*OFFICIAL* Alienware "Graphics Amplifier" Owner's Lounge and Benchmark Thread (All 13, 15 and 17)

No but i don't also want to discard my 51m with 3 years of warranty left on it. A new AGA would bridge the gap to a new system in a few years

 

The fact that if you order a new laptop from them today it still includes the AGA proprietary IO for the amp is just ridiculous to the fact they don’t offer support for the newer cards. Does Dell actually think someone would put a older generation card then what’s on the laptop! Lmao

 

I'm about to just open every 3070 and 3080 I have and test those as well in the AGA. Considering trying out coin mining since these GPU do stupid well at it, and also it'll help with determining AGA compatibility. Does the AGA work fine with mining? I Googled a bit, saw one person having problems and then just seen a bunch of AGA + GPU performance stuff instead of coin mining stuff.

Edit : Well the Zotac 3070 Twin Edge is compatible.

 

Don't wanna double post, but I thought of a good idea for the AGA workaround. Instead of pulling cords and flipping switches, a 10$ smart outlet would do the job easy. It can even be attached to Alexa.

So far the compatible GPU I have are :
Zotac 3070 Twin Edge (way too dam tall for lid)
EVGA 3070 XC3 Ultra (haven't tried the lid but it looks like a good fit with the lid).

 

I just got an AGA for my 17R4 (1070 internal, non MaxQ)...I'm in the market for an Nvdia 3070/3080 but was wondering about compatibility. I see that people have been able to run non reference 3070s and 3080s...basically there's some boot up sequence to follow and I believe the case will likely need to remain open to fit these cards. Is that pretty much all I need to know? With the case open, I can fit cards wider than 2 slot right? My main reason for asking is because I see people online saying "no the 30XXs aren't compatible" but should it be "yes they are compatible, you just need to power up your computer differently and leave the case open"?

 

Anything that fits a Pcie slot should be compatible, the issue is that Dell hasnt added them so that they work as intended.

So its a yes and no kind of thing

 

With the case off -> there's space for gpus that are bigger than 2 slot...and any that are too large to fit the case when closed.
Without making modifications to the AGA PSU -> support for 3070s and 3080s (maybe even the 3090s Edit: Seems like power wise only the 3090 FE might be ok as most of the 3rd party 3090s require a lot of power to run) seems ok and within power requirements since the AGA 460W PSU is only powering the GPU/adaptercard/fan and not a whole computer.
Follow the modified bootup sequence -> gets the AGA+30XX to be detected properly and running

I just want to verify all this before I drop hundreds on a card

 

Since its not "officially" supported it kind of falls under trial and error.

So in theory it should work just fine with that altered startup process but on the flip side dont be surprised if it doesnt want to cooperate is basically what it comes down to

 

What's officially supported? 30xx in the AGA?

 

ah sorry I mis-typed. Unless I missed an update its currently not supported "officially" but as has been referenced it does work with that altered startup process

 

Zotac 3090 Trinity - couldn't get it to work
EVGA 3070 FTW3 Ultra - works but way too tall + wide for lid

I noticed if you try to get a GPU to work, at least for the m15, if Windows doesn't lag/freeze for a few seconds upon turning on the AGA, it's not gonna work. Also, if it doesn't show "Microsoft display adapter" with the AGA running without drivers installed, also doubt the GPU will work. That'd what I gathered from spending 30-45min trying to get the 3090 working

 

Wonder if we could consolidate a list of cards that "work as long as you have the case off and use the altered startup".

Works:
Zotac 3070 Twin Edge
EVGA 3070 XC3 Ultra
EVGA 3070 FTW3 Ultra
ASUS TUF 3080 OC ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-all-13-15-and-17.770323/reply?quote=11068215)

Does Not Work:
Zotac 3090 Trinity

 

¨The beauty with proprietary design... It will force you to be creative. Because before or later you'll be screwed by greedy companies even if a small firmware update could fix it. Of exactly same reason why they killed upgradeability with fully fleshed soldered hardware even in a maxed size 17,3 inch chassis. Today's word "Greed have/has no limits!!!"

RTX 3090 Modded to Work via a Ryzen Laptop's M.2 Slot tomshardware.com


A laptop was modified to run an RTX 3090 through the notebooks M.2 slot.

 

I'll give the Zotac 3090 another attempt when I'm moving everything to the mining frame in a couple days. But I highly doubt it wasn't seated correctly or anything like that. I know 3090 have been reported to work, but its weird I had 3 cards work fine and then magically the 3090 didn't (EVGA 650 G5 PSU). It honestly had me thinking I broke my AGA until I put the 3070 FTW3 Ultra in. Was hoping the 3090 would work, cuz maybe someday I will game on it. But as the AGA is rn, I guess its just "incompatible".

Side note, idk if I got unlucky with the thermal paste, but this 3090 Trinity is the hottest and most obnoxious GPU and I could never recommend it for gaming, especially not in a AGA. @64C, it decides it wants to run the fans @100%. Could be some VRM contact problem, but I guess I will find out when I put Kryonaut. The 3070 Twin edge only dropped 1-2C from Kryonaut so I wasn't going to bother with the 3090, until it goes from silent to airplane in like 5 seconds.

Also, for some reason I had stuttering anytime I ran Afterburner. The fix for me was to go in Nvidia Control Panel and play with the framerate settings under '3D Settings' how I liked. Max FPS, low latency, fixed framerate. Not sure why the Zotac 3070 didn't need this but the EVGA 3070 did, maybe I just didn't do a clean removal of drivers before installing the 3000 series drivers and it saved from my 2070 Max-Q setings.

 

During today's Alienware AMA in their discord, the AW Employee said that the AGA does not support 3080s/3090s due to wattage peaks but that it should support the 3070s. After someone said that they were having problems with the 3070 Twin Edge, the AW Employee had this to say:

"after confirming with our engineers the RTX 3070 is not working on AGA at the moment it is a issue on the driver side and will be getting it resolved shortly "

So it appears as though Alienware is going to do something to remove the hassle of the AGA+3070 special bootup sequence.

 

Have seen similar before. A lots of talk then nothing in return.... Two cases of many. The outcome from the promises became zero.

 

Interesting, given that the boss himself was involved.

 

That's cool cuz maybe it will allow this workaround to work better as well. Though mine 100% worked with the 3070 Twin Edge. Their idea of incompatibility is still based on their crappy PSU, which is easily swapped out. But it is weird how some 3090 work (ASUS TUF) and others don't (Zotac Trinity). Now will this 'update' break it for the 3080s/90s that already work or will it add compatibility to more 3080s/90s...

Also a little offtopic - The 3090s have GDDR6X cooling problems. Does anyone think it would be a terrible idea to basically cover nearly the entire back PCB (not behind the die) with a thermal pad to make contact with the backplate? I am worried the high temps of GDDR6X (100-110C often) could negatively affect other nearby components if they share a pad. I think this is a pic of a 3090 FE as an example - https://i.imgur.com/hONVz3X.jpeg

 

Hard to believe they haven't managed to refresh the AGA design in so many years.

 

Want some speed up in the 3000 series support on the AGA. Then post in the comment section in Dells new youtube video.... Please read also the posts before this one in the link below... Pretty Nasty http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-r4-owners-lounge.835058/page-9#post-11074512

 

Looks like you need to write to their support team lol

 

Exactly! Killing the market because they fail to grasp what it's doing for them.

 

I honestly think that what is most perplexing about Dell is that they continue to create laptops with the AGA port... hahaha and the AGA is EOL and supports cards that are older/less capable than the onboard graphics at this point...

Why not just go the Thunderbolt route? Remove the AGA port completely and be upfront about it... or just update the enclosure and PSU and you’re done... continue reaping the benefits...

It’s beyond me! I’m convinced they don’t know wtf they’re doing. Integrating an AGA port can’t be trivial... it’s gotta cost them a good chunk of cost per unit that they could otherwise avoid (and they’d charge the same prices too I’m sure)...

 

Based on the things I see Papusan post, he could probably turn any trash laptop company into an amazing company. Problem is, that would mean less profit for them, and that just isn't part of Dell's goals lol. I love how he comes in these threads sharing info from 3-4 years ago about how a company has done shady things in the past and then continues to do so. Many of these things I never would have known.

 

I mean AGA performance is greater than TB3 performance, so that's cool. What's absolutely puzzling is why they couldn't really update the enclosure. Also, it seems that they are now just making incremental changes - AGA removal would mean a new mobo, chassis design = more cost which would be very bad. Much better to just make idiots out of old and new customers, who will pay up anyway (they reasonably assume based on recent history).

 

Yeah, I’m expecting that the AGA port will simply be gone in the next design refresh...

Also, the R4 M15 and M17 list the port in the page, but there’s 0 mention about the AGA as a “benefit” (it’s not even marketed...) they just omit mentioning anything about it other than listing that it exists under the “ports and connectivity section”.

 

Can probably just 3d print a new enclosure as all that is REALLY needed is the pcie express slot, cable and support from the system. Everything else is more or less malleable

 

Drivers/compatibility is an issue or no?

IF you put in a beefy PSU with 12 pin connectors and crap, would a 3080? 3090 work?

I think there’s certain steps needed to make the 3070 work, for example...

 

Im speaking in terms of the principle argument. The issue that people are looking at is the issue of the 3 slot card in an enclosure that doesnt allow for that. You dont NEED the enclosure, you need the pcie express slot, the cable and (to what you are pointing towards) support from the system.

 

I'm betting that the change to pci-e 4.0 (both platforms going there this year) caused a change in plans for the AGA and likely if they didn't have 4.0 platforms to test until recently, there could be a lot of questions still circling on this one.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, NBR Optimist of the Year 2021: Eeeef Eeeeeex Iiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!

Even you aren't optimistic enough to predict a return to socketed RAM for the m15 R5

 

So I finally was able to get my hands on a 3070 (the Gigabyte 3070 3 Fan OC Vision)...definitely running into the typical Code 31 issues so no luck with getting it to work out of the box.

However I've tried the two beforementioned power up sequences I could find, and I can't get it to load properly.

1) Involves pulling the AGA power, and then upon reboot, plug in the AGA power before the spinning loading icon shows.
2) While computer is powered up and logged in, remove the AGA cable, wait a bit, plug the AGA cable back in, and wait for no light to appear.

Every time I plug that AGA cable back in, the light reappears....I also ran the DDU/Guru3D driver cleanup and downloaded nvidia's most up to date drivers. Unfortunately, I do believe that Nvidia doesn't separate the desktop and notebook versions of their drivers so maybe this is the problem?

 

Try this :
Unplug AGA
Shutdown laptop
Turn on laptop
Log into Windows and let it run for a bit starting up your normal run-at-boot programs
Plug in AGA

If that doesn't help I would try :
Download DDU if you don't have it + also Download RTX 3000 series desktop driver
Shutdown laptop
Unplug AGA
Turn on laptop and you can just get it to boot right into safe mode
DDU clean remove + restart
Log into Windows and install Nvidia 3000 series desktop driver (ignore Notebook GPU Driver)
Restart laptop
Log into Windows and let everything run for a bit
Plug in AGA

If it works and its anything like mine, Windows will freeze for a couple seconds. Whenever mine didn't freeze, the GPU didn't work. I realize its similar to what you have said. I just like doing extra restarts to make sure stuff is fine and also I don't ever like having the notebook GPU driver installed when using the AGA and am unsure if you installed it.

 

This results in the cable led not turned on (I think that's good because it means the cable chip is bypassed?) and Nvidia 3070 does show up in my device manager but it says Code 12 (This Device cannot find enough free resources that it can use)...sometimes the yellow icon disappears from the Nvidia 3070 which gives me hope but the error message is still there. I should mention that when I plug it in this way, there is a third adapter called "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter" that has a yellow exclamation mark.

The drivers I downloaded had this file name:
461.40-desktop-win10-64bit-international-dch-whql.exe

Going to try this DDU route with safe mode now. (I hadn't done safe mode before).

 

@illuMinniti thanks for your help in this! still can't get it to work but here's what I have after I did the DDU/Safe Mode route

1) It reenabled my onboard laptop Nvidia GPU 1070 with no errors...that's probably not a great sign.
2) Cable LED is off
2) There was again the third "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter" with the following error
"This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)
The driver trying to start is not the same as the driver for the POSTed display adapter."

I also believe that on the Nvidia download page, the drivers are now unified...the exe you get from selecting RTX 3000 vs RTX 3000 Laptop, has the exact same size...the only difference appears to be the filename.

Update: As suspected, when I run the Nvidia desktop exe, it appears to only install the notebook drivers because when I look at the installed drivers list and select Nvidia as the manufacturer...I see a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU listed but not the RTX 3070 that I'm looking for...I get another Code 12 when I tried to use the 3070 Laptop GPU driver.

Update 2: I extracted the files from the driver exe and tried to update the GPU driver by searching those files...by going around Nvidia's installation process, I could then load in the desktop drivers. This allows my 3070 to now show up in the Device Manager but again with the Code 31

 

Alienware Graphics Amplifier (EOL / M17 R4 / 51m R2)


Yeah, sure. The only reason m15 R4 and m17 R4 still have the AGA port is due increased engineering costs. Re-use same chassis and the same internal solutions is a lot cheaper than create new chassis.

Forced to make a statement otherwise tech support would be flooded with questions.

 

Well, he's not wrong about the sales page no longer existing. I can't even find it on Alienware's own website despite finding it a few days ago.
That said, it shouldn't be that much more expensive to fill up a gap on the back and remove the AGA pins on the motherboard, right?

 

New validation, new production line and engineering costs will be there though. And will be added to the total costs. Aka less profit if you don't add in the increased costs.

And why continue promote the AGA as the upgrade saviour on the AREA sales page? Trick people who don't ask when they order? Isn't this false misleading advertising/information?

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/cty/pdp/spd/alienware-area51m-r2-laptop

 

There's likely some disconnect between the sales/marketing people and the actual engineers...fingers crossed the engineers weren't just stringing everyone along during the AMA by telling the marketing/cs people that they have something in the works to support 3070.

 

The code 31 was actually good in my cases. Like the 3090 I couldn't get it to show the Code 31 and I couldn't get it to work. The other 3070s that did show Code 31, they did work. I think its worth trying other methods, like trying to time plugging the AGA in while the Alien logo shows at boot or w/e. I couldn't get that method to work myself though, it seems really inconvenient when just trying to have fun and game. I am gonna try a 3080 FTW3 Ultra soon and see how that goes. But I wonder why some 3070s work and some do not, if their intention from the beginning was to intentionally prevent anything above 3070 from working. They are so dumb, they should have just fully committed to their "it is 100% incompatible". I would rather feel like they are just idiots than to feel like they lied to us and confirmed they are holding it back.

 

So managed to get a 3070 PNY 3070 xlr8 and it’s working great but only went the laptop want.

I made It worked 3 times on 30 try. It’s very frustrating.

1. Install the driver
2. Restart the computer
3. Get the error 31
4. Unplug and plug aga
5. Error 18 and it’s launch.

It’s very hard to make it work every time. Like I said I managed to make it work 3 times on 30 try and restart ...

Any tips that I missed ?

I don’t know what to do, keep and wait for a driver (we waited like 3 months now) or exchange it by a 2080 ti/super or maybe buy a Razer Core ...

Thanks

ps : https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/...urce=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

 

So is the power supply just not powerful enough? Or is this more of a limitation of the cable and port itself? If it’s the latter the power supply is easily swapped out. But if it’s not supported then. . .no real point.

 

Problem becomes legality at that point. Whats to stop people from simply installing a 3090 after support is added and the PSU blows? Then who is liable?

 

Well I mean Dell could update the PSU if that’s the issue. I don’t think they’ve made any improvements or changes since they’ve released it hardware wise? So they could put in better PSU’s and make it the “V2” Model. So it doesn’t have to be on the buyer to make that upgrade.

 

Basic question: what would happen if a card wanted to draw more power than the PSU can provide? Would the card not just shut down, or run on lower power, and thus a bit slower, i. e. neither the enclosure nor the PSU would sustain any damage?
If, as I suspect, there is no risk to the AGA even if a device goes over the power limit of the PSU, then this power thing is just a red herring used by Dell to justify not doing any work on supporting 3080+ Ampere.

 

Instability from my experience. I guess it could cause damage also. But BSOD and system lock ups are what I’ve personally seen.

 

For sure there is instability etc, but of course users can manage that trivially using AfterBurner. I wonder if there is any risk of actual damage to the HW. Aren't all PSUs are protected against overcurrent, so they just cut off or not deliver more power?

 

It’s probably possible for something to get damaged. Slim for sure. But safeguards can fail. But that’s only if you repeatedly keep trying to push something over its limits. Hopefully they spent some time making good fail safes also.

 

Again, that's the common perception.

The PSU should be designed to operate at peak output, and a standard mechanism is in place to prevent the PSU from going over the limit. Perhaps someone knows for sure? @Papusan @Aivxtla

Of course, anyone savvy enough to attempt using Ampere in the AGA would either upgrade the PSU, or limit the GPU power using AfterBurner.

 

Funny thing is the Graphics amp isn’t even on Dells website right now. Not sure if that’s just a supply issue and they took it down or if there is more too it.

Someone sold their 3070 because it didn’t play well with the graphics amp. Only a sample size of one, but could be Dell being lazy too not supporting graphics cards.

Would be a real shame if they just drop it. Since it performed the best out of any egpu solution out there from a raw performance stand point.