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

As a patch on the wound? Yeah, It is allowed to ask

 

Looks like I can get a little over 2 hours of battery even today with light chrome usage. This is with brightness up and lights all on:

 

Cool! Now the rest of the job should be easy. Whenever one of my alienware keys came out in the past, I put a tiny dab of glue with a glue gun on the corners just to make sure that the plastic buggers don't pop in the future lol but don't go crazy with that as it will reduce the key travel if a huge blob is put there.

 

I wonder how Gordon Mah Ung got almost 6 hours of battery life out of this machine. That sounded insane to me, but I can't categorically disagree with him as long as I don't play with my machine hands on.

 

I don't wanna use glue on a 5K brand new laptop man.

Once I fix that white plastic thing, the moment I put the key back and tap it a few times, the key pops out again and the white plastic thingy gets attached to it again!

 

Yes that's precisely why I told you what I said above lol. These things usually come out because the metal hooks on the retainer in the keyboard are not bent enough to retain the plastic butterfly properly due to some manufacturing defect (press dye precision issues) or the plastic worn out. If that metal retainer is manageable, try bending it flat a little after inserting the butterfly back to make sure it stays in place. Otherwise the glue mod works fine. The only other thing left is to get a keyboard replacement so try and save some time if possible because that thing will shelf the laptop for quite a while, unless you use an external keyboard.

 

https://www.engadget.com/amp/2019/04/11/alienware-area-51m-review-gaming-laptop/

 

Probably used a non gsync model?

 

No he said that he used a 144Hz Gsync version and he repeated the tests numerous times to see if they were consistent.

Here's the video btw:

Battery discussed at 10:10

 

Right from the review. But Keyboard is normally cheap to replace.

 

@ssj92 @Papusan

What's a safe undervolt for the 9900K? Even with a -120mV Undervolt, the CPU reaches 95C in Cinebench

 

Undervolt doesn't hurt a CPU so you can go as low as it allows you to go without compromising stability. There is nothing unsafe here. Those temps look horrible though, I'd seriously recommend you to delid that beast.

 

You have backup. Only corrupted OS if you undervolt too much. Test it out. Both in Idle and full load.

 

Yeah backup is a no-brainer when tweaking.

 

BTW, There was an option in the BIOS that sid CPU Performance and Fan Performance = Disabled so I changed them to Enabled but what do they do exactly?

 

That's PERFORMANCE mode which will basically force the CPU to run at MAX at all times and the fans will stay at turbo speeds afaik from other laptops. I'd leave that alone.

 

Here is one more. The F2 key had popped out from its housing. This keyboard is a problem. This ain't a QC problem. But rather a quality problem.

 

It definitely seems like a non-QC problem to me. These keyboards have not been tested properly before shipping out perhaps because of the large volumes of shipment that Dell has sent recently. They should definitely send a complementary replacement keyboard with upgraded key locks to all their customers.

 

Nope. Same problem on ealier Aw models.

 

Don't even bother with an undervolt. Set to static voltage in TS and go down to something like 1.2 for 4.7 GHz. Keep reducing until it becomes unstable.

These chips can only take about .080-.0120v undervolt. And it messes with static voltage stability too much if you do both.

 

Well I swapped my old GPU into my new laptop and it's working great, so I can atleast play games until Monday when Dell sends a tech over with a new GPU.

So sad though, that GPU overclocked SO well.

 

Yea that's what I meant. Had to edit my comment after realizing my typo lol

 

He's pretty much a big fat liar. I'm beginning to realize 99% of reviewers on youtube are basically full of it and repeat the same info. I have a non gsync model. I tried to disable the 2080, underclocked the cpu and gpu, dimmed the display and still can't get more than 2 and a half hours. No optimus even on the non gsync model. I would have just gone with the gsync model but playing on the laptop I don't think it's needed.

 

how the hell did pcworld get 6 hours?

 

patience.. it's not easy. but it's doable..

 

Gordon said that he put the laptop in airplane mode and just played a movie on it. Which kind of tells me that a lot of power draw could be because of the wifi chip as well. I'll run some tests where I disable wifi and only rely on wired internet as that's what I prefer to use with my machines anyway.

 

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

How can I upgrade the bios to 200 watts? Is there a settings option in the bios to switch to that or would I have to download something?

Is there a tutorial or video on how to do this?

 

Is there a benefit to doing this?
If the hard drive crashes, wouldn't you be able to just re-download Windows again & then download all the drivers again for the laptop?
Isn't the only thing that comes pre-installed in this laptop, just the alienware overclock program?

 

I believe this is the Bios update that you are looking for. But with great power, comes great responsibility, so make sure your mosfets and VRMs are properly in contact with highest quality possible thermal pads and the thermal pads are making good contact with the heat sink, otherwise you'll blow your power circuitry up in smoke.
https://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER05529946M/1/Alienware_Area-51m_1.3.2.EXE

 

I like my Windows bone stock with no bloatware, not even from Microsoft. First thing I do after installing windows is to get rid of all the junk and xbox related nonsense.

 

So i'm receiving my laptop (white) on Monday. Here are the specs:
1: i9-9900K (will be delidded and mounted without the IHS directly to the heat sink)
2: RTX-2080
3: 64 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance 3000 MHz Ram (I'll upgrade to 4GHz when the board supports it)
4: 1x Samsung 970 Pro - 1TB
5: 1x Samsung 960 Pro - 2TB
6: 1x Samsung 860 Evo - 4TB Sata SSD
7: LG 144Hz Gsync panel with Tobii
8: Xotic PC Laptop Cooler (Using it over from my old MSI GT75 Titan)
9: Good old Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut and Kryonaut (I'll go liquid metal with a copper IHS if I'm unable to make good contact with the direct dye experiment without the IHS. Won't be using the factory IHS anyway)
10: FujiPoly Extreme 17w/mk thermal pads across all thermally warm components + under the SSD heat sinks which I will apply myself. I don't trust ANYONE in this matter except my own 2 hands.

 

The keyboard looks very much like the AW17R5 - is it by chance the same in terms of quality, travel etc?

 

Travel on this one is way deeper, like we're talking 2.2mm. But in terms of quality, meh! I don't like my keys flying into my face. I like them staying on the keyboard. But we'll see what happens. If things get too serious, I think Dell will not have any problem shipping a replacement keyboard to everyone affected though, but I'm not sure if they'll make much changes to the key design.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/bbx9yl/51m_rip_2019041020190411/

sadly another one bites the dust but i'm very curious if it's an GPU problem. Probably not (maybe just a MB faillure) i think a powerfaillure is more to be expected (this is the first dual power socket AW)

 

I doubt Dell will support 4GHz RAM.

 

It's a *NOOB* problem imho where people are running power viruses like FurMark and what not without even knowing that it's not just the CPU and GPU itself that need cooling, but power circuitry also needs to be cooled and many of those components do NOT have any heat sensors in or around them and factory thermal pad job is far from good in general. Overclocking a system that's coming from factory without any thermal mods is plain stupid to be honest, unless you have infinite time to waste waiting for shipments back and forth.

 

Try CB15 and see the results. CB20 really brings out the temps imo. -120mV is impressive. Try what @ThatOldGuy said about static voltage. I have yet to try that out.

Dell's stock paste job isn't the best and once thermal grizzly is ready I'll try out their new product and let y'all know.

I don't recommend liquid metal because fitment might be bad. If you decide to repaste use IC Diamond or something. Or wait for thermal grizzly carbonaut like me.

He also reduced the brightness to a little over 50%. I'm gonna assume he might have also turned off alienfx since he was watching a movie. Keep in mind watching a movie doesn't really tax the system much at all anymore on these laptops thanks to intel and nVidia video decoders.

I'm still skepitcal on his result though. I have been able to get up to 3 hours of solid normal usage (chrome, etc.) wi-fi on, brightness 70%+ so turning airplane mode on, wi-fi off, alienfx off, movie only might be able to get at least 4 hours. Maybe I'll test this myself sometime later to confirm.

I wonder if @Prema undervolt method will save all these laptops and is the reason the GPUs are dying. If so they either need to change the components on the board or fix the firmware.

 

It’s a *NOOB* Problem? Nope.

 

I strongly suspect a crappy thermal pad job. Dell said that they have "upgraded" components on the new boards which caused shipment delays worldwide for new machines. I will get my machine on Monday and will dig through the datasheet of the Mosfets used onboard to find out what is the max power and heat spec for those. And of course, FujiPoly thermal pads are a must for a desktop in this form factor.

 

In most cases, it is. I talked to a few on twitter that just knew about CPU and GPU cooling and didn't know what are mosfets and how they work lol and this very well explained their repaste job and consequent hardware failure that followed. Although there could be a handful of unlucky victims out there as well.
@DellCares told me that I'll be happily surprised with the stability of my machine that I'll be receiving this Monday. Let's see. Fingers crossed! XD

 

This has already been proven wrong. Paste job doesn't matter. Someone had a card from HIDEvolution with the works (fujipoy pads, thermal grizzly conductonaut, etc.) still blew up.

It's a firmware issue or a hardware issue (components need updating)

 

As I said before, I don't trust anyone except my own 2 hands when it comes to a thermal upgrade on my machines. Including HIDevolution. Somebody doing it for making a few bucks vs somebody doing it to safeguard his own investment makes one hell of a difference in the quality of the job done.

 

Does anyone, by any chance, have a circuit diagram for the DGFF card? I'd like to see if there are any temperature failsafe mechanisms built into the power circuitry (if at all).

 

I don't think this is a noob problem at all. Dell/AW rushed out this system's without proper testing and they'll eventually pay the price for it. I mean key caps flying out and smoke coming out of brand new system. That's a new low even for AW.
I'm waiting for my system to be built by Xotic and I hope they'll take their sweet time before they deliver it to me.
I've also messaged Azor and Dell cares on Twitter so let's see their response on the matter. For now, I'm waiting for @iunlock and @Ultra Male for their system reviews. I trust these guys more than Gordon who got 6 hours on his desktop replacement. Ya right!

Edit: As of this morning, Reddit also reports two more brand new systems getting black screen and poof! Dead! Time to get the pop corn out. I've a feeling I'm also going to be a Guinea pig soon.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

 

My apologies, but ROFL.

 

To be fair, both Nvidia and AMD drivers do not allow your GPU to run maxed out in Furmark unless you force it to run as if its another program to bypass the safety net they put there. Most systems should be able to handle 100% GPU usage for an extended period, I know my 980M could even with its crappy VRM. The thing is the VRM components on standard MXM cards are actively cooled, so they cannot overheat unless you have padded them wrong. The factory padding job on most MXM cards is adequate to run something like that unless its an especially weak GPU. The 2080 does not have proper cooling for the mosfets compared to the heatsink on a normal MXM machine.

 

@ThatOldGuy Can't seem to get static voltage working in XTU or TS (yes I changed both Core/Cache to the same)

As you can see I'm trying 1.200v for stock speeds and it's running at 1.2566v under load

 

That's probably due to the Loadline settings in the Bios. i summon @Falkentyne with his on-point knowledge, and better explenation.

 

That's quite the difference though, at some points it hit 1.29v

Seems better to use adaptive offset then.

 

Yeah, the R series also suffers this problem. I undervolt an extra 0.100Mv, or lower the static voltage an extra .100Mv to prevent overvolting off my chip.

If you had control over your bios, you could've turn it off (like how clevos can with an prema bios, or mod your bios and reflash with s.p.i. programmer). You can check maybe AW did not completley lock your bios down, and it's easily moddable.