*OFFICIAL* Alienware Area-51M R2 Owner's Lounge

Oh I can't believe other people saw that "white" thing too. White is ok if you like it but imo it has no place in high traffic areas, like keyboards for instance. I'm not saying black is perfect but when black gets a bit gunked up you clean it, no worries. White stains or alters shade so easily. You won't find offices stocking white office chairs. White rugs? Only if you can afford to simply buy new ones every time they get beyond help. But even worse, for a laptop which costs thousands of dollars you value your branding so much you won't even give customers a choice? That's like "hey we really like this Mercedes, can you get us a black one?" "No, I'm afraid they only come in white" HUH?

I waited 2 months from the factory to get a car in black with a black interior. I prefer black on a fairly serious basis. Apple wanted to sell things only in white once too. Surface Pro once came in only that grey. Both companies started offering black devices and sales went way up. Meanwhile Dell does the opposite. They used to offer black and now they limit it so you can only get black in low end configurations? Wow, sales must be really, really good over there at AW, because I never saw a sales manager ever who told management he wanted to lower sales, limit customer choices so the company could make money. Branding? You think Ferrari's only come in red? I'm not sure where their marketing team got their degrees but the insanity of that move boggles the mind. Go do a search on reddit for the number of times Lunar White comes up as stained, marred, discolored, and it happens with that "super clear coat" too so that didn't help much. Why are mice black? Keyboards? You make plates white because you wash them every day. But, as I said, AW sales must be spectacular because they can make moves like this and management doesn't even care. The entire rest of their business sells black machines far and wide to the corporate world, big box stores and online retailers far and wide. But AW, they're special. White only for you!


As far as the AGA, that is another "huh what?" moment. So you take THE connector that has been used across your devices for over half a decade and say it has no future because it can't be made to support the 3xxx gpu's (or anything beyond that either), save for the 3070 which doesn't even work yet. Then you proudly introduce the M15/M17 R4's which happily list the AGA connector as a feature on this brand new machine! Um sorry I think the marketing group went to sleep again. Please wake them up they forgot they've still got jobs. So which is it? What will we do with it, scrounge ebay for old GPU's on our brand new machine? Ok so you think, well they'll have some "new" device that uses the connector to replace it. But in the very same sentence he says "no refresh is planned". Really, so ok you cleared the air, is it supported going forward or not, no it's not. Ok well chaching their goes a chunk of your value proposition. But if you say that you don't even have enough information or enough smarts to offer up something to take over? Something? Why bother putting it onto the R4's? R4 owners can't even find the AGA at all because the supply chain has stopped. You couldn't make this stuff up. But they did. Wow.

Intel can be blamed for a great many woes, but these two moves are classic business 101 blunders on just how not to run a business. To the degree to which you can you offer customers options, like colors. Every business knows colors cost money to stock, so you have to have some limits. But seriously they were down to just two. Decades ago Alienware had lots of colors. Then there were a few, now just one. Because their supply chain is so pricey, and their brand recognition is so much in danger if they offer even one more color (which is hugely popular across the IT industry) and go back to the stupid beige color we had in the 1990's. Please Dell wow us with your AW success story. Somehow we're missing it. Killing off the AGA, well not good but honest and clear. But including it on a brand new product and then offering absolutely ZERO guidance on what you plan to do to replace it? Let's see how many boxes for eGPU's are on the market? How popular is the concept of taking some device and then putting a better GPU on it when it gets back to the desk? (big)

I bet AW's office has some nice big Lunar White rug on the front entryway that has a thousand old soda stains on it. Lovely.

 

I feel nearly insane for asking this, but has anyone "tried" a TB connected eGPU on the 51M?

 

Geat question. 51Ms still have very capable CPUs and should do well with and an eGPU connected to an external monitor. There should only be a very small perf hit at 4K.

 

Thank you for posting this, will probably cop one for future upgrading. Have bought a m.2 drive heat sink bracket from Deals4go before and so far so good.

 

Here is some TB3 vs AGA (RIP) comparison done with AW 15 R3: https://egpu.io/forums/builds/2017-...-xg-station-pro-win10-1803-itsage/#post-57290

 

Yep I've seen some comparisons. With the 51M wiring being a bit different for the TB controller but offset by a desktop chipset, maybe it works almost as well or maybe not. Not expecting a huge set of hands raised but couldn't hurt to at least ask.

 

Dell want to be different vs the competitors. I wonder where they saw that their customer base wanted White machines over anything else. Maybe the next will be pink?

You can still find the AGA for sale and put it in the basket Only $206.99

 

I replaced 3 thermal pads Surrounding GPU with 1.5mm gelid pads. My GPU is heating up very fast like it made performance worse. I compared them side by side new to old and they matched up. Should I change them out for 1 mm? I feel like the more I mess with the stock stuff the worse the performance gets lol

 

Yes, you should change it with 1mm. The oem pads are very soft so they are making good contact when you put the heatsink. Aftermarket thermal pads are not so soft as OEMs so 1.5mm is preventing heatsink to sit properly on GPU.

 

blagh do I need to repast too or you think it’s ok to leave current paste

 

It is recommended but I personally don't change the paste each time when I tear down the heatsink. I just getting the old paste from the heatsink (around the edges) with very clean opening tool and put it on the center of the chip again. I didn't notice any differences in temps. Just be careful if you do that because you can leave scratches on the copper side of the heatsink. Be very gentle

 

Ok will do thanks I did notice there’s some pretty large scratches in the copper from before I even started messing with it

 

That made a huge difference instead of skyrocketing GPU now it sits at ~70 with a heavy load awesome
The green ones near CPU look like they match the 1.5 also should I use the 1.5s or 1s like the GPU?

 

If the temperatures are ok with 1.5mm and there are marks on the thermal pads by the heatsink pressure then you can stay with 1.5mm. I noticed on mine laptop that on the right side of the cpu if I put 1mm there are slightly to none contact with the heatsink... the other places are ok with 1mm...every heatsink is different.

 

Papusan you are correct, sorry, you can still get them in some places.
And as for pink, yikes...

 

Hi Spartan,
I use Reflect too. I'm curious as to how you made the MacriumRescue.iso without having to install the program first, especially as it places all your drivers in the rescue files?

Edit:
Although I'm quoting my new A51m R2 in my signature, I don't receive it until the 10th February. The only reason I'm mentioning this is because the UPS tracking info says the machine is coming from China. How long have Dell been building their stuff in China?

 

I install it once, create the ISO, then uninstall it removing all the traces.

 

That makes sense.

 

ALOT of companies have been for a while, especially when it's customized configurations. Lenovo, Dell/Alienware, Microsoft(when you could customize controllers), list goes on.

 

At least since 2015.

 

I understand it's the American way to denigrate anything to do with China, and indeed we British also have a problem disassociating ourselves from the connotations arising from the label "Made in China", however my personal experience has been rather mixed.

On one hand, I abhor the Chinese insistence on refusing to pay a professional translation company in order to produce advertising, product manuals, and even products themselves without ridiculous errors that more often than not end up making no sense whatsoever. I have attached a few examples.



On the other hand, we have a home cinema which previously featured a top of the range Panasonic HD projector. It was very expensive but produced a very good image, except when in 3D. Its bulb life was 2000 hours and to replace it cost over $400. New Chinese LED projectors boasted superior performance with a bulb life of 30,000 hours and can be had for the cost of 2 Panasonic bulbs. We took the plunge for a Chinese XGIMI projector and it is light years ahead in terms of absolutely everything (image quality, refresh rate, saturation, perfect 3D and 4K).

Since 2014, we have had a NEFF coffee machine. This is a top of the range German brand. It has performed faultlessly ever since and, you guessed it, the manual claims it was "Made in China".

I think the Chinese have come a long way since the 80's when they were known for crappy quality souvenirs and gimmicks sold in toy shops. I don't know that their quality can yet be compared with the Japanese but the fact that Dell products are Chinese manufactured doesn't worry me. I do find it surprising though because I tend to remember Dell/Alienware as being top quality American products.

 

Seems like my post was misinterpreted here.
I have no experience with Alienware products manufactured outside of China, so it is hard to say if there are problems with the Chinese factory.

 

The issues are with the designs rather than the manufacturing such as the infamous tripod heatsink.

 

No QC issues? Interesting,.

 

This will be my 5th Alienware laptop. Before those I had 3 Dell laptops so, although I have often considered changing to MSI, I stuck with them due to their onsite guarantee which, AFAIK, no other manufacturer offers here in Europe.

Where my Alienware purchases are concerned, I have never had a single laptop that worked as it should straight out of the box but, sticking in there and allowing Dell's phone tech support to do their diagnostics, I either got a working machine via onsite repairs or, a replacement machine. Replacement machines never seem to have any problems. Perhaps I have just been lucky? The only thing that has upset me with onsite repairs is that either the tech loses screws and claims they weren't really necessary anyway, or he scratches the machine. One time, it got scratched so badly that Dell agreed to replace the chassis. I now sit next to onsite techs to make sure they do their job properly.

In summary, from personal experience, once I have wasted months harrassing Dell for a machine that works as it should, I eventually ended up with a very nice performer. The downside for me has been that when the machine arrives within a month of its warranty expiring, it usually goes wrong BIG TIME! That said, on 3 occasions that happened, Dell gave me a new machine so, I can't really complain.

 

This sounds bad.

 

Yeah, it's true that a working machine, straight out of the box, is what we expect, especially at the price we are paying!
The onsite guarantee is expensive but, if you had to purchase a motherboard... I say that because my current machine an AW17 R4 has already had 2 motherboards replaced, and now that it needs another one and AW can no longer supply one, they are giving me an A51m R2 to replace it with.

My R4 is now 4 years old. After the first 3 year's premium support ran out, I purchased a 1 year extension for 303 Euros. Glad I did because if I hadn't, I would be looking at a replacement machine today for around 5k Euros.

Edit:
I should add, my son has an Asus ROG73 which had to go back to workshop once. When it came back it had several scratches and Asus claimed they were already there when it arrived. It was his baby and he never scratched it ever.

Many years ago, I worked in HP's warranty department. Customers would send in laptops and iPaq's and we would receive notifications from the workshop that the screen was broken and we had to ask the customer to pay for it. Customers would go insane and often provided photos showing the screen was in perfect condition when packaged prior to dispatch. My dept manager told me "Either they pay or we send the machine back unrepaired." One day, I had the occasion to go downstairs to the workshop and witnessed a tech intentionally smashing the screen on an iPaq. I told my manager what I had seen because, as far as I was concerned, this was proof that the customers were telling the truth. My manager replied "We are not a charity! Like any company, we have to make money. Guarantee repairs cost us money so we have to recoup the loss somehow. Either you accept that and shutup or you can leave." So I told her to shove her job where the sun doesn't shine and left immediately.

I hope they don't behave like that anymore and I hope other companies don't follow the same lack of ethics. Nonetheless, it helps me to put the treatment we get from Dell in perspective.

 

OK. Executive summary: avoid laptops like a plague, and use desktops whenever possible.

 

Why, are they more reliable?

 

As a counter point i've had 5 different Alienware laptops and never had any quality control issues.

The only issue i had was buying a Alienware 17 R4 with the tripod issue ( I didn't do my research that i normally do) since it was to replace a old M17x R4 with a failed GTX 680m and bought rather hastily.

On the other hand though Dells software is ****e. AWCC can go die in a hole.

 

What is this tripod issue please?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ything-you-need-to-know-now-and-later.799020/

Take a look at this monstrosity.

 

Of course. I've literally never had any desktop failure or HW issue apart from HDDs dying of old age.
It's easy to see why too: heat is the main enemy and desktops have proper cooling and thus components tend to run cooler overall
Should any issues occur, even out of component warranty, everything is industry standard, fully upgradable and much cheaper to repair. The upfront cost of a desktop is of course much lower compared to an "equivalent performance laptop", which is no longer even meaningful in the RTX3080 era.

 

Desktops are out for me because I use my laptop to run my business with and have to take it with me occasionally. I rarely play games. In fact, the only games I ever play are Skyrim and Witcher 2. Neither have caused my machine to overheat although Witcher 2 can get the fans spinning at times.

Does the A51m suffer from this tripod issue or has the vapor technology solved it?

 

I have had seen all too much of this... This isn't unusual. Rather the normal.

m17 R1, warranty, poor service dell.support


The world record. is + 25 MB swap. Yeah, it was an Alienware laptop. In the end. Dell refused to swap in new motherboards.

And the older models before the BGA times, never had such problems Area 51m R1 battery expanding

Yeah, their software haven't imoroved since I bought my last Alienware in 2013. With everything pushed to the Microsoft Store it won't be any better. Rather the opposite.

The hardware don' run as hot and the hardware isn't crammed into a all too small small chassis with minimale ventilation.

 

Yeah, I used to use my laptop on the go a lot too - a desktop wouldn't work, but with covid and post-covid this could change. A desktop + a cheap laptop as a remote desktop terminal could do the trick.

 

Yes, that would work.

@Papusan, Effing 'ell !! Looks like you get worse service in the US than we do in Europe. I'm not 100% enamored with Dell's service, especially their sales department, but as long as I'm patient (which isn't easy), I have always ended up with a working machine.

The 2 things that really bug me with Dell are:
1. if you use the machine for business and downtime costs you money and lost customers, they couldn't give a sh*t.
2. their stock answer of "back-up all your data and then reinstall Windows."

 

I think U.S support is the best. The worst is India.

And Yeah, reliability is much more important than any premium Warranty/support.
And bad buggy software can be equal problematic as unreliable hardware

Area-51m R2, turns off suddenly

Edit. See the same for their desktops
My R11 with RTX 3080 strated to have the black screen issue... tonight

"So about an hour ago I joined the black screen army of R11"

Review sites have suggested that Dell need to re-design the Chassis. The hardware boil in this chassis.

The sad truth is tah they engineer and design their desktop chassis so small and cute (but a lot bling blin lights) that they are forced to make small custom graphics cards to be able to be used in them. Of course it will run into problems.

R10 Suddenly can't boot?

Brand new R10, maybe 2 months old. I had my computer on, walked away for 2 hours and came back to the screen off. PC was still powered on but couldn't get the monitor to turn on. Tried restarting and the Alienware logo button flashes yellow twice when booting, blue once, yellow once and then back to solid blue. Nothing comes up on the screen and I can't connect to it remotely as I usually can.

 

I understand that the Precision line has better support. Trouble is, the GPU configs are useless for me - I don't need a gimped 80W Quadro card, I'm not a CAD person.
Additionally, Failienware have been dumbing their laptops down in what seems to me like an effort to shoo non-gamers away. Soldered RAM & wifi, only 2 RAM slots, dead AGA, gamery design (although the "legend" design would not be a showstopper for me personally, still prefer the more classic m15 R1 styling). Pretty sad.

 

Thankfully the coldplate for the a51m uses a screw on each corner to provide equal mounting pressure.


The alienware R10/R11 desktop designs are awful. The case is so small and cramped the PSU is some proprietary **** and there is no breathing room for any components. It may as well be a laptop for all the upgradability they offer.

 

Wow, not a single happy customer here!
I remember the days when Notebook Review was THE place to get great advice on getting the best out of your Alienware. After seeing loads of reviews on the A51M R2 on YouTube, of which only one was negative, I thought at last maybe I would get a good laptop from Alienware. Looks like I was wrong.

 

Reviews could be directly or indirectly sponsored.

 

That makes sense.
Oh well, 7 more days to go before Dell rain misery down on me yet again...

 

Yeah, but people jump on it due the name and the new Nvidia cards. Shortage of Ampere cards shouldn't be a reason to buy junk. One more not so happy owner.

STAY AWAY FROM ALIENWARE | my R11 experience

This computer will be the end of me. I got the R11 3080 + i9 10400f. No water cooling.

Ran fine for a week until it started crashing during games. My cpu temps would hit 105 and it would auto shut off. It took me a week to get a technician sent and they came to replace the heatsink. Nothing changed.

I called again, this time asking them to replace the whole thing but Ofcourse they said no. They came a week later and replaced the cpu.

Keep in mind this whole time my pc has been continuously crashing on almost a daily basis. It has to be over 25 crashes now in the past month and a half.

 

I am a happy r2 owner if that wasn't clear. I love my machine. The only thing i don't really like is the RAM lockout but i'm not actually bothered about it i more just disagree with it on principle.

The main problem is dell burnt a lot of bridges with the Area 51m R1. It was supposed to be upgradable and it wasn't and on top of that after a few cards burnt up due to power delivery issues they decided to gimp all the Area 51m owners via a bios update which limited the card temps to 75'c.

Everyone here is enthusiasts and when brands do very anti-consumer moves like those it leaves a very sour taste. Which is why people are less excited about the new products.

 

What is the "RAM lockout"?
When you say they have limited card temps to 75°c, does that mean we have been prevented from overclocking or is this the cause of the machines shutting down?

 

You cannot install 3200mhz aftermarket ram if you originally got the 2933 dell stuff and even if you bought the 3200 not all sticks work.

The 75'c thing was on the A51M R1 which caused the card to thermal throttle way too early losing a lot of performance. Again this was done because of some issues with Cards burning out in the early models. The R2 doesn't have this issue.

 

Well, I’m in on this wagon now. My R2 came in yesterday.
Haven’t had much of a chance to do anything with it yet, but I have 32gb of HyperX ram waiting for tonight.
Hwinfo also states my stock 16gb 3200mhz is Kingston flavored.

Just got 3Dmark and cinebench r20 downloaded and will poke at it tonight when I get off.

 

I ordered the 3200 sticks. Surely, if they don't work they get replaced under warranty so, why do you see this as a problem?

What change/s were made to the R2 to solve the overheating issue?

 

Regarding whats up with Dell and their hunger for full control.

You just use their products under their control. Yeah, you have paid for their products but this doesn't mean you can do whatever you want.

Same philosophy used wen they went with soldered ram and soldered wifi card for the Area-51M thinner siblings.

Lock you out, from doing stupid cheap 3rd party purchases. Upgradeability is and will never be Dell's force. The direction go only one way.

Slightly better cooling and better components as VRM's.