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

I think you have made an electrical fault hense the heating up, it most likely will be a lead connector put badly or bent pins. Maybe also LM has leaked where it should not causing shorts. How about disconnecting the GPU card, make sure all is clean and properly inserted. Remove all drives, wifi, RAM everything you can. Run off of the battery.

 

Here in Sweden it is about the same: 7 to 10 days from China to your door. Here we have DB Schenker, all the way to the door, and that is a absolutely ****ty service. Mine was sent on the 11th from China, so I reckon mine will be in next week hopefully before midsummer.... And my on call shift..

Looks like a lovely IKEA water bottle. If it is Vodka do not drink and fix the rig... Did that once and that didn't work out that well... ;-)

 

If it can't be fixed with vodka, it can't be fixed period... ;-p

 

Hey guys, so I ordered some Gelid Extreme Thermal PADS. I wasn't expecting them to come for at least a month or so, but I think they'll be here next week.

Anyways, I'll be putting them on as soon as they arrive.

Was just curious if there is anywhere I should consider putting pads, where there aren't currently any.

I have the 2070 btw, so no backplate on the DGFF card. I know some people replaced the pads on their 2080s. Would it be a good idea to purchase some small, thin chip heatsinks to place on the backside of the mosfets?

Also, how do gelid extreme pads hold up over time? I've read somewhere they have tearing issues, so I'm curious if I have to pull the heatsink off after I repad, if I'll have to replace the pads again?

Is it possible to salvage the stock pads, or will they dry up over time?

 

Alright guys, final update. I opened up the entire system once again and took the trouble to check every connection meticulously. No bent pins, no burnt mosfet, no broken cables. I double checked the DGFF cables as they're the flimsiest part of the system. Nothing. It's all good physically. I tried Mr Fox's technique but it has no effect on my system. Tried all sorts of RAM combinations, battery combinations, NADA. She is really Dead!

I also put everything together back again slowly and carefully and did a great job pasting the laptop as well. But when I turn it on, same issue like yesterday. I have now concluded that it's not a RAM error or something that can be fixed without changing the motherboard and the DGFF. I've escalated this issue with Azor and his international team and will give a confirmation on a replacement system in 2 working days. I'm done with it for now. Lets hope the next one will last me longer. Also, I feel sorry for anyone who buys this system refurbished from the outlet. That will be a bad investment if I've ever seen one.

One last thing, it might help some of you in the future, I found the BIOS reset motherboard point "CLRP1" which the Dell technician wanted me to try yesterday, sadly it had no effect on my system. If look on the bottom right side of the CLRP1, there's is a "SW3" reset pin on the motherboard as well. It will save you all from a bad bios flash in the future.


Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

I didn’t understand: what does the SW3 switch do? I saw it on my mobo and wondered but didn’t dig into it. What’s it for?

 

I think it resets the BIOS but don't quote me on it as it clearly didn't work for me.

Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

@VoodooChild this might not work but may come in handy for someone else; I believe u have Bios Recovery 2, see Dell (Notebooks) + video: Dell BIOS Recovery Options

I've not used these steps before, but if the premise of this guide is to bring an otherwise bricked (black screen) machine back from the dead, there appears to be a backdoor that can induce / produce video long enough to access the menus needed, which implies a semi-working machine --> if yours fails to produce video this way & you've exhausted Fox's suggestions et al then I'd prolly give up & let tech support handle it, then get on the internet somehow & listen to Terrence McKenna for an hour or two & kill some time ...

An inability to access Step7 (produce video & use this tool) would confirm a fundamental problem (I do wonder if removal of the DGFF card & porting into the on-board CPU GRFX instead might produce video but who knows ... no sweat if you give up on further disassembly ... good luck)

 

Hi! I've just gotten my 51M and I've noticed that when I plug one of the two adapters into my laptop, no matter which one it is, it keeps giving me a notification that an "undersized adapter has been detected" and I was wondering why/if it's going to affect my computer.

 

I believe its just a warning which can be switched off in the BIOS. The machine won't be damaged by only using the one, however, you'll not have the full performance of the GPU until you have both connected.

 

Thank you for sharing this here, it'll help someone in the future for sure. I have already tried everything I could find on the internet and nothing worked for me. I think this is a case of a bricked motherboard. So, I will leave it now and wait for the replacement unit.

And in terms of McKenna, may God rest his soul. One of the finest teachers of our generation...



Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

I only keep 99% iso propyl alcohol near my computer. I hope that's potent enough.

 

So regarding that nagging 1.5.4 and the tweets from a week or two ago:




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

That seems to be the exact same old 1.5.4 version to me. I doubt if they have half a clue about what they are saying. Just revert back to 1.5.0 or 1.3.2 and you should be fine.

 

The thing is I have always been on 1.5.0. Dell just finally updated on the issue.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Are you on 1903? Have you been able to get the Realtek audio controls working?
Do you by chance have discord?

 

So as much as I was excited to try the Area 51m out I had to cancel. They gave me the run around again. They can't give me an answer as to why I am not getting mine shipped when other's are shipping out. I am really not to upset though because after keeping up here and other places and seeing the issues some are having I am willing to wait for the next beast laptop. I really needed one as I am going away soon but I will make due with my Alienware 13 R3 with a Alienware Graphics Amp. As much as I will really miss having 120+ hz gsync display for a while. The only thing I am worried about though is the fact that this machine from it's core fan base of "Desktop Replacement" level laptops is not doing super well with the promises not being delivered and in-fact going backwards. I know there are some on here and beyond that are having a great experience so far and I hope that continues but with the amount of unknown issues with the area-51m and the amount of return's and the amount of area-51m in the outlet is not good. The outlet is almost all ticking time bombs and will continue to hurt the the image of this laptop. Also this is not going to be good for the continuation of the DGFF for future laptops. I really hope that it continues and grows but for now I don't this it looks to good. I really hope everyone here the has issues continues to get it figured out so you guys can have a kicking good time on the laptop. I will be sticking around here because of my interest in this area of mobile computers and will be keeping an eye on the MSI GT76 Titan to see how that one does with its promises.

 

I don't do anything that has to do with chatting.

Here is the thing, if I clean install Windows, be it 1809 or 1903, I would not find the Alienware Audio Icon in the Command Center unless I plug in my Alienware Headset. The moment I remove it the Alienware Audio Control disappears.

Part of this is, with the factory image of this Alienware Area-51m, if you check the startup entries using Autoruns, you'd find entries pertaining to nahimic both as in services and tasks. I think that's behind having the Alienware Controls. Now, on a clean install, if you install the Realtek Drivers, they do not add those Nahimic entries, neither does installing the Alienware Sound Control from the Windows Store add them.

So what I ended up doing is waste an entire day to go back to the factory image (which I have uploaded on my Google Drive if anyone needs it), then had to go through the trouble of uninstalling all the ancient drivers that ship with the unit and their traces, then uninstalled McAfee, then ran the McAfee Products Removal Tool to get rid of its traces as well. Then installed all the latest drivers before going online so Windows won't install anything on its own through Windows Updates.

Even if you updated to 1903 at this point, you would still have the Alienware Audio in Command Center working with or without a headset connected.

I didn't upgrade to 1903 yet though as it offers nothing new, only decreases my performance. So unless it is being force fed to me through Windows update, I won't bother updating again.

 

Thanks!
I'm interested in the factory image.

 

Alienware Area-51m Factory Image (Windows 10 Build 1809)

You will need to create a bootable Flash disk using Rufus with this Macrium Reflect Rescue Disk ISO

Other tools you will also need:

McAfee Products Removal Tool
Killer Uninstaller
Display Driver Uninstaller

Tips:

1- Ensure you have your LAN cable disconnected
2- When prompted to connect to the wireless network during the initial setup wizard, hit SKIP otherwise Windows will just start installing driver updates left and right. Only connect to the internet after you have uninstalled all what you want and installed the latest drivers offline
3- Display Driver Uninstaller has an option to also remove Audio Drivers, DO NOT use that otherwise it will wipe the Nahimic stuff. Only use it to get rid of the Intel and nVIDIA Graphics Drivers

 

What bios and vbios do you guys recommend I run?

 

Does anyone have pictures of any burnt Area51m boards?

 

Here... I expect you talked about the MB.


Btw. I know you sometimes talk to Alienware's people who decide. Have you got some proper answers from them when they finally will follow Intel's specifications for memory speed in Area-51m? Or is this info they rather prefer to hold for themself and don't want talk about? Next months we are half a year since this model was presented for the press and ready for being shipped out.

And Dell have offered 2666MZ ram stick support for most of their notebook models the last 1-2 years (Alienware and Dell's own branded cheaper notebooks). Say they didn't know what specs would be for Intel's processors when they designed the MB ain't valid. Because I can't see a single reason outside they designed and developed the MB for Area-51m without the proper paths and traces for faster memory. Thanks

 

Pardon the dumb question, but what would be the real-world benefit of the RAM running at 2666 vs 2400? I’m sure it would be overall snappier performance, but would it be closer to 10% better or just closer to 1%?

 

The m15 even supports 2666 MHz RAM

 

Not the big differences but not allow ram sticks equal Intel’s specs is pretty special. With possibility for ram adjustment in bios you should easily could run many sticks +-3000MHz. Even with the cheapo awful thin MSI GS65 some is able to run sticks above that speed.

And the successor the thinner m15 r2 has soldered 2666 ram Same also for the big brother AW m17 r2. But maximum ram size is capped at 16GB. For both due Intel’s max allowed size specs for soldered ram.

Some of Dell’s models had even 2926Mhz ram support. I think Dell reduced this to 2666MHz in later firmware for those models. Aka they downgraded ram speed support without shame.

 

Would it be possible for someone to update to Dell's most recent version of the bios, and test if the throttling issue is still present please? I've seen several responses that the new 1.5.4 bios is identical to the previous 1.5.4, but I don't believe I've seen anybody actually say that they have tested it. How would we know unless we try it out? Wouldn't the file size stay the same if they went in and changed a value from 75 to 85, and then re-uploaded it?

My unit died after ten days of relatively light use, and now six weeks later, I'm about to have a replacement sent to me. But as of right now I believe I could still tell them to keep it and just refund my money. I'm trying to determine whether or not that's what I want to do, but I need somebody to please actually test the most recent bios upload. Dell says they fixed it. Prove that they're lying and I'll feel much better about losing my investment in shipping costs, rush build costs, and the restocking fees they'll no doubt hit me with for not being happy with a gimped laptop.

 

Whaaaa? That's terrible! It's a shame because the r2's look very sexy IMO with the new legend design

 

They soldered on the Wifi card as well. Only the storage is upgradeable in the new m branded AW models But for how long? The question is how long it will take before they follow the XPS brand and solder on the ssd's.

 

It gets worse if you look at the service manual. Soldered wifi, flipped motherboard, and the cooling solution has less screws than the R1 do to some of the brackets sharing a screw hole. I was ok with the soldered Ram, but once everything else was pointed out to me I lost interest real quick. As @Papusan pointed out it's any wonder the ssd storage aren't soldered.

 

Be you sure, this will come. With each decrease of thickness to make them even slimmer this will come nearer and nearer. Expect this is the direction for all of the AW models.

Dell is in a steam... And the bell sheep is Frank Azor (Ceo for the XPS line). Just read the article here

Opinion: What on earth is going on with Dell's XPS lineup?

To me, it really looks like Dell are following the very worst plays from Apple's book: prioritizing quiet fans over lower temperatures and performance (XPS 13 9370), ignoring long-standing issues as long as the model is still selling (XPS 15), and now making an expensive laptop completely unrepairable and unupgradable (XPS 13 7390 2-in-1). I know it seems like I'm being overly harsh on Dell and the XPS division here given the amount of other products the American company is putting out, but I know how the industry works and I've seen it too many times to let it go unaccounted for.

Does this look familiar? "Prioritizing quiet fans over lower temperatures". This have also been AW's mantra the last years. I have complained about this many years ago for my own Alienware 17. But for none ears.

Edit.
See also my post here... http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...m-owners-lounge.826831/page-370#post-10875432

 

The Alienware Area 51m problems seem tame in comparison...

Dell's On Fire!! No... really, the Dell's are burning up! Going too thin does Dell in, keep a bucket full and lay the laptop vents up, just in case...

Help with XPS 15 that burned up
submitted 7 days ago by vmaq2sc
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/by7lrb/help_with_xps_15_that_burned_up/?sort=new

Mat_Uscenes 1 point 1 day ago*
"That is scandalous. Amazon has turned off reviews because there must be so many bad ones."

Dell woes continue as XPS 15 self-destructs

The charred remains of an XPS 15 9560.
(Image source: Reddit)

"With Dell starting to blame customers if their XPS 15 9570 overheats when asleep, one getting so hot that it explodes would be rather inconvenient PR. That is the state that one person arrived home to see their XPS 15 in, and Dell customer support has not been forthcoming on helping them resolve the matter."

ComputerSavvy 32 points 7 days ago
"If they can not get it through their head that a FIRE made obtaining the Service Tag impossible, maybe it's time to contact the CPSC.

CPSC.gov
https://www.cpsc.gov/About-CPSC/Contact-Information

"If I or someone in my family was harmed by a consumer product, can I report it to CPSC?

Yes. We welcome and encourage you to report any safety concern about a consumer product through our website, SaferProducts.gov. You can also report to us by phone Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ET at (800) 638-2772 or teletypewriter at (301) 595-7054. CPSC accepts reports by Fax at the toll-free phone number (855) 221-6466 and by postal mail. Fill out and mail this form in English or Spanish to:

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Attn: Reports
4330 East West Highway
Bethesda, MD 20814"

If the words "I'll be filing a formal complaint with the Consumer Product Safety Commission BECAUSE THERE WAS A FIRE, you know, that government agency that issues product recalls" does not get their attention, well, they deserve what they get.

Write to Dell's marketing department, the people who staff Dell's customer help line may not have any functioning brain cells but Dell's marketing department does.

You could also CC this to their legal department too.

You could word your letter something like this:

"I'm trying to get a serious issue resolved and customer service is of no help whatsoever and I am hoping you could help me with this issue.".

<Insert dates / times / number of calls and results of those calls>

Politely explain to them the timeline of what you have done in contacting Dell's customer service, how you were treated, the stonewalling you have experienced.

"At this point, I feel that I only have two other options available to me but I would prefer to have this issue resolved in a more respectful way.

"I could file a formal complaint with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the department that is responsible for doing product recalls of consumer equipment or I could turn to social media to make my position known as to how my Dell computer caused smoke damage to my property and almost burned down my entire house and Dell completely ignored me when I called them.".

If legal or marketing calls another department within Dell, someone at Dell will probably listen to what they have to say.

If that does not get their attention, well they deserve what comes next if they don't help you.

Release the Kracken."

Sounds like good advice for the burned up Area 51m's too, someone could report this potential fire hazard for investigation by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

popokatopetl 3 points 4 days ago
"There's evidence of Dell downplaying the battery fire hazard issue because of cutting the costs for replacing inflated batteries, here and at their community support forum. Gather it before it starts disappearing."

DellCares 1 point 1 day ago
"Hi, I hope you're well. We have been discussing this case internally, and would like to talk with you about the best possible solutions. Could you share your email address or phone number via a private message so that we can this to a resolution."

Oh, yeah, Dell's on Fire now.

 

I just got my 51M Thursday, and so far only had two issues. First being the gpu throttling at 50-55C instead of 85, which was resolved; and the second issue being the sound ports on the left. I use a Senheiser PC37x with the cable that came with it (Headset+mic). No matter how I plugged them the Mic would never work, at first I figured maybe it's too short, as even though the headphones would get sound, the top port would cut out the left side at any movement, and both would have pop sounds. I ended up buying an adapter that plugs both the Headphone and Mic into a single port for the bottom one (the headset with mic port) and the mic still isn't working, and there's still random pop sounds.

I've tried all the settings through W10, Realtek Control, as well as Alienware settings, even re-installed the drivers and no change.

 

Well there are plenty of other companies that don't have soldered down laptops that will gladly take my money. And when Alienware soldered the SSD's like the xps 15 I'll be faaaar away. Heck no buddy.

Honestly if this keeps up I'll go back to desktops full time and snag a tablet for my video needs.

 

We run a binary comparation and it's exactly the same. Nobody checks if a file has changed by just looking at the size.

 

Sigh, anyone have trouble with the Realtek audio console recently? I can't for the life of me get it to work after reinstalling the main Realtek drivers... it says generically "Realtek Audio Console doesn't support for this machine" (great english!).

Anyway, tried removing it, removing the drivers, restarting, reinstalling driver then console... nothing. No change... audio console doesn't work. Pisses me off.

EDIT-> The sound section in AWCC also has disappeared...

 

I guess I misunderstood what you guys were saying earlier then. Thanks.

 

@Nyceis , did you ever get this working? I realize it was a very old post, but it's the problem I'm not having and scratching my head over...

EDIT: screw it, just rolled back to a restore point from this morning and it's fine again... ; ) Grr, no idea why it was doing that. So strange.

 

Hey guys, been having some BSOD issues with my 51m lately. Waa hoping to get some help resolving the issue, most likely caused by a driver.

Anyways it happens when launching games I get a 'kernal heap mode corruption' bsod. I've gotten another similar one, but cant remember the name.

Windows also never creates a minidump for some reason. In event viewer I get the error 'dump file creation failed due to error during dump creation (event 161, volmgr.)

I'd appreciate some help figuring out what's going on. This just started a few days ago, no major updates or anything in the past couple of weeks, when I upgraded to 1903.

Edit: I DO have dumo files on in settings, but when i check windows folder, there is no Minidump file..

 

I had these exact same issue a week ago and had to clean install Windows 3 times in one day, I swear I'm not exaggerating, 3 times before I got a stable system. Even Whocrashed didn't help as there was no dump file to access just like what you're experiencing...

This is what fixed it for me:
Download latest drivers from Dell including the nvidia drivers and keep it on a separate drive
Download Windows 1903 ISO from Microsoft and make a bootable flash drive
Clean install Windows with manual formatting of the boot drive
Once installed, do not use Wifi or Ethernet (very important) , Install the drivers(there a new chipset driver on Dell's site) using Ultra Male's installation order while rebooting everytime when promoted
Once all drivers are ready, update Windows 10 first and reboot a few times until every update is loaded to the system.

Do your Windows tweaks like ShutUP10 and WPD.APP only AFTER everything has been updated including your Windows Store stuffs like apps and Forza Horizon 4 and other games you might play.

Only after these steps, I was able to have a BSOD free experience for 2 days straight and then my system died on me completely. LOL

Hope this helps.

If you find a solution without involving a clean format, please do post here as it'll help many users in the future. I'm sure you're not the only one with the BSOD experience.

Good luck

Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

Yikes man! I'll ser what I can do before a system restore. I'll post any results!

Thanks for the detailed info!

 

I don't like the soldered RAM, but they should at least offer 32GB as an option for video editors etc. Soldered wifi card is also a very weird choice :/

Seems like we are going backwards from the design of the 2011 R3, when all it took was 2 screws and I could repaste CPU and GPU in 10 minutes. The only thing that was involved and took time was to change the actual mobo!

 

Could you please tell me how you resolved your GPU throttling issue?

Sent from my MIX 3 using Tapatalk

 

First, kudos to a first class user community here that worked to help Voodoo diagnose or return to working his system. While it didn't work, the effort that was given speaks volumes of the quality of people here.

Hopefully Dell gets him back to rights soon.

 

On a separate note, am I now seeing that the sound drivers require only Dell's windows 10 image to function? I am aware that sound (and particularly the low level interfaces often used for driving it) has been getting the boot from MS in recent 1809 and 1903 versions of Win 10. But most vendors have managed to sort out at least some working level of driver update and it is always installable as a "driver" to restore functionality when it breaks.

I ask because that would mean you couldn't install the standard Win 10 image of 1903, just drop in the requisite drivers from Dell and be off and running. I may be wrong in this, so that's a question mark here. I hope it is not the case.

 

Not sure if anyone has posted yet, but the Realtek Sound Application is working on my 51m. On 1903.

 

The drivers will install just fine on 1903 on a clean install, the issue is you will not have access to the audio profiles in Command Center, the entire button goes missing if you're not on the factory image due to the absence of the Nahimic tasks that run on startup which are on the factory image





Here are the Nahimic Tasks and Services XML and Reg entry.

Import the XML using Task Scheduler and double click on the reg entry to merge it with your registry then reboot.

I placed the Nahimic Service files, copy them to where it's shown in the image above:

Download Nahimic Tasks & Service

 

Question to all...
What SSD temps are you all getting?
Also what slot are you using the SSD in?
Anyone running a PM961 or Samsung Evo Plus?
I ask because I have a PM961 and its running crazy hot, which it was not in the R4.

Thanks!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...m-owners-lounge.826831/page-987#post-10905650

Or search my posts with “ssd temps”. I have posted ssd benchmarks tests you all could use to compare your results as well in the thread. But it seems none is so interested in it.

Search also @ssj92 posts. Here is one you could start with http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-owners-lounge.826831/page-1124#post-10912566

 

Seems like uninstalling and reinstalling the Realtek drivers causes those to go away as well (I had to restore to a previous snapshot to get my audio back to normal under 1903. It's not just the audio profiles that won't run (I think), but the Realtek UW control app as well.