 11, which is the top score for this test. That was more than enough to sail past the mainstream average of 6. Outfitted with GTX 1060 GPUs, the Predator 15 and the Blade both got a score of 6. The G752VS and Dominator Pro achieved 10.4 and 10.1, respectively, thanks to their GTX 1070 GPUs.
The Alienware 15 can also deliver some smoking frame rates -- with or without G-Sync enabled. When I played Mass Effect: Andromeda with the feature off at 1080p on Ultra, the laptop delivered an average of 57 fps. That's well above our 30-fps playability threshold. When I dropped the settings to High, the frame rate jumped to 62 fps, and 68 fps when I lowered it even further to Medium.
As far as traditional gaming benchmarks are concerned, the Alienware 15 is on a par with the competition. On the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark (1920 x 1080 on Very High) for example, the Alienware notched 52 fps, while the Dominator Pro and the G752VS achieved 51 fps and 55 fps. They easily beat the 33-fps category average. The Blade delivered 43 fps, while the Predator 15 barely cleared the hurdle at 34 fps.
During the Hitman test, the Alienware 15 hit an impressive 98 fps, soundly beating the 56fps average. The Dominator Pro and the G752VS weren't too far behind, with 94 and 91 fps. The Blade and Predator 15 got a respectable 60 fps and 57 fps each.
The Alienware 15 produced a solid 68 fps on the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark, coasting past the 48 fps mainstream average. That was enough to beat most of the competition except the G752VS, which notched a great 73 fps.
When we ran Metro: Last Light, which is one of our tougher tests, the Alienware achieved 68 fps, trouncing the 48fps average while matching the G752VS and the Dominator Pro. The Predator 15 was the surprise winner, however, with 69 fps, while the Blade delivered a solid 43 fps.
On those occasions when you're not saving the world or exploring a virtual one, the Alienware 15 switches over to its integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 GPU for less intensive tasks.
Overall Performance
Skylake was so last year. The new hotness is Intel's Kaby Lake processors, which offer better performance and power efficiency. The Alienware is rocking a 7th-generation Intel Core i7-7820HK processor with 8GB of RAM. It's overclockable, which means it has plenty of gas in the tank to handle all your multitasking demands.
For example, I streamed Dave Chappelle's latest stand-up special on Netflix while running a full system scan in Windows Defender with 17 open tabs in Google Chrome with no discernable latency. In fact, I encountered lag only when I launched Mass Effect: Andromeda in another window.
The Alienware 15 held its own on our synthetic tests, hitting 14,932 on Geekbench 3, which tests overall performance. It was more than enough to top the 11,377 mainstream average along with the G752VS (Intel Core i7-7820HK CPU), the Blade (Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU) and the Predator 15 (Intel Core i7-6700HQ CPU). They obtained 14,717,13,682 and 12,888, respectively.
During the File Transfer test (copying 4.97GB of mixed-media files from an external hard drive), the Alienware 15's 512GB PCIe SSD (and a 1TB 7,200-rpm hard drive) took 17 seconds to complete the test, which translates into 299.3 megabytes per second. It was definitely faster than the 177.9, as well as the Blade's (256GB PCIe SSD) 203 MBps and the Predator 15's (256GB SSD) 145.4 MBps. However, the G752VS (256GB SSD) and the Dominator Pro (256GB PCIe m.s SSD) scorched the competition with 727 and 628.6 MBps, respectively.
The Alienware 15 saw a small measure of redemption on the OpenOffice Spreadsheet Macro test, taking only 3 minutes and 17 seconds to pair 20,000 names and addresses, smoking the 4:13 average along with most of the competition. However, the G752VS clocked in with a lightning-fast 2:51.
Battery Life
Overclocked specs, a G-Sync display and a powerful Nvidia GPU? At some point, the Alienware 15 had to pay the piper, and in this case, the toll is exacted on the battery life. The laptop lasted only 3 hours and 25 minutes on our battery test (continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi), which is far below the 6:57 mainstream average. It's better than the Dominator Pro's time of 3:18, but not the G752VS and the Predator 15 ,which lasted 3:53 and 4 hours. But the Blade was the last system running, with a time of 7:45.
Heat
Wewatched a few HD YouTube videos over the course of a 15-minute span and measured key points on the laptop. The touchpad registered a cool 81 degrees Fahrenheit while the space between the G and H keys hit a warm 94 degrees. The bottom of the notebook reached 92 degrees, slightly below our 95-degree comfort threshold.
Webcam
The integrated 720p webcam can take a decent shot, provided you're in a well-lit spot. My test photos accurately captured my forest green and black dress with sharp-enough detail to make out the slightly floral pattern. I could also read some of the lettering on the poster in the background.
Tobii
Heeere's Tobii! The eye-tracking software has made its way into the Alienware 15 in limited capacity via Tobii EyeX Lite. Without the integrated sensors you find on the larger Alienware 17, you won't have the ability to control your video games with your eyes. You can, however, put your system into sleep, shut off the lighting or dim the screen with a simple look. The IR sensor mounted in the webcam module keeps track of your gaze and executes commands accordingly.
As fun as playing peek-a-boo with your laptop can be, the camera can also be used to unlock the laptop via Windows Hello. Setting up the facial recognition service is pretty simple, just create a password and pin first. From there, simply hit the Set Up button under Face Recognition in the settings menu and let the IR presence-detection camera scan your face, and you're good to go.
Software and Warranty
Alienware typically keeps the unwanted software to a minimum. Outside of the typical Windows 10 suite, the only third-party apps on the Alienware 15 are Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, Royal Revolt 2, Asphalt 8: Airborne, Candy Crush Soda Saga and Drawboard PDF.
There is some useful, gamer-centric software pre-loaded onto the laptop, such as Nvidia's GeForce Experience, which consists of several game-optimization apps, including Battery Boost and GameStream for streaming games to your Nvidia Shield. There's also the Share feature, which allows you to record or broadcast your gaming exploits. To ensure your games are running on the fastest network possible, the notebook also has Killer Network Manager.
The Alienware 13 comes with one year of Premium support, which includes 24/7 access to Alienware's support techs, in-game repairs and troubleshooting.
Configurations
I had loads of fun reviewing the $2,299 model of the Alienware, which has an overclockable 7th-generation Intel Core i7-7820HK processor with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB M.2 SSD with a 1TB 7,200-rpm hard drive, an Intel HD Graphics 630 GPU, a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU with 8GB of VRAM and a 1080p Nvidia G-Sync 120Hz panel.
If you're on a budget, the $1,499 version of the system offers a 2.8-GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU with 8GB of RAM, a 128GB M.2 SATA SSD with a 1TB 7,200-rpm hard drive, an Intel HD Graphics 630 GPU, a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU with 8GB of VRAM and a 1080p Nvidia G-Sync 60Hz panel.
The $1,199 base model features a 3.5-GHz Intel Core i5-7300HQ CPU with 8GB of RAM, 1TB 7,200-rpm hard drive, an Intel HD Graphics 630 GPU, a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU with 2GB of VRAM and a 1080p Nvidia G-Sync 60Hz display.
The top-of-the-line $2,549 model has an overclockable 2.8-GHz Intel Core i7-7820HK CPU, a 512GB PCIe SSD with a 1TB 7,200-rpm hard drive, an Intel HD Graphics 630 GPU, a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU with 8GB of VRAM and a 1080p Nvidia G-Sync 120Hz panel.
The lower-tier configurations of the Alienware 15 are outfitted with a 68 watt-hour battery -- a rather meager spec compared with the 99 wH battery found in the more expensive models of the system.
If you want power and performance without putting too big a dent in your wallet, I highly recommend the $1,799 model, which has the larger battery as well as a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU with 8GB of VRAM, a 2.8-GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU with 8GB of RAM, a 256GB PCIe SSD with a 1TB, 7,200-rpm hard drive and a 1080p Nvidia G-Sync 60Hz display.
Bottom Line
There's a lot to like on the Alienware 15. For $2,299, you get a modern take on the interstellar theme that's sleek and sophisticated, with a comfortable keyboard, excellent sound, strong gaming performance and a lovely G-Sync-enabled display. The Tobii software adds a fun, but useful eye-controlled functionality for more seamless productivity, even if it's not for playing games. For the full Tobii treatment, you'll want to step up to the Alienware 17.
But the Alienware 15 is more than its eye-tracker. Thanks to some rather robust hardware, including an overclockable Core i7 processor, Nvidia GTX 1070 GTX and a G-Sync display, the laptop serves up buttery-smooth frame rates whether you're playing traditional or VR games.
The system does stumble a bit when it comes to battery life, and if endurance is important to you, the $1,899 Razer Blade might be a better fit. It's also more portable than the 7.4 pound 15-inch Alienware. If you want something with a faster SSD, consider the $1,999 MSI GT62VR Dominator Pro. But, if you want a fairly portable 15-inch system with all the bells and whistles, the Alienware 15 is a great choice.
– It Came from Outer Space to Take Over Your Desktop –
A few years ago, I put up an Alienware Theme for Windows 7 tutorial that was massively popular. Now it’s time to build up a new desktop with Windows 10. With an amazing Alienware Visual Style for Windows 10 and a sleek Alienware Skin for Windows 10 with Rainmeter, you’ll create the best free Alienware Windows 10 Theme out there.
This theme will be split in to 3 parts: Introduction, Visual Style and Rainmeter. Each part will have step-by-step instructions to guide you along. Ready? Let’s get started!
The following is high-level desktop customization. You’ll be using various tools and resources to bring together a unique desktop that represents the futuristic sci-fi theme of the Alienware systems regardless of whether you actually own an Alienware PC or not.
1. REQUIREMENTS: This theme requires that you have Windows 10 with the November 2015 update installed. So it must be Version 1511, Build 10586. Trying this theme on other builds is not likely to work. To find out which version of Windows you have, type winver in the start menu and hit enter.
2. CAUTION: While the process is fairly simple and should take about 15 – 30 minutes to set up, make sure you follow the instructions correctly and backup any file that you may have to modify. Just drop a comment below if you need any help. Before we begin installing the theme, make sure you create a system restore point so that we can restore our PC in case something goes wrong. It is really important you do this before going to the next step.
3. TO DOWNLOAD: Imagine we are going to build a spaceship and we need to assemble all the parts first. Download these 4 files that are listed below. Do NOT run any of them for now.
Extract the contents of the AlienwareThemeRaiderDownloads.rar into a new folder and put the other 3 files that you downloaded in there as well. So you end up with a similar folder like this for quick access.
Now we’ll move on to installing the visual style for our theme.
A Visual Style is a 3rd party theme that will change several aspects of your PC. This includes changes to your explorers, task bar, start menu, cursor, sound and icons. Credits to AlienByte for creating the Alienware visual style that we’ll be using.
In order to use 3rd party themes, you need to patch your system by installing the following applications. If you’ve already used 3rd party themes before it is likely your system is already patched, in which case you may not have to install these applications again.
1. OldNewExplorer: Extract the OldNewExplorer.rar file that you downloaded to a new folder and run the OldNewExplorerCfg program. Set the settings as the same as the screenshot you see below. Hit Install and complete the installation.
2. StartIsBack: Next run the StartIsBackPlusPlus_setup.exe file that you downloaded and complete the installation. After installation, simply close the program if it runs automatically.
3. UXThemePatcher: Now extract the UXThemePatcher10.rar file that you downloaded and run the UXThemePatcher10.exe and complete the setup. After the installation is complete the system will do a quick restart.
4. Copy Theme Files: The next thing we need to do is extract the contents of the alien_return_azure_theme__w10__november_update__by_alien_byte-d9lqven.zip file that you downloaded into a new folder. Navigate to the Theme W10 TH2 Alien Return Azure folder inside it.
Copy paste the two contents of that folder into the C:WindowsResourcesThemes folder of your PC.
5. More Patching: Extract the contents of the Theme Patcher.rar that you downloadedinto a new folder. You’ll find a Add_Take_Ownership_to_context_menu file inside a Take OwnershipREG files folder. Run it and confirm to complete the registry change.
5a. Now go to your C:WindowsSystem32 folder and search for themeui.dll. Right click the file and click Open File Location.
5b. Right click the file and click Take Ownership. Select Yes when prompted for confirmation.
5c. Now right click the file again and rename it to themeui.dll.del. Click Yes and then Continue when prompted.
5d. Now copy/paste the themeui.dll file that you’ll find in the File Patch x86 (if your Windows 10 is 32-bit) or File Patch x64 (if your Windows 10 is 64-bit) folders from Step 5 to the C:WindowsSystem32 folder.
5e. Repeat steps 5a to 5d for two more files: uxtheme.dll and uxinit.dll.
6. RESTART: Once you’ve copy/pasted all 3 files, restart your system for patches to take effect.
7. Taskbar Color Effect: Extract the contents of the TBCE.zip file that you downloaded into a new folder. Run the Taskbar Color Effect.exe file that you extracted. You’ll find it added as a new icon in your systray. Right click the icon and go to Settings.
Once it opens, select Custom Image BG option. It’ll prompt you to select an image so browse to the Taskbar Alien Return Azure TBCE folder that you extracted in Step 4 and select that Alien Return Azure taskbar image.
Click Save for changes to take effect.
8. Alienware Theme Raider Theme Pack: For the last step, run the AlienwareWindows10ThemeRaider.deskthemepack file that you downloaded. And voila, if you did everything right, you’ll have something that looks like this with modified explorers, task bar, icons, cursors and sounds.
If your taskbar doesn’t look the same, try to run StartIsBack and set the transparency of the taskbar to 100%. Also make sure the taskbar icons are set to Large Size by right clicking the taskbar and selecting Properties.
If it still doesn’t look right, drop a comment below with a screenshot of your PC and I’ll take a look.
That’s it for the visual style. In the next part, we’ll get that cool Rainmeter skin for our desktop.
1. Rainmeter: As you may already know, Rainmeter is a light weight productivity application that can change your desktop completely. If you don’t already have it, go right ahead and set it up.
2. Fonts: The rainmeter skin uses a font called DS-Digital so go ahead and download the DS-Digital font. Extract the fonts to a new folder and right click and select Install to install them to your PC.
3. Alienware Theme Raider Skin: Once you’ve installed Rainmeter and got the hang of things, simply run the AlienwareThemeRaider_.rmskin file that you downloaded. Credits to deviantart user designfjotten for creating the rainmeter skin and wallpaper that we use for our theme. With the settings set as below, install it.
The Alienware skin and layout should be loaded automatically. Depending on your monitor resolution the skins might not be placed exactly as you see below. You can simply click and drag as them as you like.
You’ll find several skins that show Hard Disk usage, CPU & RAM usage, Network usage and Recycle Bin status. There are 2 skins that show the Uptime of the PC as well as the current time.
And that’s it! Congrats~! You’ve successfully completed this tutorial. Kudos to you for sticking through to the end!
You can take things one step further by modifying all your icons. Here’s a cool Alienware icon pack that might be of help. You could also check out more rainmeter skins to add to your desktop.
RESET TO DEFAULT: Change the theme back to the default Windows 10 theme to switch back the Visual Style to default. Uninstall StartIsBack to switch back to the Windows 10 task bar and Start Menu.
CREDITS: As mentioned before, credits to deviantart users designfjotten and AlienByte for creating the cool rainmeter skin and visual style respectively.
Hope you liked this theme. If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, drop them below. Good luck~!
Great!! Successfully, thanks brother..
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