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

yep, you have to switch from RAID to AHCI but there's a way to do it without having to reinstall windows.

 

How do you reinstall Windows in a couple of minutes?

Spoiler: LoL

I know what you meant, just clowning around with you, bro. Switch BIOS to AHCI then boot into Safe Mode so Windows can fix itself. Only takes a couple of minutes. A registry tweak also works.

 

Thanks edited it now, sometimes I just type things they way I would in italian.

BTW does tobii eyetracking sometimes stop working for anyone else? Is there a way to restart it without restarting the system? I like the thing that lowers the brightness when you are not looking.

 

So a DLSS 2.0 update that should have us all a bit happier for having RTX cards. (It needs tensor cores).

I continue to notice a marked increase in frame rate (10-20 fps min improvement) and in image quality.

This is with Ray Tracing on....on a 9700k/2070.

There is a negative. cpu temps have gone up about 3/5 degrees from 76/78 max to 81. Gpu temos also went up about 10° (mid 70s) Note I also plugged in both my PSUs. I had been running on just the large brick
Also the game has to support it. I know Mw5, youngblood and Control do (control is a great game).

Meanwhile they just converted a local convention center to a pop up hospital....we are having a corona surge.

Interesting times we live in.

 

Should I proceed with the vapor chamber mod? but since its being connected on top of the heat pipes, wouldnt be this non beneficial? if its direct on the CPU/GPU it would be rather a better option.

 

Well, I think anything a person can do to wick heat off of their CPU and GPU and expel it on a laptop is worth doing as long as it doesn't cost too much and doesn't cause any harm to functionality and aesthetics. If the mod does things that impair mobility, then you're better off just building a desktop instead of wasting time modding a laptop.

Can you post a link to that vapor chamber mod?

 

I found the picture in Aliexpress when I was looking for a vapor chamber less than 3 mm thick , apparently most of them are 3mm with variable dimensions and shape, the long ones are being used in laptops and other electronics, they also can be reshaped with heat.

I can easily contact my hvac technician for copper welding if I ever need copper welding.
I can stick with thermal adhesive and paste. Of course I need to buy a spare heatsink for the mod.

I won’t delid the cpu as this clouds the warranty and I can’t afford the risk

 

Well, suit yourself on that. But, the likelihood of needing to make a warranty claim for a failed CPU is very close to 0%. It's really not worth it to put up with the MUCH higher temperatures. You'd likely see more improvement from delidding that anything else. Even water-cooled desktops run way too hot without a delid. Expecting an air-cooled laptop to run cool enough without a delid is unrealistic. Unless you are very reckless, there is really no risk involved. I have delidded at least 10 CPUs with absolutely nothing but amazing results for every one of them. The first three delids I used a razor blade (4790K and two 6700K). Now I have delid tools for both consumer and HEDT CPUs, so it is even less risk. In fact, I would go as far as saying zero risk at this point. It's automatic to me now. I don't even install a brand new CPU now without popping the lid off before installing it for the first time. It's a waste of time to even bother with testing it first. No matter how hot or cool it runs, it's a given that I am going to see at 15-20°C load temperature improvement on any CPU.

 

Try installing non beta version 6.24-4120. If prompted on the first launch of the application about the detection of sensors that HWinfo64 can take control over, click on Acknowledge, Ok or whatever. Then the fan icon should appear. Available fan speeds are dependent on the fan profile selected at AWCC (thanks @Fire Tiger for pointing this out to me).

Please see this video about the setting up:

 

wow!!!!!!!!!
I just did it lke you sais and what a difference! Thanks to you and @Fire Tiger . But i have no idea what i just did....fan control in HWinfo seems to stop thermal throttling imposed by bios or AWCC.
Here are the results with 600 points better.

 

What BIOS/VBIOS are you on bro?

 

Like what? Just changing to AHCI mode from RAID is all I did...

 

Hi Spartan,
I am on 1.7.3 bios and 200w V-bios (the one you posted 2 weeks ago)

 

Mr. Fox, I’m tempted here. Tell me moar haha...

If I delid, what’s my best path? Use the tool to pop it, LM or thermal paste? Electrical tape or varnish?

How do you do them?

Also, I have a 9900K and 2080 and don’t complain about my temps. Sure... some games will get my CPU into the 90's and GPU to low 80's, but I haven’t been particularly concerned since I don’t throttle.

Currently -104.5 mV UV on CPU, -40mV on iGPU, stock clocks.
and I think 925 mV max on GPU voltage curve @1980MHz or so, +500 MHz on VRAM

Thanks man!

 

Always use liquid metal between the die and the IHS. You can leave the IHS loose (my preference) or use a small dot of RTV silicon in the four corners. DO NOT use Super Glue. (I actually had an 8700K CPU get torn apart while removing the IHS later after using Super Glue. It's too strong, even though I used only a tiny drop in each corner.) You can use a small piece of Kapton tape, ordinary Scotch tape, electrical tape or clear nail polish to cover the gold contact areas underneath the IHS. Under the IHS I would not use electrical tape on those little gold contacts. The adhesive is too gooey in my opinion. But, it won't cause any harm. I have used Scotch tape for that many times with no issues. It stood up to the heat just fine for me. Clear nail polish is probably the best thing to use, and it is what I use now. Some people get freaked out by that idea because they believe it is too permanent. You can easily remove it with acetone if you ever have a reason to. Although, I cannot think of any reason one would want to remove it later.



@Papusan reminded me that 9900K will see less improvement from a delid because it has solder TIM (I forgot since I don't have 9900K) but it should still run somewhere between 5°C and 10°C cooler, which is actually still a decent improvement. If you flatten the IHS (lapping) that will also improve contact with the heat sink and further improve the temps. (Stock IHS is concave and laptop heat sinks are flat.)

 

And this one with an overclock with MSI and the Fan profile with FULL SPEE in AWCC. That is 1000 points more...17% improvement.
View attachment 183970

Edit: the real score at 1080p is: 3588 (it seems that this benchmark gives better score at lower resolution) but still it's an improvement.

 

Oh yeah, of course I never did that either - hopefully no one goes that route.

 

Should be able to just boot into Safe Mode and let Windows automatically fix the registry values, then reboot. Should be fine if you let it correct itself in Safe Mode first.

 

Awesome!!! Thank you very much!

Will lapping the IHS cause any further contact pressure issues elsewhere though? Since it’s a unified heatsink?

I’d likely go with the delid and relid kit, clear nail polish/varnish, LM, silicone dots on corners!

The lapping I have my doubts. I don’t have a micrometer, nor fine enough grit sandpaper lying around, plus the worry of creating other issues elsewhere with contact. Advice?

Has anyone here lapped their IHS? (9900K) How were the results?

 

You're welcome.

It certainly could if you took off too much material. I think I have a YouTube video in my channel showing that as well. Will see if I can find it. You don't need to measure, just stop sanding away the surface when the bare spot in the center is gone. Probably 0.05mm or less is removed and that should not be enough change to adversely affect the alignment with other parts. They don't build laptops with tolerances that tight.

Edit: yes I did have one... uploaded it a couple of years ago.

 

I would be careful with this method. I tried it when I first got my 51m and I was locked out of logging in to Windows (stuck at login screen.) Password wouldn't work and I ended up having to completely reinstall windows anyways. Tried every work around and nothing worked.

I think in order to do this successfully you need to remove all passwords from your Microsoft account/login, though I'm not positive.

 

Hmm. I've not heard of that before. It shouldn't change anything related to passwords. From what I have understood, doing that makes the same registry changes that you have to do manually with Windows 7 before changing the BIOS from RAID to AHCI or AHCI to RAID. But, since it happened to you it seems it is possible that something definitely got buggered up. I wonder if it borked your SAM file or something. Using the registry tweak before rebooting and changing the BIOS setting is the safest way to do it.

 

15-20 C !!!! That’s a lot , people on YouTube say 3-7 at best

 

I think you missed this comment...

 

Virale had to walk me through it. We both had a hell of a time at first.

 

Booting into safe mode requires to use the Microsoft password so if you have always used a PIN (that Microsoft forces you to put on first boot) you may have forgotten your password, you would be surprised to know how many people forget their passwords because of the PIN, I’m not saying it’s the case here but it is something to keep in mind.

 

any idea where to get lapped IHS?

Never mind it, I think if there is a method for direct cooling without IHS, it would be best beneficial for Alienware : D

 

I may be thinking of something totally different but I'm sure @S.K bought an aftermarket one and it caused the heatsink to become uneven or something along those lines.

 

BartX or Rockitcool

https://rockitcool.myshopify.com/

https://www.bartxstore.com/

 

Good to hear you made it work. One important thing to point out is the limiting of temperature in AWCC. You basically don't want the laptop to fry itself up by going on a thermal runaway, that is why I recommend limiting to 84C max. You can limit to 87C, but that is too hot for my liking (not concerned for the GPU die, but rather the power delivery system). Running without limiting temperature is asking for trouble with this method.

 

Thank you sir. I will keep that in mind. I noticed yestesday that the keyboard was becoming hot and the overclok awcc was at 84C only (like you suggested.), I will leave it at 78C for now, but just knowing i have the option to bypass temp control makes me happy. Thanks again.

 

The leaked R2 heatsink uses a vapor chamber base. It's not direct die, but an excellent upgrade over regular solid copper, in terms of it's ability in quickly spreading the heat over a larger area.
You could do a mod with direct die to vapor chamber, since 3mm VC is close to stock 9th gen IHS, https://imgur.com/a/gyMIBLI

However, with a unified heatsink, you might need to do some additional work for ideal contact between both the CPU and GPU die. But the end result would be something really remarkable.

 

after a big of googling, a lapped IHS or / a copper perfect polish IHS + LM is barely 6C

I was simply thinking of sticking a vapor chamber on top of the copper piping and leave the integrity of heatsink alone, If this vapor chamber touches anything it could lead to electric short.

This is terrible times with corona, its hard to get things nowadays.

I cant find any R2 heatsink, maybe somewhere in taobao.

 

So ideally you want the vapor chamber to contact the high density power area (w/cm^2) directly, ie. the cpu die. Since it will spread the heat over a larger area and reduce any hotspots when paired with either a local or remote condenser. Mounting the vapor chamber on top of the heatsink heatpipes, without any form of a condenser or airflow, will not have the desired cooling effect.

 

That is going to become a serious problem sooner or later without needing it for Safe Mode. I find it very difficult to understand how that could happen, but I know it does.

 

I believe the heat is accommodated in the heat pipes, thus temperature spikes on CPU, I want to reduce time lag and give enough time for the fans to react for the heat. The lag timing is for 5 seconds, I want to eliminate those 5 seconds.

I cant connect the vapor chamber directly on these two chips since it interfere with the screws location. I can add this plate and glue it with a thermal adhesive or possibly welding just like the setup on the picture I provided earlier.

:s

 

Yes -that is how I did it personally. I mean its about as painless a process as there is as long as you do it via safeboot.

 

I'm not sure if this is the best location for this type of post but please point me in the right direction! I'm unable to use both chargers right now for max performance while gaming and if I try to use both in a game, cpu severely gets underclocked and laptop refuses to charge. Temps look fine too :/

I've been trying to use my 51m as my primarily computer, hooked it up to my 1440p 165 Hz monitor and I was able to game on ultra settings on all modern titles for quite some time until now.
I was playing Witcher 3 for a few weeks but one day, I started noticing horrible fps and a weird smell, maybe plastic burning or something? I checked CPU and GPU temps and everything was under 80C but a weird smell was coming main exhaust in the back next to where the power plugs into. The CPU was being throttled down to 0.8 GHz for some reason even though temps looked fine. The only thing I changed was the CPU. The CPU is underclocked to a max of 4.4 GHz @ 1.1V (-50mV offset) to keep temps down.

Ever since that day two weeks ago, I haven't been able to get computer to run normal again and I'm not sure what's wrong. If I have both AC adapters plugged into the computer, everything looks normal until I load a game that's gpu/cpu intensive then the CPU immediately tanks under 2.0 Ghz even though temps still look great. While gaming, if you're looking at the back and the 330W charger is plugged into the right port, CPU seems normal and you get the normal GPU underclock for having only one charger, standard behavior. If I plug the same 330W into the left port while gaming, the CPU immediately underclocked itself back under 1 GHz and the game becomes unplayable. Having both chargers in while gaming, CPU remains severely underclocked and battery will not charge. As soon as I exit the game, the laptop will begin to charge and cpu/gpu go back to expected speeds.

Did I damage the charging port? Any suggestions to diagnosis this further or suggestions on how to repair this issue?
I still have the ability to renew my warranty so I was thinking about doing that and letting them handle it but I'm assuming that will be a slow tedious process.

Additional infos: Problem occurred on 1.7.3 BIOS with 180W 2080 vBIOS. I've done a full reset to restore all factory settings and still no luck.

 

@iunlock @Mr. Fox
I have a 240W spare adapter from my previous m15. Would it be a good idea to use it instead of the 180W adapter in conjunction with the 330W adapter or there is no benefit to that or would it cause any harm?

 

Bruv you should've stopped using the machine the moment something was burning inside the laptop. I have no advice here, other than to contact Dell to have them take a look at the insides to see what shorted or cooked itself on the motherboard.

 

It won't hurt anything, but it's not going to give you better performance if that's what your thinking. The only real benefit is that the 240w adapter does not get as hot as the 180w adapter does. I use a 240w with mine, and I have even used 2 330w adapters as well. The machine will only pull what it needs and even the 330w +180w is more then enough.

The real benefit is the larger adapters don't get as hot. The 240w gets warmish, two 330w they both stay cool.

 

Well put. Also to add, using a larger (powered) psu puts less strain relative to the capacity, so it can end up being more efficient. Ideally the sweet spot for psu's for optimal efficiency is ~50%-80% (usage). However, with laptops the power delivery is usually capped so it doesn't matter in most cases, but having the larger psu being taxed less can translate to it running cooler or sure, vs a 180w getting taxed to its limits.

 

lol my puny 180W gets SCORCHING hot, the 330W just warm. I have 9900K and 2080, but dropping cash on another adapter (240/330) is hard to justify if the lil 180 is doing its job. I’ll replace it if it fails...

 

Correct-a-mundo. It's unfortunate that it's capped/gimped, but it is what it is. Having more than necessary is always better than adequate or not enough where power supply is concerned.

But, you can always lay a 180W AC adapter on the floor under your desk and use it as a foot warmer in the winter.

 

Oh I already have that extra 240W power adapter from the days when I had an m15 R1 so I'm not spending anything. Heck, I wouldn't but it's just lying there in the cupboard

@Mr. Fox @Papusan @MogRules @iunlock @etern4l @Fire Tiger @Terreos

while I was happy with the re-paste from the stock Thermal Paste to Liquid Ultra, the temps were still reaching to 96+ almost instantly in stuff like CINEBENCH or stress tests until the fans ramp up to full speed. So I just opened her up and re-pasted with PHOBYA NanoGrease Extreme this time not only on the GPU but for both the CPU + GPU and I didn't use the pea or X Cross method, I spread it out evenly using the supplied little plastic tool they provide as I saw on a video today (I guess since it's really thick it doesn't spread well?). Temps dropped down by a whooping 6C compared to Liquid Ultra and now the temps only reach 91C even during stress tests with the same undervolt that I had before (-77mV). Takeaway from this, PHOBYA NanoGrease Extreme is t3|-| $H!+

 

I've been spreading it thin too bro. Apparently the risk of bubble formation is much lower than the risk of excessive thickness or non-coverage posed by other methods.

 

I done the 'x' method during my repaste. It still hits 90s during stress testing and short bursts during gaming. But the average temps even after a few hours are always mid 70s.

Maybe I should give the spreading a shot next time.

 

Are you Overclocking it? I run Cinebench and the fans take awhile to kick in and it barely tops 80c during the run. Once the fans start to kick in it never passed 81c. I am pushing my Underrvolt to -.125 , if I push much past that I get weird BSOD issues on battery power out of all things.

 

With or without overclocking the results are very close. The fact that even at stock it runs so hot means I probably got a not so good silicon this time and no I wouldn't ever run more than a -100mV undervolt, trust me on this man, I've tried it, everything seemed fine, only when you come to discover some of your data is corrupted then you start to wonder how the heck did this happen. I had all my 3 year old daughter's videos corrupted just last week, the files were there, the file sizes were right but they no longer had a thumbnail and wouldn't play nor could I fix them using VLC's fix feature; luckily I had a backup on an old HDD but what I'm trying to say is just because your system doesn't crash doesn't mean all is ok. Your mileage may vary depending on your CPU though but just a thought.

Yes I've always done the spread but it seems that with thicker pastes like PHOBYA NanoGrease or IC Diamond a spread works better.

 

Whenever conventional thermal pastes work as well or better than liquid metal it is because of poor part fit. Unfortunately, that is status quo with laptops for the most part. Once in a great while someone wins the heat sink lottery. Not very often.