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

Alienware Customization - Wallpapers, OEM Info, Start Menu

 

Have any of you upgraded from the 2060/2070 to the 2080? Considering doing so once they put them back on the site, but I obviously won't do it if they want the old card back.

Anyone know if you're able to keep the old card? If I upgraded I'd like to sell my old card to make up some of the costs.

 

I can't imagine why they would ask for your old card back. You bought it, you keep it. It's not like "core parts" for cars where you get some money back when you return the non-working part.

 

I agree, but it is Alienware after all.

Wish they'd just do a discount for turning in the old card. Depending on if/when a R2 51m comes out, it might be worth waiting and just upgrading entirely. Guess I'll wait and see.

 

I like HIDevolution, but I hate that they don’t let you keep the parts when you upgrade. That is some bull crap. I pay an extra $1,500 for you to install a delidded 9900ks in my machine or to upgrade the storage to Samsung, why can’t I keep the original chip that came with it or the original crappy storage?

I see Donald from HIDevolution “liking” just about every post on here, I’ll bet ya he won’t “like” this one! Would love a reasonable explanation though. Why am I paying you to keep my stuff??

For the record I’ll continue buying from HIDevolution because they are quality and the sales rep I go to there is the best.

 

To be fair, I haven't seen any online shop offering you to keep the original equipment of the machine when you customize the laptop to your liking. I am not speaking on behalf of anyone as I don't know how their business model works but what I assume is the price they are charging is considered an *upgrade* as in, you are paying that price to get the better hardware while they keep the originals. I know it's pretty expensive when you consider doing it yourself while still keeping your hardware but I think they need to make profit as they're not a charity organization and you get to have the peace of mind of having everything installed and tested as per the custom machine you ordered.

I cannot count the times I've seen people go for barebones system only to start having issues with their upgraded RAM that they bought from some site to save money or issues cloning or installing or whatever when upgrading the SSD. In the end, they end up paying for what they saved in cash in countless hours of trouble and anger.

PS: When you configure the machine on Dell's site and choose better or more RAM or a bigger SSD, the price you pay is for the upgrade they don't offer you to keep the original.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the 2060 SKU come with a lesser heatsink when compared to the 2080? Something about not having the side radiators. So I'd assume that you might want to replace that heatsink as well, given the increased GPU performance.

 

If upgrade from the 2060 the upgraded Heat Sink is sold w/ the GPU as a kit.

 

I followed exact instructions as last flash from 1.8 to 1.5.0. Same USB stick.

Attempted to go from 1.5.0 to 1.3.2 and now have the 2 blinking red and 1 blue. Again I followed the exact same process. I haven't touched it since. I can barely breathe as I type this right now as Im pretty sure its bricked. PM ME or respond here....

what do I do...

 

Sorry to let you know that you now have a dead CPU. Now you are the 4ht person to whom this happened. It seems that the common point is: new system build and problably sytem that came with bios 1.8.1 preinstall. Rolling back to 1.3.2 makes the CPU die on reboot, Very sorry for you but i tried to warn people just a few pages before about this,
@Spartan
See: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-owners-lounge.826831/page-2037#post-11004418

 

not a very happy person right now...

 

I guess you have a new system since it came with bios 1.8.1.

I will send you a pm if it's ok

 

yes that's fine.. I can't breathe right now still having a panic attack here

 

Yes if you upgrade from the 2060, you also receive the 2070/2080 heatsink.

 

I dunno what's goin' on man. I have literally downgraded many times including yesterday with 0 issues. Goes like any BIOS upgrade. I've even downgraded from 1.8.1 when I was testing that. sorry about your expeerience.

 

we have to find what the common thing that makes the CPU die. For now we shouild all stay away from 1.3.2 untill we find what is causing it.

 

All of the cases where this happened seemed to be from new machines that came pre-installed with the newest BIOS. I could be wrong though.

 

There must be a slight revision in components in motherboards produced after a certain point in time. For early adopters like us that got the Area-51m with BIOS 1.0, we can have certainty that jumping back and forth between versions, it will always be compatible and work. My gut tells me the sudden deaths when downgrading has to do with something like this.

 

No other explanation bro. You're right the unit that I have seems to be an old one. I have an LG 173WFG Screen if that indicates anything

 

Contact Dell and use your warranty. Simply say it won’t turn on. They’ll take care if you.

 

Thankfully I have a full refund within 30 days from the company I purchased it though from Best Buy here in Canada on marketplace. Ill simply request a replacement as this unit has failed during update process. 2 days left for that... It also had 1 year parts and labour. I think it happened at an okay time... im still not happy about the time this will take. no way this is going to be a quick process giving the world situation.

no dell warranty got the refurbed sticker on bottom from dell

 

I see, then from your previous post you are still covered tho. Sucks, but it will probably be a slow process like you say. Silver lining is that it won’t cost you a dime.

 

Today my wife hold the hand of a crying 54 year old spanish man that was dying alone (covid 19) at the hospital she works. He wanted to see his children and his wife before he died.He did not.....
Your situation is unfortunate and i understant your frustration but calm down and put things in perspective. It will get resolved. Relax and like we say here in Quebec «ca va bien aller»

 

Oh no I get that... its just a stupid laptop in the end... wife police and I work in hospital... I'm off work right now. Everything about this world wide event sucks... stories from all over are as tragic as what you describe.... thanks tho. sometimes we all need it

 

Everyone has their own troubles. That doesn’t make his any less important. No need to minimize someone else’s hardship. When one does that, where does it end? It doesn’t.

Good thing you still have the warranty. Hopefully your panic attack has subsided!

 

i was trying to help him calm down. Put thinks in perspective. I don't think he took it the wrong way.

 

Ah, sorry for misunderstanding. You’re a good person!

 

Yes i am. I was chating with him just before trying to help him. I was the only one who was aware of the situation and i lived it myself so yes....i am a good person trying to help solve his issue and then trying to help him finish his panic attack.

 

NOPE all good here it worked actually. I calmed down the second I found out I had 2 days left in my 30 day warranty. Hmm.. what to do now.

I only paid just under 3400 Canadian for the specs listed (i9 2080). Anyone suggesting anything else if I get full refund? I like laptops as I move around quite a bit. I just summitted the request for return so time will tell. I also plan on contacting Alienware support Canada and see if their anything they can do. I really liked this laptop with the exception of any throttling whatsoever.

 

Are you willing ton

Are you willing to wait for a possible refresh? I’ve heard (posted previously a few pages back) that we might see a refresh in May or June alongside intel’s 10th gen chips.

 

I think it is a good idea to conctact alienware and see what they can do. If you go for a refund and décide to make a new purchase i strongly recommend taking the extended warranty form dell. It should cost 500$ in canada for 3 years basic warranty after negociations. Dell Alienware have an excellent warranty. Sometimes you have to call different person to make your point but in general they will give you satisfaction.

 

I am 90% sure that is correct.

Yes, Dell doesn't pull that give me your old part crap AFAIK.

 

I doubt ill be able to wait that long.... I'm already losing my mind and its been two hours.

 

I checked out the minecraft RTX beta today and I don't think I'll ever get over what this machine is capable of. 50+ FPS with the view distance cranked up at 1440p with all the RT bells and whistles on. Just a marvel to me that, even with all of the software flaws that the A51m may have, it can run things this demanding right next to its big boy tower brothers.

Just a bit of musing.

 

Why are people downgrading to 1.3.2 from 1.5.0?

If you updated to 1.8.1+ your Intel ME has been upgraded.

Going to 1.3.2 is downgrading the ME at least 2 revisions. Going 1.5.0 is 1 revision.

There should be less risk going to 1.5.0 over 1.3.2.

Also I've shown here a couple times that 1.5.0 and 1.3.2 have virtually identical performance.

I have successfully downgraded 1.7.3 and 1.8.1 to 1.5.0.

I went from 1.5.0 to 1.3.2 once as well but that was before I flashed 1.7.3+

I highly recommend sticking to 1.5.0 as the lowest BIOS version if downgrading.

 

Stupid laptop, huh? Didn't survive force downgrading the BIOS several revisions back. Who would have thought something could go wrong...

 

Thanks for that. Did I call the laptop stupid? No one to blame but myself, but thanks for your useless input in this etern4l. I searched quite a bit (clearly not enough) and must of missed some recently mention posts about 1.5.0 to 1.3.2 that cost me. I was removing the throttling at 75 that doesn’t exist on 1.3.2. More thermal headroom was my goal. Obviously now I wish I would of just stuck on 1.5 but no going back now. She gone.

 

My input will not help you, but might help others avoid fatally damage their expensive laptops. Even BIOS upgrades bear some small bricking risk, but downgrades bypassing checks in the Windows installer? That's just rolling the dice. If you report the laptop.died during an "update" you will be scamming the merchant.

 

Sorry to hear about your experience. There were a couple of us who tried warning going to 1.3.2 can be catastrophic, only to have others say it was user error. I've never bricked anything in my life, and if I did, would use a teensy as nand programmer to fix. This was not the case with a51. It is a hardware change in newer builds. It's not Intel me issues. I've downgraded more than one me change multiple times over the years. Shame that some convinced you it was user error in these cases.

 

Ah, so someone knowingly bypasses BIOS installer checks to load an old incompatible BIOS version and it's not a user error? OK bro, I'm sure all OEMs would agree.

It would be slightly safer if that BIOS version was previously running on the particular hardware - clearly not the case here.

 

Thanks for pointing this out. I don't believe there was a lot of information on this matter and what was available, was patchy (I seen one report I think but led to believe user error). Either way I feel pretty terrible about it all. Etern4l - its their return policy to be 100% within 30 days. Also I still had 1 year parts and labour (just checked). I could not find small print on bios/firmware area (don't have one). Sorry you feel this way about me. Hope you all stay healthy... time for some sleep been up all night with this. thanks all

 

Well, I'd just assume you weren't aware of the risk involved, partially due to the various success stories posted online. Yes, in many cases it will work fine, until it won't - and if you bypass compatibility checks you won't be able to blame the OEM. If you can just return the brick, no questions asked, you are good. Stay healthy and good luck.

 

You say the CPU is dead. Tried with a another Cpu model? Lets say you swap in i7-9700K instead for 9900K (or the opposite). Even 8th gen chips should work.

Why say the Cpu is dead, when it's the MB that is bricked?

 

What I always experienced. 200W vBIOS is just good for benchmarks and not useful for long gaming sessions. Also, no much point in running the GPU run at +83C, minimal gains and high risks.

You are from Spain? PM me.

 

It happened to me 1 month ago. It was resolved by replacing for a new CPU. MB was intact. I was surprised too.

Same thing happened to @JonJadot . He resolved the issue by changing the CPU for 9400F. So like you say many CPU should work.

 

It's bad engineered board if a flash kill the Cpu https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=269004.0

 

The link is for a Bios update. We are doing Bios downgrade. Only seems to affect new built systme @Spartan is doing tons of downgrade=no issue. Seems onlly latest built (february for sure maybe before are affected). and only with BIOS 1.3.2.

 

Downgrading your computer’s BIOS can break features that are included with later BIOS versions. If this would kill the cpu, Intel would mention this in their guide.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...000005969/boards-and-kits/desktop-boards.html

If downgrading of bios kill the chips... This is a Dell feature as I mentioned in previous post. Not the normal.

Edit. All those with dead Cpu's. Is the chips stepping R0 or P0? Does the old bios v1.3.2 include Microcode for R0 chips?
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/9th-gen-core-cpus-r0-stepping,38932.html

 

Were you able to test the processor in a different machine prior to replacing it?

 

Yes it seems that you are right again. Maybe a defective parts. I was wondering if it could also be caused by the power supply? Because it complets it's writing blocks and then tries to reboot and.....breaks

No i was not. Dell kept the old part.