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

I can answer this....

IMO (overall sound quality)

P870DM3 best
M18x second
Area-51m third

I never had the GT75 or GT73 but I am sure those would rank #1.

IMO (overall loudness):

P870DM3
Area-51m
M18x

 

I have read all about HID, I restumbled on this forum after googling Area 51m on day April 1..... I read thru almost 600 pages in a zippy manner , brought myself abreast and found HID a vendor here with good repute . I immediately purchased , I am based in Nigeria , so I called them I will be in USA on 15 April for Holidays and wanted to be sure it will be there before I leave today , laptop came in like I posted some days ago and is pristine , yes I saw all d issues , yes I also sent a mail to get reassurance doubly sure of zero issues , I was assured and I continued my wait for my laptop .

Like someone said earlier every vendor will have ups and down , question is the handling and also handling goes two ways.

Hopefully HiD repairs all damages and all becomes sweet as it was earlier from what I read in the forums.

Cheers

Finally HId is not Dell, anger should be towards Dell , even then I love my Alien

If it blows, I make more money and purchase another while fighting for the blown one ...Lol

 

guys excuse the silly question but is it better XTU or throttlestop?

 

Personal preference. XTU has a more user friendly UI.

 

Here she is!

 

Never be sorry for asking! My fan profile is set to Performance. Today I repasted it with Kryonaut (since I was unsure of how well I accomplished the spread method). This time I used the X method and I have immediately seen much better temps. I've yet to really test it out, but if my numbers still approach the low 80s, I'm going to take the advice of others here and undervolt my CPU. Someone showed me how to do so for the CPU, but I will need to learn how for the GPU. Either way, I'll test and come back.

 

Yes! Please! Thank you so much!

Sent from my MIX 3 using Tapatalk

 

Alienware Area-51m Factory Image

Use Macrium Reflect to restore it on to your SSD

PS: Make sure you backup all your data beforehand

 

I am sorry that someone’s telling truth here and hurting you. First of all, it is nature that the bigger company is easier to deliver a worse service . The reason? A better service cost more. A simply paid to shut the mouth up is cheaper to get a better service which might need to change from product line to call center. Second , the big company’s priority is not customer but profits and profits returns to the share holders. Customer is the meat on the table not the god they severed as what they claim. If you still believed the big company will care about you, fine , it is your right. But unless you really hurt their profit, as people keep telling true, they won’t care or they care and paying the people out there to shut the mouths up who told the truth.

I dont see alienware 51m would deserve that price tag with such horrible service. This is a half experimental machine which needs a serious tech support. you had better go to the reseller rather than dell's in case you got faulty or whatever problems which is very possible emerge in the future. Or just simply get this money to choose a powerful and stable desktop . as all laptops currently cant not have an efficient cooling system for 2080 and 9th gen intel cpu.

How is clevo p775mt?

 

Well. While I appreciate your concern, it is not needed. Confronting illogical or emotional posts doesn't hurt. And I hope my posts provide a service to NBR members.

With that said, I agree sometimes when dealing with a large company, like Dell for example, an individual can get lost in the shuffle. That's why, in my opinion, a boutique reseller may be a much better option.

 

I have two A51M's, white and black from who different batches (order dates etc..) and they have been running on the far far extreme end of extreme. No issues yet. Yes it is repasted and repadded. I think this is the issue in that there are areas where it really needs a repad. I've mapped out the entire motherboard and I'll make the charts available in my review (tba as I have a ton of projects at the moment), but simply put the areas where there are thermal pads already, those need to be replaced with better quality pads like Arctic pads for example. I would even shy away from fujipoly as the elongation % is very low, thus causing the tolerances levels to be even more sensitive. This is why I'd recommend using more squishier pads for the A51M.

Again, this laptop must be repasted and repadded. I'd recommend Kyronaut on the GPU and CPU, but you can also use other thermal pastes with a higher viscosity on the CPU side. The GPU side mates very well...great contact...whereas the CPU can be a little off at a tilt so having a thicker paste would help. I've tested ICD extensively. Although I'm not a fan, it did okay, but you have to use very little. Both my systems have Kyronaut all around.

Make sure to replace the pad on the bottom of the GPU with a larger pad as well. That area gets very warm and I think it may be one of the culprits with the isolated issues we've been seeing.

For anyone buying any high end gaming laptop, they owe it to themselves to do a proper repaste and repad. It should be something that you go into it as a mandatory necessity. Now look... sure, there's the argument that it should run 100% right out the box, but honestly that is a fantasy and an unrealistic expectation. You can not expect laptops with $Dollar-Store grade thermal grease and pads to be able to accommodate the performance of these high end systems. That's just the reality. All laptops need a good oil change with the use of quality oil and filters so to speak...This isn't just an AW/Dell issue... it applies to them all.

Having owned the P775 series laptop, it's a decent dtr. In short it'll be cheaper and will lack build quality. The screen is really good (still FHD 144Hz), but the track pad and keyboard are not pleasant at all. It does have way better port selection than AW's... I still don't get why AW lacks with the ports, but that's one big draw back of the A51M. A little goes a long way. Also the ram isn't capped to the measly 2400 like on the A51M, however, we may possibly see that ram cap lifted soon, which will turn that con into a pro.

So going back to the price, you can land a P775 series for ~$1000 less to the dot. I just spec'ed two identical configs here and here. $4,049 (AW) vs $3,049 (NP9176-G3)

Now if you're in the States, Dell warranty is very good and fast. I've never had an issue with them. A lot of issues that are being presented here seem to be dealing with a third party as a middle man when dealing with dell. What I'm referring to is dealing directly with dell. Sager on the other hand is pretty decent, but they are a bit slower and tend to play the blame game as I've experienced along with many people that I know that I've recommended Sagers too. Just my 2 cents...

Hope that helps.

 

From the experience I had dealt with dell for my last 3 computer system from them, I won’t recommend dell to anyone I knew. As their support and customer care didn’t solve any problem at all.
I don’t know the hid. From this forum , some say good while some said bad about them. If you real want a product from dell, pick up your reseller carefully . As long as they can provider a real care and support for your system, you should be ok under their warranty . Or you puke go to some reseller who rebranded other manufacturers’s system . they need grown numbers of customers to keep them stand in the market and have to care the customers seriously so that they can survive.

 

Yes I updated the drivers and its still not working, i have been in contact with dell now for a few days on it. When I hook up the adapters to my Lenovo and IBM laptop they work just fine. I can not seem to figure this out and its driving me mad

 

I can add my personal experience here ... HID didn't help at all... and even more if you buy out of the U.S :

Explained my case to HID in details, got the same kind of answer as HaloGod2012, "better wait news from Dell, ...".

I did those steps :

1- Ask for a transfer from Dell International Premium Support's option i've bought on HID to my name, filling the form on Dell's website
2- On the form, correctly filled all the fields about my address (France / E.U)
3- Wait for the confirmation mail
4- Ask again about my repair status at Dell's workshop
5- Obtained from Dell's tech support last call that my machine is going to be swapped with a new one !

I'm 70% sure this helped me a lot !

I obtained help from very nice people here ( @Alex4seby even communicated with me on WhatsApp following my case, many thanks to him !) but none from HID, i felt totally abandonned, even with the answers provided by HID on their helpdesk...

... and finally got to admit... if my case is solved... Dell helped me more...

And yes, i know, it's not their direct responsability engaged here... but they didn't try to provide informations, they didn't try to advise me with the steps that currently helped me here...

The only thing that helped me in my case is you people, here, on this board, my international Premium support (converted to E.U) my tenacity & resilience...

Now i have to face others problems with the swap of a new unit ...

HID changed two things on my laptop :

1 TB HDD SATA Drive => No Hdd option (price lowered)
&
8 GB SODIMM memory => 32 GB "performance" SODIMM memory

But i don't have the original parts they changed... and Dell Premium Support told me that this could be a problem as the computer is not sent back to them 100% the same as it was ordered (yes, i know, 1TB HDD drive and 8 GB of Ram is not a big thing...)

So i had to write a huge mail to explain all the details and particularities about my special case...

And finally... ordering from HID with the options i've selected (0 pixel warranty, No BackBleed, Gelid GC Extreme on CPU/GPU & Themal Pads ...) is a great thing, they did a good job on this one, my panel was perfect and temps were great... but when Dell decide to swap your unit... you loose all of those options !

That's why i think i'll never order from them unless they decide to add a store in Europe... you got way to much to loose..

But i think i'm the only one to blame here... i'm a software engineer, building my desktop pc's from adolescence to now... fully disassembled Alienware m14x (Fun fact : it's my backup right now...), m17x and 17R5 without any problem, i don't know why i needed to order from HID as the Area 51m was already available for order in my country.
I don't think that could have prevented to receive a dying laptop anyway but it would have helped me to obtain a refund or a swap wayyy faster than what happened to me...

Won't make the same mistake again...

 

Thanks a lot for you reply. I had an 51m. And now is waiting for the dell come to pick up and get my refund from them. I ordered this from

many thanks for your detailed reply. I got my 51m on 18th of april . To be honestly , I like 51m's looking when I made the purchased. However, after dealing with dell's horrible customer care service and being lied by their sales, I got my order with huge delayed and incorrectly(paid for 9th gen i7 +2080 but got the 8th gen i7 +2080). I lost all my confidence about dell as their service and support are the same as 12 years ago when I had my first dell (this is my third dell). area 51m is an experimental machine and definitely need serious support which I dont think dell Australia could provide such support . I contacted them to correct my cpu since the first day I had my laptop and they cannt give any solution. Ok. I think this is enough to state how good is their support .
I am thinking about the P775 now . I got a p650 from metabox (the rebranded the clevo and sell it in Australia.) Their service is good as I had some thermal issues with my 650. I can get my laptop back in a week every time after I sent back my faulty one. I just think all the brands on the market now would have thermal issues with 9th gen intel cpu as the heat will be much higher than it's prevous verson. And deliding might not help much on 9th gen products as 9th gen has more cores than the previous i7 & i9. many reviews on you tube tried deliding and applied liquid metal but only few degrees dropped when 8700 could have 20Cs dropping after applying liquid metal. So, in my opoin , a serious tech support is much more important than the nice fancy looking .

 

I fav this one on Chrome... nice analysis here, many thanks, seems like we now have a (partial?) answer...

 

try to get the driver from intel.

 

To the people on this board here :

Many thanks for every advice here !

• For those who changed it : Is it somehow possible to have a "map" of which thermal pad & thickness on both sides of the GPU and the area around the CPU you used ?
• I've ordered Gelid GC Extreme to repaste CPU&GPU, and.. i know it's always a debate but which pattern are you using to apply thermal paste on :
• - CPU ?
• - GPU ?

When i first used Kryonaut i used spread method with their tool ... i'm now thinking of the "line" or the "X" method :



For what i've seen on others videos there's not a huge difference with all the methods, the worst one being the "not enought" (well thanks Captain Obvious ! )

Thanks for your advices

 

REAALLLY looking forward to YouTube video or pic guide on this

Anyone have any other good video or walkthrough with pics?

 

we should have started a petition to pressure dell to bring area-51m to malaysia and singapore.

 

My Alienware Area 51m came in today from HIDevolution (through Amazon, but called HIDevolution for delidding and doing the pasting). Machine runs flawlessly so far. Adding in my 2TB M.2 NVMe took less than a minute. Delid was done well and thermal pads were installed and didn't have any issues with it. Did not check mosfets for the GPU, but I will get to that later after watching Avengers tonight. So far this has been a very satisfying machine. It is relatively quiet at max fans in comparison to the P870DM-G and stays really cool even on the lap (lulgamingonlap). Hopefully some BIOS mods come around for full access to system in the future, but for now I will be using it as is for warranty purposes until nearing its end before going full crazy. If anyone wants me to do something when I'm free, I can try to do so. Also @Ultra Male , I had a hard time figuring you were Phoenix from many years ago!

Thank you @Ted@HIDevolution for the quick help on getting the delid and such done over the phone before the unit's production.

Average temps while playing The Division 2 on Ultra quality: CPU @ 65C and GPU at 72C with max fans on.

Specs (on purchase):

HIDevolution Alienware Area-51M 17.3" FHD 144Hz Gaming Laptop | Black | 3.6 GHz i9-9900K, RTX 2080, 32GB 2666MHz RAM, PCIe 512GB SSD + 1TB SSHD | Authorized Performance Upgrades & Warranty

 

Anger isn't directed to them over failures that are not their fault. Their repaste jobs have been horrible as of late and could cause an otherwise perfect machine to thermally crumble under load. If you want longevity, re-do the thermal upgrades on your own table with your own hands instead of relying on anyone else.

 

Ha ha, now, waiting for EVO Plus 2TB and I'm set

Sent from my MIX 3 using Tapatalk

 

Have Kryonaut and Artic pads on way. Double checking - 1mm and .5 mm are one people have been using for repadding ?

 

Looking for some help here.

I did a fresh install of Windows (now on RAID0 on 970s, whoop whoop) and all is well EXCEPT I can't seem to get Command Center working.

I followed the exact steps in @Ultra Male 's guide, restarting after each install, and all was well until CC came up and it gave me an error. No problem, just skipped it and did the others (save for another one that apparently needed CC files or something).

Anyway, now I'm all squared away with no CC and fans on full blast. I can't seem to find the direct download from Dell when I put in my Service Tag or not. So I found an app on the UWP Windows Store. Downloaded it. And when I click Fusion it says it can't find any lighting devices, and it also doesn't let me change the fans. It's basically all blank.

Ideas?

 

When I launched AWCC for the first time after uninstalling it, it automatically detected/downloaded the additional apps for OC and lighting. You might have to download them separate if they didn't pop up right away

 

Where would I go to download them separately?

EDIT: NVM, I just found an older version for the desktop, installed it, and then it auto-updated once opened.

Thanks!


EDIT: Nevermind... now it's going in an endless loop of trying to update, saying it did, and then failing.

 

1mm plus 1.5mm. Don't need 0.5mm at all.

 

I take it that you're not in the US? If that's the case, I can't speak on behalf of Dell service elsewhere, but in the US it is really good. If you call Monday for example they can have someone out as fast as Tuesday. It's unfortunate that the service around the world vary a lot... I know that there has been a lot of complaints in the SE Asia and India regions. It is likely that the techs in your regions also are third party companies like it is here in the US. The Techs that come out to service your machine are not Dell techs... they are contracted, which why it adds another layer of error, because the majority don't know what they are doing. What dell needs to do is to send people the parts so that people can service their systems by themselves or have their friend/someone with good knowledge to do it for them, which is a ton better than having a "know nothing," tech come out that is a third party hire.

Spread method or X pattern is best on laptops. Just make sure not to use too much or too little... the GPU side has good contact so you don't need that much. The CPU is a little trickier but it should not have too much either otherwise it'll spill over and you don't want thermal paste leaking into the gold contact pins inside of the socket. It would be a nightmare to clean.

Yes I agree. There needs to be more support in the SE Asia and India regions. If there was one I would support it 100%.

Very nice and contrats. Are you running your CPU on stock clocks? Have you OC'ed it yet to 5.0GHz? Please report back with screen shots of the temps with hwinfo64 open. Enjoy your new system!

You may need 1.5mm in some areas. Every heat sink is different. Take a close look at your stock pads and replace them accordingly.

 

Install Dell Support Assist. It should tell you which drivers/applications are missing and automatically download and install for your model. Pretty nifty tool.

 

Appreciate the suggestion; but unfortunately did a full uninstall and restart. Ran the tool. Ran the test for drivers/support, and it has zero suggestions for CC. Can't find a way to trigger the need anywhere.

When I had it installed, this is the error I got no matter how long I waited (I have gigabit internet) or if I restarted:

 

Something tells me that you are still using the factory Windows installation. If that's the case, that is a bad idea. Copy-paste your windows key somewhere and put a fresh copy on it. Then run windows update multiple times until all the updates are installed and Windows can find nothing more. Then go ahead and install all the drivers and applications available from support.dell.com for your computer on top of the Windows drivers. If yours is an i9-9900K and RTX-2080 then you can use this download page.

 

Really do appreciate the help - thank you! Unfortunately, already did this.

Got a brand new .iso and installed a fresh copy of 10 (different key, which was probably dumb, but I get copies for $10 from work).

Installed all the drivers at your link (actually got them from Ultra Males links, but pretty much the same) and then updated Windows (so, admittedly, different order but I don't think it should matter).

But even at your link, AW Control Center isn't something to download. And Support Assist doesn't list it as a driver or app to download, unless I'm just looking at the wrong place. The only place I can find to download it is from the Windows store, and then manually update... I assume the OC Settings (pic above) is what I need... but they won't install.

Arg!

It's 11:30 so I'm gonna head to bed. Certainly open to other suggestions! Thank you!


EDIT: ALL I WANT IS FAN CONTROL, lol. It should not be this hard. I'd be fine with the default blue LED keys until the end of time. I just want fan controls.

 

For command center...simply uninstall by going in to personalise..apps..advance tab under command center and uninstall all one by one like oc control..sound etc... then restart and go directly to windows store and search alienware ... it will install this flawlessly and yes the products you own will show this message but in background they will be installing and after final restart you will have it all....

 

"Not applying enough" is the worst, this is exactly why I always spread the paste evenly before applying heatsink - this is the best way to make sure you applied enough. With any other method like adding a "pea size" or drawing crosses or pentagrams with the paste you have a higher risk of not applying enough since you cannot see how well the heatsink will spread the paste until you will lift it ;-) Of course you can always just put a huge blob in the middle and this will definitely be "enough" but then it would just be a waste of the thermal paste and will make cleaning it more harder ;-)

 

Error when I let it launch by itself. Errors. Errors.

I go to manually install from "My Library." Errors.

This is beyond stupid. I'm going to bed. I'll do one more Windows wipe tomorrow, if it doesn't sort this out I'll just return the damn thing. Never in 20 different builds have I had to jump through so many hoops to control my fans. This is dumb.

Good night!

/childish rant


I at least got "overclock" and "thermal" buttons to appear in CC, but they just spin and don't let me click on them. So frustrating.

 

Reset your Windows installation and download CC and OC from Dell area 51m driver page and all will be well hopefully

 

https://www.dell.com/support/home/u...t/product/alienware-17-area51m-laptop/drivers

 

Best thing to do is let them download. Then when you are asked to run or extract. Extract somewhere you will easily find. Then close out AWCC and run the exe file you extracted.

You are getting a loop because it is trying to update the program (AWCC) while it is running.

 

Uninstall these three, restart the laptop, and then install them again, one by one. No need for extract, just run the setup for each of them. Restart the laptop after each installation completes. It’s important that you install them in this order.

1. Alienware Command Center v5.2.29.0
2. Alienware OC Controls v1.2.32.1210
3. Alienware OSD Application v1.3.3.0

Once you’ve done this, there’s no reason for why you’d get any errors.

Drivers can be found here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-area-51m-drivers.827895/

 

Was just killing my time..thought of making a lockscreen & wallpapers and share with community..here you go...(i am no photoshop expert..jst a try)​

 

Dell and Nvidia will sue for using Copyrighted logo. Ask their permission before posting! You can do it on your PC.
Anyway, a job well done on wallpapers and lockscreen arts.
EDIT: Fixed a typo.

 

Anyone here score 27k physics in firestrike at 5ghz? If so care to tell me your settings.

 

Thnx will do for sure.... so mch relieved after that issue sorted out of power

Sent from my SM-A505F using Tapatalk

 

Can anyone pls cofirm if the same happened to their machine like it did to me in video.. have a dell call lined up tommorow just want to be sure if its me or general issue...

 

The caption on this video made me hungry. Almost, until I read past "rice"!

 

I don't have this issue with mine. 9900K + RTX-2080 here.

 

So if you are gaming on default profile without any xtu or throttlestop and absolutely no change to command center profile and switchoff both adapters together.. the system stays awake and downclocks?

YOU DID EXACTLY SAME...METRO..AND SUDDEN POWER CUT..

 

That's how it is supposed to go. I think you have an issue with your laptop.

 

Dell support told me that Samsung drives are "not compatible" with Area 51m and should be avoided. And I was like... WTH?! They also told me that errors on sPSA regarding PCIe link degradation are normal and I shouldn't worry about it lol