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

Well looks like I solved it, that AWCC program is absolute garbage, but it was the key to making the card work. I won't pretend to understand why but it did.

 

I disagree, laptops are the future. There is always going to be a need for mobile devices, laptops, that can do the work a company requires. Schools have been integrating laptops for all the teachers and there students as well. All colleges require the use of a PC, namely laptops as many classes require it in class. If there is ever a time when society will no longer need laptops its certainly not going to be any time soon.
I think the smartphone is a overblown industry. Eventullly we will see large scale cut backs just for the simple fact of the amount of waste it creates.

Hopefully the industry will eventually shift green where laptops will be the market leader in personal computing with interchangeable parts allowing a single device to be used over the course of more years then they are now. Phones will never have that, there will never be phones with interchangeable parts, not for a long long time. The industry will eventually turn green as civilization will require it or humanity will suffer. The path were on now with 2 billion people changing out phones each year is not going to last.

Quantum computing will also play a major role in society but there will always be a need for mobile personal computing. But saying the PC is dieing is like saying were running out of oil. Its not going to happen in our life time or 10 generations down the line. By then, new technology will have been invented and the point that the PC is dieing is I think being overly dramatic. Just my opinion.

Some one else might want to chime in on this, I am by no means an expert on future development of humanity but I have spent a few hours here and there reading about the subject. Sites like futuretimeline.net are fun to read though. You have to take my bias towards the laptop industry with a grain of salt as well, as Im a hardcore enthusiast. Im not ashamed to admit I have about 10 laptops laying around the house.

 

Yeah, if anything it's desktops that are on their way out. Intel are being crushed in the desktop market and their finances have only continued to improve. Laptops are everywhere, and if a stationary computer is required, tiny NUCs with mobile CPUs and quick SSDs are being used instead. I work in government, and the entire building has transitioned away from desktops to tiny NUCs supplied by Dell, and laptops which were already ubiquitous. The DIY desktop market is insignificant in the grand scheme, and nobody else cares about desktops. Who outside of enthusiasts wants a giant tower weighing >10kgs that can't move?

 

Wow, badly seated RAM is quite rare, but I guess Dell managed that too lol Not to worry. Unless you are a very light user, you should notice some improvement from fast 32GB upgrade anyway due to more memory being available for OS-level caching (make sure write caching is enabled on your drives in Dev manager), and the memory being faster than the budget sticks supplied by Dell at extortionate price.

 

Hey mate, just curious: has gsync continued to work properly for you with 1.5.0? Would love to roll back if so and losing gsync has been the main thing stopping me.

 

You probably didn't do the GPU Thermal Tweak for the Alienware Command Center so it was still throttling at 75C despite you having BIOS 1.5.0

See:
Guide: How to unlock the GPU Thermal Limit Slider in Alienware Command Center

 

To answer my own question, the answer is no I guess. Downgraded to 1.5.0 with 451.48 drivers (fresh DDU install after the bios flash) and activating gsync (via the pendulum test or a game) caused the internal display to flicker black as usual.

back to the current bios.

 

Is gsync really worth it when you have a high refresh rate screen?

 

I'm very sensetive to tears and stutters so yes, I notice the difference with gsync on. Worth noting as well that many modern games will not be running at 100fps+ on a 2080 at the resolution I play at (3.5k)

 

We talk laptop thermals with an expert from Dell
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...r2-owners-lounge.832848/page-54#post-11031088

 

I think you will be surprised once 5G and its descendant wireless move in, combined with Cloud services to serve everything from a Virtual desktop to the best possibly rendered games. Imagine your phone, tethered to a VR headset with enough graphic horsepower and incorporating your direct hand motions.. Why would you even _need_ a laptop at that point? During the transition to this (which will take around a decade or so), you will have increasingly phones which can be tethered to a screen and peripherals through a docking station of some kind. I love the PC, also love gas-powered cars, but the reality is the technology is at an increasing pace overtaking those technologies for frankly something better. Now, there will be a case for localized computing / rendering power but these will probably be more for developers, engineers, etc. than even the enthusiasts, and due to the sheer low volume prices will be very high relatively speaking. I don't think any strong case can be made for laptop's dominating for more than about 5 more years or so, but agreed Desktops are sort of in their last, best phase currently.

 

Well that clears it all up....100 degrees is fine suddenly ...until its not...

Kinda like cholesterol. Pork. High fructose corn syrup. Not wearing a mask. Asbestos. Buying a Ford Pinto. Thalidomide. Eating at a new chiniese restaurant with a closed kitchen. My mothers first and 2nd husbands.

And the worst...ephemeral

Don't "scan" for it....don't google it....gold star if you just know it.

Now I have a headache

 

Yes Amazingly Gsync is now working here with BIOS 1.5.0

Here for my old eyes I would say yes, I can see a difference it definitely smooths things out, I don't think its the way to go if you are into measurebating for numbers lol
but if you just want smooth graphics in games it works for me.

 

If FPS in a particular game is >= display refresh rate, there is no difference vs VSYNC. If the game runs at a lower FPS, it may look smoother but the input lag is going to be greater. Either way, FPS/TPS games are practically unplayable with VSYNC/GSYNC, although very slow paced games might be less affected (cursor lag in a strategy game can also be quite annoying).

 

I really REEAALLY hope this doesn't happen. Seems like a dystopian future to me.

Don't get me wrong, all technologies have their place. The fact that smartphones keep becoming more powerful is awesome, as this enables us to do the same things on our phones that we could do on desktops and laptops from a decade ago. Mobile computing is definitely awesome. However, making everything a dumb terminal seems like a horrible idea to me as it makes us ever more dependent on companies to provide services for us.

With local processing power and local storage, if you own a game, you can play it forever. With a game streaming service, once the provider goes out of business (which it will eventually), you will loose access to your games. Chances are everyone has those few beloved games they would like to play again after years on the shelf.

Streaming and cloud services are definitely convenient and they have their place, but they can't replace good old localized computing. I don't know anyone who would exclusively use cloud services. Rather, some of them use a hybrid approach where they use cloud or streaming services when away from home and have to travel light, and use their desktop or laptop in all other cases.

I don't think we'll ever see a transition to exclusively using cloud services since people like to own stuff and not be completely dependent on others for their needs. If anything, the PC gaming market continues to grow, with more gaming laptops being sold every year (at least this is what I have observed). I think a hybrid approach is best since you get the advantages of both localized computing and cloud services.

 

On the inbuilt panel? Did you do anything to get this working?

 

I mostly play Elite Dangerous, RDR2, Rage2, No Man's Sky, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, NierAutomata, Control, Borderlands 3 - Currently but the way I play them may not as fast as I used to, I am more about the experience then frames per second so for me at least I don't notice any lag with or without Gsync/Vsync only a marginal quality difference with Gsync
I am a bit of an eye candy junkie so anything that makes things look better in games I'm all in, so far on this machine I haven't found anything I can't run at full Ultra or mostly full Ultra and no perceptible lag ( as long as machine is correctly setup to avoid the thermal throttle ).

I had my fun running 3DMark and Superposition for a few months but even then it was mostly to verify if I had the thermal throttle under control rather then to actually "have the best numbers"

These days I am more into the experience then any bragging rites lol I am too old and my reflex's are not good enough anymore to be fast at anything

It happened by its self, when I downloaded the latest Nvidia and GeForce Experience driver yesterday, a box popped from Nvidia control saying GSYNC monitor detected.

I then went into Nvidia control panel and saw it had re enabled Gsync I actually did not even believe for one moment that it would actually work, but I opened a game on a lark and it worked …. my first though was that Dell had stealth updated my BIOS but I checked and im still on 1.5.0 ….. tried a bunch of games and they all work with Gsync enabled.

So it looks like all it took was for the Video Driver to support the panel directly, OR maybe GeForce Experience is doing it ? probably been the issue all along, I have never bothered to try loading the original Dell Video driver to see if that would have worked but now I suspect that that might work as well.

 

It's not about any bragging rights (BTW you just bragged about.l being able to run almost everything on Ultra at an undisclosed resolution ), it's about being able to enjoy the game. Gsync provably adds significant input lag which most people would be able to notice, although for me it feels like attempting to play under influence. It's true that for very casual gaming it's probably acceptable, including in some single player FPSes with aim assist etc., however people legitimately playing multiplayer FPSes would just hamstring themselves by enabling Gsync. 300Hz gsync panels could change this in the future I guess.

 

Um oh.....i see were this might be heading.

Im having chipotle for lunch...anyone else hitting the chicken bowls today?

 

That's probably why I like it lol Playing under the influence

 

Excellent news! I might give this a go tomorrow to let the GPU breath a bit more and see if I notice any improvements in game.

 

God yes. Not sure how it happened but i am aged....

 

It unfortunately probably will happen. The predictions are smart devices will be pretty much defunct in about 15 years or so. Trust me, with Cloud computing, online storage, remote high speed rendering, you honestly will not care. In fact, virtual machines running your old games in any O/S needed that you cannot maintain will make it _easier_ to play old stuff than now.

Its already starting really, but it will take time naturally. It doesn't take much to feed down some compressed data for local processing but that's where its headed before long. As someone who's first game system was literally an Atari 5200 .... in 1977.... I have seen a lot of changes. I still remember before sound cards and 3d cards existed.... but I work in IT (Cloud Data Security) and I assure you, the world is going that way for most people very shortly.

 

Hey guys, this is more of an observation that needs correcting more then anything if that makes sense. As I go through my normal routine before I game tweaking is apart of that routine which some people find annoying but to me its standard practise. I will try to explain the occurrence as best as I can then if anyone is experiencing the same thing, please reply.

So I dont have a lot of time, well as much as I used to to go exploring for fixes in windows 10 to get to the root of an issue occurring so this may be me just overlooking something that I cant be bothered with, lol, but here it is. So I tried explaining this I think a few pages back but no one responded.

I decided for what ever reason a few weeks ago to buy 3dmark, well that was the reason, because it was on sale for a few bux so I did and ran firestrike as I had done when I first bought the machine. I noticed that the frames were capping on my 9700/2080 to 72 FPS in certain parts of the test and when the test had finished I was getting really low scores. Way under my normal 27000 GPU score the 2080 gets stock. I keep G-SYNC disabled because I had noticed the performance in my main game, Battlefield 5 was getting more FPS, like substantially more, by 30-60 FPS so I started keeping it off as the difference at the high of frames, over 120, is not noticeable. To remmedy this lock of 72 FPS in certain parts I enabled and re-disabled G-SYNC and wala, my scores when back up to 27000 in firestriike. The performance in game, well it has the same effect as I described with firestrike, I need to enable and disable G-SYNC and I will get full performance. This takes 2 seconds and is a minor inconvience and as I had described above I have a tweaking routine before I start gaming which involes undervolting, setting the fans, running different software applications and so on so everything is set and static as I game and this I have just added to those things.

So I guess my question is, is anyone else experiencing this or know what it is Im refering to? A few more observations, I noticed when I put the system to sleep and way from sleep the performance is kept at the 27k firestrike performance, but when the system is restarted it reverts back to those capped speeds. Am I overlooking something silly here? I really can care less if I have to enable and disable G-SYNC before I start gaming, it takes 2 seconds but Im not sure if thats a good thing hardware wise? If the machine is left on then the performance stays the same, there is no need to do anything with G-SYNC. Its almost like having to flick off a light and back on if that makes any sense.

 

I have not seen this except when something else has the focus for the desktop, like a browser in the background or a launcher. Sometimes the system "ie Windows" gets confused then limits the game itself while the other app seems to get the priority and full speed. I would try running maybe in full screen mode, and only set Gsync to full screen. It could be a power problem if maybe you are not getting consistent power through, but I hope not. Also make sure your power profile, etc is all full power then work backwards to balanced and test it out.

 

I always leave G-SYNC off is the thing, as I said in my post it gives me more FPS in BF5. It happens every time when I turn my PC off. Something in the software somewhere is doing it. Its not really an issue, just another step to do before gaming. Thanks for your input though.

 

@Lopt I've downgraded to 1.5.0 now, unfortunately, my G-Sync still won't work. It enables fine etc. but when in game I get the black screen flicker. What driver version are you on? Do you have any of the experimental features turned on etc?

Do you use the setting Full Screen or Full Screen and Windowed in G-Sync control panel?

My driver version is 451.67 and I also got the 'You have a G-Sync panel connected' but NFS Heat still flickers and there is no G-Sync indicator (TBH not sure I even have that enabled I never use that overlay thing).

 

what nVIDIA Driver are you using?

 

As posted yesterday this was also my experience. I wasn't able to replicate gsync working without the internal display flickering and blacking out. I used both windowed and full screen gsync, tested by forcing it with the pendulum test and with games. Not sure if there's something else to it or what.

 

I'm hoping there is something we've missed , I updated to 1.7.3 again for now. I know some see it as a gimmick but I like G-Sync so I'd like to keep a hold of it where possible. Hopefully, @Lopt can give us some help.

 

451.67 release date 7/09/2020
GeForce Experience Version 3.20.4.14

No experimental features.

Still working with everything I have tried, I will install pendulum demo today and see if that works.

Pendulum Demo works I think, it seems a little wonky.

All I can say for sure is that before this update if I turned on Gsync in Nvidia control panel I would get black screen flashing off and on in every game, but now I don't.

Gsync "Appears" to be working but I can't really definitively prove it even to myself lol

 

Hey folks,

Got a question. I just picked up an Area 51M R1 with i7 9700 and a 2070. Its running Bios version 1.7.3. I've been reading a lot about thermal throttling so my question is do I need to downgrade it to 1.5 or is that problem specifically related to the 2080s?

 

good question, I'm not sure maybe @MogRules can chime in.

 

The 2070 maxes out at 115w. When paired with the 9700, it is very difficult to encounter thermal throttling unless you are using the quiet fan profile. I wouldn't stress about flashing back to 1.5.

 

The GPU throttling is not present in the 2070 versions, which is the main reason most people flash back to 1.5.0. Without the 2080 1.5.0 isn't a necessity like it is for others.

The BIOS past 1.5.0 is what puts the thermal restrictions in place on the 2080's which is why people often go back to 1.5.0, to get around that restriction. As the 2070 was not burning out like the 2080 was, and does not get as hot typically, it was not thermally throttled like the 2080.

If you don't have an RTX2080 then 1.5.0 is not as important IMO. Your biggest fear with new BIOS's going forward will be the removal of undervolting, as that could come with a new BIOS update, we will have to wait and see.

@Sabs47

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm not going to 1.10. I just sent back a G7 because the undervolting was removed and I went to the A51M with the 9700. Using throttlestop on it and it barely break 60 on CPU and 65 on GPU while playing warzone on high settings and gives 100fps constant

 

Thanks for letting us know. I had my hopes up, hopefully someone can get to the bottom of it and get us Gsync on 1.5.0 similar to you.

 

Be sure you never upgrade bios. Rather downgrade now. You may never be able to flash back to 1.5.0 later. Works now. But you won't know later. Dell have done it before. Deny you to flash back to older "working" firmware. Major changes in firmware will stop that.

 

Ok I am going to retract what I said about it working, it SEEMED to be working yesterday but I dug into things a bit more today and found that the driver update did not complete ( Nvidia control panel showing previous version ) which is the first time I have seen Nvidia driver install fail like that, might be something to do with updating GeForce experience at the same time, anyway I reinstalled the NEW drivers this time making sure it shows updated in NV control panel and now I am back to the Black screen flash's with Gsync enabled ……

Sorry for the false alarm that was a weird experience.

I am going to play around with 1.7.3 again for a few days and try again to tame the thermals with Gsync enabled, probably a lost cause but I got the itch to tinker with it again lol

 

I done the exact same updated Nvidia Experience and the driver in the hopes it would do the trick haha. Thanks again for updating us. Good luck!!!

 

Settings please?

 

Wow, this is a new low? It's common to see "world's fastest", XMG cliam that too on the Ulta 17 page, but "world's only" is just a bare faced lie.

Is there an advertising watchdog in the US?

The upgradeability is a bit of a grey area. You can indeed upgrade within the same gen

 

I feel like they've missed an asterisk somewhere...

 

I just threw up in my mouth.

 

You know, in some cultures they only eat vomit. I've never been there, but it's called reddit.

 

Hey guys, how is the latest BIOS for the 51m? Any issues?

My wife is having an issue where her keyboard won't turn on on start up. It sometimes takes like 10+ restarts to finally turn on.

Anyone have any idea what's going on and/or how to fix it?

 

If you don't like running everything at low res and settings, its definitely not a gimmick...

 

Err, what? Is there anything you need to run on low settings on a reasonably specced 51M? And what would that have to do with Gsync? Gsync is def a gimmick if you don't like input lag.

 

I keep seeing people complain about GSync's supposed input lag and yet there is evidence to suggest that the difference isn't big whatsoever whereas the difference in frame delivery consistency is measurably better with Gsync on compared to any other option (including everything (vsync, gsync, etc) off).

Feel like a lot of the "gsync makes my buttons feel mushy" input is coming from confirmation bias rather than verifiable data, or improper setup. It would only truly matter at extreme (3-5x) frame rates over the monitor's refresh rate for esports superstars, not for Joe Nobody playing tomb raider at 100fps.