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

You can buy these cards from AliExpress. Not sure if they're knockoffs, but then again it's AliExpress...

#Aliexpress US $1,023.00 7%OFF | New original Graphics Card For Dell Alienware Area 51m Area-51m NVIDIA RTX 2080 8GB Video Card N18E-G3-A1 0V08H9 V08H9 LS-G88BP
https://a.aliexpress.com/_dVsgGoT

 

I have not been disappointed with the R1 and that's mainly because I know how to use it the way it should be used with a BIOS that doesn't cause the GPU to thermal throttle, repasted the CPU/GPU with PHOBYA NanoGrease Extreme to lower the temps, and unlocked the GPU power limit bug in Alienware Command Center. For someone who just wants to use it out of the box as he received it, it's a major let down but with a few tweaks, it's awesome.

I am sure I can use it for another 2 years easily and not feel the need to upgrade but it's more like a "want" to upgrade to always be on the top of the good chain.

 

I had in mind to use a delided i9 9000k that I kept from my previous desktop computer and repaste it, I also ordered gelid gp extrem thermal pads to change the pads according to S.K tutorial.
I also ordered the PHOBYA NanoGrease Extreme that I have used before on my desktop.
Regarding the bios I had in mind to downgrade it to 1.5 I just don't know if I'll be able to keep my gsync screen or not .
If I did this way I'd be able to keep good Temps and fully enjoy my area 51 m ?

What is this bug you're talking about with the GPU power limit ?

 

So, I got the confirmation from Dell. Although they've pointed out that they don't state now that it's upgradeable beyond the current gen, but I'm sure the wording was different when I ordered last year. Especially if every review I read last year had the same idea. Without a time machine, there's no way of finding that evidence.

As they have already agreed to my refund, they are still going to honour that. Screenshot attached.



They also mention that they state it is only upgradeable to the 2080 via a screenshot. This screenshot is very misleading, as it seems that is only the options available at the time of ordering and not the only options you will ever have. That seemed like the reason they used DGFF.



Lesson learned that I'll read through products multiple times before buying, and take a screenshot with the date and time so I have something to back up claims if they don't deliver on those.

 

If anyone can help with evidence in regards to what they had listed at launch it would be @Papusan

 

Well, you have Frank Azor, who talked about this during CES 2019
"You'll now have the option to go out and get a 2070 gpu, 2080 or maybe even the next generation beyond that, which we hope to be able to support, as we get more detail about it."

Not sure how much this hold up, it being a former co-founder and behind "maybe" and lolmarketing speak.

 

I did bring up what was mentioned at CES last year, as well as multiple reputable review sites with articles published elsewhere. Something similar was mentioned by Linus (LinusTechTips) last year when they allowed him to dismantle the laptop, with Dell representatives in attendance. The only way this would hold up is;

1. There is a promotional video or interview of a Dell executive stating they will/would be upgradeable to the next Gen
2. An email/conversation from a sales person stating that they will be upgradeable past the current gen
3. A screen grab from Dell's website or promotional material stating they will be upgradeable

There was something similar a few years ago when MSI claimed the same, triggering a class action lawsuit.

https://www.classaction.org/media/thornton-jones-v-micro-star-international-msi-computer-corp.pdf

Last I read, MSI were getting the case dropped.

 

I think it could be countered by stating it was not specified. They just added it in to the marketing, but did not specify what was the upgrade path people should take.

Like here, they state that both the CPU and GPU can be upgraded. But they never state the MAX GPU or generation it can be upgraded to. And adding insult to injury is that the kits are not available so it is false advertising again cause you cannot physically buy an upgradekit. So you could say they massaged you in purchasing the laptop with false claims while not backing up their words as an technician is not required for the installation of the DGFF card

Here it states it's part of it. not required. and Usually you can install a new part inside your laptop while keeping your warranty (as nothing breaks)

 

I remember the countless YouTube reviews I watched before purchasing this thing mentioning future upgrades. Even the reviewers were misled. Sneaky marketing or down right false advertising. Either way it's a pile steamy shyte

 

Anyone try the 1.10.0 Bios yet?

Chiming in on the R2 release, when I bought my R1 in June of 19, I fully understood that upgrades "may" be possible if they decided to pursue them.. Which now regrettably they did not.

Did I expect it to turn out this way …. yes..
Shame on me for having high hopes and being optimistic.

All in all my experience with this machine has been mostly positive (besides having to find workarounds) The performance has been satisfactory for my uses and temps are fairly under control. (usually runs in the mid to high 70's in games and benches, 40's and 50's for light duty) I have had only 1 issue really with the rig and that is the alienheads (power and lid) would not display the correct colors, mainly blues, which is purely cosmetic. So the system is out on repair. Dealing with support went as expected, you need to jump through their hoops, which was fairly painless.
This is my 5th Alienware Laptop and it is by far the best one I have owned to date (first one was 2008), So no buyers remorse here.

I may be setting myself up for disappointment hoping that they continue to give support to this system to help clear up some of the little flaws with it (temp crippling, temp slider issues, and various others).

 

d00d you registered 7 years ago and this is your first message? talk about taking your time

BIOS 1.10.o is as crappy as any other BIOS that came out after 1.5.0. It thermal throttles the GPU the moment is reaches 75C. The best BIOS is 1.5.0

 

Lol yea.. I'm not very active. Just enjoy reading the conversations and getting performance tips. (The temp slider work around was great btw)
I am on 1.5.0 after rolling back from 1.8.1. Hopefully still will be on 1.5.0 after my rig comes back from repair otherwise I will have to do the nail biting roll back again..

 

I can prove you wrong, you can use the latest bios and on 200 W Vbios , you need to use HWinfo to bypass 78 C temp limits.

my time spy score 11,2xx on rtx 2080 .

I didnt mess with GPU voltages btw,

no need for this old bios.

 

Looks like it is a used 2080.

 

I did some new test`s.. And I`m loosing some power...



Bios 1.9.3 / Vbios 180w / Dell 442.23 / No over - No under






Bios 1.9.3 / Vbios 180w / Nvidia 445.87 / No over - No under

 

I know right! Has me a little worried after reading some of the bricking some have done to their systems on here. I was having a heart attack just rolling back the first time (which made the system WAY more pleasurable to use)

 

That's due to the BIOS. Any BIOS after 1.5.0 throttles the GPU when it reaches 75 - 79C

 

May have to come to you for some advice on this when my system comes back...
When you use HWinfo to bypass do you have to restart the program every boot?

 

you dont have too, the steps are as follow, note you can use any System Bios (1.9.1 or 1.10) but for Vbios, use 200W version.
1- Move AlienWareCommandCenter Thermal Slider to 87C or whatever your desired temperatures are, note you need to create an Overclocking profile, and you need to select this profile every time you boot PC.
2- Get HWInfo64, navigate to settings--->Safety and then tick off "EC Support"
3- You will find Fan Icon

4-Click on the fan Icon then "Custom Auto" for "Fan 1" you can use my fan set points.

5- Do the same for "Fan 2" or GPU fan


Here is my results after the tweaking (my GPU is stable @ 130+ Mhz and Memory boost 800 + Mhz - 1000Mhz. You should find you own sweet spot. I can run benchmarks on 170 + Mhz but crashes in some games.

 

I agree with most of the thing you are saying but i find that bios 1.7.3 gives me best results.
Also i have found that 180watts vbios performs exactly the same as 200watts vbios in games and benchmarking. So for sefety reason i am using the 180w now.
And finally i prefer setting 78C max temp for GPU for safety reason. I found no improvemnt in performance when i did set it a 87C and did the fan bypass in HWinfo. I am happy i tested it.
My best time spy is 11300.
My best fire stike is 24300 combined. 29300 Graphics at 4.8Ghz CPU.

My system is stable in games at 4.7GHz constant, no drop. My GPU runs cool and never, nerver throttles in games. Thanks to all the peoples help in this forum.

 

What is your settings , getting impressive time spy score assuming you run at normal fan speed (not full speed )

 

I just wanna say, clearly no one with a 9900K and 2080 runs BFV in ultra on BIOS 1.5.4 or higher.

That sucker forces me to have max fans to avoid my CPU hitting 99° (on max fans it touches 91-93 In some peaks). I’m sure the GPU would throttle if I wasn’t on 1.5.0 because I’ve seen the max temp hit 82-83 at times in the GPU. Hence, if you are in BIOS 1.5.4 or higher, you might be sitting pretty with whichever games you’re playing, but know this; when you play a game like BFV on ultra, it WILL throttle... lol

Also FYI I have my PC on my desk as-is, meaning not on a cooler or propping it up on the back or anything. Doing anything like that and saying your >=1.5.4 BIOS 51M doesn’t throttle on a demanding game like BFV on ultra is REALLY hard to believe for me.

Mine is repasted with Phobya NG Extreme and Fujipoly Ultra Extreme Pads, thermal upgrades don’t get better than that.

 

No it was at performance speed. At balanced i just did 11000. It also varies depending on nvidia driver.
My settings are 190 core and 800 for GPU (for benchmarking). My CPU -135core and -120cache and stable in all situations at 4.7Ghz. 4.9Ghz max for benchmarking. I could not reach 5.0Ghz yet. I don't know how, it crashes. LM for CPU and Phobya Nanogrease for GPU.

Whenever i repaste or test my laptopt i test it with BF5 and BF1. If it pass the gaming session i know i have a good system.
I can tell you that my CPU runs cool at 4.7Ghz in BF5 at performance fan speed. CPU and GPU stay under 90C for long gaming session for this game with bios 1.7.3. The laptop sits on a flat surface (table) wood.

I think you should run the game no overclock GPU at 4.6GHz CPU and set the max GPU temp at 78C just for a test. If it still runs hot then your repaste might be the issue.

Edit: My cpu runs cool (less then 90C at 4.7Ghz) at MAXIMUM fan speed not at PERFORMANCE fan speed (it thermal trhottles at 4.6Ghz an up).

 

AC Power Adapter Port -- Anyone else's internal ac adapter port loosened up? One side of mine is starting to wiggle. Can't believe one has to remove the heat sink assembly to get to it.

 

Thanks for sharing, I’ve also noticed if you drop cpu clocks you can get better GPU score since cpu and gpu use a shared heat pipe.

my gpu would crash if I increase gpu clock speed to 180 and above. I’m using gelid extreme as I’ve read phobia is abrasive to the chip and heatsink .
Thanks for sharing I’m surprised you could hit this score @ 79C

my cpu 9900k run at 115 -me all cores 4.9 ghz, it throttles down in fine bench hence I’m getting less than 4.9 in serious work loads.

You can find parts in eBay, or you can re-weld the socket.

I wouldn’t recommend doing it if you don’t have a heat gun or soldering iron.
Should be easy

 

Yes time spy is a mystery bench to me. Sometimes i get better score when i lower the CPU clock speed. My GPU is not stable at +195 core, i only use it for benchmark. It is stable at 160 in games but i have set a profile curve in msi at 900mv and 1905Mhz and it runs really cool. Actuallly in BFV in just tested it reached 68C max temps and max watts was 147w. I was getting betwenn 132 and 142 FPS ultra ( i have set max FPS to 142 since it's a 144hz display).

 

yeah... I need to back my bios to 1.5.0...

 

Anyone just reflash the SPI externally to 1.5.0? Is there a backwards flash thread somewhere? Kind of curious now.

 

Macrium Reflect v7.2.4884 Rescue Disk ISO

This is the full edition ISO which can be burned to a USB Flash Drive using Rufus. It supports RAID booting and restoring to dissimilar hardware.

@Mr. Fox @Prema @Papusan @jc_denton @Fire Tiger @etern4l

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ny-alienware-to-locked-lower-versions.829542/

 

Intel Extreme Tuning Utility v6.5.2.40

 

Any major improvements?

 

I dont use XTU bro. AWCC only to undervolt

 

Good looking out brother, thanks!

 

Thank you for this! I use HWinfo for a lot of monitoring and such, but I did not realize that you could override the hard throttle. Great tip!

Excellent scores btw.

 

Back again with another round of "things that everyone else probably already knows".

Ran some tests with an optimized throttlestop+afterburner setup vs. just adjusting the sliders in AWCC.

TS+AB:

Spoiler

AWCC:

Spoiler

200MHz difference on the CPU between these which accounts for the difference in scores. Thermals for the AWCC on CPU were a few C higher than throttlestop since AWCC limits undervolt to -100mV and I can get to around -125mV stable with throttlestop.

But I ask myself the question... why have I been over complicating things this whole time when the difference is so small?

 

I agree!
My best bios so far is the 1.6.2:


After this bios there is a bit of performance loss, but not by much:



Between 1.9.3 and 1.10 I see no actual difference in performance (under the same conditions).
I most definitely can get a better score if I don't "overcook" the CPU with all cores on 5.0Ghz and the cache on x47 (from x43 which increases the temp by about 5C).
Cheers

 

Hi all

I am a newcomer to this forum and am in a bit of a quandary.

I have just received (still unpacked in box) an Area 51 laptop - core i7 - 9700 and RTX 2080, 32 MB RAM, 144hz G-synch screen. I received approx 15% discount through one of Dells offers. Having just heard about the updated Area 51 about to be released (10th Gen i7, RTX 2080 - Super) I am now unsure as to whether I should return the R1 for a refund (Dell have advised that I can do this) and order the updated laptop as soon as it is available - I expect I would need to pay at least 15% extra, probably more. What do people think/advise? The new version has a 4K screen option (at no doubt significant additional cost - only 60hz refresh though) - what do people think about 4K gaming - worth it or better to stay 1080 with a higher refresh rate screen?

Please let me know what you think!

 

The physics score is all too low if this is done by 5.0GHz on all cores. Low or stock cashe ratio doesn't matter.

Edit. You need to edit your clock speed https://www.3dmark.com/spy/12001013


Stock [email protected] all cores.

 

I’m all about high refresh/high FPS, so on the screen 1080P would be my play.

Also, if I was in your shoes I’d return the R1 and get an R2. I wouldn’t mind paying a bit extra... but that’s me

 

How does anyone in his right mind buy a 4K screen laptop?

 

Unfortunately in general new model does not necessarily mean better than the old one, if you need a 4K screen and a card reader maybe I would go with R2, otherwise better save some money and go with R1 and its excellent keyboard or better still wait for Nvidia Ampere

 

As brother @Papusan mentioned, the physics are off. Should be ~12-12.8K at 5Ghz, so you're probably hitting current limit. Rerun physics only with hwinfo64 logging any perf cap reasons.

 

My AW 15 does have a 4K TrueColor screen from when they still made those (underappreciated). When hooked up to use the AGA with even a 1080 Ti, something like Kerbal Space Program looks magnificent. Detail is of course there, and its simply beautiful in those cases. I can use it at 1080p (a touch blurry), but its okay in most cases. My gripe is why isn't 1440p the standard on laptops 15" and higher now.... 1080p is barely respectable for any productivity apps. My AW 13 R3 with the 1440p OLED though hits all the marks, especially when using the AGA with a 1080 ti. I know some folks like to watch videos on their laptop particularly on planes at 4K.

 

Well years after having had posted that thread, 3 months back I bought a Dell XPS 15 with a 4K Touch screen in hopes that the scaling issues had been fixed. I was going nuts man, no tweak worked, not even compatibility mode for some apps.

For example, my HP Printer's app would never scale correctly, buttons would be tiny and text would be misaligned.

Yes the programs which do scale well look great and so does the screen, but the amount of apps that were having scaling issues made that laptop with that screen NOT usable for me. Another app which didn't scale well was Nero 2019 Platinum, and there were many more it just drove me nuts. So 4K is not my thing, never will be, until Windows can fix this long standing scaling issues. Look at Apple and their MacOS, you never have scaling issues and text/icons look super sharp in any scaling.

 

I haven't had that issue much but I don't use a lot of apps outside of Office. But you are correct, its less a "4K issue" to me than a problem with lazy developers. Again, why 1440p isn't the norm is just because companies and many individuals _think_ 1080p is grand because its "HD"

 

Yes, this is what happened to me, the issue is not related to the motherboard revisions.

15% (or much more) price difference for about 5 to 10% performance increase in games. Not worth it in my opinion since the RTX2080 in this thing is so good (despite all the hassles placed by Dellienware).

If you got the "Lunar white" color, definitely send it back.

If you need the 4K for content creation, guess is better the R2, but honestly not the point of this machine (I do content creation with my A51m, but I use a far superior external display).

The A51m R1 at this point is a well understood machine, and all the getarounds are public. Who knows what issues the R2 might have, and if there are solutions to get around them.

 

Anyone telling themselves that there won't be some form of throttling issues with the R2 I think is going to be in for a nasty surprise...

 

The 10900k on the R2 will be a no-go, power consumption is just way too high. The 10700k (a.k.a 10th gen 9900k without undervolting) will be the best fit. Not concerned for the RTX2080 Super.

However, what if the 2080 Super is limited to 74C and this positively can't be changed? We have seen this before from other laptop manufacturers, and knowing the R1 fiasco... not high hopes from Dell.

 

Well said!

On a side note, my rig should be back on Friday or Monday. Yeay! Been using my 17 r3.. Makes me miss my 51m..

On another side note.. my r3 was ordered with a 4k screen.. and scaling has never been right on it.. teeny tiny icons and font everywhere... that is next to impossible to scale correctly..