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

LOL definitely like the house from film 'Fight Club' was my first thought after reading you post. Brad Pitt: 'would cost an eye, or at least a black eye LOL

I think the power has to go through laptop's PSU, should be enough to guarantee good quality power delivery.

 

When I set the Alienware overclock to 5.2 ghz on the command center it mainly runs at 4.9 ghz all core in most games and light load it goes to 5.2. I assume cause the AVX offset is set to -3. Is there anyway to turn off avx offset?

 

7 foot is plenty (speaking from experience). I do put mine on a lapdesk though, not directly on my legs.

 

No, I just unplugged the connector, not the actual battery. I'm not that PC literate.

 

AWCC is broken and will only overclock 6 of the 8 cores. The remaining 2 will default to -300mhz from the highest. Use XTU or Throttlestop

 

Maybe AWCC "works as intended" even though it is broken, but ThrottleStop is definitely the way to go.

 

On laptops with sloppy fitting parts (which is more or less all of them) I have had the best luck using the squishy wet-feeling silicon pads that are extra soft and spongy. While they have a much lower W/mK rating, they are much better at conforming to irregularities and poorly fitting parts. The hard pads with high W/mK ratings can work better in a perfect fitting scenario, but they frequently impede contact and can easily make the temperatures higher if they need to compress and cannot. The higher W/mK rating won't do jack for you if the heat sink isn't making good contact, especially with the CPU or GPU die. And, most of the components that rely on thermal pads do not get super crazy hot. In some cases the parts that commonly use thermal pads can even run cooler with nothing on them if the air circulation is good (which is generally not the case with a laptop).

 

Maybe I am a newbie. I'll return this & buy it later when all the bugs are figured out & the bios are unlocked.

Can anyone tell me how to reformat the laptop?
I tried the powershell Format C:/P:3 option

but it says "format cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. format may run if the volume is dismounted first"
When I select Y, it says it failed.
How do I format & delete all my info & apps on this laptop before sending it back?

 

What happened to your laptop? After you overclocked it and it froze, were you able to fix it?

 

This is an interesting poll: What did @Alienware missed when designing its Area 51m laptop? What they should fix? @Area51Gaming

 

I'll be damn sure to drop my feedback. Gimping the cooling is the one that gives me trust issues. Nonetheless i'm happy with my R5 now (even though i miss the old days)

 

It's fine, it just crashes too much & I'm tired of messing with the settings. I'm sure Alienware will fix the bugs & bios etc... but I might as well wait another few months.

But any help on formatting the OS (C:/) drive? Right clicking it & selecting format is not working either.

 

Ahh. Damn. Why not just return and repurchase? It seems they fixed most of the issues with these newer ones. Even small issues such as the touchpad making clicking noises on the bottom right side, my newer replacement doesnt have this issue.

 

Boot from Windows installation media, press Shift+F10 to open a command prompt and use diskpart commands. You cannot format the drive that Windows is installed to while it is in use as a bootable volume. This is by design, to keep you from destroying your operating system.

Or, just install Linux instead, LOL.

 

Google doing windows 10 reset then just do a reset and erase files.

 

The email I just got just said screen bezel, so I doubt they are sending me the screen/lid and everything else.


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i'm glad you guys investigated this QC issue. by HID standard and reputation, it shouldn't have happened in the first place. but i do agree not everyone can give their 100% dedication and passion to their job and i've had my fair share of dealing with workers like that ruining the company's reputation (assuming that they are properly trained and experienced). your quick reaction did restore some confidence in us but we certainly hope this is the last of lack of QC and negligence being reported. keep up the good work

 

Hi guys,
Are there any news on the power supplies for the 51m, I've just seen the review and they seem to use 2 different styles of power bricks, with different AC power sockets?

I've also been looking at the Dutch Dell website and it seems like the i7 9700 is the max spec here? Can't choose the 9900k upgrade.

 

I haven't had as much time the last week or so to tinker as much as I'd have liked, but I think after chasing Firestrike scores with a top score of 24,750 and a graphics score of a hair over 29,000, I think I can rest easy knowing I don't have a total dud.

I think 4.9 on all 8 cores on my 9900k with a -140 offset is gonna be my sweet spot for stable gaming, which I'm pretty happy with! Definitely need to play some more... but after 45 minutes of OW, 45 min of Siege, and 45 minutes of PUBG - all on Performance fans (so loud) I only had one core go over 80c. I mean, yeah, it throttles with AIDA64/Prime/Cinebench... but during gaming, it's maintaing 4.9 on all 8 cores and I think all of us back in January would have thought that to be impossible.

I'll probably send my chip in for a $59 de-lid from SL, and I'll do my own repaste job. If I can keep this under 75c - which seems pretty dang do-able with those mods - for most gaming (even if the fans are loud), I'm a very happy camper.

Where are you guys leaving your clocks for stable gaming vs benchmarks?

Oh! GPU seems to do well at stock voltage, 200W vbios, at +140/+600. Seems to hover around 78-82c most the time.

 

You can click a next (you're looking at 1-4, there's 5-8 as well).

I have a 9900K + RTX2080 myself, bought in .nl.

 

Seriously? All I see is a competing Clevo re-seller, which doesn't even sell the A51M system, doing a poll on an AW to make it look inferior.
They are just salty that their 780W adapter and the 250$ cable, which they explicitly advertised and sold to customer as 51M compatible doesn't even work:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...m-owners-lounge.826831/page-698#post-10892517

Looks more like that poll was made for two reasons only:

- Trying to once again misuse the community for their own interests
- Advertise Clevo by making the AW look bad.

Let's translate the poll options:

- Only we have a 780W adapter
- Only we have MXM
- Only we offer AMD
- Only we sell 128GB RAM (which is not even accessible above 64GB address space in OS with their firmware, so shouldn't be advertised and sold as such)

If I would have found this thread earlier than today, I probably wouldn't have fallen victim to their schemes myself:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/fair-and-legal-business-practices.428769/

 

Yea this looks like a self-promotinal garbage. Eurocom doesnt really care about people's opinions (it was both sad and amusing seeing people replying to it in a "serious" way), they did it just to advertise their own products.

 

Talking about loosing faith from the community. Eurocom can learn a lot from HID....

 

very WELL said!

 

Does anyone know if this will work in the laptop? https://rockitcool.myshopify.com/products/copper-ihs-for-9th-gen

 

Yes it will

 

You can't reformat an Online OS! Any requests are denied on spot. You need to boot using WIn PE or W10 boot disk and use legacy cmd in command prompts instead of PS scripts unless you open them in Powershell on WinPE.

 

Hey guys, quick question.

I just found a Windows 10 Pro key that i've had for a couple of years now, and i'm wondering if it is worth it to upgrade over Home?
Is there any benefits aside from the few extra features? Will it use more system resources?

Just curious about your guys' opinion on this.

Also, if i were to upgrade it to Pro, could this carry over to a new system? According to Windows, my current version is activated under my Microsoft account.

 

When AW choices fail, Clevo OEMs gain market share of AWs.

 

That poll seems to only have one real issue, "use single 780w ac adapter"

128GB RAM works
Standard MXM 3.1 is BS no one offers "standard" MXM 3 format anymore
Offer AMD GPUs is also BS since not even MSI or Clevo have MXM GPUs

I'm actually gonna install Manjaro on my Area-51m with tutorial in the future. Maybe even Mac OS on top of Linux.

I agree that 780w PSU being compatible with Area-51m was funny. No proper testing was done LOL

 

Not that impressed with some of the temps people are touting when left at stock...this thing gets hot like any other laptop according to some reviews it gets into the 90s. I do like the 9900k desktop option.

And I don't know why a Ryzen option isn't out to perhaps pass on some kind of savings to consumer? A ryzen 2700 with a 2080 would be great.

And I just don't feel that impressed with a 2080. It's not that big of a leap over a 1080 so paying about 3500usd for a 2080 and 9900k isn't that appealing since a 2080 can't really run most games at a constant 60fps @ 4k. It's gonna take a couple of more generations it seems to comfortably run 60fps at 4k resolution. I mean they are shipping these things with 1080p monitors because they know the 2080 isn't good enough to push 4k in newer demanding titles. Seriously your gonna spend close to $4000USD for a laptop with a...gasp...1080p screen?

This isn't alienware's fault per say, it's nvidia's fault for failing with the rtx line...touting it as this new great gpu when in reality it's just another slight bump in performance packaged with new "features" that 99% of games don't support.

 

Not worth the huge price difference for little gain and hassle with crumbling pads, but that's my opinion.

 

https://www.dell.com/de-de/work/shop/cty/pdp/spd/alienware-17-area51m-laptop/n00aw51m08

 

I dont realy mind the 1080P screen. I think the most gamers use a extern screen anyway, and mouse and keyboard. At least i do at home.
The first RTX series wasnt a big step in performans...it just added new effekts. The next generation will maby focus on boosting the power...and i hope we can use that generation in this laptop

 

I CAN NOT CATCH A BREAK!
I did the Windows 10 reset option, but now it is stuck at 31% & has been like that for the past 5 hours.

I don't know what to do, it won't do anything outside of keep loading that same 31% screen. What can I do to fix a stuck Windows 10 reset on a laptop?

 

Just like on the Belgian website. there ARE the 9900K options. You simply have to click the "volgende" option on the page where you have the 4 configurations visible.
1st two configurations are 8700, 2nd two are 9700K and the remaining 4 on the next page are all 9900K.

But imho I wouldn't go for 9900K anyway. I got myself the 9700K, as the performance difference in real life use/gaming is negligible, with the cost of quite a lot more heat output.

 

Did you get a new system? Or are you waiting for A51M w/o other laptops?

 

Backlight bleed is pretty bad on my unit... should I ask Dell for an exchange?

 

First boot benchmark
Max Fans, no undervolt, no new nvidia drivers, no overclocking

Did I get a good unit?

 

Found it too, weird site...first time it showed the i7 9700 option (is it really non-K?) with RTX2080 for around 3440, then I simply did a search for "Alienware 51m 9900k" on their website and could configure one for 3518. Well for 78eu difference I might just take the 9900k.

 

but Acer sadly has. And if Acer can do it, AW sure as hell can do it too.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/acer-predator-helios-500-amd-ryzen,5566.html

 

Yup good ole Clevo days. I remember like it was yesterday getting 3 warped vapor chambers in a row. A few members here having to use shims to make things work right on their Clevo.

 

Naked "out of the box" benchmarks??

You know that the AW tuning integrates XTU so you can tune it / undervolt quickly out of the box. Might as well do some fan curve tuning - at least select a profile to base your custom settings on and benchmark from that first.

Do some OC'ing... you get the idea, it's all there "out of the box".

No need to publish "undressed" benchmarks.

I thought the thermal throttle point for AW was 100c? I see the 91c top temp is in red, which is they way to indicate thermal throttling, yet I don't see it elsewhere, maybe get a newer hwinfo64 download - beta maybe?

So getting to your question, 91c is "nice" especially for an AW unit out of the box. Is the 100% fan setting "out of the box"? I thought auto-fans was the default setting? What is the default AW performance profile setting - and what are the default's within that?

You should be able to select the highest performance profile, then start tuning undervolt, fan curve, GPU, etc, and within 15 minutes get it nailed down, as you as you don't get too ambitious with undervolt settings.

Look at the other posts, -100mV CPU and 900mV(?) GPU, or some such, I haven't double checked, do some searches for the ideal range to try.

 

There is a pretty good jump in performance from 1080 to 2080, I mean we are breaking 30k graphics scores in firestrike. A stock 1080 scores about 21k while this stock 2080 (200w) does around 27k+. Add in the cores needed for RTX and it’s pretty impressive. Dell made the gap much better for us by giving us a 200w version of the 2080. Most other laptop 2080s are only scoring 24 to 26k max.


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What are the power / thermal increases between 1080 @ 21k vs 2080 @ 27k?

Now that you've found / compared the extreme edge performance that can't be used for gaming, how are the everyday settings benchmarking for the 1080 / 2080?

Is the % FPS increase at the end of the day worth it? Is that difference really large enough to be considered worth a 2 year wait and is it truly the result of a full generational jump?

 

Received my replacement laptop on Wednesday. So after exactly 1 month waiting, I got the laptop.

I simply re-installed the 970 pro I had from the machine that died. Had to uninstall and re-install alienware command center and Dell Support assist due to some issue. Apart from that everything works perfectly fine.
No back light bleed, no slight wiggle on the touchpad anymore. CPU temps are a lot better, GPU temps are a little worse. Did a Timespy test and scored almost 100 more on stock settings compared to the laptop that died.

When playing metro exodus. CPU temps wouldn't go above 65. While GPU would hit 80-81. (was playing it on external 4K monitor)

I also added a cooler master u3 plus. But somehow that doesn't seem to make any difference.

So yeah, looking good so far, hoping it will stay like that, although the GPU temps are a little too high for my comfort.

 

As I've said many times to many others, if you can tune the IPS display - reduce the brightness and adjust the contrast to reduce the effect of the "glow" enough to "live with it", and everything else on the laptop works AOK, then keep it.

Sending in RMA often results in problems other than the screen being created. Swapping for another unit with "less" glow is similar, you may get other problems, or a weaker CPU / GPU result.

Be happy with what you have has been a guiding factor with IPS "glow" issues.

You could try to pop the bezel off and adjust the display hangers, the pinch points yourself, or ask for a Dell in home mechanical tuning of the display to reduce the glow.

The "bad" bleed situations are the bright radiant ray's caused by serious pinching, you don't have that, so I would try display tuning to see if you can make it livable.

Many IPS displays are too bright at 100%, 40%-60% is often enough indoors, try reducing the display brightness to the lowest brightness for use indoors and see how that looks as far as IPS "glow".

 

I had a 17 R5 with a 1080 and I can definitely see the difference In gaming. I’m playing destiny 2 locked at 144fps while my 1080 would fluctuate between 90 and 115. I see a nice bump in BF5, black ops 4, forza horizon, etc. But like I said I’m gaming with overclocks that are keeping me in the 2ghz plus range on the core, so I’m seeing a great boost. Add in RTX effects and it’s a pretty sweet package and upgrade. As for power and thermals, I can only say that the 2080 does run hotter.


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indeed it says 9700, but it's the K version, when I ordered mine it also didn't mention K.
And many people indeed choose the i9 9900K, simply because it's a relatively cheap upgrade when looking at the full price, and because it has a name. i9 vs i7. of course it's better for showing off.
Other than that, the temps of the i9 cpu's are far out of my comfort zone, especially if you have a unit that is slightly worse in terms of thermal application, causing the cpu temps to actually reach 100 degrees, causing the machine to throttle slightly.
Throttling isn't necessarily the issue, but I don't think that having such high cpu temps is healthy for the cpu in the long term.

But of course, this is just my opinion, if yo uthink otherwise, by all means go for it, as it is like you mentioned relatively cheap.

 

Too bad you don't have them side by side running the same OS version, driver revision, game version, etc.

Going from 90fps to 144fps given the smaller percentage increase in benchmarks seems a bit over the top as far as believability.

But, I am happy you are happy with your upgrade.