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

Just ordered mine. Due to arrive early April. Did you order one with the lunar white color?

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if you see additional delays, unfortunately.

 

I've been playing Sekiro for a couple of hours. The 51M doesn't even break a sweat with this game.

 

I have 9700k/2080. Is it normal for right side vent to be hotter than the left side vent? I did some undervolting and got my cpu temps around 65-70 during gaming but my gpu is constantly hitting 80

 

That game is locked on 60fps, 2080 TB3 egpu struggle firstly on 4K ultra/high, below is stable 60.

 

Yay me. ScummVM looks great too. ;-p

 

Alienware Area-51m Review - Gaming Laptop with a Desktop CPU
MobileTechReview
Published on Mar 23, 2019
Lisa Gade reviews a very new sort of Alienware gaming laptop, the 17.3” Area-51m with a desktop processor and upgradable graphics card. The Alienware Area 51m isn’t much larger than the Alienware 17, yet it packs significantly more performance, upgradability and cooling. It’s available with Intel Core i7-8700, Core i7-9700K and Core i9-9900K CPUs, NVIDIA RTX 2060, 2070 and 2080 dedicated graphics, and a full HP IPS display (60Hz, 144Hz options). Fast NVMe SSDs with optional RAID0, Alien FX per key RGB backlighting and body lighting and Thunderbolt 3 are standard. Pricing starts at $2,149, but our top of the line Core i9 with RTX 2080, lots of storage and 32GB RAM costs considerably more.

 

This is on stock settings BF5 max fan profile on gelid extreme paste.

Kinda sickens me. 104 degrees.... only after a few moments of play.

 

That's ... awful. You sure your paste was applied correctly?

 

Stock thermal paste has been proving to be very good this time around... Hopefully Dell will share what they are actually using....

 

New and Improved...

 

Well I'm about to board my flight to Korea. Looking forward to read 20+ pages in a week.

Looks like your GPU is going down to 0% and back up every now and then. Might be an issue with the card if you've tried everything else.

What were you getting with stock paste?

 

Hi Folks, Can anyone point me to a good guide for using the maco buttons?

I enter times into a spreadsheet a lot and I used to use an alternate keyboard that I created with MKLC to swap the colon and semi-colon so I could get the colon with just a single button press but the MKLC no longer works with the i7-8700 and I was hoping I could use a macro key to insert a colon. If anyone has any other suggestions I am open to hearing them.

 

In R4, R5, the exact same thing happens when the power delivery circuit for the GPU or GDDR5x vram aren't properly cooled. You might wanna disassemble it and check on the thermal pads especially on the reverse side of the card for the VRMs and also the GDDR6 memory. hope this helps.

 

For now skip A51M, most of them don't even know how the system is and every new order is delayed by few days/weeks.

 

So I cracked open the bottom and found this gem of thermal paste smear! lols

 

The more and more I'm using it trying different things there's things that need to be fixed.

1. Allow more voltage control and more options in CC
2. I can't argue with it's power it's smooth in a laptop
3. The build quality can be improved alot considering this is a premium product.
4. There's back light bleed on my monitors top right corner which is shrug... what can I say.
5. The glossy plastic has to go should have been a matte plastic.
6. I do like the laptop but not for it's price I'd expect perfection for it.
7. It's relatively easy to get into and change things around and upgrade
8 There seems to be alot of small details that are wrong like the voltages/the options available etc and build quality.
9. I'm torn what to do with it one thing that annoys me is the hassle of everything to replace the unit and the time waiting and if the new one will be defect free or worse off.
10. GPU is silent no coil whine or any noise which is great in this unit.

 

Well I tried everything and still no luck. Results are worst than ever. Also tried Dell recovery : it installs 1803 version and no software at all. It's nowhere near an actual factory reset...
I guess I'll have to send it back. I'll call tomorrow.

I checked in HWinfo and the card draws around 100W max during benches. I don't know what is holding it back.

EDIT :

OK guys, found it !
HS wasn't screwed to MB (only 3 out of 8 screws). So almost no contact between pads / VRMs.

Seriously WTF ?

That's better now : https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/34827392?

 

It was the same with stock paste. I tried thermal grizzly kryonaut, ic graphite pads and gelid extreme.

With stock paste the Temps would rise up a little bit faster. The strange thing is. CPU speed is staying @ 4,69 all the time.

Only benefit the new paste got me is lower idle temps and lower GPU temps.

If i do a undervolt of -100mv temps stay in the 80 / 85 range. I almost believe something is wrong with my i9 9900k cpu or i got a really bad one. Temps shouldn’t be this bad with full fan speed imo.

 

Yeah i did, used the cross method, dot and spread method. Temps are all the same. Just got a crappy i9 9900k i think.

I wouldn’t mind getting those temps while heavy benching. But while playing a game like BF5, thats just unacceptable. Wouldn’t be good for the long run to.

 

You should be used to fix improperly mounted heatsink by now with this kind of overpriced Alien Stuff.

 

I did a quick search on "delid" and your name, but nothing came up. Did you delid your 9900K, that's a likely point of thermal issues to improve.

 

They need to fix it at the factory and if they don't none will buy it, you pay steep price for a reason; for ease of mind and not to tweak everything from repaste, repad, lapped heatsink and what not you get the PC from Day 1.

 

Exactly.

Stop all this DIY BS, and ship it working out of the box.

I don't mind tuning via software, or adding components, but screwing around with rebuilding the laptop to get the value I expect out of the box is ridiculous.

Paying a premium for someone else to do the DIY bits is also silly.

Make it right the first time.

 

Yes indeed. I can forgive OEMs if they did express shipping but year-after-year same mistakes and garbage temps and perf. issues are simply unacceptable.

 

All you will get is about 4C lower temp. A drop in the ocean if the chips already run unacceptable hot. Of course he can sand down the silicon for up to even 2-4C lower temp if he prefer.

 

Well, i love the machine. But i hate those cpu temps i’m getting.

Going for a new repaste tomorrow. Maybe i’m doing something wrong. But i doubt it.

Just for the sake of it. If i remount the Heatsink. Do i need to turn the screws in reverse mount? So 8, 7, 6, 5 etc.

Or do i need to follow the same order when dissasemble. 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.

 

You may want to lap the heatsink very lightly so that mount is almost perfect ensuring consistent temps across all cores. If you're within return period I'd recommend sending it back and wait few weeks until dell silently upgrades components and fixes all issues. Don't use LM for IHS and HSF since it might void warranty.

 

So glad I ordered from HID where I don't have to worry about QC issues. Got my laptop on Friday and it is immaculate. Absolutely no back light bleed, no scratches, no worries about thermals. Will be glad when work slows down and they release the new BIOS this week so I can benchmark this baby. Don't want to mess with pushing it too hard until the new BIOS releases.

 

Yup, that's the benefit of getting a machine from HIDevolution, it takes all this hassle and fiddling out of the equation. But no, people wanna save 200 or so bucks and end up suffering and eventually returning the machine and going through the hassle. Time = Money. Many people can never realize that.

 

This is one of those cases where you get what you pay for, which sucks since even through Dell these things are not cheap, but they are mass assembled in China in a factory that probably makes about 15 different laptops at a minimum and QC standards aren't very high. Well worth the extra money for the peace of mind. Only thing I have to worry about is what might end up being the problem with the burned out ones; subpar components being used which HID has no control over.

 

haha.. exactly what i thought. glad you got it sorted.

 

Yeah, 10c between delid paste vs LM, and 6c between delid solder vs LM, makes it a tougher choice, but less temp is less temp - and TechYesCity's results also included more even temps across cores and more stability with less voltage.

If his CPU is getting too hot it could also be voltage vs frequency - detune it a bit if undervolting at the desired frequency is too hot. Maybe a 9900KF will run cooler? Or, a 9700K / KF with the temperature drop from HT disabled - he could test that by disabling HT on the 9900k right now.

100c - 6c = 94c, that's a helpful drop that could be increased by detuning voltage / frequency - tuning the cores thermal output. 4c would be 96c... something is better than nothing.

Delidding 9900K - Is SOLDER Holding this CPU BACK!?
Tech YES City
Published on Nov 1, 2018
Today we go through a journey on before / after temps, and overclocks with delidding the i9-9900k. And this differs to the 8700k in one big way, and that is Intel is using Solder this time, so things are a little more difficult... Also shown is how to do this mod and what to use (things like coolaboratory liquid metal pro). The results are very interesting, this is the first time I have encountered a beast like this, in terms of the way it behaves, and we also put together a custom loop specifically just for these tests.



der8auer's results were a bit better, lapping even better, and I wasn't really all that happy with GM's results + going with paste first vs starting with LM. It looks like this delidding process is tougher and given the variance in results would mean there is a bit of skill involved - and art - to get the best results:

Bad sTIM? Why is the 9900K so hot?
der8auer
Published on Oct 19, 2018

 

Does anyone know any good keyboard that has a the alienware laptops like keys?
What I mean with that is mainly, concave shaped, non textured, low profile keys?

I have been using the corsair k70 both at work and at home for 5 years now. And even though it's a great keyboard, I'm starting to get annoyed of the significantly larger travel distance and sound of it. Also like the fact that the alienware laptop keybaords bottom down soft, while mechanical keys bottom out abruptly on a hard end, which is also a big reason why it's louder.

 

85 degrees with a .100mv undervolt is not bad with a 9900k under full load.... That seems good to me?? Or am I wrong?

 

CHECK YOUR ORDER STATUS ON DELL.COM

Just saw a Reddit post warning, and took a look at mine where I had the same issue.

If you click on your order, it might have a bold warning that you must offer consent for delivery due to some FTC shenanigans. You must provide some information of yours and click a box approving the delay (so far, though, it gave me the same date). NO EMAIL. NO ALERT. You must reply to the alert on the order page within 48 hours or they say they'll cancel the order. So in other words, my incessant checking every day since the 7th is actually required work. Just stupid.

**

Anyway, since I haven't run into this before; anyone know what this might mean behind the scenes?

 

TL;DR: my Area 51m has died.

Long time thread-stalker while I waited on my order to arrive — hello!

I was expecting to post a success story here; my A51m 9700K/2080 arrived last week from HIDevolition (I bought the full heat transfer upgrade treatment on CPU & GPU). It’s been great for the last couple of days, staying cool even with fans at balanced or quiet. Wonderful machine.

Last night after a long gaming session (balanced fans, temps around 77 on the GPU) I had a number of instances where the GPU was lost — once the game crashed, complaining about the device being lost; once it went into limp mode with FPS around 10; a couple of other times the screen went black and I had to reboot. Finally, about a minute after I stopped playing for the night, the machine just shut down. No response to the power button. There was a faint acrid smell from the right vent (right side if sitting in front) if I put my nose right up to it — not so much “hot electronics” as “light burning smell”.

I’ve tried disconnecting the battery for awhile, to no avail. It’s dead. I’m not going to open anything (beyond taking my RAM and SSDs back out) — I’d rather let the vendor investigate from a clean slate. So... bummer.

 

Ouch.... an 51m from HID... and again 9700k...

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-9900kf-vs-9900k-overclock-comparison,6038.html

Since the g-sync version doesn't use the igpu, it would be great to have the option to get the 9900KF instead of the 9900K. The KF seems to run much cooler based on those tests

 

Black. Thats right after I cancelled my previous order that I placed two weeks ago.Usually you can’t cancel an order that’s in production so that tells me my previous order hasn’t even made it to production .

 

You still have way too much Voltage. You need to switch to static voltage and adjust. Use throttlestop. If I recall from my testing 4.7GHz was a little under 1.25V

 

My understanding from watching Derbauer is, like @Papusan stated, that the problem with the 9900K is the thickness of the die itself. the solder certainly adds another layer of thickness, plus any concavity with the IHS itself. But compared to the 8700K, the 9900K die's thickness is preventing more heat from effectively being conducted out of the chip. Delidding and scraping the solder off can help with temps, but the most bang for the effort comes with lapping both the IHS and the die.

 

The iGPU is necessary for thunderbolt to work on these.

 

Lapping is a bit beyond the effort of delidding, and the 9900k is a bit tougher to delid to begin with. I wouldn't suggest trying lapping right off - even der8auer did the tasks in stages - measuring the delta's as he went.

Stock to delidding + LM der8auer had a 9c reduction before he lapped the silicon. It's not the 15c-20c reduction from delidding the paste IHS CPU's, but it's significant enough to consider.


der8auer went further, lapping the 9600k, which someone can certainly do for additional temperature reduction:


TechYesCity had an only 6c reduction from delidding - differing results due to the CPU specifics or technique, or some combination. It's more of a temperature reduction than I've seen changing pastes, which people do incessantly even when it's not getting them the reduction they need.

Caseking (de8auer's company) sells pre-delidded and re-IHS'd CPU's, so you don't have to do it yourself. If you are going that far maybe consider getting a less intense desktop CPU for a laptop, like a 9900KF, 9700K/KF, or 9600K/KF - if the AW BIOS will support it correctly.

@Papusan dismissed delidding the 9900k out of hand, I wanted to point out that there is something to gain by delidding, even if it's not as much of a reduction as with paste IHS CPU's, done carefully it can help.

 

I am starting to get worried about mine. I too have 9700/2080 configuration. My right side vent gets crazy hot during gaming. It gets hot within 30 minutes. My cpu consistently stay in 70-75 range while my gpu averages 82-84.

 

Thank you. I didn't know that.

Another couple of questions for you guys.
1. Is it needed to disconnect the battery before changing the RAM or the SSD sticks?
2. Is it possible to bypass the battery and run the laptop with the ac power and battery disconnected?

I'm still waiting for my order to deliver, but it's gonna be a very long wait, since it has been delayed to 5/May. I bought it on 14th March.

 

It's always best to unplug the battery before changing hardware.

The system will run fine with Battery disconnected.

 

Actually its way more then "$200 or so" especially when Alienware has an offer code available. Right now I can get an i7-9700k, rtx2080, 16gb ram, 250gb ssd, 144hz etc, from Alienware for $2,904.99 while at hidevolution.com the same setup is for $3,709 that is a huge $804 difference.
True that Alienware now runs the save 17% promo, but I have never seen any similar promos on HID.

So while true you will probably get better QC and less hassle with ordering at HID you also pay a big premium for that, not a small one.

 

BTW, shouldn't the Tobii eyetracking give a Division 2 key ?