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

Damn. NewEgg had a 16x2 32GB SODIMM 2666 Corsair Vengeance set for $174.99 last night. I put it in my cart, went to bed. And it's $200+ this morning. Son of a gun.

 

That Bootguard tech aka AMI BGT or Intel BGT or INsyde BGT works by checking MEI if the BCLK and other variable are tampered or not along with OS boot EFI signatures, MBR/GPT sectors and dTPM(if present). All in all, a locked system on nearly all Intel Hardware upwards of Skylake. Bypassing it will brick or soft brick your PC.

 

https://ami.com/en/products/bios-uefi-tools-and-utilities/bios-uefi-utilities/ don't know of this can help. I think a deep dive on the Dark web can uncover some tools to sign bioses. Just need to find thee right hacker

 

You're partly right but only AFU is downloadable rest needs some license or NDA to obtain. Very expensive.

 

@EepoSaurus have you tried tweeting at Umar? Frank said to ask Joe if you want 8700K support but he's never on twitter. I think if you try Umar they might be able to get the support done through a bios update?Just tell them you're currently running 8700k and it just needs support for bios/aw cc overclocking.

 

Uh I don't have twitter or any social media actually not even a lurker account. Haha

 

I asked for you

 

Guys i need help, i did a clean install and re-downloaded all drivers from the driver page. i have downloaded Nvidia expierence it says its installed but i when i right click i cant see nvidia control panel ?
also i have no sound, anyone know what i can do ?

 

So, last thursday my Area 51m has been picked up. My complaint about the problems went to the support team.
Friday i got a reaction, scratches on the bezel should not have happened and i got an official "we are sorry"

So i mailed back that i was kinda dissapointed in the answer, i couldn't get a replacement and needed to ship the system back and wait for a refund.
After i get the refund i need to re-order and wait for a couple of weeks again. Technical errors happen and i understand, but me as a customer has to wait like 3 or 4 weeks before i get a new system, a little discount on my next order can go a long way.

After 5 minutes i got a response, we are sorry for the bad experience, we can't give you any discount.

Now i'm kinda torn in what to do, re-order without discount? Or maybe call them, i think i'm letting them get off the hook to easy. Its a top of the line machine for loads of money. Guess they don't want it because these kind of reactions make me question a re-order. Anyone here that have some tips? Think i'm gonna call them tomorrow, atleast see what they have to say.

 

I hope you have sent it back for full refund? It should have arrived in pristine condition. The problem is that when you mention scratches, it is difficult to prove they were not caused by you. Other retailers might not take it back on those grounds.

 

You may have missed it in my earlier posts but all of my benchmark screenshots were 10 runs back to back and the screenshot was from the 10th run, fully heat saturated.

I can go turn my 51m on from being off and do a single run and score very very close to the clevo, running at 4.9ghz. After multiple runs, the score drops some, which is where my screenshot is from. I get annoyed by people that do a single benchmark from system off to score a single high score that wont be repeatable until the system is completely cold again just to look good. Heat saturated runs are indicative of real world performance and I'll bet that clevo screenshot is of a cold start benchmark.

My liquid nitrogen comment was sarcasm, btw, and my quote should have read that I've never seen a 9900k in a laptop doing 2200+ CB score while heat saturated.

Typing this stuff on a phone is difficult with the forum formatting.

I've had clevo laptops similarly specced, and they score near identical to the 51m after multiple runs. What you're showing is a screenshot of a "single best score" and I'm showing a screenshot of a "worst score" in a 10 run series but indicative of full heat saturation.

I'll also guarantee the clevo has better thermal paste and my 51m is totally stock from dell.

When mine is repasted and I tweak things, I'll wager I get higher, the point of my posts and pics is to show people what they can expect out of the box. I'm a hardcore tweaker and modder so my next steps will be showing people what the system is capable of vs stock.

And just to clarify, when I say liquid cooling loop, I am not talking about water. I use FeserOne or a custom oil based coolant through a refrigerant loop. The 9900k on my desktop never gets above 25C. Of course 5ghz under air is the same as 5ghz under liquid. The difference is under liquid the 10th run of a benchmark is identical to the first, whereas on air it's almost always lower. Liquid negates heat saturation over sustained use.

So under air, a video may render quicker at 4.8ghz because it doesn't heat throttle but under liquid the 5ghz is sustainable. That was my point, because all of my test screenshots are heat saturated.

 

Contact Alienware support and let them help you. They’re pretty efficient at fixing these things remotely.

 

If you feel comfortable waiting for a new order without a discount is up to you. I wouldn't stand for it. Personally I would call and tell them to refund my money. When they ask about reordering sternly tell them you want a discount or you will take your business else where. If they try to give them a sob story tell them no and hang up. That's how I got my discount on my canceled order. You may have to wait a few days before they call you back. Regardless they should offer you something in return. The I'm sorry this inconveniences you isn't worth anything. You spending $3k or more should be getting some of the best support possible.

 

Does anybody else have weird „cracking“ sounds when they give pressure near the Alienware logo on the backside of the 51m?

 

Yeah for a full refund, and yes it should have arrived in prestine condition agreed. I have pictures from out of the box that proves its not my fault. I wouldn’t even know why i would make scratches on my own product.

Gonna give them a call tomorrow. I really like the product so its not a matter of wanting or not wanting, more the waiting and not my fault to begin with....

 

Dell used to have a person with clean microfiber cloths wiping each system down as they got boxed.

Things really changed when went to outsourcing.

 

Sorry to hear about the hassle. I ordered mine a few days back. And I will record when I open the package to make sure they can't blame me for anyhting if something damaged.

Recording might be a good generel tips to you all.

 

The one guy that had issues with his called and kept calling and complaining eventually getting a 15% discount.. Thats what I would push for.

According to the process Dell said to me on the phone yesterday or earlier today based on where your located.

"once your order is placed the laptop is assembled from scratch without major components. Then it's shipped to the United States where our warehouse of assembly professionals put in the memory & HDD and cpus."
Assuming that's true it should be cleaned by the assembler at the end of his work.
If the product was scratched or damaged it makes me believe could they be reselling the returned 51m's from users as a quick turn around for the high demand and the low production rate?


Side note. My experience
Ring Ring
Hello my name is ***** from dell gaming specialist. So there I was..
Asking tons of questions he said I wouldn't lie to you about the products we use.
When I was on the phone I told the guy you don't have the ability to lie to me about the hardware inside of the laptop that's used because your not only not trained to know but even your own website leaves that information unknown.
Who makes there m2. SD's or what speed is the memory?

He's response was "we use many different manufacturers for those parts as we put what's available at the time into the computers while they are being assembled in the various locations in the US."

What I get from that was OK so what ever cheap stuff on the shelf they have for the day lol.

I said for 64gb of Corsair 2666mhz is 379 for 2 Samsung m2 drives is about 450$-500$ 1tbs and for the 3rd drive maybe 100$. I told him if I'm paying for the best price on your product on the top model and I open it up and it has low end off brand memory and hdd's its going to be returned Instantly. This is the bases I used creating my price point argument. The Laptop Base model with best lcd 9900k 2080gpu can be purchased relatively cheap I wanna say about 3400$. With new upgrades your looking at 4400$ for what they ask 5295$ for there very top model.

Needless to say I squeezed out 12.57% off the top price with the addition of 332$ in cash back points.

The Dell agent was getting frustrated with me because I wasn't ignoring the facts. But he kept calm and basically marketed that I should try it for 2-3weeks if I don't like it return it. And if I have any comments or concerns to call or email right away to get the issues resolved. So those of you waiting to make your choice. Get a good price call. If not buy the lowest model with your cpu/gpu u want and buy the other hardware do the work you self. My self I wanted to see how the laptop performs in its so called top configuration at the time. If its anything less then expected I'll return and get the base model and use my own hardware preferences.

Also direct die 9900k information to come. Soon as I get it and crack the laptop open and do some measurements if the cooler will see fit perfectly flush with the cpu cover off we may be inluck and my OC numbers will beat the clevo.

Ps. I got the fully maxed out dark version of the laptop. With 4years of support & accidental damage. Right now buy 3 years 4th is free.
Tax in FL is 7.9% so check your state and add thy to the final cost. As well
And expedited shipping let's see if march 14th happens lol..

Excuse me if I miss spelt a bunch in my rant.

 

You guys must be getting the wrong reps. I got 24.63 percent off my purchase. And I do not know anyone at dell, nor did I use coupons.

 

Did you call?

Can you DM a copy of your purchase order?

 

Throttle Stop.

Fair enough... however, for those that have an 8700K already then for them it'd be worth getting the non K to save some bucks... It just depends on the scenario. All the chips are fine choices at this level ... just some more preferred over the other for varies reasons.

Yes indeed... The 8700K performs great.

Ignore the trolls. You've slayed them with your reply lol.

Yea it's silly how some of these people gauge laptops based on purely benches and single runs ...

What cracks me up is all the talk of bashing the Area 51M, then all of a sudden when real world data starts to pop up with numbers very close to that of their clevo's (in the real world making absolutely zero difference),... now there is silence and they are scrambling to pull up screen shots to play damage control. Real childish to say the least.

The question that they are afraid to answer due to it destroying their online pride are as follows;

1.) Can the AW 51M provide a great gaming experience? - YES

2.) Can the AW 51M handle work tasks and get the job done? - YES

.

 

So your paying $100 on top of the price of the 8700 and if I remember you pay $450 on top of the price of the 8700 for the 9900k. So, I have an 8700k and I bought a 9900k. I'm taking the 8700 and putting it in a hackintosh that I built. I was going to put the 9900k in the 51m but now I'm thinking about using that for my main desktop and putting my 8700k in the 51m. Either way your breaking even buying the 9700k from dell. Your paying way more since your paying $450 over the price of the 8700 if your buying the 9900k from dell. In my opinion it is better to buy the low processor and then replace it with what you want than to purchase it from dell. Especially if you can use the 8700 on something, or you can sell it...

 

Well said. That's exactly my thinking as well... get the lower chip, sell it or use it for something else, over paying extra for the 9 series ...

The 8700 would be perfect for your hackintosh! Great stuff...

 

Exactly

 

Awesome! 100% .... Classic.

Great mouse too... same one I have.

 

Yes please insert your official offer purchase order and your specs of your laptop so we can validate this discount price.

 

I'm not really happy with my 9900k CPU
Is running hot hot hot!
Whit no OC is running CB 1800+ score and temps are 95
Underwolting 0.1V making thermals down to 85 and giving me about similar score.
But its impossible to boost to 5,5ghz not even 5,3ghz like I have seen on some screen shots.
Shortly after i start test temps are going to 100 and I got blue screen.
Fan profile is balanced.
My max CB score is 1924 with light OC and I don't think this is good enough.
I'm starting to believe my heart sink is not good enough.

From the other hand my GPU is running lovely and never cross 82 deg limit even after OC.

Any thoughts about my CPU issue?

 

5.5ghz is utopian in the notebook without AC cooling... I dont see an issue there...
apart from that, not all 9900k can even boot 5,5ghz... Be happy with 5ghz allcore ingame

 

So what's Yours CB scores ?
Some guys are showing here 2100+ CB score and I'm 200 below this result.

 

When I canceled my order a few days later I got an email from my sales lady with a new quote 400 dollars cheaper. Then I emailed back any warranty in that quote and she said sure I’ll add a warranty. Just have to get the right person.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

mine is still on order. I expect it to be here next week . 2100+ is not a 5,5ghz score. 2100+ is 5,0ghz allcore.

stock 4,7ghz allcore ~ 2000+
OC 5,0 ghz allcore ~ 2100+
OC 5,5ghz would be 2400+

 

I wouldn't hedge my whole system on a benchmark score, that being said, I'd want the CB higher as well.

Alienware (and Dell) are notorious for VERY VERY sporadic thermal paste consistency. It could be that your processor is decent but the thermal paste job is absolutely horrible. I don't know how comfortable you are with modding, but you can find youtube tutorials for repasting and it's a genuinely simple procedure if you take your time. Going from a bad thermal paste job with crappy paste to a good paste job with quality paste can shave 10-20C off of a processor temp. If you open up your machine and repaste a bad paste job, you could easily get the scores you're looking for at your current overclock. Shaving a lot of heat off will also do wonders for your stability.

My 51m does over 2020CB after 20 consecutive runs stock out of the box. First run after cold boot is usually around 2230-ish. I will soon be changing my thermal paste and I expect the last run to go from 2020 to closer to 2100 and the first run to be north of 2300 or so. Bear in mind that RAM also affects CB scores (more so the speed than the amount) but you can OC that later to get more performance as well.

My machine is stable at 5.3ghz, 1.24 volt, with -58mv offset and achieves above scores in CB around 92C after 10+ runs. The CPU does bump higher than 92C until the fans ramp up and bring it back down- but after the fans have spun up, it doesn't go over 92 after basically as many runs in a row as I perform and the scores are consistent after fans are going.

So in CB I score 2230+ run 1, 2200ish run 2, 2170ish run 3, 2140ish run 4, 2100ish run 5, 2050ish run 6, and it stays around there through run 20, so that's when full heat permeation is achieved on the cooler. When I repaste, I expect to be over 2100CB run 6 through 20, and north of 2300 on run 1. This is clicking to do a new run as fast as they finish.

 

It's likely the factory thermal paste that is the culprit. I would surely repaste that for sure.

^^^ Absolutely. Even some desktops have a hard time pulling in 55x ... therefore, in a laptop? Eeehhh that's pushing it lol.

The good news here is that we're discussing 'wants' at this point, because the laptop has already proven to be a decent performer as is ...

From here... with those repsating it, we should see a lot more interesting numbers....

I've been saying this for years now ... the stock thermal paste sucks and I never base a laptops potential without doing a proper repaste... only then I get to the testing to measure its potential.

When will you be repasting your laptop? I'm sure we're all curious to see the numbers. Do you plan to delid you 9900K as well? That'll help a lot ...

 

can you prove this with screenshots? CB + HWinfo (temps, clocks, package power, vcore)

1950-2100 is NOT a 5.3ghz score... so your CPU cant hold 5.3ghz... how can you say its stable?

I do not want to attack you, but from my experience, people have very different opinions about what is stable...
for me stable means: stable clocks, without dropping to lower frequencies even under heavy Load (prime, CB, etc...)

this is an 5.3ghz run

source: https://hwbot.org/submission/3979776_truth_hurts_cinebench___r15_core_i9_9900k_2345_cb

 

I've posted a number of screenshots previously in the thread. Don't remember the page numbers but I've long since deleted them from my PC, as they were direct posts, and not on cloud storage. You can scroll back through the pages and find them, though. I have several screenshots of CB scores, with temps and OC settings viewable. I may have changed a setting or two since the screenshot but they're still fairly current. They're somewhere after page 250.

They just show what I mentioned above in my last post that I have for settings. So you can take my word for it or look for the screenshots. I'm not here to BS you with fake computer settings. That's petty, lol.

 

You could also check to see if your IHS is flat. 9900k's heatsinks are fairly warped which is why I lapped mine.

 

yeah... your pictures show what you want your CPU to clock... but your scores prove that the CPU does not hold stable 5.3ghz... not even 5ghz all the time.

only hwinfo can show you whats going on during the bench... AWCC is not able to do so

 

You're confusing "stable". Stable doesn't mean the score doesn't change with heat saturation. After 20 consecutive runs on something as thermally limited as a laptop, you're going to see some decrease in performance. That absolutely don't make a clock "unstable." Lol.

In the link you sent, it clearly says in the statistics of his post that he's on water cooling. Water cooling negates heat saturation entirely. Any time you're dealing with air cooling, you're going to have performance loss as heat goes up when comparing the 20th run to the first.

Please reread the last 20 pages or so of this thread. Really don't wanna go over all this again.

 

It does so when you're watching it the whole time and seeing the clock hold until the bench finishes. Mind you the whole point of my posts is to show what the system can do out of the box. I'll worry more about what I can achieve as my "max" on this machine when I start doing more than AWCC without so much as a repaste yet.

People giving me links showing what heavily modified setups can do is pointless. Sending me links of benchmark scores of 9900k processors cooled by liquid in desktop cases, when I'm talking about an air cooled laptop stock from a mass produced factory. Mine is stock and that's the point.

Send me those performance links when I mod my 51m and repaste it, and get serious about overclocking. Right now, I'm trying to convey what it does from factory.

 

ok... so you say your CPU is ,,stable,, at 5,3ghz even if it cant hold 5,3ghz during full load? OK... i stop here to discuss with you XD

even your best score is way lower than an normal 5.3ghz score... and water cooling doesnt matter as long as the CPU can hold the clocks... so it doesnt matter if the cpu has 50 degree or 90 degree, as long as the clock sits at 5.3ghz the score should be the same. Your best 2100 score is a score a 9900k has with 5,0ghz...

its nice that you want to show what the A51m can do out of the box... But with your claims about your ,,stable,, settings you lie yourself

 

So, if you run your benchmark outside in -10C winter and score X, then you run your same benchmark inside, with 35C temperatures and score less than that first X, is your overclock stable? Would it be stable for someone living in Alaska but not considered stable for someone living in Florida? What if you're an Eskimo living in an Igloo. Are their OC's "stable" while everyone else's isn't, even if they were using the same computer?

You dont understand heat saturation with air cooled setups and what makes an OC "stable".

 

i know what heat saturation is but if i run (fanatsy -) settings my CPU cant hold during workload....then yeah... i lie myself when i claim these settings are ,, stable,, but you can do what you want. But now i know how to interpretate your posts.

 

Er, my "best score" is over 2230. My 2100's are after 20+ consecutive runs

" The hope is that any functional-correctness issues with the overclocked component will show up during these tests, and if no errors are detected during the test, the component is then deemed "stable". Since fault coverage is important in stability testing, the tests are often run for long periods of time, hours or even days. An overclocked computer is sometimes described using the number of hours and the stability program used, such as "prime 12 hours stable"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overclocking#Stability_and_functional_correctness

 

Do you have any pictures? And how to do it correctly?

 

I seem to use the same definition of stable as everyone else in the overclocking world except you, lol.

 

Please understand that RAM also affects CB scores greatly. To the tune of 60-120 points. The ram in this system is limited to 2400Mhz as of this second. Comparing the processor score to others using faster ram is also ridiculous, so saying "2100 is a score a 9900k has at 5ghz" is crazy, because you make no reference to the ram speed. What if that processor is coupled with 3400mhz ram, and with 2400mhz, it might only be doing 1950 or so?

If I were to make no changes except put in 2600mhz ram, I'd gain 40 points (putting my first score in a series around 2300). If I put in 3400mhz overclocked ram, I'd get around 110, which would put my first score in a series at around 2380 to 2400CB.

That's why most 9900k comparisons in this thread based on CB screenshots are useless- most people posting CB scores on modded systems don't have 2400mhz ram.

So saying "a 5ghz 9900k should score 2100 in CB" means nothing without knowing the ram it's paired with, the type of cooling used to sustain that, and whether or not it's been repasted to sustain the clock. Performance slightly degrading as heat-permeation occurs doesn't make the OC "unstable".

 

then just prove it: CBrun / prime95 / Hinfo screen with: min max avg (clocks, volts, temps). Your ,,stable,, setting shouldnt drop below 5.3ghz.
if you can show that, all right, I did not ask for more

i think brother @Papusan would be very impressed to see an 2400 5,3ghz CB score...

 

I admire your calmness

 

I think you are arguing on semantics around the word "stable". You take the word to mean "the CPU maintains its selected frequency throughout the test" and Err0xx uses it to mean "the equilibrium reached after (many) 20 consecutive runs". Equilibrium is a state reached after a while and "stable" in this case means "the test score does not change anymore with consecutive runs".

As so many other components are also affected by heat, I personally prefer "stable" to be used to mean "stable score after so many runs" rather than to mean "my CPU did not drop its frequency".