*OFFICIAL* Alienware Area-51M R1 Owner's Lounge

We are talking about a laptop right? Cause it sure sounds like you are conflating a tragedy in which people died to buying a laptop with a warranty and there is a chance it might go pop and hurt no one? Is anyone taking away your ability to choose? Don't buy the laptop or do buy the laptop. It's not an emotional thing man. Evaluate finances and make a decision. Look at failure rates and make a choice. What's hard about that. You don't have to be an Alienware fanboy to be annoyed when someone makes a post stating they canceled an order or are thinking about canceling. It's useless information. They aren't even asking a question.

 

I don’t think it will be, unfortunately. Frank has said they’re waiting for narrow border LCDs for the 51m, which is why 120hz/QHD comes to AW17 first. Oled is not LCD? That’s a legitimate question, not a douchy hypothetical question

 

Finally got my 51m today, exactly a month since my original order. 9700k/2080/16gb/256 NVMe. Unfortunately I’m unable to do much with it since my parents flew in last night for the week to help me paint and build a new deck... feel bad playing on the new toy when they’re working, lol.

Initial benchmark looked prettty good, but a little disappointed on the overclocking on my laptop, seems to crash pretty easy. Need to mess around with it a bit more, but it was crashing with stock CPU and a 150/150 OC on the GPU. I was going to update the BIOS, but looks like we might be getting a new one in a week anyways.

Division 2 was super easy to get, thanks for the info in this thread on obtaining the key! Hoping we get the other games as well!

 

Well, some of these people are owners (to be) and they take (their laptop) criticism personally. To counterbalance them, there are also a handful of Dell haters (and not owners) that will take every opportunity to slag off Alienwares, some in a crude, and some, in a more polished and eloquent manner. And with the crap QC and seemingly idiotic decisions, Dell makes their job very easy indeed.

 

What motherboard issue? There isn’t a official statement from Dell/Alienware.

Stop spreading panic when nothing is confirmed yet.

 

Let's keep the topic on track here, this is a not a discussion of fanboyism or Boeing airplanes or whatever. Also lets stay away from personal attacks or I can hand out some vacation time to help with personal reflection. Everyone has an opinion and you're not always going to agree with someone, but being cordial and professional is always a good thing...

 

If you believe that 1000s of owners have come to the forums to detail their misadventures? To me it is clearly, and once again, a marginal design, which needed just a little push to topple over. A few extra watts and it's fireworks time. A few watts less and users have reported burned fingers.

 

Only a few toasted MB and at least one graphics.

Of course you won’t get that type info. Would you as salesman from any manufacturers post such info whitch could lower the sales? This is business as usual.

 

Speaking rationally we don't have enough information. I don't know how many have been sold but Dell is a large global company. It isn't outrageous to believe that they could or have sold thousands. That being said I doubt they all come here to pow wow.

We don't know that it is a marginal design because the people whose laptops blew haven't posted up numbers that I've seen. There are guys doing 30k plus graphic scores with 9900ks in their systems and they are still golden. The numbers are still too low to sharpen pitchforks. That being said we should all be alarmed. I am. It just may be a fluke or it could be something more. No one should stick their head in the sand but a wait and see approach is prudent don't you think?

 

From the AUO web site:
https://www.auo.com/en-global/TFT-LCD_Introduction/index/LTPS_TFT_LCD

SUPER NARROW BORDER - considering their current UHD has a tiny border already, I figured they must be preparing an even narrower border panel ? Just shot in the dark, I am actually guessing

****************************************************
LTPS Features
The LTPS process is far more complex than a-Si but the mobility of LTPS TFT is 100 times higher than a-Si TFT (>100 cm2/V‧s). The CMOS process can be applied directly on the glass substrate as well. The key characteristics of LTPS TFT-LCD include:

• Low power consumption and ultra high resolution: High mobility means that smaller transistors can provide the necessary charge. The capacitance is also higher than conventional a-Si. When the effective area of light transmittance becomes bigger (high aperture rate), the same brightness can be achieved using fewer backlights or less power while still achieving high resolutions.
• Super Narrow Border: A conventional a-Si TFT-LCD requires driver ICs on two to three sides, making it difficult to make the border narrower. LTPS TFT-LCD can integrate the driver IC directly onto the glass substrate to achieve both super narrow border and high image quality. The integrated circuit of LTPS TFT-LCD requires fewer external signal connections, reducing the number of module parts.
• Super Thin: Since some of the driver IC can be placed on the glass substrate, the PCB can be simplified and reduced in size. Meanwhile, as the module becomes smaller, the displays can also be made lighter and thinner.
• Vehicle of OLED: OLED uses a special current-driven architecture. A compensation circuit for gray-level and panel consistency requires 2 to 6 thin-film transistors per pixel. The high density layout of LTPS makes realizing OLED display with high brightness and high image quality easier. The lifetime of OLED display is also increased. High mobility means a higher driving current can be provided to OLED display, making LTPS a more suitable substrate for Active-Matrix OLED display.

 

I seriously doubt the 200W bios is related to the issue. RTX power draw is a convoluted mess. Upping the TDP by 10-20W is marketing shoe polish.

It's hard to speculate the actul cause. They have 1 burnt out GPU and 4 burning smells from the opposite (CPU) vents, and 1 burn/smoke damage from under the Tobii bar.

My hope for owners is there is something wrong with power delivery in the firmware. Or a bad batch of boards.

If it is a design flaw on the mosfet or cooling design. Then there is a major issue that will span months. Not enough info now to determine anything.

 

Seems my initial response was deleted, and that the Moderator edited yours...so I'll just sum-up what I have to say in a more high-brow fashion:

"You whom the manufacturer of defective laptops sell to,
You who are all but one step away from seeing through a smokey haze,
How they love your money
And many, like me, not-so-alone in coveting the Dark Side of the Moon,
Shall bathe in neither it nor the Lunar Light and its empty promises."
-Artie Choke

 

I'm eagerly waiting just many folks here... it couldn't arrive soon enough.

 

Too bad old Artie Choke didn't write a proper response. I guess me and my defective laptop will have to just get by. I have no excessive fondness for Alienware. I think their designs are pretty gaudy. That being said I think they've done a decent job on the laptop I own. If these laptops go belly up i'll be holding a pitchfork with you. Only difference is I paid for my ticket and you yelled outside holding a sign.

 

"I have no excessive fondness for Alienware"...yet you own 3 of them...whatever.

And FYI, I bought a 17R4 for my son a couple of years ago...so it's not that I don't like Alienware. What I don't like is being charged ridiculous sums for defective products.

I've had more Area 51M configurations in my cart than I can count...but between their R&D, customer service, and QC issues, I'm not willing to shell out my $ for something that might go *poof*, all things considered. I already went down that road years ago when my Sager 9860 went *poof* (which I documented in these forums quite some time ago), and that was a $3600 machine in 2005 dollars (around $4600-4700 today).

Nah..once bitten, twice shy my friend.

And for those who still want to take a chance on this machine and have ordered through Dell, here's a suggestion - why don't you all coordinate, get on the phone around the same time, and threaten to cancel your orders? Or, if you're getting your laptops soon, call and request a refund due to the issues that have come to light? I wonder how much Dell would refund to you in order to convince you to keep what, for some of you, may very well be a ticking time bomb?

Just a thought...

 

I have my 51m and i’m loving it. I have a 4 year warranty and not a care in the world. I don’t even understand why you are in this thread, you are not gonna scare me that’s a fact. Every item i buy can go up in smoke. I had a 30k car catch on fire once, bought the same one and have had it for 8 years now. I’m gonna enjoy my laptop now

 

I also proudly own a M15xr2 and a busted m18xr2. I've owned several laptops and have kept few. The ones I continue to own I believe to be very good and I've enjoyed.

As to your thought. I think few people are interested in working as a mob. Most people are individuals and want to make choices based on what they see fit. Not everyone wants to work an angle or go to war over slights imagined or otherwise. Even still you have your points. I don't agree with you or your choice to conflate disproportionately but you have every right to say it.

 

My two M18xR2, AW 13 R3 & Area-51m (*knocks on wood*) going strong.

Wow was that the stock paste job? I need to open mine up soon then. Gotta check if I still have some extra thermal pads. Let us know what pad size you try out.

 

In other news, Dave Lee just uploaded his review!



BRB gonna watch it...

 

I got my Area 51M in yesterday with the 9900K + RTX 2080. I wanted to check in with you guys and see if any of you are experiencing the same issues as me.

1) Touch pad and tron lights aren't coming on at all. I also can't make changes in the Alienware control software to the lights, except I can change the keyboard lights. Weird.
2) My internet seems to be randomly interrupted. In the middle of Apex Legends games, the game just freezes for about 5-10 seconds then comes back. This is happening when over wifi and when plugged directly into the router through cable. Any idea what's causing it?
3) Some of my keys are a bit squeaky when typing. Like a weird skreach type of squeaky. Weird.
4) When rendering in Adobe Premiere Pro, I get really good render times, but my CPU load is only at 30-40%, watts being pulled is only at 50 watts, temps are like 55-60C, instead of like 135 watts and 90C like I was expecting and like it normally is when in Cinebench R15. Anyone else having this issue in Premiere?

Overall, really impressed with the machine, but frustrated by these issues I can't fix. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

yeah that was stock, but i already removed some of the paste on the heastink prior to taking a pic. ;-)

i used 1.5mm on vram around the gpu and all around the cpu, rest is 1mm. except the two (non-cooled ones when stock) (vram?) on the right side of the gpu, there i used 4mm.

i will check some temps later on and in case i'm not happy i'll repaste and the take good pictues /

 

"I think few people are interested in working as a mob." THIS, from the guy who moments ago was talking about standing around with others holding a pitchfork... ??

This word you keep using..."conflate"...I think you forgot to type a few letters. What you really meant to type was the word "conflagrate" - as in, "I spent my hard-earned cash on an Alienware Area 51M laptop that might conflagrate at any moment - but I don't care!"

That's my free spelling lesson for today. Gotta go now - see y'all tomorrow!

 

1) My touchpad light isn't working either, it will work if I turn it on in BIOS, but if I put it on Auto, it doesn't. My guess is the BIOS update messed this up.

2) I think this is an issue with Apex. This happened on my R5, random 5-10 second freezes.

3) No squeaky keys here.

4) Not sure, don't use that program.

 

Well, don't want to get chastised for talking about order shipping status in this thread again ;p

But here's my story - seems like Dell has a very broad supply issue for the screen.

ORDER A:
Placed on 3/7 w/ 15% coupon
Packing slip for 3/17
Delivery estimate by 3/19
As of 3/17, no delivery
Chat with support; waiting on 144Hz G-Sync lunar panel
Told parts expected to arrive by 3/22
Today (3/19) officially get delay notification
Delivery now listed for 3/26-3/29
Packing slip now says 3/22
Still marked as confirmed


ORDER B:
Placed on 3/15 w/ 17% coupon + eBates
Still marked as confirmed
scheduled to arrive 3/21 - 3/26
Packing slip is listed as 3/24
I have zero confidence this is arriving on time; but would be funny if it arrived before Order A

 

Guys, I think this escalation is really unnecessary. We're all on the same side here really.

Some of us will stick it through despite the risk because we want the latest and greatest.

Others will hold off or cancel orders until there is clarification on the problem or there is a revision 2, 6 months or a year down the line.

Neither approach is wrong, just different circumstances and risk appetite.

 

Watching CPU get over 90C on default settings is just sad... I don't understand why Dell can't use larger side exhaust vents and heatsinks, especially on Alienware models like this (it's even worse on new Dell G5 and G7 with tiny side slits).

 

1) Does updating the Bios fix the touchpad light?
2) Internet being interrupted didn't happen on my previous laptops or desktops I tested with Apex, unless its because of recent update. The issue seems to only be happening to me, and not to everyone else on the server as they continue fighting, often resulting in me losing control and then ending up dead because I was just stuck in place while people shot me.
3) That's good.

 

In other news, I am running a silicon lotteried 9900K @5.0 ghz and OCing the RTX 2080, with CPU and GPU temps hovering around 70-75 degrees in games. That's just insanely good temps. I do have fans on high though, so a bit noisy. But averaging over 240 FPS in many areas of Apex Legends, which is great because I run a 240 hz monitor.

 

What program do people recommend to have the overlay displaying CPU and GPU temperatures?

 

Has anyone successfully downloaded the Windows 10 feature update version 1809 amd64 2019-03?

Just curious as it's taking forever to download, and I tried downloading it before and it wouldn't work. I've since reinstalled windows and I'm trying again, but I'm afraid it's either not going to work, or cause issues..

 

I'm on bios 1.3.0, that's when I noticed the touchpad not working right.

So your internet is actually going out during gameplay or its just lag? If the internet is going out, I suspect it may be due to the killer networking center. Maybe use DDU and uninstall all the drivers and and killer software, then reinstall just the drivers.

 

I never installed the killer software, just the drivers. Like I said, this is happening with both the wifi and wired pluged into the router. Super weird! It keeps causing me to die in the middle of fights, so frustrating.

It just happened, and it appeared that the entire internet stops working, including refreshing browser pages.

 

Strange. I would still recommend uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers just to be sure that isn't the issue.

Is this only happening in Apex? I assume it happens in other games or when randomly browsing, but want to be sure.

Have you reset your router? Is it happening only on your 51m?

 

MSI Afterburner

 

nice did you repaste the machine? and if so, what tim
did you use?


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Thermal Grizzly. Repasted it myself, but I also got the laptop from HIDEvolution. But it originally came with a 9700k, and I wanted to put in a lotteried 9900k CPU.

 

Still love my A51m





If it blows up... ... i have 3 years vos...

 

A potential problem is the heat sink is not making full contact on the back of the 2080 gpu. It seems more there for decorations than actually doing it's job. Flip side.... The 2070 doesn't even have a heat sink.....so that is something....

That goes for the front side as well. The thermal pads do not make contact whatsoever (On two sides of the card), and that is due to the heat shield or cover or whatever one wants to call it, on the front of the card.

Also it was found that some other potentially serious components do not even have pads.... Speculations of course...Without a thermal imager to point fingers with.

 

Thanks! Will that mess anything up if I’m using Alienware Command Center for my overclocking?

 

I love that Challenger even more!

 

Off-course I'm sarcastic. This is Mr. Frank Azor's (co-founder of Alienware) reply when I raised my concern about some laptops burning:

 

I think as usual forums are generally for people to come get help or complain when there is a problem. Dell in my 22 years of dealing with them test’s new products extensively before production. If an issue happens to come up after they are fast to revise and fix. Over or quick knee jerk reactions are the norm on forums.
Yes there are always assembly line issues with people cutting corners and not applying what the engineers set as guidelines and the customer and warranty support has to deal with that.

 

so i guess we should just sit there and stare at the machines until the magical fix surfaces ^^

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please tell me thats a delidded one, making me feel not so bad until i het the money to get a delidded sl one ^^


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I'm getting the same problems with APEX in recent days, my friends do not suffer these problems. The game freezes several seconds by cable and wifi. I cant listening my friends in discord in those moments.

 

Why not just ask what issue this is as he now know what the problem is?

 

Where there any delays in your original ship date? Or was it always a month out?

 

I have the same problems, I tried to reinstall the drivers but I still have the same problem.

 

i just asked that exact Question a Moment ago

 

so as i'm totally new to the 9900k, those are the temps i get running 1024M ts-bench in a normal temp Environment (not too warm, but not cool as well), having the cpu runing at no undervolt @4.6ghz. i repasted with conductonaut today. the gpu is running cool, that Thing is ok (as far as temps…), but as for the cpu, is there any Guidelines as of some undervolin for 4.6ghz? i'm trying to decide if my cpu temps are totally out of the frame, and should repaste the cpu with phobya nanogrease extreme (better W/mk than kryonaut) tomorrow, and leave the gpu on conductonaut, or if i just Need an undervolt and (for an undelidded 9900k), the temps are not THAT bad…