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

same here but that's for them to fix anything so don't get your hopes up. It's simply a shortage of CPUs that they are facing.

 

Just checked with dell on mine and I'm still on track for a ship date of the 25th. Im guessing they are having a hard time getting those screens in.

 

lol, if mine got delayed to April 25th I'd probably just bounce for now and wait for better screen or buy something different entirely.

Orders still showing before end of the month, so I'm hopeful (ordered 3/7, seen two delays so far).

 

No, I would leave it, just use a higher pad than stock. Then test fit it. It's ram, so that should be fine for that part.

The problem with this is....the 2070 has nothing covering any of those parts, which is weird. That's why in another thread I post it as speculations....Also that card is pulling 120W max vs the 2080 pulling from 180W to 200W.... What do you think?

 

Are you in the US? I ordered mine on the 13th and my dates haven't changed much. I believe all of us that ordered before the 15th are getting shipped on the 24th (what my packing slip states) and 25th. We're almost there guys

 

Source?

 

Yep, US... and I'm think you're right. I think there's a big batch for the 24th.

THAT SAID, I'm still only "confirmed," and according to dell support my machine is still not built, yet. Hoping for some movement in the next couple days.

 

It was a joke. There will be better panels coming out though.

 

My order still shows 3/25-3/28, but on Dell's page here in the US, it now shows " Get it by Thursday, Apr 25 with Express Delivery"
That seems new/different.

 

Excellent! If what you state is true, then I praise Dell/Alienware for having the intestinal fortitude to stop shipments/delay manufacturing while they look into the problem(s), determine what it is, and correct it.

From what I've read here recently, it appears that there may be an issue with thermal pads, or the lack thereof...and I've seen some suggestions regarding having owners fix the problem themselves. However, seeing as how one member here was refused tech support because he merely switched his CPU, I would be hesitant to monkey around with the thermal pads, have something go wrong while still under warranty, and then have Dell/Alienware refuse to fix it because you altered it.

Nay! Regardless of the price you paid...and it was A LOT...let them get their service tech's butts out to your home/office and fix the problem that they created! The onus should not be on YOU.

 

How do you know its a CPU shortage? More importantly, which CPU's?

 

I ordered on 03/08. I received mine yesterday 03/19 at 09 am from Fedex. Mine was express delivery and I live in NJ.

I am yet to play any games and only focusing on benchmarks. With orders being delayed due to investigation of issues, I am getting worried. I have a 9700k/2080 configuration model.

 

which screen and color did you have, out of curiosity. Any chance it was lunar white/144hz g-sync?

 

9700K/2080, Dark side of the moon, 144hz/tobii eye tracker/No g-sync

 

Nah, they look like chokes/resistors to me.

 

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like a good time to wait if interested in buying. Not to mention the additional panel choices coming.

 

6 to 8 months is the earliest for new panels per the AW boss. I wouldn't pin any hope on them

 

When did you order yours and are you in the US? Seems weird they would hold yours and there's a handful of us having a ship date between 3/24 - 3/27 and did not get any notification of delay for quality control issues on the laptop.

 

ordered on the 9th (expected delivery 13th) delayed until 27/3... today got delayed until 25 APRIL In Germany btw

 

Funny, I got the same reply and from the same "agent".

 

But they also do not want to say new panels are coming by lets say E3, so that they don't loose sales on current screen?

 

Thank you for this! I can't get Dell to admit that. Can you send a picture of the email?

 

I've repasted the machine last monday, think the paste has some cure time because temps are even 2 / 3 degrees lower now.
While gaming i'm getting 69/70 gpu on max load and 80 / 85 max on cpu. This is with the balanced profile in AW command center.

It is rather strange that i'm getting some spikes now and then to 90 / 93 on some cores. Is this normal behavior? Games i'm testing with are BF5 and Division 2.
With Heroes of the storm the machine is getting 49 GPU and 50 / 60 CPU. One core spikes a bit sometimes to 70 / 75, the core thats used the much.

Did a stress test aswell, Furmark and Intel extreme utility. Pretty shocking because the machine Thermal throttles on almost all cores with max fan profile.
GPU 74 max and CPU stays @ 92 / 93 degrees and sometimes a spike close to 100 degrees. Normal or need to take it apart again and do a second repaste?

100% cpu and 100% gpu won't be used in daily use ofcourse so can someone confirm the result with their machine?

All these temps are on stock, no overclocking and no undervolting. Maybe i just have a cripple i9 9900k. (Clockspeed stays @ 4,7 all the time even with temps on 93 with the 100/100 stress test.)

I am happy with the results, but maybe i can do even better?

 

Which specs did you order if you don't mind

 

I did extensive benching with AIDA64. If you don't undervolt you'll hit thermal throttling in stress test very quickly. Even with a sizeable undervolt, eventually you'll hit thermal throttling.

Before the bios and vbios updates, I would hit power throttling. That no longer happens, but thermal throttling creeps up after some time (about 5 minutes on my tests with stock paste/pads).

To completely control temps in stress test I used ThrottleStop to lower turbos by 100-200mhz per core, which pretty much kept everything under 90C at all times and I was super happy with this result.

This is with 2080/9700k set up. I also massively lost the silicon lottery, as my headroom for overclocking is much lower than some other users. Hope this helps a bit.

 

2080/9700k 16gb ram 256SSD 1TB HDD Dark side of the moon ((

 

I ordered on 3/11, and am in The Netherlands. I was in contact with sales support for an unrelated issue, and the agent is keeping me up to date on the status of my order.

 

Attached (in Dutch)

 

Thank you! This translates to:

"The reason for waiting is for a quality reason. A problem has been discovered in which certain components in the laptop do not function properly, thereby overheating. They are testing this and looking for a solution. I'm still investigating internally how long they think this will last. apologize for the inconvenience. Best regards."

My order is scheduled for delivery between 3/26-3/29. The rep I spoke with said that it takes approximately 10 days to ship from the factory in China to the US, so that means my laptop was being shipped before I even placed my order (3/18). I almost wish my order was delayed to make sure they fixed whatever problem they seem to know exists.

 

Hum.. As far as mine goes the label was created today to ship out. I wonder what's going to happen. Don't really want to have it with the issue and deal with the headache after. Rather have it fixed from the factory. Ordered on the 7th.

 

Right...and to think I just went to my mailbox and found a 17% coupon code. I can order the base config right now, Dark Side, upgrade to a 9900K, RTX2080, and 144/Tobii/Gsync screen, all for under $2970 before taxes...I have the 32GB DDR4 and 1TB NVMes in reserve already...

...NOT YET DELL!! I need to see more from you on these overheating/failure issues. I've written a lot about this in some earlier posts...AND I AIN'T BLOWING SMOKE!

 

The shortage is for the 9900K CPU. As for how do I know, I'm the Ultra Male

Spoiler: Click here to reveal my source

 

I am in the same boat. Just got the 17% coupon in the mail, but will wait to see how they fix/respond to the heating/burn out issue. I am actually in no hurry to purchase right now anyway. Might make sense to wait it out for a while

 

Just spoke to a customer care rep on the phone. I ordered the Lunar White 2070 version on 3/13/19. She said my order is in final stages of production and will be shipped March 24th and delivered to me on March 26th.

She mentioned a parts shortage (I'm assuming the lunar screens). No mention of a quality control delay or anything regarding what has been happening.

I'm assuming it only affects certain models. I have yet to see any of the 51ms with 2070 or 2060 GPUs reporting the failures. Not saying there isnt any but just I havent seen them. I have a 3 year warranty on this thing and will likely upgrade it to 5. Peace of mind right?

 

Yeah it seems to affect rtx 2080 models. I was so close to ordering 2070 but decided to get 2080 at the last moment. Its only been a day since I got it but so far so good. I decided to get the 3 Year Premium support plus with accidental damage which turned out to be the right thing for this laptop

 

I'll tinker with mine when I get it. If I like it, I think I'll return it and upgrade to the 2080 version with 5 year warranty (and hopefully by then the problems will be sorted out).

I am in no hurry to get this laptop as my AW 15 R1 is still going strong to this day after 4 years (if its plugged in lol). That 970m chip has been amazing.

This laptop is a 5 year investment to me.

 

Buy it and return it if you're not happy. Dell has the best and easiest 30 day return window that I've dealt with (at least in the States).

 

OMG...a 5 year warranty? I just looked at the cost of that...outrageous! Many have argued in the past that extended warranties are typically a rip-off/bad investment.

When I bought my M6600 years ago, it came with 3 years pro support...and I got the laptop for under $1900!

All that being said, I did need to get the motherboard replaced about 6 months before the warranty ran out...

 

Well I usually just get thr basic 1 year that comes with it and wing it. But this one is over $3k USD, first of its lineup, new tech, and has already been having reported failures. I currently have a 3 year warranty with accidental coverage. It may be enough sure but most of my laptops have had issues after 3 years tbh.

 

Based on R4 & R5 experience, GTX1080 @ 180W with a poor to non cooled VRMs and GDDR5x will cause all sorts of problems starting with games stuttering. but if the vbios were to revert back to 150W, the stuttering will go away even when the pads are not making optimum contacts with the power delivery components. Stuttering was not an issue with the lower powered GTX1070.

@ 120W RTX2070 VRMs can probably survive without the added heatsink, but @190W-200W RTX2080 VRMs are pushing the limits. Take for reference desktop cards. the VRMs on desktop 2080 requires active cooling to ensure stability and longevity. Even in the past, there are evga GTX1080 VRMs blown off and require thermal pads retrofit issued by the manufacturer.

obviously without a thermal sensor we cant really tell how hot it gets on those 2080 200W VRMs. If alienware engineering team puts a rather large passive heatsink at the back of the DGFF card to cool those VRMs, i'm sure they have done their research and testing. otherwise they wouldn't spend the extra cost to design and install a heatsink there. the only thing owners (or rather dell assembly line) needs to do is to ensure those VRMs are properly cooled through thermal pads contact with the passive heatsink. if that itself is not enough, 51m owners are screwed. dont think you can fit a fan there to actively cool the heatsink.

 

I don't want to use the Alienware OC controls, do you guys have good alternative for controlling the fans?

 

You need CC if you wanna control the fans. Or uninstall CC, go to bios and enable performance fan mode. It'll run 100% fans.

 

4h Division 2 yesterday @5000mhz and overclocked 2080. No problems, no smell yet.

XD

 

i ended up ordering some more pads, 1.5mm and also some 2mm. so when they arrive, i will open it up one more time and check, i really don't want to do this all over again but i guess with 0.5mm, 1mm, 1.5mm and 2mm i will be able to replace everything on there, except those two components to the right side of the gpu which weren't cooled at all. i would leave them unpaded, but that the heatsink has a dedicated section for those components makes me suspicious. so there i will use a 1mm and 2mm pad on top of each other or some paste.

 

on site service

I dont think the problem is something power relatet... at least one A51m died during idle.

 

My laptop is out on delivery I'll get it today, feel like a kid at Christmas! Haven't felt this way since my child hood!

I got collect and return warranty but in hindsight it was probably a bad move, anyone have any experience getting Dell to change it? Any haggle tips?

 

Any of you can do some Apex legends FPS testing?

I got the I9 9900K, RTX 2080.

My FPS in menus before game start 147fps
When game starts drops down to 67fps
In game between 78-130fps

1080p and max settings.
AW OC2 profile with performance fans (So loud). laptop elevated so it can suck in more air from below. Rum temperature around 22 degrees.

 

My personal feeling that the power connector in the back of the laptop is at fault. I had this on my aw17 ranger. After 3 mother boards blown up it was the power jack connector that was partially melted inside causing a short which was making the left side of the laptop very hot then fail. The reason for thinking this as stated before it failed while idling.

 

Hi at all,
Here in Italy, on 8 configurations of area 51 m possible they have left only 1 with the possibility of having the video card 2080 ........only the most expensive configuration