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

I have tested the "new" VBios 1.0.0.3 against the older 200W VBios and have seen no difference in game temps AT ALL. Seems to be the exact same to me.

 

I just ran HWINFO on the replacement unit I received--it's the model in the configurator that comes with 2TB SSD + 1TB SSHD. Even though the configurator doesn't list the SSDs as NVMe, HWINFO says that they are NVMe after all (Toshiba KXG50ZNV1T02 1TB). So I'm really confused: Does anyone know why this option, with 3TB total storage, would be less expensive than the option that comes with only 2TB total storage? That latter option specifically labels the SSDs as NVMe, but as HWINFO showed me, the less-expensive-more-storage option are also NVMe SSDs. Can someone explain why the option with less storage would be more expensive?

 

For anyone interested in getting the Windows Precision Touchpad working on the Area 51m, I followed this guide and it works flawlessly. It took 60 seconds and all the options in the windows settings works like it should...



Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

Does the AW ligntning still work?

 

Ya, works absolutely flawlessly like I said. Even, Alienware Touchpad Controls work. It's as if AW themselves made the driver. All good here.

Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

I finally took delivery of my A51m yesterday after around 8 weeks of waiting. Left everything as stock at the moment.

So far, I've only used it to remote in to work and it's already much more quiet than my previous laptop.

Got a game installing to try on my lunch break but cannot wait to put this through it's paces properly.

So far, majorly impressed with the look and the tobii eye tracking.

 

@VoodooChild @Papusan @Mr. Fox @iunlock @ssj92 @custom90gt

This is a pic I took while doing the repaste of Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut (on the CPU) and Phobya Nanogrease (on the GPU)

-15C for the CPU Temps with Conductonaut vs Liquid Ultra and minus 1 degree only with Phobya Nanogrease on the GPU vs IC Diamond.

 

A very very nice LM layer you've put on the CPU. It shines bright, and there is no spilling or leaking to see in sight (the layer looks very even everywhere). Past weekeind a did a heatsink lap with a LM repaste, maybe i'll open it up again to see how my heatsink has bonded with the LM. how does your heatsink look/hold after a week off LM

 

I had an old application brush from my previous Liquid Ultra:



I used that to evenly spread the Conductonaut, I applied like a peasized dot, then slowly brushed it out to the edges, it takes a lot of patience and time to spread out but you'll eventually get there. Towards the middle of the application, I felt that I needed a bit more of Conductonaut as I was running out so I added another squirt and continued until I got it all perfect. Slapped on the heatsink and did some tests and immediately noticed the 15C drop in temps! It's insane what a simple liquid paste/metal job can do. It transformed the laptop from running on the edge of throttling to a perfectly usable beast under any workload.

I don't know how it looks now and I'm not planning on opening it up again. I am a person with very bad patience God knows how I managed to do this

 

Looking forward to your results. I've been experimenting last week with copper plates that i put on the heatsink so it has more copper to heat up (and because of the slight airflow beneatch my laptop, it will cool off the plate helping my heatsink) and graphene to redirect some warmth of the chassis to the bottom of the laptop (cover plate).

Up till now temps dropped, but i still need to investigate more in to it. I was planning on making my own WC CNC heatsink. but i think i'll create my own heatsink by ordering some copper pipes and soldering them down to a coldplate. That way i can stop the bleeding from the GPU to the CPU. AliExpress has them pipes for cheap, maybe i'll become an boutiqe heatsink manufacturer for laptops lol.

 

So at 5ghz 0avx and -100mv u don't reach 85degrees while doing intensive Avx workloads , example , metro exodus 30mins , Ac odyssey 30mins ?

 

I have Metro Exodus but last time I tried it, it would fail to launch on Windows 10 Build 1903 do you think they fixed it now so I can test that for you?

The games I currently have if you want me to test is:

- Battlefield V
- FIFA 19
- Need for Speed Payback
- Assassin's Creed III
- Assassin's Creed Chronicles
- Tom Clancy's The Division 2
- Watch_Dogs 2

 

I compared it with the previous 200w version and it's exactly the same, they just changed the installer and included a new certificate, but the ROM is the same across the three 200w versions...

 

Welcome to the new improved Russian Roulette, with blackjack and overheating laptops. if you're lucky your laptop will burn you, else it will burn down your house. No warranty included (cause the customer is always wrong, and they use AW products wrong, resulting damage)*




*knowing DELLIENWARE this wouldn't be too crazy.

 

That's a little too much lol! It is not a bomb that'll explode! The most it can do is smoke and the massive metal layer underneath the keyboard will take care of the rest. Plus, if it is to go, it will go within a week at max. If not, then no need to worry later. My unit would have burned a long time ago if it was supposed to do so, considering the amount of torture it undergoes every day + my 14 month old toddler steps on the keyboard every now and then trying to type with both her fists and feet and still no key has popped out either.

 

watch this, and read your comment again. when Li-ion get's exposed to air, it will blow up your battery. It has nothing do with personal usage, it has to do with using inferior products, while trying to cover your own @ss. Dell knows this too well, else they wouldn't have re-uploaded the bios a few times without changes (i mean everyone is free to verify the file has like @Ultra Male does.)

Technical support means that if someone calls support, they'll answer (or try) to answer the person. Not shoo them away (like what's been showed a few times here already). I'm not saying the 51m is bad or anything, i'm saying that everything AW has produced in the last 5/6 years is cancer (yes even my soldered R5 which i love BTW, but hate at the same time sometimes). Don't get me wrong, the 51m still looks like a very tempting machine, but when the same company that touts that they can build LGA laptops, solders RAM and a WIFI chip to the mobo, you've lost all credibilty with me. Most people don't know it but the mx14 was available with a LGA. Only the GPU was soldered. That was in 2011 with a 14 inch formfactor. How come they went full BGA ?

no disrespect to you, but you're happy with a fully locked down system while having paid big bucks. I got a 1100 euro discount when i ordered my 17 R5 making it the same price as a fully gtx 1060 build with max storage, or a 1070 build with less storage ( @the time of ordering. so paying 2100 euro's for a build that i would've shelled 32xx+ for aint't that bad.)

the mx18 could run two 330W with around 70/80% powersupply's until AW capped it in the mx18 R2. Me personally when i shelled big bucks for a desktop replacement, it better be a desktop replacement. The fact that a year old (or even two years old) Clevo can race past the 51m means AW is heading in the good way, but they still have a long way to go. nevertheless you have a beast of a system, locked down or not, it's just not my cup of tea anymore (first time BGA off my DTR with my 17 R4/R5 last time BGA ever again)

 

I'm running my machine with about -125mv undervolt, and are using the balanced fan profile most of the time. I'm using HWMonitor Pro to measure the temps, and for most halv-new games at ultra, I rarely go above 70C and the newer games rarely have me go above 80C so far. Ambient temp are about 25-28C now, so that's quite ok in my book.

@S.K - Great work with the BIOS and VBIOS version clarification. I seem to run very stable without throttle now.

 

Let's be realistic. This can happen with ANY laptop, irrespective of the brand (the battery explosion thing). And one of the main reasons is over-charging. The Area 51m bios provides a custom charging option which is very useful in this regard. I have capped my battery charging at 75% and my battery does not charge as long as it is between 65% - 75% mark. It only starts charging once it goes below 65% and stops at 75%. That's because I use it mostly when plugged into the wall (plus, keeping the li-ion battery within this range generally prolongs it's life span). If somebody is using a cheap knockoff PSU or a third party PSU which has a 200mV peak to peak ripple, then they have little room to complain.

Regarding your other remark, I can respect that this is not your cup of tea. But let's not defy laws of physics either. That black cinder block is MASSIVE and the weight profile on Area 51m is perhaps the lightest in it's category. There is no way in the real world where you can "have it all" without giving some things up. There is ALWAYS a trade-off. For me, if I want some real desktop stuff to be done, I have multiple Xeon servers that can run 4 GPUs in parallel and I don't even need to water cool those things considering the size of air coolers that I use on them in order to get insane performance. The point of this system is to provide close to desktop performance in a laptop chassis that is slim and light weight. Like I said, there is ALWAYS give and take because laws of physics cannot be defied. I am personally OK with 10 KG laptops (if they make one that heavy). But most of the people out there are not. As far as disrespect goes, I don't think you disrespected anyone by stating your opinion. It's just that yours is quite different from mine, so no worries.

 

Well ive just received mine today and im very dissapointed.

The display/screen is not totally centered in the case.

Is this something normal in a 3k laptop?

 

Which panel are you talking about? Pictures?

 

Sorry, i mean the display

 

No, call Dell and have them either swap your panel or laptop entirely.

 

Pictures?

 

Thats the problem, this is the second area 51m ive received with this problem.
Ive waiting almost two months for the replacement (lack of 2080) and now...

 

Just reiterating my question in case it wasn’t clear—if no one knows the answer, I won’t spam:

Does anyone know why the configurator for the 51m lists the 2TB NVMe SSD option as more expensive than the 2TB SSD + 1TB SSHD option (so total 3TB) when the SSDs in both options are in actuality NVMe drives?

 

Save your money and headache pills bro, buy with the smallest HDD you can possibly get it with and upgrade later with your own NVMe drives.

I'm still finding it hard to believe how that can be possible in a slim bezel screen like this one. If it is not centered, the bezel cannot be seated down and your lid won't even close. When you say screen is not centered, how do you reach that conclusion? I'm keen to see the pictures as this will be an interesting addition to my experience also.

 

Avoid SSHDs like the plague. When I had an Alienware m15. I upgraded the 1TB Seagate SSHD to a 2TB Seagate SSHD thinking that they are a good medium in terms of speed and affordability. Turns out it was no different than any regular HDD. Heck I don't even trust that the drive's controller which data to put on the SSD part of it and which data to put on the HDD but whatever it is, it was a total waste of money. Either get a regular SATA SSD or don't.

 

offcoarse it can happen with every laptop, but it's not. The AW is not far off from laptops that explode by just looking @where it is going. Haven't you seen that because of the frame they use for AW laptops, the mobo can short itself. That's some pretty flawed engineering (Tron lights can also short themsels when it's exposed to the chassis). or what about the burned DC jacks

It has nothing to do with charging, it has to do with components that degrade rapidly because when they're used, they're used against the Tjunction limit.
The heatsink is just a flawed 7 pipe heatsink (with a magical 8th pipe that dissapears and reappears under the right lighting condition lol) offcoarse you should trade of some things, there you are 100% right, but explain to me how the GT76 with 11 copper heatpipes is lighter than the 51m while having not only more ports, but the same thin bezel and much more display options (it has 1440p gsync if i'm right).
The only thing the machine lacks is an amplifier port, and MXM RTX, (but AW is also not using MXM just a replaceable GPU)

you have a point, but AW cannot be considered a desktop replacement, when components are locked behind software. How come you cannot drop in a 8700K while still use the OC options in the bios ? That's not how desktop-replacements work... For example the 17 R1 that's a desktop replacement. It went from the 3000 series CPU to the 4000 series CPU and the videocard still can be upgraded to the GTX 1070 (while modding the PD and Heatsinks). And that was the first pre-Dell laptop, but it still was engineered and manufactured by AW. Nowadays everything are rebranded Compal/Dell parts, even the software probably.

but i do share your opinion partly. but my point is a desktop replacement, should not be thin and light. for performance, alot of room is needed, the fact that AW and competitors does not understand it means they're not making it for you, but for themselfs. They just don't want us to bother them after they got our money. There are still no burned Asus/Acer/HP or any other competitor, only DELLIENWARE.

the 51m is still a very good machine with excellent performance. It certainly is an desktop replacement, just not my desktop. in my R5 i've surpassed a few desktop until they went crazy with cooling. On air my gpu would sit comfortably next to an MSI/Gigabyte/Asus. The 51m get's destroyed by a clevo that's being held back by a vbios that only supply's 150w while AW should have a big advantage. If that still can happen, AW's work is not done yet.

 

You have plenty of valid points in this write-up except the GT76 being lighter, because it is not. The laptop is heavier as well as the 2 power bricks trump the AW power brick setup in terms of weight.
What I think is happening in case of AW is that they used a lot of half correct marketing mumbo-jumbo which touted things that were not possible and they knew it, but they just hyped it up to increase their sales. They probably tried to invade multiple markets with this laptop which wasn't a good idea to begin with, but I think this was an experiment which should give them a lot to learn from (that is, if somebody in AW is willing to learn anything). Every product should have it's own targeted market. One fits all has never worked in the past and will probably never work in the future either, and whoever came up with this idea of a thin and light desktop replacement should undergo a mental stability exam in my books. And I feel you on the desktop part as well. I would call this laptop one of the top machines in the laptop markets right now, but it is STILL a laptop which cannot replace my twin Xeon desktop running 4 GPUs in SLI pairs. In fact, no "Desktop replacement laptop" exists. Period. This is just a popular marketing stunt.

I will be getting a GT76 Titan as well as soon as it arrives, and plan on selling the low performer between the two and keeping the beefier unit. Let's see how that goes.

 

Maybe im a little freak.
This is the photo of the first area51. See the top line. Top left is corner is "taller" (black) then top right corner.

What do you think?

 

Does it make the image actually look tilted, or is it more of a cosmetic issue?

 

Oh yes this is definitely a problem. The screen is centered however it is a little rotated counter clockwise which is no good. You might miss some of the visible areas on the bottom right and top left corners. You can take a picture and ask for a replacement. They should be able to replace the screen for you. No need to send the laptop over if there are no other issues because screen replacement is just a 10 minute job which is ridiculously easy to do as well.

 

Would it be possible to reseat it if it's that easy to do?

 

Please Test BFV with 5Ghz

 

I am talking about screen replacement, not panel replacement. The entire screen assembly will be replaced in this case because Dell seldom does onsite panel replacement. And the panel in this case is stuck to the back cover with adhesives so it will take a lot of time and patience to do it the hard way and I would totally not recommend someone doing it, especially if this is the first time they're doing it.

 

Maybe is cosmetic. I say maybe, cause i cant forget it and look elsewhere

The main problem is that this is the second area 51 i have receive with this problem. Ive waiting months to receive the second one and it has the same problem.
This is just very frustating, cause this is my first gaming pc in about nine years, and the wedding present from my wife...

 

May be they replaced just the motherboard and GPU in your original laptop and returned it to you. Who knows. So far I have gone through 3 screens on my current laptop (first one had a dead pixel and 2nd one had backlight bleed issue) and I have not seen this problem in any of them. My current screen is perfectly aligned with almost 0 backlight bleed and the colors are nice and crisp.

 

I dont think is the same laptop, first one was lunar white, the second one is dark side.

Do you returned another two laps until you get the right one?

 

I haven't returned anything lol! My laptop remained with me all the time and I called Dell onsite engineer to bring in the parts which I replaced myself while he gladly watched youtube on his phone! I never let my machines go back for service because it is not treated with the same care as you'd do by somebody who is just working on laptops to get his hourly pay check.

 

Everything is swapped out with new/refurbished parts. Same laptop.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-owners-lounge.826831/page-1043#post-10908550

 

Here is a 20 min Battlefield V gameplay session temps. My overclock IS at 5 GHz but it seems the game is using many cores so the speed shows only 4.7 GHz.

This is with a -90mV Undervolt by the way

Fans on Balanced not high performance




@custom90gt @Papusan @ssj92 @iunlock @Mr. Fox

 

Dells OC app is useless if you want OC on all cores. All you get is stock clocks. With real 5.0GHz oc on all cores you would see in the 90’s. Or in best case high 80’s. But I doubt it. Depends on how well the chips is binned.

Edit. Would be nice if you added in Package power in the screenshots. Use my Hwinfo64 guide/setup I posted earlier.

 

Thanks for the replies, @S.K and @Ultra Male — well, I ran CrystalDiskMark on the Toshiba NVMe SSDs before packaging the laptop up to ship back to Dell today (it was the replacement that came in for the order I ultimately cancelled; it had the SSD + SSHD option, and while the SSDs were crazy fast, you were right about the SSHD, which was slow as butt). When the new one arrives (~10 days) I’ll run it again on those NVMe SSDs and see if there is a difference.

 

In synthetic benchmarks, the NVMe SSD WILL be faster I already told you that. The thing is, will you as a user feel a difference? I bet you won't.

And yes SSHDs are just a marketing gimmick to sell HDDs at an inflated price.

Be smart...be like Ultra Male...

 

Thanks again. Probably too late to change the order at this point since I won’t be able to purchase a replacement at such a huge discount, but I’ll maybe swap out the NVMe SSDs (and add a SATA SSD) on my own at some point if it will give me similar speeds (and more storage) at lower thermals.

 

Haven’t loaded exodus in a while , I guess battlefield V should be a bit tasking . I love payback can’t wait for the new NFS in November


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

oh really? there's a new NFS? Source of this or it didn't happen Man I'd trade all my games for a new NFS! It's that good! So addicting and I get to drive the cars I can never afford in real life.

 

They have been mentioning it in there reddit thread for the 25th anniversary, am a racing fan too , I race need for speed no limits on mobile iOS when not on PC , and in real life also a mad driver hahahaha


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

It's not running 5.0GHz, bro. It has nothing to do with the game using more cores. If your overclock was actually 50x on all cores it would actually be running that on all cores.

 

He needs a proper overclock no avx offset and that chip will fry


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk