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

I’m not home to measure the exacts buts it’s sufficiently high, maybe 1-2cm and I don’t use a cooler or stand just on a glass table and temps are as cold as can be with all my overclocks considering I have a delidded CPU and fully repasted internals

 

I can confirm that the left side of the palm rest is much warmer than the right! The right side is cool to the touch.

 

Sounds like your creating an oven for your internals to bake even more

 

I just received mine a few days ago.
How do I know please which batch is my PC? the old or the new?

Date of purchase: 04/17/19
Shipped: 04/19/19
Ordered directly from Dell France

 

That was me

 

I only play games and never benchmark. I listed some games earlier (Escape from Tarkov, PUBG, The Division 2). Some titles I did purely for stressing is Witcher 3 in which the gpu ran excellently.

 

Did you get the chance to DM him at all?

 

Still no answer for the blowed up MB power delivery. Can't fix that with upgraded components on the graphics

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...m-owners-lounge.826831/page-991#post-10905852

And from what I have seen... Same old vBios... http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...m-owners-lounge.826831/page-702#post-10893064

Can the others confirm this or is this only a problem on this single unit?

 

How's your beast holding up so far brother? Take care of that white colour, there've been reports of yellowish stains on the palm rest and the lid.
My waiting game is still not over, got a confirmation from Donald from Hidevolution this morning that the panel will indeed be an AUO and they'll try to update the wifi chip to the newer 1650 if their shipments arrive on time. Other than that, nothing else to report this side.

Guys, just for gaming and light photo editing, do you think 16GB (2*8GB) of RAM is enough for now? Also, do I need to RAID the drives to get the max out of my system? I've a 1TB nvme upgraded through Hidevolution (not Samsung but Hidevolution "approved") but I was wondering should I get another similar drive down the line and run it in RAID? Will I see any performance difference in games especially?

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Ouch, that's a crispy board. Makes me wonder if they also upgraded the components on the MB too...

 

Jup and no Reaction. Looks like the standard response by ignoring things untill the dust settles. I'm not in for a new laptop (my now R5 behaves very good) but i'm still appalled by the Q&A off Dellienware. The funniest thing is that he keeps talking about "engineers" (i think they just hired some engineers from compal to work on the new 51m design) while almost every level of AW (Except US) are being enployeed by monkeys.

They sometimes cannot even react to a question trying to divert the question, or answering with an irrelevant answer.

I don't care about brand loyalty i see these products as ore that has been processed to become what we use today. So i could care less if AW went under, it's not like they can back-up their enjoyed reputation anymore (mediocre after mediocre laptop is being released/engineered) cause they nowadays rely on heavy marketing (just look at their site, and compare it to the site they used to have 10years ago) and customers that can be mislead.

 

My only thought is that less competition means no innovation. Look at Intel prior to Ryzen's release. Sure AW is having issues with the 51M, but they will be worked out. You wouldn't believe how many times electronics go out even with issues and then they are fixed as they fail. Running changes are all too common.

 

I use my lap...

 

Not really. I don't want my hands to bake, that's all. I'm not introducing insulation between heat sink and thermal components etc Lol

 

Exactly.. I went to the Ryzen release party at Micro Center. They missed the first 4 hours troubleshooting and discovered ram compatibility issues. it screwed Ryen for weeks and months with memory comparability issues and crashing.

Think you’ll be insulating the sound card making it hotter. Who knows.. good luck

 

Let's take an inventory of what we know (public posts, reddit, etc.) so far:

- Systems dying with a puff of smoke and burnt components
- Systems going out without any smoke or smell - just watching a video and 'poof'
- Burned up DGFF GPU cards
- Burned up motherboard power components
- Overheating sound cards
- And, Mr. Frank claiming they're always revising it's hardware

There are a lot variables in play here. It doesn't take an electrical engineer to know this system has design problems in multiple areas. If one corrects the DGFF shunt issue, is that the problem or could one still be bitten by a mobo burn-out? With the ever-changing HW tweet, can one get a GPU with different components no one has even yet identified? And now, Heaven only knows if the sound card is going to cause a new meltdown or such high internal thermal temps that it harms other components.

I would much rather Dell come out and publicly announce they've found/fixed the problems, or at least acknowledge there are problems and they're working on it. Until then it seems a crap shoot of what one gets when this system is delivered, and if it will hold up.

TBH, my days of playing guinea pig are over, and just want to avoid the aggravation of having to deal with a burnt out paper-weight. I think by me going into a holding pattern for at least six months and watching to see how things shake out (ie. do the issues go away or do we see more or worse issues) before making any decision on the Area 51m is a prudent way forward.

 

So, I understand this is the A51M forum, but the A51M and the Precisions share the Dell Graphics form factor, and below are photos of the Precision 7530 Quadro P3200 DGFF:




Interested folks can compare this to the 7730 and A51M DGFFs:

Precision 7730:


A51M:


Contrary to the DGFF problems here, the Precision ones seem to be fine, really...

 

You're certainly right, but the difference is that Intel actively tried to prevent OEM's buying AMD products.
https://www.theverge.com/2014/6/12/...billion-fine-upheld-anticompetitive-practices

this article us just a droplet in the bucket of all the things Intel has done to slow down innovation/competitiveness.
having hardware revision is different for products that are being mass produced, and something that's being build by hand.

AW's are being built by hand, and can be considered the high end cars off computers. If there is a change in the hardware those things are being communicated. But AW doesn't care about experience or performance, they just want your money and bragging rights. I mean a 150 watt rtx 2080 that slays a 200 watt version is not good, especially when you think that you where the only one producing high end desktop pc numbers (in a laptop form-factor).

i'll agree with everyone that the 51m is a great try at a new product, but i won't call this a step in the right direction. they still haven't learned tuning their CPU's and instead of giving @Prema, @Mr. Fox and @Papusan access to the bios code, they locked them out when they hgave AW pointers how to extract more performance without sacrificing money (and time like how consumers now always have to repad/repaste when 5 or six years ago we even had SLI/CROSSFIRE in a 17 inch format.

I love my alienware 17 R5 BUT i hate AW. it's not the company anymore where i would spend my 2/3k without worrying in what shape/form/broken my product got delivered.

 

The sound card will run hot no matter what. There is no heat sink on the chip itself so can't say if it's needed anyway. I just want to insulate the chassis because chassis isn't a heat sink for anything. I'll be getting a replacement audio card tomorrow as well as a replacement motherboard, just in case, from Dell. Hopefully I'll compare that motherboard to my current one and see if I can find something interesting.

 

This will happen when Microsoft open-sources the code for Windows 10 1903, i.e. never.

 

Then why haven't all others the same problem? This seems more as a problem on your machine.

 

i think you misunderstood. I mean the c++ code that essentially makes up the bios/uefi code. This has nothing do to with windows. as it's x86, x86-64 code that's being run before windows has even started. Windows is still closed source, but still @Prema can modify Clevo laptop bios/uefi nowadays.

 

Oh, no, I understood thoroughly. I just meant that Dell are no more as likely to open-source their UEFI code than Microsoft are likely to open-source Windows. It was a metaphor, or a simile, if you wish.

 

my bad, then you're completly right !!! NEVER !!!! how's the precision holding up ? it seems that Dell engineered the Precision ALOT better than the monkeys at AW. we keep blaming Dell, but it's actually AW that makes the choices within AW not DELL (that's why Azor got to play with his legacy and mess up the XPS line) Only thing Dell puts on AW is to use the Dell Inventory for their products (while keeping the price artifically high, but the qualtiy of the products quite low)

 

Windows is coded in nearly every popular High level Languages including C,C++,C#,VB etc...

I don't think Micheal Dell knows if Dell makes XPS and AW because he always uses iPad, dell precision or maybe OLD Thinkpads which works fine till date.
MSFT has open sourced their EFI_BIOS long time ago. I think they need to Crowd source windows 10, Surface lineups as well.
Anyway, I just recovered my AW due to bad BIOS update made by me and it seems MMTool broke the secure sign capsule and machine was bricked with infamous 7 beeps of death.

 

Honestly? Pretty good. I just repasted the machine (CoolerMaster MasterGel Maker Nano—really long name), and it's holding up well. Only issues for me, are the crap battery life on Optimus mode (the Precision has a mux to choose GPUs), and the fact that the NFC antenna doesn't show up on Windows, so I need to bug Dell about this. I am not interested in creating a Twitter account just to nag Frank Azor.

 

You can install latest Intel DCH or Win 32 6371 or something to get best battery life in Optimus mode. Windows 10 has a bug and you need to turn on battery saver on battery first and then turn it off to get good battery. Otherwise Windows uses nvidia quadro. I think MUX based switching for Optimus will see good battery life.

 

What do you mean by this?

 

How did you fix the tron lights issue? I also had an issue with my trackpad lighting and tron lighting the same way you had. Then i installed synaptics from dell and it fixed my trackpad but the tron lightings are still not working its just not responsing. I've try to reset windows not reformat. And install all the drivers. Update the bios then vbios. And still the same thing, I dont know what to do.

 

When you unplug DC IN cable, Click or enable battery saver by clicking battery icon in tray. You'll notice brightness is dim and immediately click on Battery saver tile again to disable it and it gets rid off unusual battery drain on Optimus garbage hardware. Optionally you use GPU activity tray icon in Quadro Control Panel to see if any apps are misbehaving by querying for Nvidia GPU even when using Hardware MUX with Intel GPU selected.

 

I tried it—did not work

I think there is a low-level firmware issue that Dell needs to deal with on the Precisions with regard to battery life.

 

I just receive my new alienware area 51m. What to do first? Update or leave as is and play games right away? Whats the best demanding game to push this machine?


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I'm sorry. It took me a year to figure out Dell advertised battery claims. Your Xeon has unusual battery drain like I have seen in TS thread, your drain was 20-25W, correct?

 

On average, about 20 W, yep.

I am mainly comparing it to the Precision 5530 and Dell XPS 9570, which achieves ~8-10 hours, with average power draw of ~7-8 W.

 

Congrats... use it like you stole it. Far cry or Battlefield series will push it. I always factory image my machine first for easy reload. Update drivers then game on.

 

Install a fresh copy of windows.
Than update Windows, insall latest GPU driver and update bios/vbios.

Than you should be good to go.

 

Dell test case is No turbo, cTDP set to 35W, No wifi/BT, 50% brightness etc.... to get advertised battery. I don't use Turbo either instead I have a USB mouse, WiFi and BT turned ON and even then the drain is under 10W. With Win 10 v1903 the drain is <5W. I can manage 8-12hrs with 30% left.

 

Man, you sure know how to use your warranty!

Send us some pictures of *everything* and report anything fishy like you always do. I'm looking forward to your post.

It looks like we've found THE guinea pig of all guinea pigs of this prototype laptop.

I plan to do the same when my system arrives but it looks like another fortnight before I can get my hands on one.

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Anyone else update GPU drivers from nvidia or GeForce experience ? Want to make sure the generic drivers from nvidia aren’t bricking cards. Dell is never up to date and I’m always playing the latest releases


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Will do.


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I've been using latest drivers from Geforce experience from day one and no problem yet.

 

The gpu driver from dell or nvidia directly?


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Good to hear. Some say using drivers straight from nvidia can brick certain vendors GPUs


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@HaloGod2012 Been using updated drivers without issue.

 

Install Geforce Experience and update the driver from there.

Some people belive in everything as well.
I've always used straight nvidia driver for all my laptop and i've never had any problem.

 

I’ve always used Nvidia drivers personally without issue. Even back in the day when you had to edit the files to make them recognize notebook gou’s.

 

Same here. I've been using drivers straight from the nvidia since 2009 and haven't had any issues. Dell takes months to update their gfx drivers. I ALWAYS do a clean install using DDU though.

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Yes DCH From Nvidia...... Since Day 0

THISSSSSSSSS.... loved those days .... ini files mods

 

Some say Dell drivers works for them and say some latest drivers work perfectly. It all depends on your preference. With nvidia drivers even older driver give optimal performance for new games and updating driver may increase FPS by ~2-3. Nvidia drivers perform consistently since Day 1.
Since DGFF is new standard, its better to stick with Dell drivers for better compatibility with AGA and other proprietary solutions. YMMV.

 

So far so good man! I will clean the hell out of it the moment I see a stain of any sort. I think 16GB for gaming and photo editing is okay. I got 32GB because only because I do video editing with 4K etc etc.

I really don't think you'll notice a difference with RAID. The performance of these newer NVMe drives are just so damn fast:

https://www.amazon.com/XPG-GAMMIX-N...s=gateway&sprefix=gammix,aps,345&sr=8-1-fkmr0