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

Ok that makes sense.

MSI GT75 Titan's keyboard is by far the BEST keyboard that I've ever used in a laptop. Gotta give credit where it's due. Their partnership with steelseries paid off very well for their products. Keyboard is one thing that they got right on that behemoth. I owned that laptop for 2 years and that thing *invited* me to type on it! One more thing that they did right which Area 51m should have done too was a heat resistant padding on the palm rest area. Area 51m gets burning hot on the palm rests while gaming and I'm forced to use an external keyboard at times. The Titan had a thick rubbery padding on the palm rest area and always stayed cool to the touch no matter how hard I gamed on that thing. What's worse is that this burning warmth ends up making your hands sweat and your palm rest paint starts to fade away! I recently replaced my chassis just to get rid of those yellow marks and now I am considering some sort of mod to rectify this shortcoming.

 

Thanks for the reply mate. I've FedEx Express shipment so it shouldn't take too long either judging by your 10 day delivery time.
How is your white laptop holding up so far? I've read a few reports from you (and others on reddit) that the discoloration might be an issue in this laptop. If that's the case, any suggestions about cleaning this thing?

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I hardly use laptop speakers at all myself. This thing is sitting on a charging pad next to my laptop and it auto connects to my laptop every single time.

https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/speakers/portable_speakers/soundlink_revolve_plus.html

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Delivery only took 2 days. All of the remaining time (more than one month) was spent just waiting for the shipment from Dell as they were upgrading the board and gpu before sending it over to HID. So far it's working well but I regret buying this white color. It started looking dated within 10 days of use and I had to ask Dell to replace my chassis as the palm rests were already faded! I am trying to get a color scheme change.

 

I knew what I was going to when I saw the colors. The chassis reminded me of the P150EM I had way back and did leave sweat stains during hot days. On a side note, can try adding some type of skin to palmrest. Wont get rid of heat but may help with the stains.

 

I thought so. I'm now glad I took the black option

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I had initially ordered the white model from Xotic (which was $100 cheaper than black and still is) but ended up canceling the order. I ordered the basic black one from Hidevolution due to funds constraints but it now seems like a blessing in disguise. Hidevolution are throwing in 2 year premium warranty rather than 1 which is saving me some money in itself. All in all, I'm pretty satisfied with my purchase. I will add some RAM and SSD upgrade later down the line.

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So I just had a big problem with my unit.
The laptop was on but I wasn't using it, nothing was running except firefox. Suddenly the screen starts flickering, followed by green signs/pixels all over the screen for around 10 seconds and then it goes black.

Quick link to the couple seconds before : https://streamable.com/s/742e9/hjwnte

It then entered a 10mn cycle of restarting over and over again, then black screen. Keyboard light was still on and mouse was still connected (lights were on).
If I start the computer now, it'll show my desktop for a couple seconds then black screen again.
Safe mode seems stable, but tells me "The system could not find the filter specified" for AlienwareOn-ScreenDisplay.exe

How bad is it ?

 

Sounds like another dud GPU. Contact Dell asap and get them to send you a new DGFF card.

Edit: Spelling

 

No, the MSI have a different port. How do I know which adapter to get? I need some kind of splitter för the 51M.

 

Hey guys, I've got my 51m replacement directly from dell today. Anyone can be sure whether dell has made some improvement on the machine to avoid burnt down issue?

 

ahh space invaders.... dead gpu

 

That has nothing to do with your issue. I get that message as well when I boot into Sade Mode. That's the On-Screen display app which is a UWP app (Microsoft Store) that is meant to run at startup but it can't run in Safe Mode so you are getting that message. Totally normal.

 

April 8 ordered and Delivered April 24, with max spec all around

Run EPSA at bios boot up

 

When did you recive this machine? Is it the first batch?

 

Doing one right now, 3h to go.

Received it march 29, in Canada.

That sucks, I was pretty happy so far. Going back to my old Alienware is depressing.


Edit : The GPU was a 2070 by the way.

 

I didn’t know the ram was locked at 2400mhz when I made the purchase.

No wonder when I asked the salesman whether I should go for a pair of faster ram and he hesitated and didn’t reply.

Waiting for bios update to 2666mhz is just hilarious for a $4000 machine. It should be 3000mhz at least.

 

Here’s to hoping someone takes a crack at the BIOS. Willing to throw money at it.

Spoke with Ted from HIDevolution about panel swapping and was told Dell would provide the part faster, but they sell it with the panel frame as well for a hefty sum ($800-900).

I will keep using my LG panel for now as there is no real issue with it even when doing competitive gaming. Wonder if a 1440p 144hz panel will be released with Gsync some time.

 

Out of curiosity. Is there anyone else that would be interested in a 14/15 inch version of this laptop?

So exact same model, also with thin bezels. a little thinner, but not too much, if not can be almost the same as the area 51M.
With only 1 PSU, and a laptop CPU instead of a desktop CPU. Would be fine if it only had up to RTX 2070.
but all the rest the same. Has G-Sync, same keyboard, same design, ...

It's just that I actually was looking for a laptop like that, instead of the Area 51M (although still satisfied with the Area 51M), but the m15 had too many compromises for me.

So yeah what, are your thoughts?

 

I would really like a version from 18.4 with 2080ti

 

i7 9700k with 2080Ti, big yes but hell, I would take any version as long as it's not self destructive...

 

i would instantly sell my a51m....

 

Hot palm rests and main Keyboard area are not normal for this laptop. I would look into that. Something is not right with yours. (Battey and SSD in palm rests may be defective. They shouldn't get hot)

No keyboard side surface gets hot to the touch on mine at all. Some people report it getting hot by the function keys though, which I think is relatively normal due to GPU location.

 

That GPU is toast.

When you install a sata SSD, it kills the air flow in that area which ends up making it get hot when both CPU and GPU are under load. I could get the SSD out but that's not what I intend to do. I will get a color swap eventually as I don't mind warm palm rests as long as they don't fade my paint! The palm rests stay cool otherwise though, just get warm during extreme gaming. The left palm rest (towards the Sata drive bay) gets hotter than the right one towards the battery. However, the disk itself runs very cool. It's a 4TB Samsung 860 Evo. The keyboard itself stays cool. I suspect that this heat is actually the CPU and GPU heat that travels across the metal chassis making it's way to the palm rest area as the vents are also a part of the chassis and get hot with exhaust air.

15 inch is TOO SMALL for me. I've been spoiled with 17.3" screens for long enough and those baby sized screens make me freak out lol.

 

Just got the Alienware Elite backpack...its a great backpack not only for the Area 51m but in general. Was going to return my Area 51m but I might just keep my Area 51m because of the backpack...

15 inch is toooo smalll for gaming..

 

Yeah that backpack is sick! Super solid build quality and surprisingly light weight.

 

Best "comment of the year" so far!

 

I had to read it twice just to believe what I had understood. That's next level man.
It's like saying I didn't like the food but will definitely go to the restaurant again just to use the cutlery again.

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And here i am waiting for it to be sold in europe.

 

Hi, there is something weird happening with my laptop, I hope someone here can help me to figure out what's happening.
I have been on vacation for some weeks and came back yesterday, so I spent some time upgrading the Bios to version 1.5 and all the drivers manually, also some windows updates. In the process I was monitoring temps from the CPU and everything seemed normal, temperatures were below 55 on idle. The computer rebooted several times during the update process, everything was ok. The thing is that I received an update from AWCC and AW OC tools that forced to uninstall the old OC tools in order to complete the upgrade. After that I did a diagnosis test (Fn + power button) and everything was fine, but the next time I booted into windows the fans started to ramp up on idle. I took a look at hwinfo and saw that the temperatures of the CPU where very high, above 85 centigrades and some cores were throttling, so I checked the frequencies and most some were running at 4.9 Mhz. I monitored this situation for some time, the computer was idle during all this time and the frequency was fluctuating between 0.9 Mhz and 5 Mhz, while some cores maintained 4.9 Mhz with voltages between 1.4 and 1.6 for some time and then throttled. I was running on balanced profile.

Well, the weird thing is that OC on AWCC was off, moreover, I have never activated it and I haven't installed yet TS or XTU on this laptop.
I tried activating OC on AWCC an deactivating it after but nothing changed. I even tried to create an new OC profile with 3.6 Mhz and lowering the voltages the it didn't work. I even uninstalled OC tools and reinstalled the previous version with no luck.
All performance options are disabled on BIOS. Is this normal? Frequencies should be 3.6 maximum without OC, right?

It's really strange, I don't know if this is an AWCC OC tools bug or if it's something related to windows or BIOS. I think I will try booting with a live windows usb image or even reestablishing the windows factory image that came pre-installed in order to try to isolate the issue just to be sure that it's not related to CMOS/BIOS.

Any ideas?

My config is i9 9900, rtx 2080, 32 Gb RAM, 1 tb Raid 0 and Tobii + gsync @144Hz

 

Uninstall AWCC. Its bugged. You may have OC on your BIOS.

 

Thanks. But if the OC is in CMOS and I remove AWCC and AW OC tools, then I should reset the CMOS, right? Uninstalling AWCC would have no change if I understand correctly.

 

Hey guys,

I've been trying to order the M.2 Heatsink for 2 months now and Dell canada keep telling me it's out of stock.

Part number : 3N3W3

Anyone know where i could find 2 of these?
I'm willing to overpay if needed.

 

There is absolutely no airflow around battery/ssd Sata slot in this model. Same also around the NVMe ssd's. The reason people see +90C ssd temp if you don't use an ssd heatspreder on the NVME ssd's.

Regarding the Lunar White. Design before functionality. This color will be ugly after a year or two. The worse it will be if used a coating. Black for the winners... Have always been.

Does Dell still use the same black and now White coating as they have used on the palmrest since the Alienware 17 back in the 2013/14 era? If so maybe rather use a external keyboard.

 

I think I figured out what was causing heated palm rest issue for me. It seems to be the head phone jack assembly underneath the sata hdd bay. That thing is baking hot and even with hard drive out, the palm rest is still getting heated up! That is the only thing underneath the surface now which can possibly get hot. The remaining laptop chassis is relatively cooler.

AWCC is the biggest pile of bugs that I've seen in a long time. Just use it to control your fan profiles and the bling bling on your device (lighting etc). Use Intel XTU for CPU and MSI Afterburner for GPU. Be careful though as the AWCC can override the Intel XTU profile when it is left running so just turn it on when you want to switch fan profile. Once done with that, shut it down.

 

I ordered them preinstalled on my system through Hidevolution and cost $15 each. Try contacting one of their reps. Good luck

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I have a sata/sdd and my palmrests are not getting hot so there must be something wrong with your headphone jack.

 

Ow for me, At home I use an external monitor. But when I take it with me. A 17 inch on your lap feels a little large. I find 15-14 inch size to be a lot better for actual portable use. But of course, once you get used to large, using smaller monitors is not fun.
After getting used to my 27 inch monitor. everything smaller doesn't cut it for me, for daily use. I could live with it. but less fun.

The Area 51M its monitor is only for monitoring in my current case at home.

 

Yes, that's the use I was planning for AWCC, I never touched the OC controls before this issue started to happen and was going to install TS and Afterburner and start undervolting as the next step. But with this issue I would like to leave everything working as before with the default frequencies at 3.6 prior to start using TS.

Should I clear the CMOS to get rid of this issue? Is there a way of doing it without having to remove the battery connector and the CMOS cell?
Or will TS fix this problem if I configure a default profile with no OC? Will TS change the CMOS settings and stick the settings even if I remove TS after changing that or if I boot the computer with another OS like Linux?

 

Soon Dead. Ask for replacement.

My 3-Week-Old 51m Laptop Just Caught Fire (1 hour ago)

Details: Had the laptop plugged in to both adapters but turned off for several hours prior. Booted up and opened Overwatch. Noticed a GeForce overlay in the game that hadn't been there before and wanted to disable it. When I opened the configuration app, the GPU driver was updated. After it finished, I played Overwatch on "Low" settings for ~30 minutes when I suddenly saw a bright orange glow coming from the left side of the vent located above the computer (near power adapter ports). Smoke quickly followed....

(Left side is the MB power delivery)

When will the buyers start push Azor or Umar for info?

 

Simply turn off oc from AWCC and you'll be back to default. No need to take the battery out.

 

It's off, is has been off all the time, and performance options in BIOS are off as well. No TS or XTU installed on the system. I tried switching it on and then off again but it seems to have no effect. It's really weird.

 

I was using my old Aorus X9 DT bag to carry the Area 51m and it felt really heavy. Swapped to the Alienware Elite backpack and it feels like the weight has been cut in half. The weight distribution if great. For $100 and lifetime warranty, this is a no brainer. Better than $500 Tumi bags.

You shouldnt have to... just turn OC to off in BIOS.

 

Yes, it does sound like Hidevolution sells the machine from the old batches. The failure rate of their system is quite drastic. And the silence of Dell's/AW regarding this matter is quite shocking to be honest.

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None have still not confirmed that Dell have upgraded the "MB power delivery components" from what I have seen. And yeah, you all should call out Azor on Twitter and Facebook. As well here...
Area-51m, screen black

Call out... Alienware-Eimy
Dell | Alienware Technical Support

And I really hope they don't put in censorship.

 

I got them in Canada, you have to tell them to look in refurbished inventory, that's where they will find them.

 

OC is turned off in BIOS and also in AWCC, but it seems to have no effect. No XTU and no TS installed. There is something that is keeping it overclocked.

 

I agree to what you're saying but oddly enough, some of the first ones to receive the system in these forums, thatoldguy, ssj and others (sorry I can't tag them as I'm on Tapatalk) are still running the "first batches" of this laptop and they're running strong. There is certainly no proof of the "updated" system other that few images from S.K. and who knows if it was the real reason this system is burning out.
The silence on AW's behalf is damning and rather than addressing this issue, there social media outlets are flooded with claims that this laptop breaking records and blah..blah... all bollocks!
My system is due in a few weeks and I'll use it 24 hours a day to see its thermal limits.
I'm more concerned at this point that I've ordered from Hidevolution whose failure rate is quite scary tbh and whether I wasted $100 for "thermal upgrades" because if the system does fail, I'll have upgraded it for no damn reason. I've upgraded the memory and ram too so I wonder what kind of warranty service I might receive.

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I've messaged them on Twitter. If anyone here care to add in their inputs, they'll be forced to respond. I feel like the owners of this laptop have been too quiet regarding this matter or you guys are too rich to care about $4000 burning out. Let's unite and get some straight answers from them rather than make educated guesses about the root cause of this serious issue.



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Hi again. I am quoting extended warranty through Dell and would like for those of you who have it, what's the fair price for premium support for 4/5 years? Is it better to go with Basic instead? Thanks!

 

More regarding the Lunar White color used...

Alienware AREA-51M - Screen edge discolouration

I notice that the edge of the screen is becoming discoloured, and is getting worse over time.

Same problem also on light switches at home. They turn yellow after a while if the manufacturer use low quality plastic.

Add in the link if you get response.

 

It's weird when an alienware catches on fire, nobody bats an eye. But when a phone catches on fire, everyone loses their stuff.

 

I actually posted this on reddit today and am just starting to see all the issues people are reporting (laptop was ordered late March). I will open her up later today and upload pictures, as well as keep everyone updated on the customer support side. So far, HIDEvolution has kept me on hold and hasn't responded via email to my ticket. I haven't reached out to Dell yet, as I'm assuming they'll point the finger back at HIDEvolution anyway.