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

No

 

Something is definitely wrong. I’m running max settings with RTX on medium and DLSS on; getting min 70fps and max 144fps depending on the scene. Usually hovers in the 70-90 range.

 

After installing the Samsung NVMExpress driver 3.0 my device manager says that my Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus is running on micro$h!ts driver.

What gives?

How do I fix this?

 

Help!! The Evo came today. I cloned the hybrid drive (used samsungs tool. I know...mistake...) had issues with booting, so I disconnected the original and booted to the EVO. It booted to the Evo... everything worked fine. Really fast....

I formatted the original drive, using windows quick format. I re installed the drive, booted and system went into the windows recovery/repair window. I finally used f12 and set the EVO as the boot. That worked...until i shut down and restarted. Right to recovery screen. Same deal, f12 and selected the evo. It goes to windows.

Edit*
I tried a full format on the hybrid...still goes to recovery screen.

Any options? Besides a new OS install....

 

Did you set the EVO as your boot device in the bios? I think your original drive is still set as the boot device.

 

Make sure the installer and its files are NOT blocked. When you download a file from the internet Windows sets a Blocked Status on it automatically so often times installs aren't complete or buggy.

To see how to unblock the file and to prevent this from happening so that you don't have to worry about unblocking each and every file you download, see the below thread.

Also, if the driver came in a ZIP package, then you'll wanna redownload the ZIP package and unblock it before unzipping it otherwise every file that is about to get extracted will have a blocked status.

"Are you sure you want to run this file?" [Yes or No]

PS: Make sure you disable any Antivirus that you have before installing the driver then reboot when prompted,

 

Tried that...it won't let me. When I use f2 The evo shows up on the first bios screen, but it is not in the the "boot select"section. System sees the drive, the only way I can boot to it using f12 then it shows up and can be selected. System will then boot to windows as the evo as c drive. .but when i restart....goes right to windows repair.

Its maddening!

 

Did you have the original drive still in the machine when you installed Windows on the new EVO?

 

I cloned the orginal oem drive to the Evo using the samsung app. Then I formatted the orginal drive. If that counts as a windows install then yes.

 

Did this just now, same results. Uninstalled first.

??

 

Randon sighting. Visiting Detroit for the day from Ohio and I went to a place call Detroit shipping company and saw some dude gaming on an Area 51m. Struck up a conversation for a bit. Good to see one in the wild. First sighting for me.

 

Wowwwww!!

 

I think this is a win/UEFI issues. I think Somehow its hard coded to default to the hybrid if its connected

So...I am thinking I should disconnected the hybrid, boot to the evo and make a recovery flash drive off of the evo, then reinstall windows. I just got the machine, and nothing is installed on it yet.

Question is...is that new install based off my current configuration, or will that work as a totally new clean install? In other words, is there a risk I will be reinstalling an issue because I would be using a recovery drive made after the problem cropped up??

 

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Did you install via Samsung Magician? Is Samsung Magician telling you it's using Microsoft's driver? I'm not booted into Windows right now so I can't see Device Manager, so I can't remember where Samsung NVMExpress driver is shown, but it is not under 'Storage'. It is show farther down the list under something else. Can't remember where. Sorry if I'm telling you something you already know, just thought I would mention these things. You probably have it sorted by now.

 

I downloaded the installer (.exe) from samsung for the model I have. I do not think it was magician. Ran it (the second time) unblocked (after uninstalling the first attempt which was not unblocked). Checked under disk drives, samsung ssd 2TB nmve, showed micro$h!ts 2006 driver.

 

Finally ordered mine! Specs are 9700k, RTX 2080, and 144hz Gsync display. I picked the lowest ram and hard drive options because I'll upgrade those myself (8gb ram, 256gb SSD + hybrid HDD).

Got it for what works out to be 3540$ usd with 4 years premium plus included (hardware and accidental) and that's taxes in.

I travel a lot for work every few weeks so the accidental damage warranty was piece of mind for me.

 

Look after Storage controllers

Samsung NVMe Driver v3.1

 

Nice! My specs exactly. Welcome to the Club!

Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

Congratulations.
Be careful upgrading the drives! See the posts on what im going through...

 

Will do. I'm playing on replacing the M.2 with a crucial 1tb M.2, and the hybrid with my Samsung sata SSD. I'll try a new clean install and if that doesn't work maybe try cloning the from the old one. That's the plan anyway.

 

Upgrading drives isn't the issue, it's trying to clone your windows install over. IMHO a clean install is always the best when moving to a new drive/controller.

 

Something kind of similar was happening to me when I added my own NVME to be the main drive and the SSHD secondary, it would refuse to “take” the NVME as the primary drive no matter what I did in BIOS. The fix was to remove the SSHD and allow the PC to boot up with just the NVME installed (the other drive physically disconnected). After that, I re-added the SSHD and haven’t had that happen again. Try it.

 

So...I am thinking I should

Bump....anyone have any advice?

Question is...is that

Thank you. I tried it....as soon as I reconnect the sshd it goes back to the endless windows repair loop..im gonna have to try a clean install.

Don't clone! There's a good imaging app recommend here...I'll try to find the post...

 

Macrium Reflect. The best.

 

+ this. Don't make my mistake.

 

I know I´m late to the game but repadded (Gelid extreme) and repasted with liquid metal (Conductonaut) after removing those original heatsink screws and used new M2 screws to increase heatsink preasure on GPU and CPU (using a delidded 9900k with the rockit 9th gen ihs. Temps are way better now, I would say around 10 Kelvin less than before. Did not use foam as a barrier for cunductonaut but thermal Tape and the Gelid pads. So far no problems.

In Control maxed out with all RTX features GPU goes up to 80C and CPU to 60C, fps around 70, GPU clock around 2GHz. Game looks on native 1080p 144Hz better than on my 4k Desktop.

Now, if only @Prema would release a worthy bios for the 51m, I have given up on Dell fixing this bios. But the notebook Is sooo sexy, best looking notebook I owned. Maybe we should start a petition for Prema magic? I would gladly pay him for a bios worthy of this beast, even if it would eventually blow up ;-))

 

Don’t quote me, but I read somewhere in the thread that the BIOS is encrypted, so a modded BIOS is something that is very unlikely we’ll see, even from Prema.

 

Not gonna happen, EVER.

 

Yep. I tried Samsung Magician clone several times = crap & problems every time. Then I used Macrium Reflect Free to clone = worked the first time. My only issue was what I described a few posts back, that resolved itself by removing the original drive and then installing it again.

 

So tried to make a recover flash drive....nope says can not create backup..

Im really at a loss...

 

Sorry I'm lost here.

Can you elaborate more on what's the issue maybe I can help.

 

Did you use the windows 10 creation tool?
https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691209

 

Any help would be most welcome. Basically i tried to clone to a new drive....with bad results.

I ordered machine with the base 1tb hybrid drive.

I installed an evoplus m2, then used Samsung's clone program. Thinking i would use it for the os, and then use the hybrid for bulk.

After cloning, System would not let me set boot priority to the m2, in fact would not allow me to set boot priorities except via f12...which did let me one time boot to m2.

With the hybrid disconnected the system would boot to the m2. It worked fine, so I did a full format on the hybrid nd reinstalled.

Machine now boots to windows repair endlessly. It will only let me fully boot to windows if I use f12 and select the m2.

Figured at this point I would do a win reinstall. So I booted using f12 and the m2....which takes me to windows. tried to make a backup flashdrive... But when i use the MS backup drive tool it says there is a problem and it can't create the drive.

So....not sure what to do now.

I used the one that comes with win 10. Recovery media creator...

Heres what it looks like in disk manager. Apparently the full reformat did not wipe everything...

 

The BIOS is finding a Windows Boot Manager on both drives and only one is actually a bootable Windows volume.

Boot Windows Setup. At the first screen where you are prompted to click next to move ahead, press Shift+F10 to open a command prompt with admin rights.

Take out the M.2 first (the best option to avoid a mishap) then boot your Windows installation media, open a command prompt with admin rights, (as noted above,) launch diskpart and run a diskpart "clean" command on the original hybrid drive. If you do not remove the M.2 first, then type "list disk" to enumerate the installed drives and then type "select disk" followed by the number diskpart assigns to the original hybrid drive, then "clean" command. Then run the command "convert mbr" and this should make the original hybrid unbootable, having killed all of the original partition data, and force the BIOS to boot from the M.2 Windows Boot Manager.

If your M.2 now boots its Windows installation correctly, you can format the cleaned original hybrid drive in Windows using the Disk Management utility.

I am pretty sure doing that will fix your issues. If that doesn't work, pull the hybrid drive, run a diskpart "clean" on the M.2, then "convert gpt" and do a clean install of Windows without the hybrid installed. After you're done, install the original hybrid drive, format it and use if for data storage. Leave it as MBR (not GPT). You'll have a tiny bit more usable disk space with it initialized as MBR (no wasted space being used by GPT) and it won't become a bootable volume if the BIOS is set for UEFI without CSM enabled.

Tip: always remove all drives except the OS drive whenever possible for a clean Windows install. You don't want the Boot Manager installed on any drive other than the OS drive, and you don't want the recovery partition on any other drive. Windows Setup does really stupid things sometimes, and if there are no drives installed other than the one Windows is being installed to, Windows Setup can't make any stupid mistakes during the OS installation.

 

Thank you!!!! I understand now..I will try this tomorow.

I also downloaded the Dell OS recovery tool and was able to make a recovery usb drive.

I have to say, before this I was thinking I should just get a new hybrid!

 

Hello fellow Area Fifty Oners :0). I'm possibly having issues with my laptop that maybe you guys can help me with. Ok so I have had this laptop for about a month now and in that short time I've had to get it serviced three times. Last one was because I was trying to downgrade to the 1.3.2 bios and ended up bricking it. They replaced the motherboard with a new one yesterday and this is were my new troubles begin. I'm getting some weird vcore spikes that i can't explain. It seems to run hotter than usual and I think its because of this strange vcore spikes. I've tried to manually set the vcore voltage and I still get huge vcore spikes above what I set it to. Here are some pics showing the strange spikes (no overclocking was done). If you notice HWMonitor its shows some really broad voltages well above threshold (manual or auto-managed by Alienware Command Center).

 

You can add a boot option. Select the evo drive for that, and you are good to go.

 

Were is that option located?

 

Unless you want Prema to be in jail for IP infringement or something worse. Anyway, Dell made it hard to patch 3rd party FW eventhough its signed. Dell might see this as a chance to disown owners to love Prema mods.

 

This is what I had to do: I added a new boot option for my NVME and set it as first priority... then my PC would still boot to the hybrid drive (undesired) regardless of what I did in BIOS. After doing what I just described, I disconnected the hybrid drive, booted into windows once fully, then shut down, and reconnected the hybrid drive. I haven’t had problems since (this was just when I had first cloned my hybrid drive into my NVME).

By the way, this is all dependent on making the clone with Macrium Reflect. I tried Samsung’s clone tool because my NVME drive is Samsung thinking it was “better to use the company’s tool”; hell no, Macrium Reflect is THE disk cloning tool to use. It actually clones each and every partition, as expected. Samsung’s clones most but not all, resulting in he situation you have (went through the same thing) in conjunction with the BIOS being difficult (this was where I had issues and described how I fixed above).

I actually kept the entire recovery, Dell tools, etc on my hybrid drive and didn’t wipe those partitions. In case my NVME fails (Or vice versa, the hybrid fails), I can reimage either drive or a new drive & clone it again. I just wiped the windows/data partition on my hybrid drive, leaving ~95% still free. No point in wiping those recovery and Dell tools partitions if they’re not in the way and give some peace of mind. If I sell this unit, I’d reimage to factory settings and sell it, for example, without having to put much effort in.

I actually reimaged to factory settings several times figuring everything you’re trying to figure out now because I kept screwing things up trying to get EFI and boot settings pointed in the right direction... turns out it all boiled down to what the BIOS took as “Primary” and “Secondary” drive, which is resolved by removing a drive. The drive that is left connected will become the “Primary” drive (this should be your OS, cloned drive).

Whew, that was long winded. I’m pretty sure this is what you need. Follow it and it will work.

 

On the plate for today.

I did remove the hybrid and booted from the M2. But as soon as I reconnected the problems started

 

Good luck!!! I had the same set up: lowest config (hybrid drive) and added my own NVME as my OS drive by cloning the hybrid. I wanted everything to work (e.g. AW mobile connect, etc, which requires the stock image), so I was very persistent until I figured it all out.

You need not change any settings within Windows. The process from the top should be:

1. Open new A-51m
2. Install NVME drive inside.
3. Boot into windows from hybrid drive.
4. Set up Samsung magician, install Samsung NVME driver, update to latest firmware.
5. Install Macrium Reflect
6. Clone hybrid drive to NVME completely. Just select clone and ensure all partitions are checked. Clone.
7. Shutdown and go into BIOS, create a new boot option for the NVME Boot manager. Put it as first option. Save.
8. Shut down, open your A-51m, disconnect the hybrid drive ribbon.
9. Power your machine on and go to BIOS. Your NVME should now be listed as the “Primary” drive.
10. Boot into Windows to be sure your clone worked.
11. Shut down. Reconnect hybrid drive. Go to BIOS.
12. Check NVME is still the drive listed as “Primary”.
13. Boot into Windows, open Macrium Reflect or Disk Manager and wipe the OS partition on the hybrid drive. I named mine “Data”.
14. You’re done! You shouldn’t have to edit ANY Windows settings/EFI/Boot stuff within Windows. The NVME drive is a CLONE and thus should work exactly as expected after cloning, which is to just WORK.

The only thing I’d add as a “step 0” is: if you’ve already messed with things on your hybrid drive and don’t have anything important on it, I’d go into Dell recovery and just nuke everything, reimage your hybrid drive to factory settings and start from there. That’s what I did, at least 4-5 times trying to get this to work. I basically didn’t install anything or start really using my PC until I had sorted this out.

Let us know how it goes!

 

Could use a quick advise on which setup I should go for.

I’m located in Denmark so therefor limited to what the danish dell online store is capable of providing

As my budget won’t allow me to go full out with rtx 2080 and i9 9900 I have these 2 options

I7 9700 ( non K ) rtx 2080

Or

I9 9900k rtx 2070

They are exactly the same price with everything ells chosen for the setup the i9 upgrade is 400$ extra and I’m already 1000$ over budget with the 2 setup so not an option

I lean towards the i7 setup as I could sell the cpu down the line used for 250-300$ here in Denmark and buy the i9 for 530$ current prices

I could of cause go i7 9700k and 2070 and save 230$ on the 2 setups and only go 770$ over budget and I do love to thinker with OC

 

2080 all the way! CPU is easy to upgrade and a 9900K can be obtained later in time for cheaper...

 

Second that, plus the heatsink can handle the 9700 without throttling it like crazy. Trust me I had a 8700k (undervolted -150mv) and an rtx 2080. It was the best combo ever. Low heat and no throttling, plus fan noise was kept at a minimum...

This way if you have a bad batch of vrms in the Alienware area 51m your less likely to burn it out. Less stress on the motherboard vrms due to only 65w consumed by the cpu compared to the 120+ from the 9900k.

 

Speaking of wanting Alienware Mobile Connect to work, I recently started getting this error. Anyone get this too and know a fix? I’ve tried reinstalling, re-pairing, etc. Anyone?

 

Here is a probably a new dying 2060. It seems @Donald@HIDevolution had correct. From what I know... The Area-51m with the 2060 graphics have worse cooling.


It's very rare the panel itself is dying right out of the box.

[HELP]Horizontal multicolored waves on screen, New Area51m. Anyone have an idea?

 

Alienware (Dell) Update isn’t working at all either. Anyone experiencing the same?

Edit:
Figured it out for both. A Windows update was installed that blocked a vulnerability on VB6/VB script, it’s update KB4512508. Another update was released supposedly reenabling VB6/VB script, KB4512941, however apps relying on VB6/VB script like AW mobile connect and AW update still weren’t working. I uninstalled the updates and they’re working again.

I’ll try reinstalling them later, but for now, we gud.

 

So far I have removed the m2, and reinstalled win on the hybrid using dell Os recovery tool. I have downloaded Macrium, Samsung magician and the samsung driver (none installed yet) I have not installed the m2 yet.

Win is running slow, and it takes a long time to boot. U recall if your hybrid was sluggish?

 

This!

Funny still, my magician shows the samsung driver is being used by my two 970 plus'. So it should display it, like windows as well.