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

I believe i read somewhere 2666mhz is already planned for a BIOS update

 

If you're gonna be doing a video anyway you can make one with how the fans sound. More interested in how the pitch sounds than db levels.

 

Alright I'll make sure to add that in. I don't have anything to measure the db, but I can surely crank them up and put the mic right next to the laptop.

That is a good point, I've had some very loud, but not abrasive sounding fans in the past. I've also have relatively quiet, but awful sounding fans.

Personally, I play with headphones on so I've never cared about fan noise. When I play on a bigger screen, I generally have a decent sound system so fans don't matter either. The speakers of the 51m have been said to be pretty subpar, lacking the woofer present in the 17 R5, but I guess I'll see.

 

You can use an Android or iOs app to mesure the DB.

 

I probably will have external speakers hooked up most of the time. But when I'm traveling I'll use the onboard speakers. That's the plan anyway. Lol

 

I have a very good mic for this type of testing. I'll be sure to include it when I do my video on my system in 1-2 weeks. (Assuming my order ships LOL)

 

I suspected this. I think the motherboard electronics were probably specced to handle 2666 MHz max, as per the z390 chipset's max spec.

By electronics I’m referring to the motherboard's memory controller/IMC. It may just be that it wasn’t designed to handle RAM OC.

The system ships with 2666 MHz memory, but runs at 2400 MHz for now. Why? Who knows! But maybe we’ll get it upped to 2666 MHz.

Users with faster RAM have unfortunately found that it runs at 2400 MHz.

I’m hoping for a BIOS update!!!

 

Anyone buy the Alienware Area-51m Elite Bag for it?? How do you like it? Any pictures?

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

It will probably be added into Dell’s propriety OC app ( Win Microsoft’s Store).

 

That will be nice. Since the fans are so big I'm hoping they will not be as high pitched as other laptops. Though I should have mine before then. lol

They should be finishing mine up as they were waiting for a 9700k to put in. Should've been their Friday. Fingers crossed when I call momday.

 

The backpack? I plan on getting it. Just haven't ordered it yet. Didn't want to have it without the laptop. Lol

 

About the current Heatsink design vs CES design

 

For people with Windows Hello issues, have you guys tried these drivers?

https://www.dell.com/support/home/u...wt64a&productcode=alienware-17-area51m-laptop

https://www.dell.com/support/home/u...wt64a&productcode=alienware-17-area51m-laptop

 

Nice, trying to dodge the situation and compare to the ever aging Aurora. Classic alienware!

 

Giving a brief update. I've had my 51m a few days and have been on it nonstop. It is max spec, 9900k, rtx2080, 64gb ram, 2tb ssd raid 0, etc.

First off, the heat pipe is a 7 pipe design, not 8. It looks the same between this computer and an rtx2070 that my coworker has.

Secondly, this computer runs a bit hot if it's doing long tasks. It comes with 2 overclocking options stock, Overclock 1 and 2. Overclock 2 has a 5.2ghz cpu overclock, and a 150core +0memory GPU overclock. The overclock 2 crashes everything right off the bat- it appears to be the GPU boost and not the CPU but its totally unstable. I did a custom OC with +135core and +80 memory and have had zero issues, but +140 does. So going above +140 core on gpu OC makes system unusable. Left the CPU at 5.2ghz and it's been fine with +135core and +80 memory.

GPU drivers will NOT install from nvidia.com. You have to download geforce experience, uninstall drivers from control panel, then use geforce experience to update them. Don't know if it has something to do with the custom gpu board or what, but running drivers from nvidia.com says that you have an incompatible system.

System is somewhat unstable. I've had a few blue screens during benchmarking, and a few freezes during games. I've tried with and without overclock settings and it's the same result- the OC doesn't seem to add to the instability. I've been playing Anthem and Assasins Creed Odyssey, and both have occasional lock-ups. When running, every setting maxed out runs at 100+fps on built in monitor. Performance is stellar. All of my issues right now I suspect to be due to RTX drivers. I've seen multiple other people have similar issues on different systems with notebook RTX cards. I don't think it's a hardware issue.

My Firestrike best score is 24,543, cinebench is 2100, timespy is 11,020. Benchmarks get CPU to 90C - 95C. Gaming it stays around 85-88C and maintains 5ghz easy without going over 90C. GPU never goes above 85C, so seems well controlled. WIthout overclock, it stays around 82C. If you run benchmarks many many times or stress tests, the CPU WILL hit 100C. When it does, it throttles to 4.5ghz, temps drop to mid 90C, then it ups the clocks to near 5ghz and that repeats.

Will give more updates as they happen.

 

Should Windows Hello login work on this machine? It does not on mine.

Simply says it's not supported when I try to enable it in settings. Updating drivers changes nothing.

 

The BSOD is kinda concerning. Curious if anyone else that has this laptop can chime in if they're having a similar experience? Hopefully they can fix that with a bios update. No one wants a laptop BSOD when using it.

 

Maybe Alienware's Product Specialist Umar Khan should start edit the Heatsink specs on the sales site as well? And not only their posted video's. How they handle this Heatsink mess is pretty weird. A Product Spesialist should really know what they sell. Not tranquility away from it and post different answers after who'm ask.

 

I was rolling my eyes at this issue originally, but it has developed into something bizarre and sort of... embarrassing for Alienware. I don't want to be dramatic, but how is this not something that can be answered and solved quickly? That is, unless they made an egregious error and would have to recall many units...

 

Please keep us updated with your experiences as many us that are holding out for the improvements prior to purchasing really appreciate this information.

Can I ask have you tried under voting 0.100 like the others to drop cpu voltage while oc'd on all cores to 5.0-5.1?
Also are you using stock Dell thermal paste?

 

I almost want to cancel my order now.

 

I was too honestly. The CES heatpipe was only 7 also. So I had no idea where everyone kept getting 8 from. Now I see it's Dell that was saying you'd get 8. I'll keep an eye on it now for sure. But I'll be happy with the 7 that everyone seems to be getting to be honest. If they offer a free upgrade to the 8 pipe I of course won't object.

@Rocktaze

Why would you cancel your order based on what Umar Khan says? He said in a video that Msi laptops are trash and get so hot they melt. He then clarified later in the same video that he ment if you wrap up the laptop in a towel and do the xbox ring of death fix. So the guy is a complete moron and probably has his mommy dress him in the morning.

 

Very nice! I wonder how many angry owners will have to call Dell support later this month or the next to get tech support coming home for next day services.

 

So the 9900k/2080 is not their highest conf, what that means?

It’s bizarre indeed, unless they pull an sli or god knows what I really don’t get how a higher position in Alienware doesn’t know what he is selling.

I got the feeling gonna end up returning the laptop just because this is getting so bizarre.

 

Could be a 2080ti coming

 

This laptop was announced as a ''break trough'' for Alienware. A socket CPU desktop replacement with replacable hardware and amazing cooling.
From what we can see so far, the laptop is power limited, the temperature are reaching 90-100C, 2400mhz support only, if you change the CPU your self the OC'ing capability is gone.

For the heatsink they have no clue what they are talking about, you talk to customer service they tell you one thing, product specialist call me and tell me 9900k should be getting the 8 pipe heatsink version, than Umar say 2070-2080 already got the best heatsink than change his mind and say the highest end should be getting the 8 pipes heatsink. (Reffering that 9900k/2080 isin't the highest end configuration)
They got no god damn clue what they are talking about.
All they are trying to do is throw sand in our eye while people spend their hard earned money on this laptop.

I currently own a Acer Predator H500 - 8750H , GTX 1070 , 32GB Ram , 500 GB SSD , 144HZ that's been working flawlessly, i'm reaching 75C max at 100% in benchmark. Acer has been giving us constant update, they are transparant with us and they been giving great bios update.
I'm not gonna go for go for the 51 unless they up their game somehow during this next week and prove that they actually care about this laptop. I'm not interested in the same Alienware crap that's been going on for years

 

Lol, the product manager and engineer doesn’t know their roadmap for three months?! Wtf.

How is the 9900/2080 not the highest config? If something IS coming down the road, I still think it’s disingenious to have the 8 pipe language on their site today.

I’m heavily inclined to cancel my order. My take? I’m starting to think they somehow ROYALLY screwed up and are scrambling on how to save face...

 

On a positive note we should be getting the 200w bios in April. Honesty that should be exciting.

That's all marketing speak. No common consumer knows about DTR like clevo or even the ones offered by asus and msi. So they were just talking out their ass and the common folk will believe them. Every company does it so I'm not triggered by it. We should call them out on it though for sure.

And I'm starting to think the 8 pipe heat sink doesn't exist. And it never did. Someone must've miss counted and now they're getting slammed with questions about it and it was never going to be a thing. Just my thoughts anyway.

Honestly I had some pretty grounded thoughts on this laptop from day one. Based on what I've seen from the members that got theirs it is meeting what I would consider a good product. Yes sales and support are morons. . .still better than Razer trust me.

The H500 is a nice piece of kit. I almost bought one. But a 8750h can't be compared to a 9700k or 9900k when it comes to thermals. That's like comparing a match to a flame thrower.

 

I have had my laptop for 4 days and it's been excellent. No offense guys but this doesn't go faster if you get mad and complain endlessly. If they owe you an 8 pipe heatsink then give them time to sort it out. I've been waiting since january 13th. I paid in full on that day and my laptop is everything I've hoped for so far. The cooling is much better than i thought it would be and the gaming performance is excellent. The build quality is amazing and ram speed is something that can get sorted out. This thing is crazy expensive and i get being worked up to an extent but it's weird to see all the complaints from guys who don't have the laptops and announce repeatedly that they want to cancel their orders or will cancel their orders or moreover won't buy the laptop at all. Their customer service has sucked for years and they have no idea what everyone else is doing. I just ordered mine from the website and i probably overpaid but it came exactly as i ordered it and 3 days early. Hard to be mad.

I appreciate everyone standing up for themselves about the heatsinks and i hope it gets settled amicably. We are all grown ups. We don't have to tell one another about every purchase we make or may make. Now i am going to order a pizza or maybe i won't!

 

Then they need to correct the website and send a notification informing buyers of this error. They also need to not move slow as molasses on this problem, as people are continuing to order unbeknownst to the error. When you are buying high end consumer tech, you expect the mouths that are moving to sell the item to be giving accurate and knowledgeable info.

I'm still rather indifferent if the product is functioning fine, but they certainly need to make a statement. I'm already cautious of the unit that is arriving Monday. The order process was terrible, the customer service was brutal, the misinformation, delays, lack of communication, etc. was atrocious. I'm just a few poor benchmarks or headaches away from walking away from this company forever since the competition has viable attractive options.

I doubt my feelings are unique and I don't feel as though they are overreactions. It is just a laptop after all.

 

So some guy toasted his a51m with 99k and 2080 in 48 hours. More info from reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/au2uli/i92089_area51m_toasted_in_less_than_48_hours/

 

Mine has been running for 4 days. Jeez. Poor laptop. Poor guy. Hope they get him sorted out. Press F to pay respects. F

 

He choose to have it repaired ? Obviously he did the damaged himself. Who in their right mind would want a new laptop repaired after less than a week of delivery? Even a fanboy would return for a replacement if it's a defective.

No F for him

 

Not the guy. The laptop. Haha

 

This is all I really want at the end of it all too. If it works as intended I won't raise any hell over a heatsink or anything else. Totally agree they need to either say it was never 8 to begin with or tell us they're saving it for the 10,000 series cpu. Just be honest and there will be less backlash.

Oh and just fire Alienware System Specialist. The man is just a liar.

 

Agree, the dude did something he just burn the laptop somehow is my guess, anyway, clearly he will get a new replacement for sure, unless is visible what happened.

Idk if someone is around Twitter reading the thread but it’s quite hilarious at some parts.

 

Normally when you call in and say smoke came from the system, they want it back immediately the last thing they want is someones house burning down over a bad system.

Most likely he did not undo the battery and touched the motherboard with a screwdriver.

 

I agree with you BUT the way Dell communicates and works with people is not exactly encouraging, especially for old AW users. Not to mention the false advertising and paying more than 3k for a completley locked down system without desktop options, just parts. It does perform, but you cannot tinker with it cause Dell still holds this beast hostage by firmware. Until Prema can unlock this thing it would be the same to buy an Aurora desktop from AW.

And I don't think you would buy an Aurora PC for the raw performance.... it gets outperformed by self built PC sometimes with lesser components. And I get AW cause it's an incompatibility issue, to lock down the system so people don't brick them with OC'ing and stuff. But by having a small window pop-up saying whenever you OC any incompatibility issues are for the user, you remove a lot of strain to cater only to the mainstream of the market (cause let's be hones, if they knew their customers, they wouldn't have axed MXM and LGA in the first place)

It's not neccesarily the machine that is the problem, it's the laptop, hype surrounding it and the bragging about stuff azor cannot back-up and tries to backtrack sets people off. I get what you're trying to say. I'm lurking the forums myself for the 51m cause eventually my R5 needs an replacement BUUUUT having seen how azor communicates and eurocom released an gtx mxm based machine once again Dell pushed me (personally) away.

But I agree 100% with you, I'm just still skeptical about how sketchy Dell and Azor handles the for example non-existent magic 8 pipe heatsink debacle (like how he bragged about the 180watt vbios) and this year he bragged again that the GPU is going the get a TDP increase. But with their Q&A assurance, I doubt the 7 pipe heatsink would handle it. Looks like the heatsink is running almost out of capacity (due to the i9) already and looks like how the R5 came out in the beginning. But that is my opinion about it (being an R5 user)

When can we expect another great tuning guide/tips from you ? Do you have plans for the 51m would look forward to you tuning and Ocing it.

 

Guys calm down and stop rage tweeting at Umar LOL

He said he emailed the team and will have answers next week so be patient.

What got me interested is the highest config thing he said....I know it can just refer to displays...but what if a 2080Ti were possible? lol naww...

 

well said. you all should appreciate the fact that you can own this amazing laptop. This is the best alienware in a long time. I just got the GRIM news that dell will not be offering this laptop in Malaysia and Singapore. i can only stand on the side lines envy you guys as i cant even order one!!! Not even Frank Azor can do anything about it. Seriously disappointed....

Malaysians and Singaporeans, if you are watching this, we need to group together start a petition and pressure dell to make this laptop available to us. is there anyway i can order one???

feeling hopeless...

 

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I'd be so triggered if that happened. Then again I could in theory upgrade.

 

Then they may send you the unicorn 8 pipe heatsink?

 

You would probably need more than the <missing 8>, I mean the 7 pipes Heatsink (Still only 7 with the missing shared pipe ).

 

Oh lord that would be magical!

 

If you are on the latest/newer bios and try to roll back, no you can't. You're referring to the newer AW models right? It's signature locked... if you roll up too the latest you can't roll back to the older bios.

True, however the newer bios addressed it by gimping other areas other than just the power. I remember running benches and the newer bios would not hold my OC etc...

Fair enough. The unit shall suit you just fine for gaming and work tasks...

I really think the 8700K is the perfect chip for this laptop...

Uh excuse me? The P775 or the P870 can run just fine without bios mods so what makes you think this laptop can't game or perform work tasks?

You need to stop basing everything off of benching standards, because that is not what determines if a laptop is good or not.

Every laptop is gimped to a certain degree, yes even yours due to physical and other reasons.

Respectable numbers can be had on stock systems that exceeds its predecessors and it does not need to beat world records for it to be good.

To clarify, when I say magic, I just simply mean giving it a proper repaste, alignment, tuning etc...

What's your magic? Trolling the forums about systems you don't even own or have experience with? Bravo.

Fix your signature for goodness sake and go read post #2698

Fair enough and you do have a valid point. By nature this topic is getting hammered hard because it is the only thing of its kind that exists in the mainstream sector.

That's why as I've mentioned in my previous post(s), the way to view the Area 51M (realistically) is to see it as a "cross over," because unless we get an unlocked bios from either AW or Prema, it'll remain in that classification as a "cross over," laptop... I personally do not view this laptop as a full desktop replacement, rather it is a regular high end gaming laptop PLUS model that can provide more than enough power to game or work tasks.

See if the complainers would view it this way as seeing it as a "cross over laptop," they wouldn't be tripping over their unrealistic expectations on something that was easily predictable once they knew that the bios was not unlocked.

To be fair, at the same time I do understand the frustration of inaccurate information being released, however, I think it should be easy enough to take things with a grain of salt until it has been proven to be a fact.

Now once it has been proven as a fact, then at that point just ignore what we know is not likely to be true ...

@Rei Fukai I'll have one in my hands hopefully soon. From there I'll go right into testing and of course make available the real raw data of before and after, along with other extensive testing...

I agree, calm it down folks lol ... we shall know for sure once we get an official answer ... tweeting a million times will not expedite that.

A 2080Ti would be crazy in this chassis ... I'd definitely pair that with an 8700K and not 9900K.

I agree, we often times overlook how fortunate some of us are in regions where things are abundantly available. I have friends in Singapore and we talk about this all the time and I feel for them... It also makes me grateful and to be careful on the things that I complain about.

The laptop is a beautiful system and it's true in that it is their best piece in a long time. This is just the first time around so I hope we can see improvements as this thing evolves.

What I'm most excited about is how this lead in this march of being bold to release such a laptop, will push others to follow ... For that, AW deserves a lot of recognition for changing the direction of the road map...otherwise we may have been stuck with the same ol laptops for many more years ahead....

 

I'm ignorant, why? The 9700k vs 9900k has been discussed quite a bit, but why would the 8700k be a better choice? I may have missed the posts on the 8700.

 

Well said.

I'm looking forward to your tuning results. Upload some videos too if you can.

Cheers

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

 

I find the 8700K OC'ed to be a better option for the chassis that's all. The 9700K and 9900K are great, but those chips are way too much IMO for this chassis.

The 9 series chips are also soldered and although that may sound good, it actually is not because they run very hot. Delidding the 9 series chips brings significant gains and in a laptop you need every drop in temp as you can get. Therefore, right off the bat IMO the 9 series chips are not ideal for laptops.

Desktops have a hard time taming the 9900K, therefore, in an environment like a laptop that compounds the issue even more....

Gaming performance wise, there are many side by side comparisons showing how the 8700K is more than adequate, running neck to neck and in some cases surpassing the 9900K in real world gaming....

Speaking of real world gaming, there is very little difference if at all with the 9900K ... having more cores is nice, but in respect to the chassis that it is in, IMO the 9900K is not an ideal choice ...

Running a cooler chip like the 8700K will also give you more thermal head room to balance things out a lot more...

In such a confined chassis, every bit of temp head room helps.