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

Hi guys, I've been away for 4 months and this thread continues to grow...

I'm still on the oldest BIOS and drivers and the laptop has been flawless until now, did I miss any important "upgrades" ? Or are we still running at 2400Mhz?



Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

Yep.

There were some rumors of higher frequency coming, someone had a screenshot of it working but that was about it.

Umar said that if you had a certain ADATA memory set, with specific Samsung chips then it would work, but there is no way to know what your getting for chip supplier when you buy the ram, so no real way to know if your getting the right stuff. I think they are continuing to try and get it working, but as usual we have to just wait and see.

There were a few people around here trying to reprogram their ram or something like that, I didn't follow that to closely to be honest.

General consensus is most if not all of us are still at 2400mhz.

I noticed zero difference on mine, but I have the 9900k / 2080 combo. Let us know how it goes.

 

If it ain’t broken, don’t try to fix it!

 

Let us know if your ram will run at that speed.

 

that order was cancel due to a payment problem on my end and it says 2800MHZ on my new order.

and i have a screen shot of my old order too to prove they lowered it

 

Hi Again

Thanks for the feedback.

Regarding option 1, I think that's the one I agree would make the most sense. I wrote down all the steps so people could have a look and see if anything stands out to them. If you could give it a run through just to see, I'd be incredibly appreciative as someone who has actually performed it would be great to consult.

Regarding option 2, I hazard to say this but I have been very unlucky with my Alienware products to date. I don't like saying this because usually it actually indicates inexperience or user error etc but that's just my take on it. I had done this with a Dell engineer remotely (after I initially tried it months ago) however he wasn't able to help either. I'd imagine that if the people who have done it can't see anything wrong and if Dell themselves can't then we pretty much have our answer.
I say unlucky because I've built my (typically high end watercooling throughout with 1-2 GPUs, my first true HEDT had a 295x2 which I loved and still have) and family's own desktops for years now and could solve everything that came up. My experience with Dell has been pretty traumatic.
The people trying to help over the phone are typically pretty nice but they're limited by being remote and the engineers they contract to do the jobs don't give a **** and ruin the machines (my 17R5 for example). The 51m had very few issues, mostly niggles, until the BIOS but I seem to just be hitting a brick wall.

In terms of actually diagnosing the differences (Dell still say it's an issue with the MOBO rather than software/firmware) I have tried playing around with some settings I think would actually make a difference in the BIOS however nothing actually helped.

I had Secure Boot disabled already but I believe this should be the case with BIOS changes?
I tried disabling "BIOS recover from hard drive" which is a bit ambiguous as to which hard drive but then the rollback gave an error and wouldn't happen so I believe this is the flashdrive, I've re-enabled it since.
Trying to run the BIOS from Windows by forcing it (the same way you force it when you don't have an AC adaptor) didn't work either.

At this point I think I might see if it is at all possible to get Dell China to replace the MOBO. They did this when I lived in Spain, it's from the UK, but then again China is different in a lot of ways and if Dell China is a separate entity, they may refuse service..

As I tend to go back to the UK every 6 months and only for 1-2 weeks unless there is an emergency, I might not have enough time to see if a MOBO replacement works and get it refunded if not. If a fix isn't released by the next time I come back (considering the virus I have no idea when this would even be, due to all the flights being cancelled), I'm tempted to just cut my losses and get a full refund. I needed this because of travelling for work but if it just ends up like this I might just get a Surface and go back to building custom desktops.. At least when you have an issue with desktops you can fix it!

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/h5g0ajqr5k04ch2/Alienware_Area-51m_1.8.1.rar

 

Temps are just not an issue for 2070+9700K, even OC'd to 5.1 Ghz.

What's weird is that my system is on 1.8.1 and so far no issues, but what I wonder is why my system hasn't tried to rollback, I've seen it doing updates... not sure why it hasn't rolled back yet.

 

I don't think it has the ability to auto rollback. The fact its been removed, for me suggests there is a new one in the pipeline that potentially improves or removes a certain aspect of 1.8.1. You'd like to hope that if there was a 'concern' about 1.8.1 they'd need to alert users somehow and recommend they rollback.

 

you have to manually roll back the bios yourself.

 

The official Dell site lists 2800/2933Mhz XMP options for memory, from what I can tell. Did you guys finally get support for this via a bios update?

 

not yet ...

 

I guess the question is should I at this point.... anyone ever heard what the issues with 1.8.1 were supposed to be? IIRC they just sort of mysteriously pulled it...

 

Has anyone reached out to AW about this? Otherwise this is some blatant false advertising and a rip off.

 

they said march, no clue what day

 

We are now started on the 14 months after the Press Release. And Dell seems have tested it with 2666MHz before Christmas 2018. Could even have been tested before that time as well.

Of course they would equipped it with 2666MHz or even XMP support from the beginning as the press release show, if they have done a proper work with the motherboard. Remember they have the shelves full of 2666MHz ram for all of their other Dell notebook models. They could even charge a lot more as usual for faster ram, if they didn't go cheapo on what's counts, the (MB).

 

Customers being nitpicky about the borderline confidential minutiae of RAM modules used, and their resulting derision of the company's best efforts to deliver memory operating at mere industry-standard speed in their flagship DR laptop must be so frustrating for the hard working engineering team at Dell. Luckily, chances are that, after the spectacular success of Alienware m15 R2 (as evidenced by the roaring interest in the model on NBR), they've finally promoted Mr Bagman to the well-deserved position of Head of Engineering, in which case A51M R2 will come with simple options of 16 or 32GB of BLAZING FAST RAM soldered on for the efficiency, ease, convenience, and whatnot - end of story. Unfortunately, the actual amount of RAM will still probably have to be disclosed - it won't be the iPhone of Windows laptops quite yet, although the team will certainly not rest until they get there.

 

There's always free cheese in a mousetrap.

 

Excuse me, but my Alienware's Bus Interface is PCIe x 16 3.0 @ x8 3.0...

Is that normal??

 

So I just spent a pretty penny on a Silicon Lottery Delidded Intel i9-9900KS Processor rated to 5.2 GHz from HIDevolution (love those guys).

Will this CPU work in the Area 51m or is it just going to melt my machine into a pile of goopy plastic? (Will have pads and paste as well)

 

Normal... IIRC x4 is for each NVMe and x8 for the GPU. 8x 3.0 is more than enough bandwidth for the 2080 anyway.

 

It will work and work well, however, it will be limited to 130w I believe. There are a few guys on here who have tested and use them, search for some of their more recent posts as this was covered only just a few days ago. @Lopt and @Sup3rKillaX

 

Nice cpu :3 but yeahhhhh you are not going to get that puppy anywhere close to 5.2ghz :/ your limited to 130w with the 9900ks in the 51m. I was only able to get mine to 4.8ghz max and that was after an undervolt, now sense your cpu may have a higher quality you might be able to get away with 4.9ghz after you undervolt aswell because the better the silicon quality, the better the undervolting will be so yours may be able to sustain 4.9ghz under 130w maybe even 5ghz if your really lucky but definitely won't go higher than this without breaking through the 130w limit if Dell ever adds support for this cpu it will be Amazing! But sense the limited stock and not available everywhere... I don't see That happening. Oh and no you won't burn anything, from what I have seen this cpu stays cooler than a 9900k easily.

Sent from my GM1917 using Tapatalk

 

When I caught the first glimpse of the alert about your post, for a moment I hoped Alienware reps are back on the forum, ready to support the loyal and dedicated community. Broken dreams, again.

 

Were they ever here? Frank Azor was very sociable and responsive, he’d answer almost any question you’d throw at him on twitter or Reddit if he could. Umar (Community Engagement, ironically, who updates his twitter like maybe once per week if we’re lucky) and Eddy (Alienware Product Marketing) seem like nice guys and will respond if you reach out but they don’t seem to provide any actual info, just typical cryptic PR stuff.

 

It's a nice CPU for sure, but you will not get the full unleashed power of it.

If I were to buy a 51M again today, I'd stay with the 9700K as it runs cooler to almost the same gaming performance.

 

Yes, back in 2015. Alienware Perras or something like that was the username, a lady AFAIR. They still enjoy an occasional rep visit in Dell Precision forum.

 

You’ve learned well young grasshopper.

 

There use to be a couple reps here and Frank even answered direct questions here as well. I don’t think they could stand the heat and jumped ship pretty quick as Mr Fox and a few others raked them over the coals here.

 

As others have mentioned, you have 130W power budget to work with before throttling occurs on the 51m. I would assume that when the KS is paired with a significant undervolt, you should be able to hold 5Ghz in (some) games, depending on ambient temperatures and fan speed. Whereas, 4.8/4.9Ghz would be more likely for titles using AVX. Only way to know for sure, is to test it and see how far you can push the undervolt.

 

More than likely no 9900ks is getting 5ghz in this machine. I've tested 2 of them already, first one could do 4.7 max and next one was able to do 4.8.

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To be honest, the performance gains in games at 5Ghz vs 4.8 is negligible and not detrimental. Unless that 5Ghz OCD has you.

 

I haven't really tried to push for 5ghz 4.8 has been more then satisfying :0

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I know I'm alittl late but Happy birthday

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Haha thanks brother, appreciate it!

 

Frank was never active on Reddit outside of an AMA or two. Umar was around for awhile but people just wanted to use him for tech support, and he is not in support so it wasn't really working out that well. People on Reddit are also hilariously bad for interaction. We could plan an AMA or a feedback session and post it for weeks in advance and no one would show up, but they would all complain in other places. Everyone just wants to complain anonymously without actually putting in effort to change it.

This is an understatement....it got downright toxic around here when Alienware swapped to BGA in their models, and even earlier with the locked down 17R1 bios. I couldn't even stand coming here, there was nothing positive at all and it wasn't just due to company design choices. Some people seem to think that because they don't like something, that no one else should either. It amazes me how much effort and time people put into something they clearly hate so much.

I may not agree with all of Alienware's choices, but that does not mean I am going to stop trying to help people as best I can.

 

LOL

 

I think you have an implied point about the merits of keeping all the criticism constructive. However, we should not refrain from criticism where it's clearly due. This may well come from Alienware's former customers who loved the past products but had to abandon the brand due to firm's subsequent decisions. It may also come from current customers who may have found that their products do not work as expected or advertised, or others, like myself, who can't just passively observe evolution of their favourite product line in ridiculous directions. I mean who really stands to gain from slow soldered RAM in a $2k+ high performance/enthusiast laptop? BTW the fact that someone tends to levy critique at AW, doesn't mean that they have stopped helping people the best they can - often these are some of the most knowledgeable and helpful people around.

 

Critique is fine but i swear some of the post on here are just complaining.

This will be 2nd Alienware, and thermals have always been meh so it doesnt really feel like they listen but as far as options with a full 2080, there are prob the best looking personally. the whole reason i went with a 51m was that it cools better than the 17 and they wont put a full 2080 in the 17

 

I just can’t understand why Alienware and their people think it’s ok or somehow a good idea to leave customers out in the dark. For example, Area 51m has been out for 1 year, Frank Azor said openly back in January of 2019 that OLED/4K Area 51m was approx 6-8 months out—1 year later we still have NO update or even a hint as to if Area 51m was just a one-off reboot or if we’re going to see a refresh. And still no recent update about when/if a BIOS update supporting higher wattage or faster RAM.

Alienware’s social media presence and customer outreach is a joke. Compared to some other major electronics companies they very rarely update their twitter accounts, and when they do it’s with silly questions like “What’s the best quote a character ever said?” where no one responds. In this day and age it’s just frustrating, and I know I’m complaining now, but damn you expect more for what you pay I guess.

 

If none complaining, all we will get is even worse. None is or was toxic, only honest (I followed all threads and in different forum together with etc bro @Mr. Fox + many others). That’s the reason Frank Azor never came back. He couldn't handle the valid critism. When you destroy your own legacy, You just can't expect that the community will sit down and applaud it. Just look at what Alieneware has delivered the last years. Not so pretty as you can see. And I don't talk about a nice metal body.

 

L_Porras, Luis_Pardo, Natalia_J, etc...there were a lot circa 2011-2013 that would often repeat or rehash what had already been said without giving any real new or useful information. The left when we all started roasting them about why they signed the BIOS files and we couldn’t flash unlocked versions anymore, that whole uproar was the start of it. Azor came by once around 2014-2015 when the BGA transition happened and we lit him up, left after that too.


The communal gripe at the time was Alienware claiming you be “high performance machines” when they were clamping town TDP, encrypting the BIOS, etc. Remember we were high off the heels of the very successful M18x R2, and the downhill slide started with the Alienware 18

 

I think they got exactly what they deserved. I can assure you that it had nothing to do with expecting the folks with lower standards and expectations needed to change on account of those of us that had higher standards and expectations.

Those of us that were no longer satisfied with the downgraded garbage they were offering were only disgruntled because they no longer offered an acceptable alternative. It never really mattered to me that they offered lesser alternatives because there was always something better. They were offering lesser products long before they stopped offering superior products. Then came the random lies, misrepresentations, unfulfilled commitments. And, right before that is when they started with the firmware cancer and digital castration tactics. The final nail in the coffin was the severely compromised hardware offerings.

I moved on and discovered better things because of it, so it's all good. It no longer matters and I am ultimately better off because of it. Plus, I'm not a customer and never will be again. No longer even an option at this point. But, that's OK. All is forgiven now, but none of it will ever be forgotten. Ultimately, I suppose I should be grateful because I no longer have any adoration or loyalty for any brand. Results are the only thing I give any of them ounce of credit for. No results, no credit. Want me to buy something? Then offer me something I want. That's how I roll now, and it's really awesome. Everyone should try it. I highly recommend it.

Both of you are spot-on, deadly accurate. But, a lot of people here never saw that and never knew what a great company they used to be, and never knew how great the products were that they used to offer. Nothing is the same now except the name. And, all of the complaints and disappointments with what remains is completely justified.

No point in crying over spilled milk. Rather, we should all be crying about what has happened to the industry in general. Alienware isn't the only notebook manufacturer that sucks now. They all do, but they suck in varying degrees.

Yup, 100%... and even us grumpy old guys that expected better things are with you on that. All of us are still here and happy to lend a helping hand to friends in need. That is our tie that binds. I'm focusing on that now. It's a happier place, and it's brand agnostic.

 

I did, just on principle that 1.8.1 was pulled, I do not Notice any differences between them.

The info I was told ( from a rebuilder ) is that these Faster Ram builds are ONLY coming direct from DELL and are built to order? or only available IF you order the Faster Ram at time of purchase, I assume these are Special in some way either being built and loaded with an in house BIOS during build and testing to confirm it meets whatever tolerances they have decided on / then loaded with the Public BIOS and locked down before shipment, I IMAGINE possibly 1.8.1 *might* have been pulled because something in it messes with these Faster Ram configurations and Dell did not want any RMA's on them ? It's one possible scenario.

Mine also from HID works fine.

Also on a side note, I am not so much of a twitter user however I tweeted UMAR and he did reply,



So maybe we will see new BIOS in a few days, hopefully with some improvements.

 

He retweeded a few of us on the throttling and nothings been done there so good luck

 

That sorta makes it sound like collusion to me, if only select kits approved by Dell are allowed to run above 2400Mhz. And it goes against the spirit of an upgradable laptop, since you dont really get a choice.

However, I bet if you were to get a hold of one of these 'approved' kits, read their XMP profile with Thaiphoon burner.. Then burn the XMP timings onto another pair of faster sticks... You'd have them puppies running dellaware speeds.

 

Awesome. thanks for that. I tweeted him a question recently and didn’t want to bother him again.

 

Of course you'll see new bios pop up. The latest bios for Alienware is a lot older than what you find from all the other Dell machines. Most of them is patched up duo all discovered Intel security vulnerabilities detected Autumn / winter. And more will come. But those new one won't exactly increase performance or make you happier

Not as easy delete implemented unwanted uCode in the firmware as in the OS

 

Most likely that's true. I am thinking that the RAM speeds turned into a real PAIN point for them otherwise why would they even try ? Based on all the other things they ignore and avoid I just think it's interesting that they chose to do the RAM at all.

On a completely unrelated issue, has anyone run into a situation where screen saver and turn Off screen do not work ? ( to keep it on topic specifically on the Area51m )

I have gone through all the settings I can remember, usually when something like this happens in Windows it's just a matter of Changing the settings and then they start working again but not this time. I have changed and recreated Power profiles, I have done everything I can think of sort of reinstalling Windows which I am not in a hurry to do as everything else is working.

I can't figure out what could be not only disabling screen saver from ever starting and also keep power profiles from ever turning off the display, except that they are both timer related.

Open to any ideas suggestions.

 

The definition of upgradeable/customizable notebook. Pick what you want but don't expect hardware/firmware outside Dells own shelves or validation will work.

 

Yea Dell has a very interesting in house definition of "UPGRADEABLE" , while it makes great Business sense I am not sure it would hold up to the definition of what a reasonable consumer would expect, if it came to a class action suit.