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

No difference from 1.8.1 performance wise.

 

I guess it depends. If the Area 51M had been out when I got my Aurora R7, I would have easily opted for the AGA and a 9900K and simply gone that route, detaching the AGA and external monitor when I needed to go on the road. If you don't travel, or even want to say take the unit to another room in your home, then yeah a desktop makes more sense ultimately. I just cannot understand how a 4 year old AW 15 and a 3 year old AW 13 R3 can use it, but a 2019 A51M cannot....

Yeah I mean it works like all the other units no problem the _only_ thing is you have to be sure to have the unit off for proper detection on boot. Driver loading for detection can sometimes be an issue initially, but that's pretty easy to work around. I seem to recall having an issue once early on with it, but later no. My wife has the ginormous Dell P4317Q 4K panel she uses for work, for kicks I might hook the A51M with AGA up to it just to see how it does later. A shame that monitor has such crap response time and refresh (limited to I think 60 hz) because it would be kick to game on. I might try something slow paced like Kerbal Space Program

 

Is your Windows 10 a New clean install with attention to locking down your system and removing all the bloatware ? or was it just the system the way it came from Dell ?

If it's NOT a clean install you might want to take this opportunity to do it now as your time will be better spent ( IMO ) doing that then trying to diagnose and isolate this issue in the Mud.
Even if solved it's a ticking time bomb ready to break at the worst time.

If you want to do the reinstall and set it up to be useful laptop, there are many people here and posts that explain in detail the process, I got help from many folks here and my system is as close to rock solid as I've ever had with Windows, with all the help I've gotten here my Area51m is a real pleasure to use not a source of worry.

No difference in anything you would notice day to day, it fixed an issue or two that very few people might run into in a few circumstances,

Best BIOS for Area51m is still 1.5.0 IMO.

 

Has anyone had issues with the wireless adapter card getting unseated? It's happened twice now and I'm not tossing my 51M across the room or anything, just occasional moves from 1 room to another.

 

You mean the actual wireless card? Or do you mean the antenna leads? The Wireless card should be secured with a screw, it shouldn't be able to come out. The leads should have a plastic cover over them that, if seated properly, will prevent the leads from moving or coming off.

 

When I first reseated the wireless card, the screw and leads/covers all seemed in place just fine.
The screw seems firmly in place, and the leads are connected/covered. Was curious if anyone else also had issues out of the box though.

 

Took mine on a business trip to Mississippi from Georgia, then had an unplanned sudden change coming home where I had to go to Brooklyn, NY through Atlanta, then back home to Atlanta, no issues. Survived a second trip again to Mississippi and home again through customs, etc. No problems.

 

My issue is that I don't have room for a desk, nor anywhere to put the monitor. So if I could use the AGA with the built in monitor, it would be great. I play sitting up in bed.

 

Even with its flaws, its still very nearly one of the best desktop replacement systems out there, esp. with the AGA in my opinion. Again, had it been a couple years earlier I would have just gotten it and never considered my Aurora R7.

 

So I got some bad news with my 51m after owning it for a little over a year, the female portion of the mini DP came out when I unplugged my cable so the chip is now lodged in the cable, I didn't realize what had happened at first so I of course tried to plug it back in when my monitor went blank and that ended up bending the pins back.

When I first got my system in I did notice the port was a bit loose and I lost connection at times unless it was plugged in just right. You can see that the plastic around the port has been damaged due to it's very loose fitting, I have laptop on a hydraulic arm attached to my desk and no matter what I did to try to make the connection to the port as tight as I could it just didn't work (pics attached).

I have premium support as well as accidental so I am in talks with Alienware now but they want me to send my $4500 system into them which would take a week + for the repair, with the way things are going right now in the world and the fact they use FedEx there is just no way I feel comfortable doing that.

So in the mean time I am trying to find a work-around so I can use my Rift S headset, any ideas?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/WyLHhPgPsgenUB7EA

 

So need advice.

So one of Kid 1s graduation presents is a new laptop. He is now is off to get a PHD is a statistical research heavy discipline. (for the record hes Summa Cum Laude)

I have had good luck with MSI, but I tend to go Dell for warranty and reliability, (have had great luck with them so far)but figure you are the experts...

So my requirements are (in order of importance):

15 inch.
Very reliable.
Good cooling.

As powerful a CPU as I can
As powerful a GPU as I can (he's a nvidia guy). He seems to think some of the program he will run use the GPU for calculations??

He's a gamer...but its secondary to reliability.

So...the alienware products are out, kid 2s m15R1 is stupidly hot. I have no confidence it will last more then another year at 100 degree cpu temps.. And the 51M is too big
Was thinking of a G series.

Price is not an issue.

So yes...I'm looking for a unicorn.

Any suggestions?

 

What Notebook Should I Buy?

 

Eluktronics MAG-15 is a good option if you are in the market for a BGA turdbook. Magnesium body, good cooling, etc. And, priced better than mainstream crap alternatives. Brother @B0B has some good videos in his YouTube channel and there are threads here.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...element-fusion-15-mag-15-vapor-15-pro.830272/

Spoiler: Explanation

No, Mr. Fox doesn't hate BGA any less than before. Mr. Fox still loathes BGA filth, but even more than that he loathes spending gobs of money on broken trashbooks. Tongfang provides better than average solutions at lower than average prices. Abnormally good quality and abnormally low price... no brainer. BGA still sucks, and so does thin and light garbage. But, what else is there left now? All laptops are trash now. I'd rather pay less for my trash.

 

Get me one too please

I've had no issues detaching and reattaching without rebooting.

However, yes booting with it plugged in is a must for the least amount of issues.

 

Oh dear. Yeah, they really didn't optimise the AGA for the sitting in bed gameplay use case.

Congrats on your kid's graduation buddy.

FYI m15 R1 is only stupidly hot out of the box. After repaste, UV and when running on a cooler, temps are excellent, considering the form factor, in most scenarios. CB20 will still take it close to 95C though, but in normal use we are talking 70-80C for the CPU. GPU stays under 70C in any circumstances. HTH

 

Sounds more like a business workstation scenario, especially if the software he will use makes use of Nvidia Quadro drivers (as those Quadro cards can use both Geforce and Quadro drivers).

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/sho...540-laptop/xctop754015us3?view=configurations

On the other hand, you lose the external GPU option, so depending on the mobility needs, perhaps Alienware m15 (repasted and undervolted perhaps) plus a Quadro RTX card in the external AMP might also be an option?

Of course, it all depends if the Quadro card is needed, so that should be checked first.

 

I would love to, given the circumstances today, it would be difficult for me to ship the item to you. I can however, relate you to the seller and you can place the order yourself. Or you can PM me your address and I would be more than happy to get you one.

Take care
Son Goku.

 

What are they ready to go?

 

I live in China. Does the seller happen to live in Zhejiang by any chance?

 

Am I allowed to share ebay link?

 

Yes

 

Sweet vapor chamber!? I’m in!

 

FWIW, unless I am mistaken that goes against the recommended way of bring up and using the AGA and not using it. I know if I have accidentally done this the system is not happy. I would be very wary of doing this without a reboot personally.

 

This could be very cool indeed, pun intended.

 

Sorrryyyyy

 

Put the AGA on a night stand next to you and a large monitor in a rack or on a small table on the end of the bet. I'm good at bed setups as I do it all the time.

 

I never use my AMP that way. I was just saying I have tested that method and it does work.

Turning off the computer , plugging in AMP, then turning on is the best way of course.

I actually don't even use my AMP anymore, I have a desktop now with the GPU in it.

 

Well I did it. I returned the 9900k 2080rtx laptop with 144hz for same specs except the 60hz just because I saved 1k by doing it. I guess not a bad decision, right?!

Screen sucks but there's always the external display I can buy with the 1k saved I guess. Not bad.

 

I'm just saying, what's the point if I 1) Have to buy an AGA 2) Have to buy a GPU 3) Have to buy a monitor. At that point I've nearly got a desktop. I'm sure MANY like me opted for a DTR because they don't have the space for a desk/desktop.

If I had the room for a desk/monitor I'd likely have a desktop already, as I'm sure most do. So then why would you want an AGA? So you could use it on the go. But that involves also taking a monitor wherever you're going.

If the AGA could use the internal monitor I could easily set it on the floor next to my bed and BOOM done, I've got full desktop power on my lap. There's many cases where it would be extremely beneficial to have it use the internal display. If I wanted to sit in my kitchen/office/couch etc with it and needed the power of a desktop card, I need to lug the 51m, aga, and monitor. At that point, why not just carry a desktop from room to room.

They made a mistake not letting you use the AGA with the internal screen. You're just open to so many different options if you could use the internal monitor compared to external only. Previous models used the internal, not sure why they thought it was a good idea to remove that function.

 

I've thought about putting a swivel w/monitor on the wall above my bed. At the end of the bed would just strain my eyes too much lol. I don't have much space between my wall and the bed unfortunately, so my options are extremely limited.

It would be 100x easier if the AGA used the interal monitor LOL.

 

Nice! I'm sure you could replace the internal screen with the 144Hz one as well, you just won't have Gsync.

 

Since today i have really bad cursor lag in AWCC drops to 20FPS, anyone know why ? Yesterday was fine. I had no updates all is disabled.

 

Yes, it was very kind of him to reply that quickly. I tried to see what the problem was, thts's why it took me that long to respond.

Hello and sorry for the latest reply. I didn't want to reply before I try your solution and see if it helps solve the issue.

Sadly, your solution didn't fix my issue. It's reasonable, though, since I had a problem even in already cached thumbnails.. Anyways I finally found out what the problem was: never, EVER install this: https://www.pretentiousname.com/adobe_pdf_x64_fix/ in your Windows 10 system. It was made in order to be able to generate pdf files' thumbnails, but it's disastrous as it makes out "beast" freaking out.

The reason why it took me that long to reply was that I formatted my laptop 5-6 times and went on testing with EVERY software I installed and tested for thumbnail problems and thankfully I found out the problem. Thanks so much for all your help and I apologize again for not replying sooner.

I'm trying to catch up on reading all the posts of this forum but its getting bigger and bigger.

Thanks again everyone. Take care!

 

Well, sorry to rehash the obvious, but having one system is usually more convenient than having two. If you don't need mobility and you have the desk space then a desktop is the way to go: more pefromance per dollar and higher ceiling, otherwise the laptop + AGA setup begins to shine.

If you are desk space constrained to the point where you can't enjoy a large monitor then you might feel unhappy about the lack of support for internal monitor in the AGA, but if you already have an internal 2080, then the question is how much performance would be there to gain for you now, given that using internal display with the AGA entails a significant performance hit. It's more of an appealing option for someone upgrading from a previous gen GPU. Yes, it might be cool to upgrade to 3K that way, but the 51M also has upgradeable internal graphics to begin with. I'm not saying it's awesome that the 51M does not support AGA with the internal display, just saying it's not such a big deal for this laptop in most cases.

 

Hello again. I have two questions if anyone knows:
1) How can I find out what is the version of my BIOS and vBIOS in my Alienware Area 51m?

2) (i found two posts earlier but wanted to clarify even further) I need to have dual boot of both Windows 10 and Linux. I saw 2 people here posting that they've managed to get it to work on Ubuntu 18.04 and Manjaro. Has anyone tried KALI. I need KALI for my use at work but I can't get it to work.

Thanks in advance!

 

It comes down to whatever meets your needs (and works). The 9700K+2070 works for me for everything except maybe running 5-6 virtual machines as fluidly, and the frame rates still beat every other mobile GPU I know of except a 2080 Mobile. That ain't too shabby.

 

Thanks and nice detective work. I haven't use Adobe Acrobat Reader since like 10 years. This is what I use:
PDF-XChange Editor

It can be installed in Free Mode or Licensed mode. The licensed mode allows you to edit PDFs but the free is good as well

 

Well... link or it never happened.

The easiest way is look at CPU-Z and GPU-Z.

 

I do not believe the 2070 comes with a heat sink, not referring to the unified hs. That is what I have and from Dell it did not have one. I did order one that is on the 2080 and installed without issue. I no long gave the p/n but I posted it around page 1200 (guess). I got the p/n from a Dell tech support agent.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/264502806801?ul_noapp=true

I can share screen shots of the conversation as well.

But since you are the fox, you getting it.

I never lie, I never did.

 

I'm a little confused, where's the vapor chamber version? Or was this just the sellers ebay page.

 

Yes, I was very disappointed when I learned about not being able to use the internal monitor as well.

I've seen setups that used wall mounted monitors. I googled it once and saw some impressive setups.

 

Yeah this looks like the one we currently have.

 

Yeah I just meant the unified. I also bought the actual GPU heatsink for my Wife and I. Had them for over a year now and have yet to put them on though LOL. I should do that soon.

 

I was just pulling your leg, bro. I didn't think you were telling lies, just poked you a bit for the link since a couple of guys were looking for it. Did you post the wrong link? Looks like the stock heat sink.

 

hi foxy,

what I meant to share is the sellers ID , in a private message he showed me the new sink, he wants to further modify it

you can find the picture below




[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

Very interesting!

 

Thanks so much!

You would't know anything about Linux capabilities, would you?

Thanks so much! Which BIOS versions are the BEST in your opinion? I mean BOTH for the GPU and the CPU.

Thanks in advance!

I also have a touchpad cursor lag problem.. Any ideas?

 

You're welcome.

Sorry, but I have no idea what firmware is best. I do not not own one of these systems and haven't paid close enough attention to it to know what others have to say about it.

 

[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

Interesting! I wonder what he means by mismatches and the tool being made. And also, the vapor chamber heatsink has an extra pipe running in the opposite side of the fan nearest the CPU, where would that “fit” inside our R1’s layout? I wanna see more!