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

Let me just add to this post that yes, the system has had its share of issues and yes, Dell is a also a lying scumbag company with front man Azor at the helm, but... but.... the performance of the laptop is absolutely mind boggling.

It really really is. When I look at what I could get for $3500 I paid for this laptop with 2 year warranty included in price, nothing else comes close as far as I am concerned.

The performance really is within ~5% of its desktop counterparts, the build quality and material used for construction is unbelievable, the screen is a 144Hz dream (and I mean that, you've to see it to believe it, I will not trade it even for 1440p 144Hz screens or 4K non sense), the keyboard is the best I've used too. So, the trade off is just that the user who buys this product should be an "enthusiast" and should be willing to read forums like this and tweak his system to its finest details and you've got a winner on your hands. And being back up internationally by Dell's amazing customer warranty services and return policies, I think it's safe to say that I'll not buy a MSI or an EVOC unless I live in the US, which I don't and I don't plan to as well although half my family members are there. I've had too many companies failing to service their products under warranty and I've learnt from my mistakes.

And now, looking at Apple releasing a $1000 monitor stand, $3500 doesn't sound too bad to me....

I've yet to turn off this laptop even once, have been using it 24 hours since I placed it on my desk and its yet to die on me... so there's that too.

Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

For the 2080.. the 2070 performance and 2060 is nowhere near their desktop counterparts.

But I agree somewhat, it's still the most powerful 2080/2070 laptop for the time being.

 

This all things considered it's not that bad of a system. It looks good, performs good, and isn't too ridiculously large. I think that it's far from perfect, but for what they set out to do I think it was successful. You can't expect perfection with anything in life. You can expect excellence and this laptop might have not hit all the marks, but it was still a very good device.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

Appealing or not, if it's a blowy-uppy smokey mess, it's not going to be a reliable computer you can depend on over the next few years, which can get tediously annoying much faster than the warranty expires.

Warranty or not - you are going to lose time, maybe a few times a year - since to use the warranty you may have to give up using the laptop for weeks at a time - until parts arrive. And, with all the other guys Area 51m's sitting on the shelf along with yours waiting for parts, the wait could be a long one.

Once AW gets on to the next lineup, they may give you a chance to swap up for a new model, that's historically been how Dell / AW gets rid of these kind of problem models, but they may not.

I've heard this same logic countless times from AW owners, "as long as I have the warranty AW can replace parts till the cows come home".

Unfortunately you may have to wait for the cows to ship on that slow boat...

 

Hello everyone, I have run into a strange dell-support related issue.

I got my laptop from Japan from a retail shop in April then got back to EU, and applied for a warranty transfer.

The warranty got transferred yesterday, but to make it totally beautiful, it turned into 1 month of warranty, which of course, expired. While it was still in the Japan dell system the warranty was till April 2020.

And I'm like, wtf?

I've sent a message to dell support but was curious if anyone has seen this before? Anyone transferred their warranty across continents? Any hiccups?

 

Yeah, you may have to escalate it, I've seen this a few times before, once almost to me converting an order, the warranty went down - luckily I caught it before it went into effect and called to get it fixed.

If your order already went through to the point that the warranty shows expired, it might put a rut in the path to getting it fixed, so be persistent through any extra hoops they might put you through - please let us know what oddities occur along the way to getting it fixed.

And, you wouldn't be out of your rights to ask for a 3 or 6 months, up to 1 year extension to the warranty, as long as they are re-engaging it anyway. I doesn't hurt to ask, but leave that special consideration request until they have agreed to fix the warranty transfer glitch, but before it's done.

 

I just might buy this laptop just to do this!

 

Update,

This was rather painless. I called the local Dell support line (Romanian one) on the phone. All online ones ended up in Salesforce error landing pages.

They asked for the receipt of the purchase (I was like: I hope someone there can read basic Kana). While I was digging through the archive for the Japanese receipt I've received an email from case handler saying they could remedy it without the receipt and now the dell page reports it as expiring in 2020.

All good, I just left another request for the extension of the warranty, I'll get back with news about how that unfolds.

 

@Ultra Male Quick heads up, the link for the ZIP file for the 51m drivers is dead. Was going to download it and store it on an external driver and it just linked to an error 404 page.

 

so i cancelled my 51m order as it was taking far too long to ship. see below, this spec cost £2700.

instead i went with eurocom, this spec cost £1750, and ships in 3 days (its half built support tell me, should be finished today then testing)!

im done with AW, because iv had a real bad exp going back and forward with them over thermals, and delidding, repasting etc, they keep telling me if i repaste i will void my warranty, i kept sending them links to AW support channel on youtube where they clearly state we can repaste but the reply is the same, if there is an issue and they see iv repasted they will not honour the warranty.

so dell thanks but no thanks.

after checking MANY reviews i find that eurocom thermals are very very good, and has exactly same performance as AW at nearly half the price.

goodbye AW :/

edit: got a free upgrade to a single 780w power brick and 10% discount for being AW owner!

 

I have to say, i’m still waiting on a unit that goes up in smoke by someone who has used it for more than a month. Every smokey one i remember went up in smoke pretty fast and on the other side there are people like me who have been abusing it for months and nothing. It looks more and more on a bad batch or something to me.

 

Can't see it being a bad batch when it's this widespread personally.

 

You’ll be back

 

i told dell if they sort out the thermals.... and sort out the tech support, i might be back.

but tbh now i dont see why its worth paying nearly double for a system that overheats and takes ages to build when i can get better performance for nearly half the cost.

all i had to sacrifice is the per key rgb, im not an AW fan boy, if it works i will buy it.

looking at the forums the 51 m is just another unit with the same issues.

 

I was really about to buy an area51m instead of a clevo p751 or p775 (with i7 9700k and 2080) because I was worried about cooling capabilities of the p751 and found the p775 really ugly. So the alienware seemed to be a good compromise between portability, case quality and cooling.

But I'm starting to reconsider after reading all the issues mentioned in this discussion

 

Are you from Europe? Because that is the bad thing here, Alienware is solely handled by the mainstream Dell support teams and they handle Alienware systems as such. In general they do not check it though.

 

yes im in europe.

have a look at eurocom sky x7.

i went with 8700k as they are much thinner than then new chips, far thinner, which means better heat dissipation, esp with a delid and repaste. check out be8auer youtube channel.

edit= performance increase compared to 9700k/9900k in gaming is 2 or 3 fps, for a far more expensive chip withvery little extra gain in performance and much hotter chip however 9900k does has a 10-15% increase in content creation compared to 8700k but the price point makes it a no-brainer, unless you got cash to burn and dont mind paying a lot xtra for not much more performance? 9700k is also not a creators chip, no HT, 8700k beats 9700k in creation. and as its cooler you can easily push it past the 9700k for gaming compared to the hot cramped chips AW are installing. the 9700k should be an i5, or the 9900k should not exist and the 9700k should support HT and have 2 xtra cores, its intel money grabbing!

edit 2= eurocom also offer the 9700k/9900k however they also offer a delid and repaste service with LM and a copper ihs, so these will be far cooler than the AW chips. they will also lap the die if you ask them, but not needed for 8700k, its far thinner than the latest gen.

eurocom offers a cpu de-lid and liquid metal repaste service, along with copper ihs. alienware do not offer this and prob never will.

if you buy an AW be prepared for bad thermals, you will have to repaste and as iv mentioned dell say they will not honour the warranty.

there are a ton of reviews that put eurocom performance above the AW, granted it is not as pretty, but i saved 40% of the price of an area 51 m for better performance, and a cooler system.

i would rather have a more efficient system for far less cost than pay extra for pretty lights and bad thermals/ performance and bad tech support.

each to their own!

the money i saved im going to buy an asus 4k 120hz 43” hdr monitor. should be released in next few weeks. xg438q. its a beast!

thanks eurocom

 

The Sky x7 (I think it’s based on the clevo p775) seems good in terms of thermals but I was a little bit concerned about its built quality, screen bleeding and performances (because it « only » has one 330W psu compared to the total 510W of the Alienware so I thought somewhow it should be less powerful) but I you’re right, it has a much better pricing for better cooling

 

Have you ever dealt with Eurocom support? Good luck my friend.

Might want to take the Clevo base discussions to the clevo threads?

 

https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/cpu...00k-vs-i7-8700k-vs-ryzen-7-2700x,3336185.html

9900k vs 8700k
gaming

AC Origins - 1080p, high details +16FPS
Civilisation 6 - 1080p, high details +17FPS
Pcars2, 1080p, high details +17FPS

Content creation

https://ocaholic.ch/modules/publisher/item.php?itemid=4192

performance differences with standard clock speeds. From our overall performance rating we see that the Core i9-9900K is on average 27.66% quicker than the Core i7-8700K. If we start searching for the benchmarks with best possible scaling on the i9-9900K, then we find that Photoshop runs 61% faster on this CPU

sorry but youre wrong...

 

Eurocom lied to my face twice, by two different high up employees... you can see the discussions much further back. I'd take anything they tell you with a huge bucket of salt. Also thier services are like any other resellers... you will probably end up repasting yourself a little down the road. There is only so much you can tell about a paste job in a few days of testing... especially on a DTR.

@Prema makes custom firmware for the Clevo models you are looking at. But only through HIDevolution and a handful of other retailers.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the custom firmware is needed to get more than 160W out of the GPU on these Clevo models?

 

Yes, sorry for this little off topic intervention. But this discussion is really interesting to read non hyper extatic day one press reviews which do not take long term use into account. It's more relevant than "so powerful and pretty but hard to move 8/10" or "upgradabilty remains to be seen but such an amazing machine"

 

have you experienced dells? i have, thats another reason im leaving dell.

i got a free upgrade to a single 780w power brick.

and 10% off the unit for owning an AW.

dell lied to me, more than twice. i have numerous emails from dell tech support that are full of total waffle.

forgot tosay the 120 and 60 hz fhd screens have no bleed. i chose the 144hz as im not using the screen, only when i travel, also non gsync and saved £200. i will cap rates if needed. this 2080 will run an omen x35 3440x1440.

im not bothered about mobile fps, quite happy with 60hz 1080p tbh.

we can all pullout youtube threads, its like experts arguing in court for the prosecution and defence, its subjective as it depends on so many factors, however i consistently see that the increase over 8700k is only 10-15%.

 

Never trust dell support liars
They spit out each word cheating.

 

we can so this all day, remember, your 9900k will throttle given its much thicker, not delidded or have a copper ihs, and therefore give less extra.

NOT worth paying extra imo. dell needs to grip its r&d.

 

and i proofed you wrong... If my software (and most of productive software do) is able to use all cores the 9900k is not only 10-15% faster... same for games... best example is Battlefield 5. It depends on the software. You just generalize...

wrong again...

 

blessed is he who is able to change his mind when confronted with conflicting evidence.

i will post my system benches when it arrives, we can run the same ones and see what our results are.

pm me to arrange this.

please, pm me to arrange some system benches, lets share them. not in a contest to see who is better or correct, just objective testing for the good of the wider community.

 

what has AW to do with 8700k vs 9900k? You blame me a fan boi... for what? Having the opinion that the 9900k is more than 10% faster than 8700k if the cores are used?

 

You mean you won't get what you paid high premium prices for? That's just sad.

9900K have higher clocks and 33% more cores. So that's normal behaviour. But there is no problem run most [email protected] all cores. Even higher with a good binned chips. And they will run colder as well vs your oc'd or stock 9900K. Just buy the 9900 if you don't intend to overclock.

 

Yeah the people on the phone there are totally ignorant about what the Alienware higher ups tell us in the US. In general the technicians dont know the differences between custom paste jobs or not. Only if you use liquid metal you might have a risk for support requests.

You get the support but you should not tell you have repasted the machine even if you did I guess. In the end they even fixed one of my laptops which was out of warranty. I think the human factor also come in play here unfortunately.

 

Oh, yeah. I have been into Dell's tech support a few years ago (for my AW17). A awful experience. Their phone support and the outsourced tech team Dell hire from Unisys to fix your laptop at home is disgusting. Only the extended warranty <replace with new< is worth the money (But this only for countries with minimum warranty period as U.S <1 year> etc). You'll get a replacement for your old anyway if you live in a country with better warranties.

Edit. Some offer up to 5 years etc. Irland I think have blasting 6 years.

 

In the Netherlands it is handled by Getronics, they do a decent job here but some of the techs visiting home arent that great. Still the support is class leading. Asus, MSI etc are way worse because they dont even have phone support in the Netherlands, everything goes through the website or the shop itself. Hopefully I never need support for my Razer Blade 15 which is my current daily driver because I fear that repairs for this machine would be a nightmare in Europe.

 

@hmscott Not much I can do there, been out of return window for some time. Also not going with another P870 build as the plastic has gotten on my nerves over the years since the day 1 release. The lack of upgrades to the DM-G right off the bat solidified my thoughts that no laptop is truly upgradable for next-gen.

This is the first and only AW machine I own. Can only wait until some exploit comes out that allows me to access extra BIOS features or completely undermine Dell settings. If not, can just sell the unit when bored. However, it will be quite hard to find one at this size for my travel needs.

@rinneh Dell US support was totally okay with my unit having LM on both GPU and delidded CPU.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Unfortunately here in Europe they really dont like it and threaten to cancel your warranty.

 

Why dell have such big delay for orders?

 

My Swapped order is still in wait but I'll keep with this laptop anyway... there's not comparison with any other unit on the market...

Even with only 2 weeks of horror, I still keep a very good experience of this product when it was working...

 

So are you saying if you get the extended warranty you can just opt for a new laptop instead of getting it fixed? I'd figure they'd require atleast a one repair attempt before that becane an option.

 

My point off view. Don't buy area51m, a good looking product with the most bad components and solutions. If we all don t buy, dell will learn to make good laptops
.nut junk laptops for 4000$.

 

Congratulations. You deserve it and I am happy for you. Let us know how it runs.

Now, please let this thread take its regular course. We're all here to share our experiences with "our chosen system" and we are all enthusiasts here. If you prefer the Eurocom, good for you. We prefer the Dell system. We buy what we prefer, as simple as that.

So, let us all share our experiences with our machines and learn from one another because that's what an "Area 51m Owner's lounge" is for.

Isn't it?

Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

I don't think this is true. I think that it has got its issues, but it's generally a good system without those issues. I haven't had any of the issues others have had. So to call this junk and say it has the most bad components is not true.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

Nope, not that way. 3rd repair means money back or replacement with equal or better specs... You don’t have to pay extra for extended warranty if the country you live in has better warranties. The rules is almost same. The differences is with Dell’s Premium extended warranty you’ll get Dell’s support for free after the obligatory 1 years warranty. But they still have to fix everything wrong with your notebook. At no cost! For you.

 

I agree with this actually, like I said earlier, I've NEVER turned this system off. Not even once. Its showing no sign of any hiccups yet and it's been almost 2 weeks now. It might have its issues with other users but I am finding it flawless really and its not a "junk" system no matter how biased your prejudices are.

This is the way I used my M17XR3 as well, I never turned it off and it's still going on till today.

Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

God if I went through three repairs I'd kick someone. Though if I'd get to upgrade to a better system then maybe. . .or you know maybe they make a product that will last me a long time. Crazy thought I know.

 

Why has 100°, why has lightbleed, why has 2400mhz ram, why many has burned,why
.why..

 

You realize you're posting in the Owners Lounge right? There are many many happy people with their 51Ms, I had one and really liked it. I didn't have any issues that you mentioned aside from the 2400MHz ram that I don't know why Dell is taking so long to look into. Other than that it was a great machine, just too big for my needs. Sure Dell has their issues, which manufacturer doesn't.

 

Our boy Frank is responding to the tweets from other day. Time to get as much info as you can!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Updated news from Umar :



He's a nice guy

 

Has anyone tried the 180w vbios with older system bios?

 

Have a feeling us 2070/2060 owners will never get a TDP update due to all of the burning issues. Would you mind asking Umar to provide an update on that?

 

I found something really slick for my Area 51m. Working like a champ! I figured plenty of you guys might also be interested in getting one of these:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/IEC...179.html?spm=2114.13010708.0.0.24534c4dhD7mnC