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

What support package and what does your so called support package have anything to do with the installed Dell apps/utilities? They will all function normally it's not like it's an antivirus subscription.

 

.or.....dell is taking the guess work out it and supplying its customers with what they need to make their life easier. What a Co should do

You want to point to the Ram issue? Fair. The 2080 cooling? Fair.

But really....crucifying them because they innovated. Last I checked the expansion docks from other companys dont perform as well and are more expensive.

Oh FYI...I liked my sons AGA so much I bought one for me. So yup...I bought two of them. I figure i can live with no sli. And i actually researched the product and had reasonable expectations. Apparently a lost art.

And as to understanding the market, well...Cracked my first PC open in 1979(a trs-80) and have been building ever since. I have been PC gaming since the beginning...so...I have a unique perspective on these things. Actually...decades..of perspective.

Now my back hurts.

Here's a suggestion. Can we start a new thread...call it the "bellyache about alienware" thread and leave this one folks who want to productively help each other? As much fun as reading all this negativity is, now it will take me forever to find the useful post on Fixing the batt drain issue.

 

keeps telling me i have x amount of days left, support assist is the programes name its a dell programe that updates drivers etc, i want it all gone, no need for it as it keeps bugging me plus any other useless dell apps that are using resources that came with my laptop.

any help would be appreciated

 

Thank you for this!

 

Well you can get rid of them all but I would at least keep the Alienware Pointing Devices App and Command Center. One is for controlling your touchpad, I hate the pinch to zoom feature so I disable it and I increase the palm rejection slider to the max. The Command Center is needed for adjusting your lighting colors and/or doing some basic overclocking or undervolting.

SupportAssist and Dell Update can be uninstalled safely. See this guide, it will show you where to look for remnants from SupportAssist: Guide: How to "Clean Install" Dell SupportAssist

 

Not to put too fine a point on this..but Dells own words..

..."offer support for a single full-length, dual-wide, PCI-Express x16 graphics card. This system can support graphic cards of up to 375W and NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 Ti as well as AMD Radeon RX series and newer."

AND (Dell highlighted in yellow with a big red triangle)
" Important:Certain retail cards may have larger heatsinks and other elements that may not let them fit inside the graphics amplifier. The Alienware Graphics Amplifier is designed to fit standard size graphics cards (Reference and Founders Edition)."

If it looks like transparency, and it tastes like transparency....well....

 

thank you

 

In order to get this exchange back on the intended track and further expand on the gist of the part of my original post on Alienware's execution problems devoted to the AGA, we carefully observe the fairly obvious: there is indeed room for improvement over the current (virtually unchanged since inception 6 years ago) implementation, e.g. in the form of:

1. A larger and quieter PSU
2. More space to accommodate a wider range of cards
3. More efficient and quieter cooling solution that again works well with a wider range of cards

Of course, resourceful users often take matters into their own hands, and replace the PSU, fans, remove redundant grilles, drill holes, fit additional fans etc. in order to make the device fit for purpose. The need for the end users to do that is of course disappointing and inefficient. Food for thought for Dell management and engineers.

 

Yes , I joined a few weeks ago. got a good deal for $17xx.xx after tax from dell outlet RTX 2070 i7-9700K 16GB RAM 144hz screen ....etc....

 

thats right. and much higher risk of losing a ton of money by putting into 18 inch and bunch of storage into a single chassis. with modular design they are forcing you to upgrade as you cannot upgrade GPU with existing mxm cards, theres the risk of losing small client base like enthusiasts but get ton more sheeples to follow and defend them instead who don't understand computer and quality product.

with eGPU option, another great way to milk external units making it only their eGPU work with their own machine, im sure this can easily be achieved.

if so innovative, why not just give mxm with the choice of upgrade + eGPU? why only egpu. there are night and day differences here, not being first is a small matter. in other words, innovation in milking.

not at all, they have gone back wards. inverse innovation to be exact. they simply dumb it down so much that it now became the norm and people compromised and treat their subpar quality as the norm.

if I pay you $100/hr for your job then get rid of you, to pay new hires for $50/hr for 5 years and now becomes the norm, i guess you call that innovation too, in a business sense. theres no need to justify their bad doing, we spend big bucks and we want the best.

@Mr. Fox @Papusan and those who held m18x will remember what dell decided to do with the opinions of enthusiast.

 

No I do not own the Area 51M and will not be purchasing one unless it can be proven to be a reliable performer.

 

So they provided an upgrade path thier last Laptop generation did not have....but your issue is its not the upgrade path you favor? Lol.

And when they clearly explain limitations of the product....that's dumbing it down? Lolx2.

But please. Continue proving my earlier point on why dell does not hang out here.

I actually think Frank A did not leave cuse the 51 was bad....he left cuse he would did not want to hear this nonsense...

Clevo....its better in every way except looks. Just ask 50% of posters here. But I warn u...most have never seen one IRL yet alone owned one.

 

Yes if not, it would have been quite tragic if Dell would proceed with 2400MHz ram as the 10th gen chips will have up to DDR4-2933 MHz native support And not forget add in the 128GB ram support as 9th gen chips already have. For now, Dell haven't followed Intel specs at all for their gaming flagship.

 

they are reliable.

 

So they're not blowing up RTX 2080s anymore?

 

wrong

wrong x2

wrong everywhere lul

nt, but try again!

 

I loved Total Annihilation I probably logged more time on that game then any other back in the day, CaveDog was an excellent studio.


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I haven’t seen any fresh burnouts mentioned around here for a while, anyone else seen any posted recently anywhere else ?


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I bought an AGA when I arrived in China to alleviate the issues with the BIOS.

I modified it in the below ways which worked well but inevitably the AGA had too many stutters for my liking in competitive FPS, if this is your intended use case then external GPUs (even the AGA over PCIE) may not be ideal.

• Upgraded PSU, I used my 1200W from my old desktop as it was the only one I had and it would hardly ever even ramp up so kept things very quiet. The top didn't fit perfectly when I did this but I retained the latch which would close with a tiny bit of effort but the PSU is big, more typical PSUs should fit much better.
• To fit the PSU I had to remove a decent amount of metal and plastic from the rear which even with my limited tools after just arriving in another continent was easy enough.
• The internal fan uses a tiny 2 pin which is just not very easily replaceable with a quieter/stronger equivalent. I bought a SATA powered fan hub for like £5 and a Noctua redux (I think 8cm?) which although also not PWM controlled is so quiet that it doesn't make much noise, if you wanted it to be quieter then it would be easy to put a cable between to lower the power.

I was/still might go ham on it and remove the PCB and build another enclosure as a fun project after finishing my next desktop build. I found that unlike other external GPUs, the AGA works without the lid needing to be closed in order to work. Using another PSU and the fan hub with some low power fans would be an option and allow for bigger GPUs.

Due to the above, if fitting bigger a GPU is absolutely necessary then you could use it more like an open air testbench until you get a better solution.

All in all it served a purpose for a while but depending on what your use case is it might not be for you.

 

Alienware can claim its proprietary external graphics solution is faster than Thunderbolt 3 counterparts. This isn’t necessarily true depending on the host Alienware computer. Based on CUDA-Z numbers and comparison with the Razer Core using the Blade Stealth as well as the Z170 Test Bench, this Graphics Amp may not always perform at full x4 PCIe 3.0 speed. Unless Dell decides to publish this information, the only way to figure out what speed you’ll get is to pair your compatible Alienware computer with the AGA. In addition, the x2 PCIe routing of Thunderbolt 3 connection in the Alienware 13 R2 (and most of the XPS laptop lineup) shows Dell’s lack of commitment to fulfilling its performance claims.

https://egpu.io/alienware-graphics-amplifier-review-faster-than-thunderbolt-3/

Honestly almost everything is a lottery at dellienware. It does not matter if you pay full price or not. Dellienware can't operate without false advertising....

 

Haven't heard much of those in awhile.

Even so I wouldn't bother with a RTX 2080 when the RTX 2070 Super/2080 Super models will probably come around July, not to mention 10th gen CPUs.

My Area-51m has been stable and no issues of blowing up yet and mine is one of the first batch models.

 

2080 Super is pretty much just a marginally faster 2080 at a lower price, right?
Has there been any concrete information from Dell on the future of A51M and what form it might take? Basically we haven't heard much from them since Azor left, have we?

 

alienware was great back in the days when it was m17xr2, then m18xr1/r2. those years we could really push the limit of our system, with MXM graphics card, fully socketed machine with a single PSU while the ones that needed can go for a dual PSU mod. we paid for the best in mobile section and we pretty much got the best and often times we push beyond both intel and base spec.

 

So cur

On the OLED, are you just talking 15"? Because I have an AW 13 with an OLED going back to I believe fall of 2016... I know because its only eligible for less than two more years right now...

 

Haven’t seen a case in a longtime of it happening. Have had mine since September and a buddy has had his a year now all running perfect. Like all high end machine’s just learn it, tweak it, control it.

 

Sad to see that it didn't work out for you as you might have expected originally. I'm still beating the heck out of my machine as my main powerhouse for both work and entertainment/gaming. It lives in a well ventilated room right next to an aircon and has given me absolutely no troubles what so ever! I keep switching between the laptop keyboard and an external mechanical keyboard from time to time. Still enjoying my 9900K (Not going for the KS. I'll directly jump onto the 11th or 12th gen CPUs.)

 

I have tried everything I could think of to find any information whatsoever on an Area 51m refresh--On Twitter I've messaged Frank Azor, Eddy Goyanes (Alienware Product Marketing since 2004) and also Umar Khan (Alienware Community Engagement) asking specifically about an Area 51m refresh, have scoured the internet for any news or rumors about a refresh, asked Dell, asked Reddit....in the end I've found absolutely nothing.

Even though they didn't really answer the question, I still appreciate them taking the time to respond. Their responses below:

Frank's response to me: "I'm no longer at Alienware sorry but @EddyGoyanes is a great resource to ask. I'm over at @amd now."

Eddy's Twitter Response to me: "Here are two truths and a lie: Since '96 #Alienware has rolled out gaming products w/the latest technologies. Every year new technology updates happen within the PC industry. We are allowed to share our roadmaps publicly."

I understand where Eddy is coming from, and perhaps, possibly, you could interpret his comments as an A51m refresh will happen in the future, but...it sucks we can't get more straightforward answers like Frank Azor would sometimes give.

Umar's Twitter Response to me: a Tom Cruise .gif



I realize that these guys are not going to personally announce an Area 51m refresh to me on Twitter. I realize that. But a year after its release, you would think we'd have at least some indication of a refresh coming at some point, but it seems we currently have nothing.

 

If anyone is interested Halo CE dropped for the master chief collection.

Graphics heavily updated, new animations. Tab lets u switch between classic and enhanced. Difference is dramatic.

 

If you guys wanted to buy a very powerful laptop today what would you buy? Someone wanted to buy my Aero 17 with 64GB ram and I thought to myself what laptop could really replace it.

It's definitely not 51m because I need 4k 100%.

If I were to change, I would definitely look to buy 128GB ram, at least i9 or something with 8 cores.

So far only have this list:



Are there any promising laptops coming this year? My anticipation is either the new 51m or clevo x170, but other than that is there anything new on the horizon? I assume msi will have refresh and maybe gigabyte as well.

I am surprised the laptop scene is a bit lackluster. I need a lot of RAM like 128GB to be able to do my work comfortably with enough cores and base clock and pci-gen 4 speeds would be really great and 4k screen of course. I don't game at all, but I need gaming components for best price/perf.

 

No. The 2080 super costs the same as the 2080 did. But the 2080 got the price drop so they could sell inventory and make room for the super cards. So no discount in price. They are faster, but not worth selling a 2080 for it. The 2060 and 2070 supers were much more noticeable of an upgrade. I would still wait for the 2080 super laptops at this point. As they will likely be the same price with more performance.

 

FYI there is a forum dedicated to general gaming:where this kind of random game announcement would belong:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/forums/gaming-software-and-graphics-cards.26/

 

Now if I was a smart man, which I'm not, I would hold out for the 3xxx series and get a real upgrade.

 

Is a bit faster at basically the same price, although I'm sure nVidia/Dell will find a way to charge more.

I doubt AW will abandon the Area-51m so soon. We will probably at least get a 10th gen version with RTX SUPER cards. Those SUPER cards will probably fit in our Area-51m R1 as well.

If they were willing enough to make a 2nd revision motherboard which supports XMP/2666Mhz+ RAM as some of the rumors are suggesting, I don't see them stopping the Area-51m.

They spend too much $$$ to kill off the Area-51m just now. It will at least get a R2 like almost every single AW I've seen/owned.

Speculations of course..

 

Well if that’s your logic then your a genius my friend. The Super cards are a gimmick to put AMD in their place with the RX5700 was released. That’s all.

 

Would be cool if they could implement BIOS-swtichable Optimus. My 2070 Max-Q draws 6.5W in desktop on battery (when driving an external display), which would be borderline workable, but still an obvious waste. BTW Wonder what that minimal power draw on battery number would look like for the 2070 or 2080 in A51M....

 

Question.

would a 4K lcd need a different cable from the supplied 144hz lcd?

 

Your point?

 

HP had a x360 with oled in September 2016

 

The lack of any leaked hype/rumours is troubling. It could be a result of ungodly mess in the wake of Frank's departure - in this case the dust might settle and the team will get back to work. It could also be a warning that Frank's replacement is currently cleaning house and trying to make her mark by setting a new agenda, likely a combination of the official line from Dell HQ with her Acer experience. Needless to say, the latter scenario is quite likely and could prove ugly. If Dell wanted more of the same they would have promoted someone internally. On top of that there is the virus now.

Oh well, we'll find out what's going on soon enough.

 

Be very careful with coming bios updates from Dell. You are by now warned Nice way trick people (those who know about the problematic Intel fix and want for the bare life avoid it) into update their firmware... Dell, do the best they can... Just hide it and people think they are safe.

At the best... You can be locked even more into Dell's own proprietary ACC/OC tool with no return.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/page-1107#post-10995452

 

Reading the Bios release notes has never been more crucial!

 

Yeah, I know. But it doesn’t matter if the notebook manufacturers hide what they change as you can see Dell prefer.


And with help of Microsoft’s update servers it will be pretty nasty. Should be up to the owners what they want installed on their machines!

As usual. Never ever be anyone’s gp.

 

I'll check my AW Area-51m later and let you know idle 9900K + RTX 2080 power usage

If I remember correctly, cable is same

 

Hello again guys, I have ordered my Area 51m (i9 9900k/RTX 2080) and, as I've said before, I'll buy the ram and the ssd separately, right now I'm looking at this for the ram and the 1TB 970 evo plus for the SSD. Even though I've read alot on this thread I'm open to any advice you may want to give me.

BTW the italian dell store not only doesn't show any RAM options faster than 2400Mhz but it also doesn't offer the AX wifi card in any configuration.

 

Does anyone happen to have/or a link to old AW Command Center download? I'm starting to think that the newest version is causing me my keyboard troubles.

 

Hyper X is good memory. I personally use Corsair vengeance memory for any of my machines. Just because it’s been a brand that has never done me wrong. But I think it’s hard to buy bad ram these days unless it’s not one of the major manufacturers. And the 1 tb 970 evo is a great ssd. Samsung is pretty much the king when it comes to storage. Great warranty period and I’ve never had a problem with any ssd made by them. The only other brand I’d consider is seagate. They make some m.2 and 2.5” ssd that are very well priced and they have good warranty service if anything would go wrong. I’ve tried WD Blue m.2 and it ran fine for a year and now it’s giving me some odd errors lately. So I’ll have to replace it.

And I’d expect the Area 51m to run at 2400mhz for the life of your machine. There is talk about a bios update with faster supported speeds. But if it’s taken them over a year to do something that their older machines could do out of the box I really don’t think you’ll see 2666Mhz speeds.

 

http://downloads.dell.com/published/pages/alienware-17-area51m-laptop.html

 

Awesome..thank you!

 

at what price did you conclude the deal and what did you get?

 

I got the i9 9900k, RTX 2080, 256GB, 8GB RAM, 144hz GSYNC display, Black, accidental damage protection for 2897€; 14% discount.
I think I’ll spend 300/400 more for the ram and SSD.

 

Put the file on the USB drive not the C: drive of the laptop.