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

What size pads are people using?

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1, 1.5mm and 2mm are used (3mm only on one place). Best way is to take the stock pads out, measure them against your new ones and put in the same thickness ones that you took off. Or you can use a pressure measurement paper to see which pads give you the best contact. Here is my setup:


The 3mm are needed on 2 mosfets that are hidden under this silver beauty cover. You'll have to cut it on that edge to expose them and put thermal pad on them.

On CPU side:

 

Thanks SK!

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Many thanks !
That's what i was looking for when i was still hoping to own a Area51m :'(

 

You got any luck with that?

 

You can only unlock voltage, and it doesn't really do anything.

Google how to unlock voltage control in MSI, should be the first or second link. It involves replacing the files in a folder, pretty simple.

 

Just pulled the trigger on a Lunar white 51m with an i7-9900k, 2070 (due to time constraints), 32gb ram, 512gb raid0 + 1 TB hybrid drive, 1080p gsync + Tobii Eye tracking, windows 10 pro, and 2 years premium/accidental insurance. I also got The elite back pack all for $3,688 and some change after taxes. I think I got a pretty good deal.

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Most people won't be able to tell the difference between a fast NVMe drive and a normal SATA m.2 drive. In terms of brands, I'm not super brand loyal. I like samsung drives, crucial has some good drives, ADATA has decent ones...

You could get the 512GB drive installed from Dell and use that as your OS drive, buy a decent NVMe drive like the EX920 for a cache drive, and then find a WD mechanical 2.5" drive for storage. Really unlimited amounts of options out there. My suggestion is to look for deals, I picked up a Inland Premium (Microcenter's brand) 1TB NVMe drive for $115.

In terms of difficulty, it's not hard at all. The hardest part will be finding an NVMe heatsink for the laptop (sadly I can't seem to find the part number right now).

 

Where did you get that from? Dell directly?

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Yes.

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Thank you!


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That's a good deal you got, I'm unsure about the lunar white though, the yellow stains reports doesn't sound good man.
In any case, congrats on the new system and welcome to the club. Keep us posted.

My order from Hidevolution went into in-production today, so I'm hoping Hidevolution got the "all clear" from Dell. I hope Donald will report in here by the end of the day.

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Just saw this on Notebookcheck. I wonder if this is MSI’s response to the A51M.

From the photos it looks promising.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Exclu...-dragon-baring-its-gaming-fangs.420772.0.html

 

So I ordered 1mm and 1.5mm Fujipoly Ultra Extreme Pads and I am having trouble finding 2mm thick pads. You think it's ok to combine .5mm pads on 1.5mm to get it to the right thickness?

 

H-series BGA, so not an answer. Just another 17" pseudo DTR.

May have MXM or may not. Looks too slim for it though.

 

I've got my lunar white since 2 months now and keep it clean. I don't see any sign of it turning yellow. I do never rest on the palmrests. S.K reported the stains could be because the audio board gets hot. It only gets hot if you plugin directly it seems. I only use a usb headset and it never gets hot.

 

Yet another BGA book with re-hashed crippled firmware. Aka re-use same firmware for GT73 and GT75 @Falkentyne
No Thanks!

I wonder how much Dell saved on this cheapo soulution... https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware/Area-51m-side-exhaust/td-p/7257371/page/2

 

According to this YouTube user the 9th gen / 2060 version do have the side vents.

 

Those are extremely expensive.
Isn't something like this more cost effective?
https://www.amazon.com/Arctic-Thermal-Efficient-Conductivity-Handling/dp/B00UYTU6Z6/

And I don't know where you can buy 2mm pads. You can combine a 0.5mm and a 1mm but you lose thermal performance, but it's better than no pads.

 

Thanks Falkentyne. I ended up changing my order to just the extremes. Ended up getting all i need for $36. I have used fujipoly in the past on my Alienware 13 r3 and it worked perfectly. So I just wanted to go with it again. I probably could have gone for the arctic for cheaper but maybe next time haha.

 

- "The relatively slender profile of the laptop could point to the energy-saving Max-Q variants of the powerful GPUs being utilized in this device"

- "... seems obvious that these GPUs would be accompanied by members of Intel’s 9th Gen Coffee Lake-H"

Not to pile on but with an "H" or "HK" CPU and Max-Q GPU , I don't feel the Area 51m has to worry.

 

I won’t lie it does look nice; I thought MSI was coming out with a new DTR laptop with a socket CPU? I heard that rumor a couple months ago. If this is it, then it’s def not competition for Alienware. I also don’t think this laptop looks slim at all, it looks very beefy. No way this thing rocks a i9 but with only a Max Q 2080.


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Gelid GP Extreme is available at 80x40mm 2mm size. Highly recommended. They have better performance than Arctic and they compress much better to create a snug fit so heat is efficiently transferred to heatsink @c69k was right, they are almost as good as the best if not the best thermal pads on the market besides Fujipoly.

 

Damn looks slick. Hope it comes socketed.

 

You don't think so? Of course it does But want this one? Nope!

 

The photos make it look as thick as the WT75 was. It is certainly thicker than the GE75 which does not use Max-Q. If its anything other than LGA+MXM then MSI shouldn't even bother.

 

The “Settings” button in AWCC is non functional and remains gray/unclickable for me. Can anyone confirm you can click the “Settings” button and tell me/show me a pic of what you see?



Thank you!

 

Could I use the IC graphite thermal pad on the 9900k? If so, has anyone tried it?

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You could, temps won't be as good as thermal paste though.

You could also run into issues if you're heatsink isn't perfectly flush, as the graphite pad is very thin.

 

Thanks man!

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So today I had tons of time with the laptop and noticed that my NEW AUO panel dell shipped me has 7 lit pixels on it! Good lord! Had
To call dell again and they are sending another panel. I took the laptop to work today and noticed that while the AUO is nice, it’s nowhere near as bright as the LG and I had trouble seeing it when sitting near bright windows. The viewing angles on the LG were much better as well. My biggest peeve about this laptop are the displays we are stuck with. I miss my R5’s 1440p panel @ 400nits!


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Mine does not. Dell has been very inconsistent with this.

 

I had the AUO and now have the LG, the LG takes a good calibration, took me about 6 tries before getting my colors perfect, just have to tone down the whites and then adjust colors. And yes the brightness is great on the LG. Honestly both screens are good, as long as they don't have the BLB issue calibration makes them much better.

 

I was surprised the screen I got since my unit first arrived has been a pixel perfect LG display. After calibration, playing Division 2 and Arma 3 has been a blast with the vibrant colors and highly detailed environments. I feel like my unit has been an outlier here this whole time since I have an overclockable CPU, GPU, and a good display with no issues and very little backlight bleed on left side of panel (which can be slighty fixed if I move it a bit).

Also, got the new rear LED piece and now its back to its full RBG glory. Just need spare GPU screws for when I decide to make the trip down to its internals again.

EDIT: Tobi Eye tracker is a fun gimmick when with friends... you wonder where people stare at first!

 

Did the lg and AUO seem to be about the same brightness to you ?


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Yep, just as you have found, the LG and AUO have their pro's and cons.

LG: Viewing angles and sunlight legibility.
AUO: Contrast ratio and response time.

I'd still take the AUO but we really shouldn't have this trade-off on a device this expensive, we should have better screens.

 

Man, I don't really remember, I know the AUO I was happy with but that system came in with scratches on the back plate and looked liked a refurbished unit, so I sent back and at that time was the starting of the delay with all the GPU issue, so I waited about 5 weeks for the new one with LG so I can't honestly say it was brighter but I am very pleased with the LG after Calibration, the colors before was a tad too yellow tone.

 

I've been doing some under-volting with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, and I've found that you're correct. Started off with -100 voltage offset, and have now reached -140 with stable clock rate of 4.69 Ghz. I'll keep tinkering and see how far I can lower it to before it crashes during the 10 minute stress test.

I'm not so interested in pushing to a higher clock rate such as 5 Ghz, just wanted to get those hot temps down from 100 C and prevent any thermal throttling, when overclock mode is set to off. Got comfortable and normal temps of between 70-85 C now, which is awesome.

Now I can use the machine as intended, and not have to worry about the temperature shooting up to 100 C at any time during casual daily use, and gaming.

I'm hoping that Alienware will sort things out with the next system bios, so we're not lowering the voltage ourselves. We shouldn't need to be doing this to be honest. But hey, at least it's an easy fix.

 

Yeah the difference between 4.7 and 5ghz in gaming is almost nothing. I keep mine at 4.7ghz and -175mv and temps in games are maxing in the 70s only. For benching I’ll do 5.2ghz with no undervolt and max fans. Even with this I’ll be in the upper 90s and hit 100c as well. Also, anything above 4.7ghz on all cores requires a big voltage jump and just runs much hotter. 4.7ghz temps are in the 70s while 4.8ghz for me is in the mid 80s. Not worth it


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Good to know. I think the lowest voltage offset that my system will go is -140 @ stock clock speeds. Any lower than that, and the system crashes within 1 minute into the stress test. Temperatures are low for my liking, 72-86 C @ 4.69 GHz, 100% usage. With no thermal throttling to speak of. Couldn't be any more happier with the results. Now I need to make it so that this voltage offset setting of -140 is applied on every boot.

I've only touched the voltage offset control setting in Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, nothing else. Stock thermal paste too.

 

Under the FX tab, does your “Settings” button work? (Next to the “Macros” button). It does nothing on mine and idk if it’s normal... obviously I doubt it is. Can you please tell me if that button works for you? If so, what does it do?

 

My "Settings" button doesn't work neither, so I think it's normal for now that it simply does nothing.

 

I just got the 2TB EX950

 

You can get Thermal Grizzly 2mm ones. They're available on Amazon.

Thermal pads on top of each other are no good. Too little heat transfer. 2mm are easily available on Amazon. I ordered a fat stack last week.

Not worth it. With this CPU, you want each and every single degree centigrade to count.

 

THANK YOU. Finally someone answers a stupid, simple question.

 

Wish there was no need for thermal pads like Asus current laptops, the GPU memory and all mosfet heatsinks are in direct contact with the chips using thermal paste, and using copper instead of aluminium like Dell.. why cheap out on that little bit Dell.

I will note though that my CPU and GPU had very even contact with the heatsink on the 51m so kudos for that, not easy to do when they are joined.

 

This computer is a desktop replacement and I think now is high time that people pay heed to actually what it is and adjust their expectations accordingly. A machine this thin and light delivering this kind of performance, it is no joke. But it's impossible to make everyone happy.

 

Where is the official statements?

 

So the king is still the 970 pro 1TB? Anyway I have been playing tomb raider croft edition for about a week with maximum graphic settings, max fans, all stock, only undervolt cpu -170mV @ 4.8GHz. Excellent performance. gpu max temperature 75 degrees, cpu max temperature 65 after hours of play, the frame is always cool, just a little warm above the dgff module, to date only satisfaction

 

There is no king as of right now. All the top of the line NVMes are doing some things better than the others and vice versa. There is none that really stands out in all departments. But the story could change in a few months, you never know. From practical perspective, there is absolutely no need to upgrade for at least 1-2 years if you already own an NVMe drive, doesn't matter which brand.