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

Well if anything, as someone who also has been desperately seeking information on R2 as well, if you have the time to dig up some older Alienware emails and compare the pics I’d love to know if they are the same or
not! I understand if you don’t have the time or desire, just a thought. Thanks!

 

You miss my point. It was less about the search and more about the content of some recent posts.

 

So this doesnt have any Gen2x2 ports right?


edit: so theyre hoping you'll forget about the gpu problems and be happy with a card slot in the refresh that will most likely be the excact same device but with 10th gen cpu/super gpu?

 

That I can do. So all the 17% promotions have the Area 51m with a card slot. But the older president day sale ones do not. So that would hint at it’s intentional.

 

Interesting! The skeptic in my says it’s just an artist’s rendition photoshop error or something, but I hope I’m wrong! Thanks for checking

 

Interesting but the 51m at the very bottom doesn't have the card slot

 

Rumors are that Nvidia will be releasing super Max-Q mobile GPUs, not releasing full fat Supers into laptops. Is an RTX 2080 Super Max-Q more powerful than a full fat RTX 2080?

 

Exactly. So only the recent promotions show it with the card slot. So it might be a hint there is a revision coming.

Nah. It’ll be a very minor boost. The super cards compared to the non super cards were just minor bumps in performance to force AMD to lower the price of their RX5000 cards on launch day. The 2060 and 2070 super were decent bumps. But the 2080 was very minimal. They didn’t want it to compete with the 2080 Ti.

 

Thought I'd cross-post this here, since both the Precision 7000 series, and the Alienware Area-51M both use the DGFF, even though the actual notebooks are only tangentially related.

I received a rather pleasant surprise 4 days ago: my Quadro RTX 5000 DGFF2 had arrived, and I have installed it in my Dell Precision 7530 notebook, which originally came with a Quadro P3200 GPU.

Before I dive in, let me start with a picture, comparing all three GPUs I've used so far. From left to right:

• Quadro P3200 DGFF2 (Dell P/N XDVC6)
• Quadro RTX 3000 DGFF2 (Dell P/N MWDWM)
• Quadro RTX 5000 DGFF2 (Dell P/N 8CMTP).

This is intended to be a comparison primarily of the overall board layout, the GPU die size and port positioning. The P3200 and the RTX 3000 boards have a lot in common; nearly everything is in almost exactly the same position. VRAM count is the same, at 6 GB.

Some other notes:

1. I had to swap out the heatsink—details mentioned here in the last spoiler.
2. The existing DGFF power cable was almost too short to fit into the RTX 5000's port, which has moved, as one can see in the photos. I just managed to plug it in, but it requires some finger gymnastics.
3. The VRM set-up has increased for the RTX 5000. This makes it likely that it can support more power in, as it is currently set at 80 W.
4. All three boards come with an aluminium EM shield (the latter two on both sides) to reduce anti-static discharge. This was removed to photograph the complete PCB configuration.

The RTX 5000 board is testament to the fact that a powerful GPU, and 16 GB of fast GDDR6 VRAM can be fit onto a board roughly equal to the area of MXM-A. Whether or not it actually happens is merely down to manufacturer willingness to do it. Dell did, and I have now upgraded the GPU in my notebook, twice.

This time, I actually performed some benchmarks to compare between the RTX 3000 and RTX 5000. Results are below.

Spoiler: 3DMark Fire Strike

Spoiler: 3DMark Port Royal

Spoiler: 3DMark Time Spy

TL;DR: the 80 W power limit completely neuters the potential performance of the RTX 5000. I tried flashing the 110W vBIOS posted by @myshko here, but I was greeted with a black screen on boot-up. Flipping the Switchable Graphics option in the BIOS made no difference.

All in all, an easy upgrade, but not particularly worth it.

 

Could of corse be a photoshop manipulation. But a great way to force current Area owners over on the refreshed model. Redesign the MB so much that you can't swap in coming new MB revision (enough changes in the chassis to stop upgrades).


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One years anniversary... Area 51m won’t post after 1 year

 

Hahahaha everyone, get your Dremels ready, we’re getting an SD card slot with our R2 mobo upgrades!!!

 

Very interesting, TFS. Good to see that the upgradeability is real, but the 80W TDP is simply sad. The TS score is around stock 2070 Max-Q running at 90W. What was the max temp the RTX 5000 reached during benching? What thermal compound did you use?

 

Did anyone notice they released a sleeve for us?

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/ali...aphics/apd/aa845444/gaming-gaming-accessories

 

Temperatures are typically around 60 °C, maybe reaching 70 when playing games that hit the CPU, too (Witcher 3, SOTTR, Civ VI, AC:Odyssey). Thermal compound was Cooler Master MasterGel Maker Nano.

The RTX 5000 actually has more VRAM and more cores than any other notebook GPU except the RTX 6000, but the 80 W comes from it being Max-Q, I would gather.

The desktop card has a 265 W TDP, and performs appropriately. I'd just like to see if I can raise this to ~120 W, so see a noticeable boost in performance. Unfortunately, the TDP Tweaker apparently still only works for Pascal.

On the bright side, I paid only US$200 for this card, so it was an absolute steal.

 

Apparently, RTX 5000 Max-Q comes in 80, 85, and 90W variants:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Quadro-RTX-5000-Laptop-Graphics-Card.423752.0.html

Dell picked the weakest one. Likely something to do with the decision to make the laptop "thin and light", which unfortunately also means "slower and hotter"

 

My notebook is in no way thin, nor is it light—it's 2.6 kilos after the heatsink upgrade, and is more than 2.5 cm thick.

I'd say it's just a poor engineering decision. I still have my Pascal P3200 DGFF—I'm planning to extract the VBIOS from that, and jack up the power limits on that to 120 W and see where we get. Wouldn't be much better than where the RTX 5000 is now, I'd gamble.

 

Nice, I wonder if this will fit inside the elite backpack...!

 

Well it’s a bad motherboard anyway so a new one brings fresh hope.

 

Depends if Dell follow same paths or not Components on Alienware's MB often go to Hell before or later. Just ask @Raidriar who posted here or bro @Mr. Fox who have seen it too often. Both known for having this brand as their first choice.

 

I’ve burned 3 Alienware 18 boards in exactly the same place using factory settings and equipment. From that point on I did not bother repairing the machine a 4th time and did not purchase another Alienware since then. Meanwhile all my Alienware machines prior to that are still pushing along just fine. Many other Alienware 18 users experienced the same mode of failure, not just me. When I saw the RTX 2080 was blowing up Mosfets and Dell’s solution was to reduce power instead of replace with beefier components, I ruled the A51M out

 

Yup M18xR2 from 2012 still kicking.

M14xR2 still working and just received 2920XM upgrade.

Area-51m R2 confirmed lol

 

You’ve mentioned you had some issues with Alienware that lead you not to trust them in the future. But, having the same problem 4 times? Jeez. I would’ve lost it after the second. Definitely not encouraging. Can only imagine your disappointment with how things are turning out.

 

Just like my R4. Only i had the luck that it was 1 day before my anniversary. That's how i got my R5. Seeing that the 51m did not change, we can effectively say AW has been avoiding this issue almost for 10 years now already, and people are still willing to purchase them.

 

I have been experiencing random pops whilst watching YT videos or gaming using the laptop speakers (can't say I have noticed it yet via headphones or external speakers), I then saw someone report a similar issue on Reddit and suggested it was caused by DPC Latency. Below are my current results, can any of you guys share results from your own machine and advise if you have experienced the audible pops whilst the laptop speakers are in use?

I appreciate any support.

Link for tool if needed: https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/latencymon.html



The below 3 are normally the worst offenders despite the first image suggesting otherwise.

 

Here j00 g0:

BIOS = 1.8.1
Drivers installed: Alienware Area-51m Drivers 13-March-2020
OS: Dell Factory Image of Windows 10 Home then upgraded to Windows 10 Pro for Workstations via a key then updated to the latest Windows 10 Build 1909
Antivirus: VIPRE Antivirus Plus

 

Thanks bro, do you see similar results whilst watching audio is coming from the speakers or is the above in that scenario?

 

@Spartan I've installed all the drivers you have and it still seems to be the same culprits causing the high latency. Its probably not a big deal but now that I can hear the popping its like I can't un-hear it.

Is DPC Latency in most cases a driver issue or can it be a hardware fault? In other words am I best to speak to Dell Support or try and fix it myself?

 

I am not too sure bro, I have never had this on any Dell laptop.

Send me your TeamViewer ID/Pass let me have a look at your taptop.

 

You just being silly now.....the search feature is WAY to complicated for most people to figure out. /s

 

LUL

Everytime I use search, it gives me all search-related posts from the forum (works normal). Then I click on one of the posts I want to see and ... this comes up.



All I can do then is look at the date of the post and search manually in the forum.

After I get the above 'message', the forum becomes unavailable for like 5 minutes throwing the same message continuously.

 

Alienware Area 51m crippled by DPC latency dell.com/community/Alienware¨


I would ask for a speaker swap. Popping speakers have been a ongoing problem with the Area-51m.

Restart your pc and you'll come right back in the thread(you're back below 1 min) Or try another browser. This is an old flaw with the Forum software. Will come and go.

 

On Wednesday, March 18th, you can chat with Alienware’s Ernie Gonzalez in the Alienware Discord Chat regarding feedback on all Alienware Products. Now is your time to voice your complains and suggestions!

 

I’m in China and the discord chat would start at 3AM for me, so I can’t make it live.

For my sanity, is there a kind soul here who could provide feedback regarding some Alienware consumers’ frustration regarding lack of news about an Area 51m laptop refresh after 1 YEAR? This just isn’t a way to treat your loyal consumers.

 

Pitchforks ready!!! Jokes aside, someone needs to lay it all out...

- Power limitations/burnouts and how all that was handled.
- Throttling and how that’s all been handled. (Related)
- White finishes being crap.
- 2666 MHz RAM inexistent for early adopters.
- Upcoming upgrades for GPU, doing good by the DGFF upgradeable marketing... for 3080 and beyond

 

@Fire Tiger

Alienware Area-51m 14-Mar-2020

Don't forget to unblock the ZIP file before extracting it.

New drivers include: Intel Chipset Software, IMEI, HID Event Filter Driver, Thunderbolt Driver

 

I prob won't make it, so a few comments/requests:
:
* BIOS-configurable Optimus to address battery life.in the 51M
* No more ridiculous soldered ram in m15/m17. - 4 SODIMMs would be ideal
* Quality control!!! I've owned 2 AW laptops - one shipped with wrong GPU, another with faulty GPU and required mobo replacement on arrival.
* Better themal compounds and padding so there is no longer any need to repad/repaste AW laptops on arrival.
* Make the m15 larger again if required to implement better CPU cooling or add more RAM slots
* Modular dGPUs in all AW models - support full fat variants rather than Max-Q

 

I am off that day. . .and I am feeling particularly naughty. Plus I don’t like the guy so I wouldn’t hesitate and take blanket responses lightly.

 

Is the keys on the 51m replaceable? Starting to notice scratches on my letter keys lol.. All that long wow gaming.

Sent from my GM1917 using Tapatalk

 

Keys are very easy to replace. They use the scissor style switch with a small membrane in the middle. If you pull the key from the top part if i'm correct, you can detach them without breaking anything.

Placing and clicking the new key should be enough.

 

Where would we get individual replacement keys though???

 

I think you're better off with a full keyboard replacement. Might as well trow per key rgb in there for the fun of it.

 

Please, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, if you want to see change then go to this and voice your concerns, but be civil about it.

We tried this a few times on Reddit and people never showed up, despite being vocal in plenty of threads about things they didn't like or wanted changed. 25k subs and 15 or less would show up for an AMA, it kind of made us wonder why we bothered.

 

I would love join, but unfortunately it starts at 3:00AM my time and I don't think I'm willing to wake up that early.

 

Hi guys, I have a quick couple of questions if anyone feels inclined. I have been deciding on a more power laptop as the ones I currently have while new are not completely satisfying my competitiveness in Battlefield. Any opinions on the NP9176/9156 vs Area51M? I do like not having two power supplies, the notion of even having to have two power supplies makes me sick to my stomach but sacrifices have to be made in the name of mobile power.
Also, it has been awhile since I have been keeping up to date with this thread as I would need to take off time from work to keep updated on all 2000 pages but I had read many failures relating to the GPU, maybe 7 or 8 months ago. Is this a reliable laptop, I Would be getting it with the 2080. Does the machine feel and work well? One complaint I have about these less powerful BGA laptops is that it just seems there not made for intense gaming or multitasking and they struggle to keep up both in usability day to day and performance.
What CPU is recommended?????
One aspect of BGA laptops also is keeping them cool as well with throttlestop while trying to eek out as much performance as humanly possible which is a pain. I have owned an alienware in the past but that was ages ago. Im not planning on doing a ton of video editing, maybe some for youtube or what ever and audio work but rendering isnt going to be the main focus, just gaming so I would rather have better thermals then performance in that regard.
Is this machine worth buying right now? There is a 17% discount along with 100 dollar instant discount, here is SS of what I priced out. Oh yea, the HDD selection is the worst IV ever seen, pathetic they want 900 dollars for 2x2m.2 ssd and 1tb sshd. Disgusting, Ill have to add my own in as I can get those for less then half on amazon.

 

Wait for R2. Or Get the 2070 and never look back. Or go a whole different way. For sure get it in black.
And a warrenty.

The problem with the posts here is Its hard to know who actually has a 51m and who does not. There seems to be folks with a lot of negative AW history here and that could color opinions.

Mine has been good...except for a weird soundcard issue fixed under warranty.

Hard to get this level of performance without 2 bricks...or one giant brick

I Usually run on one brick and do fine with frame rates.

Just my opinion. Worth what you paid for it...

 

2080 not cutting it for reliability? I had my heart set on some beefy GPU after 5 or 6 BGA GPUS.

 

I have the 2080 since release and not a single problem if i stay on 1.5.0 bios

 

@iunlock @ssj92

So guys after all this time, what is the best BIOS and VBIOS for the Area-51m?

Is it still BIOS 1.3.2 and RTX2080 200W VBIOS (90.04.3F.00.42) 1.0.0.3?