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

There is so much fear mongering about liquid metal that I do not understand. I don't know in the Area 51M case, but in older Alienware laptops and Razer systems, as long as you do not damage any components in the process of applying liquid metal, you will not void warranty. I've had it on 6+ systems that get carried around, I never once used a foam dam or conformal coating. What's my secret? Don't over apply the stuff, just enough to coat the CPU die and enough to coat the contact area on the heatsink.

Note: this only works if your heatsink fits perfectly. My heatsinks have all been perfect, so it has always worked well for me. Liquid metal doesn't magically "leak out", its actually very self adhesive. Only way it will leak out is if there was an absurd excessive amount applied initially, or oxidization occurred via bad heatsink contact, causing the tin particles to be left behind from the galinstan, which can leak out and short components. I've had a case of that ONCE, but it was self inflicted by using too thick of a thermal pad, causing a gap in my heatsink and introducing air.

Note 2: I exclusively use Liquid Ultra, the original pioneers of liquid metal compound. The consistency of conductonaut is not to my liking at all, and I don't want to risk impurities found in the unbranded ebay galinstan coming from lithuania. Liquid ultra works perfect for me, and always has.

 

Single 330w should give you more than enough power if you don't overclock. Only for surfing the net/watching YouTube?
Read my older post. Yoy see, I could see the single power cap would become a topic.... *OFFICIAL* Alienware Area-51M Owner's Lounge Don't defend a awful power delivery design! This is only lacklusting engineering. And these engineers would never have been hired by me.

 

yup, same here, every laptop I've owned for 5 years has had liquid metal. Perfect application FTW:

*done by HIDevolution I suck at this to be honest as I have 0 patience *

 

Can anyone increase the power limit of their GPU using ACC or Afterburner??? Its shaded out for me is this right?

 

I was looking at the GTX 1080 GPU inside the AW17R5 - the metal surface of the chip is surrounded by SMD caps, not 1 mm away, I was thinking a small spill of the LM and you'd be shorting the contacts on those caps. Maybe an application of varnish (eg polyurethane) might provide a safe insulation but definitely not for the faint hearted. I would not use tape either as the LM could sip under the tape layers all it'd take is a tiny air bubble.

Look on this photo on the left hand side is the GTX 1080, zoom in you can see the caps under the yellowish Kapton tape - look how close they are to the metal top surface.

 

Well that’s disappointing. Especially since most reviews seemed positive.

HID was way too pricey for me. About $1,000 cheaper going with Xotic (which I’ll probably cancel) and/or Dell direct with 15% off coupon.

So, if I’m too scared to try LM, what’s the best “normal” thermal paste that won’t require a repaste more than once a year? Gelid?

 

Liquid metal can easily destroy systems. There's a reason for the 'fear mongering'. Maybe the sky isn't falling, but people should be warned about it. And people are human. I've gotten thermal compound on areas that wasn't just the cpu before on accident... Hell, for my two custom water loops, both motherboards had distilled water get on during testing phases (Thankfully I have special cleaners for that...).

At the very least, somebody should have a decent history with applying thermal compound and a knowledge of pcs before attempting to apply liquid metal

 

GELID Extreme or IC Diamond

Apply it using the X Cross method (only for non metal)

The X Cross method is the best in my experience as once the heatsink is fitted, it provides the maximum coverage with the least air bubbles

 

My first attempt was nerve wracking sure, but if you follow youtube videos closely and take proper precautions, anybody can do it. The benefits far outweight the risks. It lets me hit higher frequency on my Alienwares and prevents my Razer Blade from turning into a blast furnace.

 

Awesome, thanks!

I’ve done maybe 15 desktops in my day, but never a laptop. It’s been so long though... I was using arctic Silver which used to be super well reviewed and now it seems universally panned, lol.

 

Ok so I get that I should undervolt and repaste but my previous questions still stand.

From stock, what do the CPU temps and palm rest temps look like in the area 51m? Would I benefit from returning the blade and getting the 51m from a temperature/3-5 year product usage standpoint?

Or do you think the blade can give me 3-5 years while running 100 deg temps on a 10 yr old game. I know alienware laptops have given me longevity in the past, not as confident with new Razers.

Edit: typos

 

As I have mentioned before in this thread. A firmware update may not fix the entire problem. Depends on how they engineered the whole power delivery. So don't take it for granted that this will be completely fixed if this is a flawed hardware design. They could of course add in Hybrid power design in firmware as they have done with the previous AW models.

Edited with new quote

The best way to see if the ssd temp reading is correct... Look after ssd throttling in benchmarks or heavy ssd load. Temp target for throttling is around 70C on most brands models..

 

It's definitely something that should be pressed out of Alienware. I dont expect to run this on battery, but if I take it over to a friends I'd want to just take the 330 or 180 instead of both and my laptop give me what I paid for. I understand it will drain faster and charge slower but I still don't want my machine to slow down intentionally.

 

Here's the solution for us Alienware Area-51m owners who miss the SD Card:

Anker USB C Hub, 7-in-1 USB C Adapter, with 4K USB C to HDMI, microSD/SD Card Reader, 3 USB 3.0 Ports, with 60W Power Delivery for MacBook Pro, ChromeBook, XPS, Galaxy S9/S8, and More

 

So was my first water cooling attempt tbh, after it came out so well (the threadripper machine) I finished my gaming machine. That doesn't mean you should take water cooling lightly either

I hate to toot my own horn (He lies...), but I inserted pics of my first water cooling attempt, so you CAN make some really good stuff on your first try, but you should always be careful...

 

Sensor 2 is ssd controller, sensor 1 ssd is memory.

 

Update on the AGA not performing at 4x speeds:

I tried a Vega 56 in the AGA and aside from some typical AMD drivers drama, it performed no different than it does in my desktop.

I will try to borrow a touring card later this week. I suspect there is some driver nonsense going on.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019R9ILTG
this was $15 last week, I bought it. There will be plenty of better deals. Paying $40+ for a USB hub seems a little silly, but if you need something now it isn't a bad choice!

 

good idea, I'll wait for some deal

 

Hey fellas. I just received a gift card for amazon and was going to pick up an m2 drive to replace one of the 256 drives that came with my rig. I did a full reinstall and disabled raid so one can go. Any recommendations or what are some of you using? It’ll be a gaming drive fwiw.

 

One more question for you guys... was reinstalling some drivers / fixing an earlier problem I had today and noticed the laptop panel is being run off the RTX card and not the integrated graphics (so when I open the intel graphics control panel it says no displays detected). Is this normal? I had thought that the integrated card was supposed to handle windows and the discrete card all 3d applications? No?

Just wondering if I have a setting mixed up somewhere.

 

No, the Intel HD Graphics is just to power external monitors/TVs. It' non functional in the laptop itself otherwise we wouldn't have GSYNC

 

Got it, that makes sense, thanks!

 

Samsung Evo plus.

 

If you mean for storage of games (Steam library, etc.) Just get the largest capacity you can for the least amount of money. Doesn't need to be NVMe for storage, so don't pay extra for that. Use the money saved to increase capacity. Don't waste money on anything less than 1TB (minimum). With the massive size of most modern game installations, 1TB is almost no longer worth buying because the capacity is not enough.

WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, M.2 2280 - WDS100T2B0B
Intel 660p M.2 2280 2TB NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSDPEKNW020T8X1 < Best value
WD Blue 3D NAND 2TB PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, M.2 2280 - WDS200T2B0B < Good value
SanDisk X600 2 TB Internal Solid State Drive - SATA - M.2 2280
Samsung 860 EVO 2TB M.2 SATA Internal SSD (MZ-N6E2T0BW)

 

Thanks sir. This is exactly what I was hoping for. Really appreciate it. I wasn’t sure if nvme was required in those slots or if we could go with a Sata m2 as well. It’ll definitely just be for the games I play so didn’t think I really needed nvme speeds but wasn’t sure.

 

You're welcome, bro. I would imagine that the M.2 slots can be used for SATA or NVMe, but probably best to confirm it with the Owner's Manual or someone already running SATA M.2 SSDs just to be certain. I would be shocked and disgruntled if the slots were exclusively NVMe compatible.

That said, the Intel drive is NVMe and the least expensive. So, I'd say go with that option. (That's what I would buy based on price and capacity.) It's not the fastest NVMe drive, but faster than SATA and being the least expensive is a nice bonus for a game storage drive.

 

The Intel 2TB NVME drive is cheaper at Newegg.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...60p 2tb&cm_re=660p_2tb-_-20-167-461-_-Product

 

So maybe AHCI has the same exact issue....

It's already maxed out to 190W

 

Can confirm, both SATA and NVMe for both m.2 slots.

 

@ThatOldGuy

330w + 180w:

1905Mhz
4.7Ghz

330w:

900-1100Mhz
4.7Ghz

180w:

900-1100Mhz
4.7Ghz

Battery:
900-1200Mhz
4.4Ghz

180w + 180w:

900-1100Mhz
4.7Ghz

 

That's too bad; carrying 2x 180W would have been a nice compromise (given they together are about the same size as 1 330W)
They certainly have enough power.

 

Thanks for confirming.

 

Can someone explain the problem to me?

I knew from the start that this notebook came with 2 power supplies. And I also knew from the start that I could run it with just the 180 watt with reduced speed if I wanted to. I don't recall where I heard that exactly, because I think I heard it multiple times.

This is just the way Dell decided to make their system work.

I don't walk into a Ford dealership and yell at them and tell them to make their car the same as Chevy does. Even if the way Ford did things, that I may consider wrong, it's not my place to scream at them and tell them they did it wrong. At that point, you speak with your wallet and you buy the car that works best for you.

If you already knew ahead of time how things worked, and it's different than the way someone else makes their notebooks, then why buy the Dell? Why wouldn't you just buy the other one?

Now, if you did buy it not knowing exactly how it worked and just assumed it worked how other manufacturers make things, then by all means exercise your return policy and return it to buy the notebook you like better. Perhaps they can change how it works with firmware. Perhaps not. Either way, I wouldn't buy a notebook on the hopes that they can or will change things to the way I would like vs. the way it was originally designed. Even if I think/know the way they are doing it is wrong. Some engineer designed it this way for some reason, even if you don't agree with it.

Personally, I'm fine with how they have done it. But that's why we have choices and competition. What fits for one person, may not be a good fit for another.

Have a good day. Hopefully whoever is dissatisfied with their purchase, can return it and buy what they really want!

 

It would be all kinds of lame if they weren't, considering they sell raid 0 m.2 options

I got a 512gb raid 0 build, I'll let you guys know what the speeds are when it arrives

 

I am not sure your analogy works.

The problem is simple... 330W is enough to supply 75-80% of full system power. No reason whatsoever to cut GPU performance in HALF. They are putting a heavy limitation there, where it doesn't really needs to exist.

This is particularly a kick in the groin to anyone interested in an RTX 2070 system, because 330W is enough to fully power the system alone.

If it is hardware related, then so be it. It can be a quirk of the system as pointed out by you and @Papusan . Just a bad engineering design choice, by no means system breaking; but very annoying none the less.

HOWEVER. If it is a Firmware limit, they need to be pressured for an update to change it. It doesn't need to be that heavy handed of a throttle at all.

 

Put it this way. You bought the laptop and used it with the two power adapters the first months and then take it with you on a vacation/business trip or whatever. Then you finally discovered this single adapter engineering flaws. What then? Ask Dell nicely for a refund when you come back home?

 

Guys i need help,
Here is a picture of my AW area 51m's display cable. My model is 60hz 1080p. now my question is what is the dell part number in the picture. And anyone with 144hz model can share there dell parts number so i can call dell and see if i can order one to upgrade my display. g sync or no g sync is fine. i am planning to make a display upgrade tutorial so people can do it them self. thanks in advance.

https://imgur.com/a/sV5xAIL

 

I don't have mine yet or else I could give the part number

See above.



Also @Ultra Male I don't know for sure but has anyone posting the exact measurements of the thermal pad replacements that HID offers as an upgrade if we were to do it our self's.
Already got LM ordered just wanted to do it all at once.

 

Metro Exodus was crashing for me too, but it's not a problem with our computers it is an Nvidia problem. there are a lot of people having crashes on that game with all sorts of computers with GTX/RTX Nvidia cards.

i run an external monitor (alienware 34in ultrawide 3440x1440 120hz G-sync) with my Area 51m (i9 9900k,RTX 2080). i have been running it on the ultrawide monitor only, so my laptop screen hasn't been on during any of the crashes except for one. i tried playing the game with the external monitor unplugged and it still crashed. after reading many forum posts and trying different things the only thing that stopped it for me was turning off hairworks and tessellation. i haven't had a crash since. i did other things that they mentioned to fix it so i'm not sure if it was a combo of things or not. (dissable Geoforce experience overlay, and also turning off Nvidia Ansel) but it didn't stop crashing until the last step of turning off hairworks and tessellation. ray tracing is still on high and all the other options are still on ultra. trying Dx11 like some people suggested didn't make a difference for me. i played Metro Exodus a lot today with no crashes so it seems fine now.

seems Nvidia has some things to work out. people are having issues with Dx12 on DMC5, Division 2, and Battlefield V also from what i have read.

 

Are you undervolting? My undervolts held under load but not idle. Voltage just dropped too low and bluescreened.

 

Any weird options in advanced BIOS section such as SGX must be disabled. Also, try resetting BIOS to defaults and see if ADATA XPG gets detected or not! Usually microsoft NVMe driver is installed.

 

With a properly designed splitter tip/converter box, you could get away with just one 330w adapter, by passing through/duplicating the dell data pin signal for compatibility AND then utilize only up to 330w of power at your own power profile/clocks/voltages. The laptop would think it has 2x330w plugged in.

It would take some investigation beforehand to determine the adapters behavior (for data/adapter authenticity pass through) as well as by using a killAwatt on both adapters to see actual power draw. From there adjust the splitter, if necessary, depending on if there is more draw from one port or the other. If equal it would require only a much simpler splitter vs an active converter/inverter being needed if one port requires 250w and the other takes say... 80w. You could create a power plan/XTU or TS profile that would only draw a safe amount of power so that it didn't exceed what one 330w can supply... while the system thinks that both are present. Would be a balance.

Whoever makes them and sells them for $50 each (or more at this price bracket of laptops) will make a killing. "PLEASE USE SAFELY, INTELLIGENTLY AND NO WARRANTY IMPLIED"

 

Just AHCI and Secure Boot are on. It's never shown Adata XPG though, just says Windows Boot Manager under boot options. I've also tried reseting defaults, didn't do anything.

Hmmm... Probably already running on windows default driver, how can I remove and install Adata drivers?

 

Only Samsung and Intel have 3rd party NVMe drivers.
Does XPG work on other PC or slot(s).

 

This is exactly the type of attitude to get things locked down.

2 PSU requirement check
2400mhz ram limit check
no xmp support check
windows hello not supported check

I can't even use my thunderbolt display because they need to fix their firmware.

These are simple fixes for them, they choose not to do them.

They are advertising this as the worlds fastest laptop, most upgradable. With all these limits it's going to stay below the true best.

So you also don't have the NVMe driver in device manager?

 

Ahh okay, I imagine there is a firmware update, but I cant update it since the Toolbox isnt showing my drive.. I'm not sure, I dont have another PC to try it in.

 

No offense meant, but Dell don't give a rats behind on what you or me think, and if all these things bother people so much - put you money where your mouth is and return the laptop and buy something else.

 

(Please use common sense if attempting. As in: don't lick the internal wiring while attempting, nor open the psu while it is plugged in or still energized from being recently plugged in and not connected to the laptop, or unplugged from the wall prior to unplugging from the laptop.)

If anyone can (or has recently) cracked apart a 51m compatible OEM Dell 330w AC adapter to confirm if they are still using the Dallas DS2502 IC for the data pin authenticity ID signal, that would be helpful. You could sacrifice an adaper to pull the IC out, solder it to one of the DC jacks internally in the 51m, or just place it inline on the earlier proposed power splitter cable/adapter box. Then the real/utilized 330w adapter will pass straight trough and authenticate with its DS2502 chip for 51m DC input 1 (like normal,) and the splitter/DS2502 #2 would authenticate on 51m DC input 2, while siphoning off whatever wattage it needs for the system to run at your custom (manually throttled) CPU/GPU power settings... up to 330w (or whatever you think that AC Adapter can supply past that limit, as it may have headroom.)

 

We still need to be able discuss among us about the downsides of the 51m.

For example the 2400Mhz ddr4 limit is crazy.... It should never have been. There is no limit from Intel, or anyone.
We dunno yet but Dell decided for some reason that don't benefit the consumer to limit it.

I think its only so they can impove it for version 2 and sell more units. They holding the computer back so they can add featuers that already should be in the laptop. I hope I'm misstaken!

The power bricks are also insane... I have seen bricks that can easy perform 500watt, and bricks that perform 250 watt and smaller then their 180 watt. Its just lazyness and unsmart way of saving money. It would have costed them maybe 10 usd more to make 2 bricks that are same size as their 180watt. So they save 10 usd on a 4000usd laptop!

Hell, give me the option when config my laptop and add, you want buy extreme brick, yes or no, extra cost 50 usd. I would had paid for it! SO they would even have made more money!