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

Or waited one hour


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Ok, I might try removing the CPU too for a while.... but tonight I'm just drained out... will update it once here for sure.

I've a feeling I need to clear the NVRAM but I have tried every single way and nothing seems to work..... Who knew resetting the BIOS would be so tricky......

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I have a feeling it's not dead.

BTW, I am in the BIOS or in the Dell Support Recovery environment, the top of the laptop gets super hot because the fans are not running the way they would so it's only your system that gets hot like that

 

The main indicator is the alienhead power button. If it is blinking, there is a problem. If it lights up and stops blinking and then stays lit continuously, the laptop will eventually power up.

 

Yes my panel is on a slant too.

 

Dell support wants me to clear and reset the CMOS and the bios using this video, but I cannot find the "CLRP1" contact on this motherboard....


Please keep sharing your ideas guys, it will help someone else on the future...


How do I reset my BIOS?

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Actually, its blinking now... blinking a lot actually

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Try the first suggestion I provided without removing the CPU. If that works it will be better than removing the CPU. Always best to not disturb the CPU socket whenever you can avoid doing so.

 

Ok. I will give it one try now.... give me 5 mins...

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Try this first. Have 1 stick of RAM ready to quickly slap into one of the RAM slots in between the time that it turns itself on and tries to restart itself. You'll only have about a 2 or 3 second window available to react.

 

See if it stops blinking by putting just one factory ram into slot 1. In my case, a bad ram stick was causing this annoyance. Blinking means it's unable to identify your ram sticks because that's the only thing that you changed. Also, i did this all without plugging the charger in.

 

Tried it. No beeps.... nothing. Removed RAM, Cmos and system battery, plugged it in AC power and turned it on. No sound... nothing..

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No sound!

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That's ok. It might not appear to be doing anything. Don't worry about sounds or flashing lights. If it turns on for a few seconds or a minute or so, then power cycles off and on, that's exactly what you want. Use the small time window that it turns itself off to slip in one stick of RAM before it turns itself back on. When it turns itself back on it will find the RAM stick, poop all over itself, and reset everything in the BIOS back to factory defaults.

 

Anyone knows where the CLRP1 contact is for this laptop?
See at 59 secs of this video... this is what Dell support wants me to do..




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Once I turn it ON, its not turning off at all.... its stays like that... no restarts..

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Of course it won't turn off! You have to power it down manually by long pressing power button every time until it boots. This is expected.

 

How long are you waiting? Give it several minutes. It has to completely wig out and crap all over itself in order for this to work.

You may have to try it with the CPU removed, but save that for a last resort effort.

Actually, it should eventually power cycle because it will give up trying to find the RAM that is missing and power cycle. But, it might take a while. Probably not very long, but it will seem like a long time because you are staring at it and waiting impatiently for it, LOL.

 

I have been trying this too...

Here is what I'm doing at the moment, removed the system battery, cmos is connected, trying only one RAM at slot 1 and using both ac adapters to boot the system... nothing is happening...

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Exactly. I feel that you're doing things a little too impatiently while freaking out. It will boot eventually, because what you're seeing and reporting sounds very familiar.

 

Have you guys seen this video? Will it help?

It's been 3 minutes since I last turned on the system and nothing has happened yet... not a single thing.

Now, I'll try using the other RAM stick and removing this one for while...

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I'd say ditch the power cables and do it all on battery. That's how I did it.

 

Wait. Just to verify, you have all RAM removed, correct? You need to turn it on with no RAM sticks installed. All slots empty. If you have a stick of RAM installed this will not work.

If you can find those contacts, it might work. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. It depends on whether it clears EVERYTHING from NVRAM or just partially clears NVRAM, and whether the corrupted section gets reset. On the older systems it would only clear a portion of NVRAM. It did not wipe out every area. But, you should at least try it. You'll have to find those contacts. No telling where they are, but they should be accessible without removing the motherboard. They should be clearly marked, but the letters are small. It's sometimes easier to spot the gold colored contacts than focusing on looking for the letters printed on the PCB. Once you spot the contacts, then you should find the printed marking near the contacts.

 

The reason why I'm getting inpatient is because the laptop is getting burning hot (I'm not exaggerating really) within 2-3 minutes.... the power button is almost untouchable man...

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Use only battery , I doubt it can get hot with battery


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No RAM stick...no system battery... no cmos battery too

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Yes. First with all slots empty to tell it that there is nothing plugged in so the next time it won't expect anything in the slots and will re-read and re-configure anything that it sees in there. Next try with 1 ram stick. And do it on battery, that way it won't heat up.

 

Now, I'm trying with CMOS in, System battery IN and no RAM sticks...no AC power...let's see what happens... will give it 5 mins...

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Wait, what part is getting hot? We expect the CPU to get hot, and that's OK. It has no heat sink and if it gets too hot the power will be cut. It will not cause any harm.

Not sure why the power button would be getting hot. That seems kind of odd. You might have something really weird happening.

 

Ya. That's my point. The power button and the keyboard is getting like a furnace.

My last experiment failed. Nothing happened.

Now, I've put one RAM stick in slot 1, cmos and system battery connected and NO AC power ... I will wait for 5 mins...

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The power button and the top of the chassis gets hot, confirmed. But it only happens in this scenario. Once everything is back to normal, temps go down again.

 

Hmm. That's very weird and I don't think it's a good thing. It makes no sense that those parts would get hot in such a short amount of time. I wonder what is making them get hot, and why. Where is the heat coming from?

 

This system seems to have no beeps code... not a single sound whatsoever...

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It happens more when Ac is plugged in. When I unplugged the laptop and started doing things only on battery then temps decreased considerably. This seems like heat transferred to the chassis via the motherboard as the cpu heats up the heat sink but the fans still don't spin enough.

There are none. The only indicator is the alien head power button as I already told you. It will light up and stay lit if boot is successful otherwise it'll keep blinking in red and sometimes blue.

 

Ok, here's is where I'm at finally, everything connected, RAM in their default slots, CMOS and system battery connected, (did one last battery drain and when I was doing it, noticed that the DGFF connector pin is super duper hot, I mean unbearable)

The alien head power button is blinking like this, 4 times blue, 2 times red and is repeating the process... no POST yet...

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Maybe try removing the CPU then. Power it on (if it will turn on). Remove the battery, and the CMOS battery, and use AC power only. If it turns on, wait to see if it turns itself off. If it does, unplug the AC adapter and put the CPU back in with one stick of RAM. Plug in the AC adapter and turn it on. If it never turns itself off, unplug the AC adapter to cut all power to the motherboard. (Don't use the power button.) You don't need the heat sink installed, just the CPU and 1 stick of RAM. If it doesn't boot up normally after doing this and shorting the contacts to clear the CMOS does not work, then you probably have a dead motherboard. Booting with no RAM or CPU should dump everything in the NVRAM. When you power it back on with the CPU and a stick of RAM it should be in the same state as a new motherboard that has never been used and it will have to find and configure the CPU and RAM. So, if this does not work I doubt that anything else you can try will work.

That's not good. It should not be producing any heat. There is no reason for it to produce heat because it is not being utilized. Maybe the GPU is shorted and that is causing all of your issues. The connector pin for the DGFF getting hot with no load on the GPU suggests a hardware failure like a short circuit somewhere. Does the screen ever light up, or stays pitch black?

 

I hope you have connected that cable correctly. The two ends look identical but they have DGFF and motherboard written on each side to make sure you plug it in the right way. At this point I'll say stop trying to boot it any further and thoroughly inspect each and everything that you touched while inside the guts of the laptop.

 

Ok, I will give this a go tomorrow. Its midnight here in the UAE now and I cannot deal with it anymore... this sounds like a good experiment for tomorrow...thanks for your help.

But my money is that this system is dead! I didn't get any sparks or burning smell whatsoever but this black screen is a common issue with the system and I dont think it will ever turn back on again sadly.

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Isn’t iGPU enabled in this laptop? Maybe remove DGFF graphics and connect an external screen.

 

If they made that connector reversible instead of keyed to install one way only, and reversing it causes a short circuit, that's unfortunate. It is not a given that shorting it would ruin everything, but it certainly wouldn't help anything.

That is a good idea. Definitely worth trying. It could be the GPU causing all of the problems.

 

You're right. I'll leave this for now. I'm sure I've put all the cables correctly because I'm very meticulous when it comes to such things and I'm an engineer too. I've enough with this for tonight, will try again tomorrow.

AW support has escalated my issue and are on the process of transferring the warranty to the UAE as we speak. I will get a full system replacement once the transfer is done. In any case, I've a good laptop to experiment on for now and will try to fix it tomorrow. Will keep you guys posted. Thanks for all your help. Its appreciated. I'll rep you guys when I use NBR on my desktop browser soon. Good night

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I'm not sure. But I do know that a lot of patience and attention to detail is needed when doing major surgery of such high end machines and sometimes a negligible looking thing can waste a lot of your time and energy. This can also happen if the ribbon connectors are installed improperly which could lead to bent pins that may start draining a lot of power through the power connector. Too many possibilities here. But one thing that I'm sure about is that a system can only die while running. It cannot die after it's successfully shutdown.

 

Both M18x/M18xR2 (avenger) can use 2x330w fully if needed.

AW 18 was capped to 330w.

AW 17 R1 can only use 4000 series CPUs. GPUs from 7XXM to 10 series (6XXM as well since I tested)

M17xR4 can use 2000/3000 series CPUs, GPUs from 4XXM series up to 10 series.
M17xR3 can use 2000 series CPUs. GPUs from 4XXM series up to 880M series.

 

Well...

It seems it was a good idea to go on holidays.

My swapped unit is on shipped

Current status : On Its Way to UPS

Someone know In Europe, what's the average delay from Dell facilities from China to UPS ?

 

Bruh! Is that vodka on the left??? Kudos! ;-)

 

Took like 7-10 days for me from china (netherlands)

 

Damn ! That's a lot ! Including avg 2 days from UPS ?

Thanks for your information

 

Guys, what temp limit should I aim for and stay below for both gpu and cpu?
For a 9900k/2080 setup, no delide, no repast and most recent bios/vbios. And I suppose performance fan mode while gaming.

I saw that cpu throttle at 99 and gpu at 85.

Is 80 for both a safe spot?

(My machine is not delivered yet)

thanks

 

85 to 90 for the CPU and 76 to 82 for the GPU

 

Trying to run metro. Capping off at 45fps on nvidia recommended settings. Can't seem to up the fps at all no matter what I change.... not overheating it's just maxing out the gpu...

 

Excellent work on the CPU LM. That's a very perfect layer.
For GPU, it's usually considered best to just spread the paste like you did with the CPU. X or small dot methods don't work as well with direct die as they do with IHS because with direct-die, any gap anywhere on the chip can cause a "Hot spot", which can do anything from just a temp increase to unknown stability issues when overclocking. Traditional paste X method on an IHS works well because the CPU is close to the middle of the spreader (in various shapes depending on blue or red team), and having every single millimeter covered isn't as important as long as most of the chip is covered.
(Obviously, LM must be spread because it's LM

 

My bad i meant indeed the m18 that went full retard. After that they retired it

 

Just a follow up from yesterday, I'm about to open up my laptop again and if there is something you guys want me to test, now it's the right time to say it. I'll start with Mr Fox's suggestion first without the CPU.



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