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

1. Install the Alienware Pointing Devices and Touchpad driver from Dell website. It fixed my problem.

2. It's the killer app that's doing this. It's installed by default and even if you did a fresh install, window update install it automatically.
Go in your MSconfig and turn everything Killer or Rivet related off, it will fix your problem. i had the same issue on Apex due to their ''Stream mode''

3. Don't have that issue but i'm using a Mech keyboard.

4. Dunno

Read underneath ^^

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try them.

What about the lights on the back "tron" lights. Those
aren't turning on, and only the keyboard lights change colors. The LEDs on the alienware heads aren't changing.

 

Do you have access to this?

 

I had the same issue in Apex. A totally fresh windows reinstall worked for me. Solved every issue I had previously.

 

Finally someone else comments on the squeaky keys. Yes mine did it, was really bad at first. After writing a couple 10+ page papers and a few weeks of gaming it went away
Ymmv

 

Just watched the Dave2D video..

Dell told him that the 2060 model will have side ventilation.

 

I'm more interested/afraid of the heat sink being different on the 2060. Do we know 100% either way, if it comes with the same heat sink the 9700k/9800k and 2070/2080 comes with or is it a smaller heat sink?

 

Sorry I didn’t mean to spread panic and that is never my intention. I loved this machine and I really don’t think there is any issue to panic over. If I’ve given that impression I apologize. We have seen a very small number of failures an some weirdness with thermal pad placement and passive cooling. I worded my message poorly.

Let me be 100% clear. Yes my first unit failed and Dell let me return it without issue. I saw the 17% discount and happily reordered. I think that should show my stance on how much fear I have of this unit. It’s a beast and that keyboard! I still daydream about using that keyboard again soon!

 

Just like you, one of the most important things to me in a laptop are the screen and keyboard because that;s what I stare at and type on all the time! Which is why I left Clevo due to their crappy keyboards! Can't wait to get my hands on this thing and experience the awesome keyboard you speak of.

 

I’m coming from a 17r2. I only update laptops when they start really struggling with games. I moved back to that unit while I await my new 51m. I never had a problem with the 17r2 keyboard until I upgraded. Now it seems terrible. It’s funny that a month ago I was perfectly content.

 

So I guess we gotta open it up and redo the pads then. Don't know about the cover, is it safe just to completely remove it?

This is why I don't like watching these other videos. They just ask someone from Dell without research. I feel bad for the customers that are getting incorrect info.

The 2060 will not have side exhausts and the heatsink will not either according to both Umar & the Dell website.

Of course you can upgrade from 2060 to 2080 but you'll also need to buy the heatsink.

It's always been like this, even for my previous M18xR2, I had to buy the 3-pipe CPU heatsink because I ordered my laptop with standard CPU which had 1-pipe heatsink. Extreme CPUs had 3-pipe HS.

 

I have no doubt area-51m is an awesome laptop. but for the longevity of this machine, owners seriously need to consider disassembling it and check for thermal pads especially for the DGFF GPU side. i've seen several pics and videos that show minimal to no contact for the GDDR6 memory which is a real concern. and while you guys are at it, might as well flip over and check the thermal pad contacts for the VRMs.

factory thermal paste application on the other hand is quite ok. VRMs on CPU side are making very good contacts with the main heatsink. only GPU side needs attention. the cooling solution for this laptop is seriously good. i only wish they placed the VRMs on top and chokes at the bottom of the DGFF card so VRMs can be actively cooled.

 

Maybe Dell's side ventilation has to do with Smoke coming out of end user's ears when A51M fails mid-way.

 

Yeah, deliddet, Balance Fan profile 23 degree ambient

 

After getting my Alienware Area 51m today with an RTX 2070, i7 9700k, 16 gigs of ram I have been messing with getting a solid overclock and temps. Ended up using someone's advice on here. for my CPU I undervolted -100mV, 5 GHz, 1.24V. RTX 2070 Overclocked 150/200Mhz+. Performance Profile. I am getting very good temps. So far underload when playing The Division 2, Stress test in Fire strike, doing a bunch of other benchmarks, I am managing between 50-65 celsius on my GPU and anywhere from 65-75 celsius on my CPU. This is also with stock thermal paste and nothing being touched inside the computer.


I don't know if I am paranoid now from reading about all the other laptops blowing up out there and I know only been a few. I am noticing one thing that is right above the F4 and F5 keys, after a small period of gaming I did, it was starting to get hot there. Wasn't like so hot it hurt to touch but compared to everywhere else, it was pretty warm. Should I be worried about this or no? I feel like I am being paranoid about it. My thermals and everything is excellent.


https://imgur.com/dF5guGe

https://imgur.com/VYulWqv

 

@_deadbydawn_ can you say what kind of pads you used, size and brand ? Will like to do the same as well if you don’t mind, yeah it’s bad they didn’t put the pads properly, thanks for the info bro.

 

i will open it up in a moment and then i'll take some pics and put the thickness to each section as for the brand i used alphacool eisdecke (17w/Mk) pads with thickness of 1mm and 0.5mm and had to stack two1mm on top of each other on some parts. will sho in the pics in a bit sure thing


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I agree 100%. It does not matter what's "under the hood" when you stare at a screen and press the keys all day. Screen quality is #1 factor and yet not many people seem even concerned, they worry about an extra 10MHz or 50mV !!! When you look at OLED, AMOLED, 100% Adobe or better, only then will you know what a "good" screen is.

However it does seem to me that the A51m uses the exact same keyboard as the AW17R5 and as such it is not a good keyboard. I presume other laptops have even worse keyboards else why all the praise?

 

Good Morning!
Many thank's for your reply, the way is very appreciated, you are making progress!

....read below and listen this song: jarabe de palo "depende".

Definitely a good news announced for the availability of other types of displays in the coming months, a good reason for my needs to wait for buy it.

 

I love seeing how people order now and their estimated delivery is in a week or 2 and I'm here, ordered on the 1st and delivery is planned for the 8th april !
It's ok though I'm in no rush.

Anyway, I got it with a 2070 but am now considering a 2080, 2 questions :
- If I decide to do it, should I cancel the order directly or would it be smarter to let it come, get a feel for it and then return it. Is the return process tedious ?
- Does Dell Canada often get sales going on ? Hoped we'd get a similar deal as the 17% in the US but alas...

 

sooo here goes:

EDIT: i just noticed an error. underneath the cpu, there is one square yellow-colored, thats a mistake, it should be green as well!!!! sorry for that!



there you can see the pads and thicknesses i used. keep in mind that i kept placing the heatsink back ans made sure every pad makes contact, it works like this for me, bit you case could be different. some of my pads didn't make contact at all before i repadded the thing. the two yellow pads weren't there at all but on the heat sink (next pic) you can see that the heatsink is meant to cover those with a special section. since the distance was about 3mm i used two of the original pads and stuck them above each other, intil i get thicker pads.
also, some of the pads in the pic stuck to the heatsink, that's why there is some there and some aren't ;-)
the pads i used are alphacool eisdecke (17w/Mk) in 1mm and 0.5mm thickness.




on the above pic you can see what i meant with the heatsink section that was supposed to cover those separate two -whatever they are, don't know the name of those components

here are some more pics as some dudes requested (sorry for the overblown post):



















i have those pics in higher resolutions, if anyone needs them @Mr. Fox @ssj92

oh and btw: the remaining conductonaut on the pics was sucked up afterwards, i didn't leave those gallons of it on there haha ;-) cpu is now covered with kryonaut, gpu conductonaut.

btw #2: while i was in there i replaced the ram with 32gb of hyperx impact 2666mhz, works fine with those (2400mhz of course)



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did you repad the VRMs on the bottom side of the DGFF RTX GPU? how's the pad contact from factory?

 

after i closed it back up i noticed that i forgot. another murphy moment.. so i guess within the next days i'll be back in there


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hahaha... those VRMs are the electronic components that were blown off.. might wanna make sure that area is properly cooled.

 

yeah i know


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i couldn't resist the ones in blue are covered by a thermal pad. the ones in red aren't. with the heatsink they used i could stack some pads above each other (would have to stack 4 x 1mm, distance to heatsink is around 4mm.
does anyone know if i should cover them? my knowledge as of electronic components ends here, mo clue if i should leave them uncovered or cover them up in stacked pads.
edit: forgot pic




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Never stack thermal pads on eachother. Not only are you trapping air in between them (air is an insulator so it will counteract the thermal performance of the thermal pads) but you're also increasing the pressure (making them run marginally hotter, but can stress the part alot. and the electric part is already under stress when it's being used actively) making your motherboard bow slighly creating pressure points on you mobo which eventually will lead to broken busses (motherboard bus)

You're better of buying some fujipoli or K5-PRO.

just my two cents

 

not all electronic components need thermal pads, high pad thicknesses do not help much, rather they make the situation worse.
The video card is in an unhappy position, it would have been more appropriate to lift it than the motherboard to help the passive heatsink, which however for the law of thermodynamics will always send warm air up

 

so i learned something new..

hmm, but i can't find any pads as thick as they would need to be, 1.5mm won't cut it and to replace all those pads with k5-pro would result in an uber-mess since the distances to theat sink are up to 4mm


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This is the perfect example of a flawed heatsink design. There may now be enoguh copper to keep the CPU and GPU temps down, but not enough to stabalize the POWERDELIVERY. Looks like AW did not learn from the R4 and R5. K5-pro is your last resort, it's going to create a mess (when applying) but when you take your time you can clean it after applying it (press the heatsink down after you've put some k5 on the VRM but not press it down with alot of pressure, just press it down to even out the K5-pro so when you take off your heatsink again you can clean off the residue k5 that has fallen off the sides of the VRM) that way you can ensure you have good cooling and your mobo still can direct some airflow.

an heatsink should always be made with only 1 or 2 mm tolerances (or less) that way you ensure that all the heat that's being generated is getting sucked up. Honestly AW has reached a point where only a copper coldplate and some pipes (relying on phase change inside the heatpipes) is not enough anymore. They should've made an vapor chamber based heatsink but instead they went for the cheapest method, just to be able to say (where have the fastest DTR (i can remember when it happend on the R4 clear as day) the fact that they did it again proves that they only want your money.

 

i think u answered the mystery of blown up VRMs. the pads are making little to no contacts with the VRMs causing them to overheat.

the ones u circled in red dont need thermal pads. those are SMD capacitors. the ones u circled in blue, however, need proper cooling as they tend to get really hot.

 

okay i ordered 17w/mK 1.5mm pads. i will see when they arrive, probably remove all the thermal pads, then one after another place a pad an see if they reach the heatsink or not. if some don't then plan B is, as @Rei Fukai mentioned to use some paste on the ones that don't get contact to the heat sink. i hate paste on components other then cpu and gpu ^^ never ending story and already sick of it xD

 

A self-service solution, but this is not normal, you have the guarantee and what you do, it may one day invalidate it

 

but the pads still don't reach the heatsink

 

What? repad and repaste? It definitely doesn't.

 

no, my thought is more general, attempts to get around a problem, so many pads could help but could also have an opposite effect, you would suffocate the components by retaining even more heat on the board, remember that on the motherboard also goes the plastic structure that keeps the environment more closed

 

Hi guys, i’m new here but i’ve been following this thread since day 1. I was so lucky to get an Area 51m as a replacement for my overheating 17R5 But as with many of you my order is being delayed twice now.
I asked support why it was delayed again, if it had anything to do with burning devices and the reply was:

I have checked the status of your order and it has been put on hold due to quality issue.


So, in this case the issue that you have mentioned has been found out and currently your order is being checked if the issue will show up

So the delays could indeed be because of this problem, not sure what the fix would be or how long it would take. They do seem te be aware of the problem and even acknowledging it though.

 

Thermal pads work by transferring heat from A to B. If it isn't making good contact then it will hold the heat. Thermal pads don't retain heat, they transfer it.

 

I've noticed too that the UK site now states delivery in 25 business days. Around Monday this was showing as 4-7, so I think something's going on, or it could just be genuine part part shortages.

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Yes, I agree with you, you're right, but if you fill pads everywhere, you choke and / or limit the area of the board, then the movement of the air; DELL engineers will have studied which components need pads and which are not, not all of them emit so much heat to be cooled. I don't know if I'm clear now.

 

Well if you did put thermal pads in every air pocket of this laptop it would definitely not work. That would be one hot brick lol. In general you put thermal pads on hot and important components. I mean there is a science to this (we all know that). That is why I personally measure the temp of each component on the motherboard so I know the hot spots. I do get what your saying.

 

I was wrong the update was already there since yesterday. Can you try that? No Ray Tracing, that’s one BS, DLSS is great bumps almost 10 FPS on 4K highest on my setting.

 

@Rocktaze

Notebookcheck liked your scores

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Alien...ing-score-in-3DMark-Fire-Strike.414743.0.html

 

Should be getting my 51m in today (order placed 3/7 when there was the 15% off)! Those of you are who are in US and residential address, what time did FedEx deliver the laptop? Obviously I know the times can be all over the place depending on location.

 

That's amazing.
Frank Azor and Umar also posted my score on their twitter.

I guess i can consider my score great now?

 

wow just saw the dates for the a51m jump to April 25!

 

Yup. I just got an email from my sales support representative saying that delivery of my laptop is delayed because of an investigation into overheating issues.
They put a hold on my order because of quality issues, some components don't work correctly and can cause overheating.

So not a parts problem, more an active investigation into the recent problems problem.

 

April 25th? LOL the QHD will be out not long after that.

 

Damn, I wonder if my order from the 17th will now be affected... My order page still shows arrival 3/25-3/28

 

You probably don't want your laptop delivered, until they fix this issue anyway. Otherwise, you will always wonder, if yours will heat up/burn out. Best to wait until they fix this issue.