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

I would choose the aw over the hp tbh.. Hp is soldered bga gpu burn motherboard messed up... Cpu burn... Same deal gsync? Yeah not working for me either... But hey still have a desktop cpu and 2080 that is better than hp for sure! I'm not saying this laptop is perfect but after it's tamed it's amazing. So for me at this point to get more power would be to get a clevo but only reason that, would be nice is for my 9900ks to run at true speeds but I got it to 4.8ghz stable and the 51m looks worlds better than a clevo so.. Kinda a Win win in the end.

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Has anyone ever dealt with HP warranty? I can tell you, absolutely nightmare.

 

That is the truth, hp support is terrible to say the least.

 

That's really what I am trying to quantify here - just how much worse is the 9900K+2080 for thermals - I am guessing it must be quite substantial in comparison. So given all the throttling, I mean, are you just hanging onto it then and just running WOW at a lower setting?

 

Hi, I’m new to Windows and PC gaming.
I just got an Area 51m RTX2070, 9700k, 16gb, 144hz, no g-sync.
OS installed in M.2 and games in SSHD. Battlefield 5, I’m only getting 60-67fps in ultra. Both adapters are plugged in.
What am I doing wrong? Shouldn’t I be getting 90fps plus?
Latest updates on all programs.
Thank you.

 

Look who it is

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My Omen is still running strong though in the buyers hands, that gpu is giving the Alienware 51M gpu a run for its money lol.

I have to tell it how it is, if something is crap it’s crap like the area 51m tobii eye tracking and sound, tragic to say the least...

 

Best machine I’ve owned so far for actual gaming is still the Clevo unfortunately, I wish that it could be something else by now but Clevo keeps a balance of decent cpu and gpu temps and performance without blowing up

 

Hey guys,

I'm thinking of throwing my laptop through the window, it might by the solution to fix Windows...

Let me explain,

I had weird issues with my network adapter since day one, + several issues causing the impossibility to open some settings (see video 1).

https://streamable.com/yk3zj

Today, I decided to create another user on my laptop, which fixed my initial issues. I created the "Administrator" account, so small bonus : no more authorization problems, I guess.

But NOW, here is my first issue with my brand new user. (See video 2)

https://streamable.com/h49u7

You can see that I fixed the issues that occurred with the first user, but notice those white flickering when right-clicking anything related to the explorer... Why the hell is this happening?

For now, I tried to completely reinstall my display drivers, fresh installing old Nvidia drivers, but it constantly happens, even without any graphics drivers.

How can I fix this?
I mean, I'm leaving my initial user, reinstalled pretty much everything, and here is this flickering issue...

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That is simply unforgiveable.... what kind of people are putting these together? I mean its not rocket science to count how many pads go into position on a critical component, and the average Chinese factory worker is not an idiot.

 

That looks and sounds like a video driver or maybe even a mouse driver issue. It sounds like you have reinstalled drivers, but did you clean them out first? Also, this is a problem that AW support, horrid as it can be at times, might be able to address.

 

They’re pretty nasty and rude from my experience. I got an x360 spectre a couple years back and it was taking forever to ship to me. I checked bestbuy and they had the same model so I asked them if I could cancel the order. I got a “You can’t cancel an order three weeks after you order it!” Type response. At least they refunded me quickly after I sent the one I bought from them since I went with the bestbuy one.

 

after the 1.8.1 bios and latest command center version update a while back i have been having one issue with lighting. since bios and command center updates were the same day i didn't notice which of the two changes started the issue.

i use an all red lighting theme, but on restart or wake up after the rainbow wave the keyboard on the laptop stays on default blue until i open command center and click on any tab. then it jumps back to my all red profile like it should be (the macro keys and alien head stay red during it, it's just the main keayboard keys). i have tried uninstalling and re installing all alienware command center, oc controls, alienware fx components, ect... to no change. all other lighting follows my all red profile on wake up with no issues even the external alienware keyboard. it's odd that opening command center and clicking any random tab makes the laptop keyboard realize it is supposed to be red.

anyone else run into that?

 

Hi, I'm considering buy one Area 51M but to know if it can suits me I would need a little help, thus the laptop would be connected almost all the time to the plug I would need a laptop that let me have good battery for unique ocassions, and I know by default this laptop has a terrible battery life, but I was wondering if for example in a 9900K config, you disable 6 cores and underclock the two remaining to around 2-2.5Ghz (+undervolting to further gain energy) disable the dedicated GPU in favor of the integrated GPU (or if the last is not possible reduce the dedicated GPU power target to minimum and heavily underclock it) could all of this give to the laptop a good battery life for example around 6 hours, obviously a reconfiguration like this is not something like you do daily but for special ocassions like you need the battery life for a light (but extended) office and browsing session, or to watch something on a trip this would be awesome, obviously you will using like a 10% of the full potential, but sometimes you only and really need the battery life.

Do you think that this could be doable and successful?

 

Another day, several more posts about how much better brand "X" is .
Just in case we are keeping track...

Sigh.

Lets make a new thread titled "Clevo/omen/razor/acer/ROG/apple/Atari400/superfamcom/ballyastrocade/SinclairZK/IBMPCJr/colecoADAM/Newton is better then 51M" and move these posts there. Then I won't have to dig though useless posts to find the useful info...or help someone with a legitimate question...

Just my humble suggestion.

 

Who in their right mind thinks Razer is better than Alienware? I want names!

 

Can't disable any cores in this thing. Bios is locked af

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Hang here long enough. Someone will post that a casio watch will be more powerful.

Or at least has better thermals.

Can't really argue with that.

 

Hmm, I didn't know how limited was the BIOS, but if you use msconfig to disable the cores on Windows, that would improve the battery life?, because in the end that option tell the computer to not use the cores, what I don't know is if in this laptop if Windows doesn't use 6 cores the CPU will shut them down until are in use, or it leave them on, but with 0% load that would consume more energy, but will be an improve after all, and well maybe other feasible approach to dramatically increase the battery could be downclock all 8 cores to like 1Ghz or so

 

I finally done a tear down and repaste tonight, boy was I sweating buckets. Replaced the Killer 1550 wifi card for the Intel AX200 card while I was in there.

It took about 1 hour 20 mins all in, baring in mind this is the first time I've ever done anything like this.

I used IPA 99% to clean off all the old paste and replaced it with Phobya Nanogrease. Stuck it all together and crossed my fingers....... wouldn't post. Took it apart double checked all connectors, put it back together.... still no post.

Final try put two memory modules in slots 1 and 2 (can't remember whats best for dual channel if someone can help), and boom up she came.

I did get an error about the memory modules not being in dual channel configuration, but at least I got in.

I haven't had a chance to check the temps etc. No doubt I have messed that up too but I need to start somewhere and here I am.

Any pointers in terms of the recommended RAM slots for dual channel would be appreciated. I was sure it was 1 and 3 I had it in but it wouldn't post in that setup this time around.

 

Anyone?

 

Turn raytracing off?

 

I dont know what your trying to do with an i9 at 1ghz but you might aswell get some slim office laptop or something/netbook idk. The battery on this thing not gonna last you all day, please don't spend 3k to try to get battery out of. Cause you aren't going to be playing any games with a cpu half disabled like that and underclocked to what your talking about, your trying to turn a 9900k into a 8700k...better yet 8600k..i don't get the picture here..

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Lol, that reminds me of something I've read a while back. Basically someone had calculated that Intel chips heat density, per millimitere squared, was 50% that of a reentry vehicle.

 

You are not going to get 6 hours out of an A51m... I barely can get 3 after toning things down as much as possible. Gaming is barely over an hour.

Bottom left slot and top right slot.

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The plan isn't play and get decent battery life, my idea is to use it mainly connected to the chargers and play games with his full power and all of that stuff, but in some rare ocassions I would need a good battery life, to for example light office and browsing (for example homework out of the house), or for watch movies on a trip and thing like that I usually don't do but would require more than hour and a half of battery and for those special occasions. So I was trying to find out if would be possible to disable cores (well know I know the BIOS way wouldn't be effective) in msconfing (like 6 and leaving 2 on around 2ghz) or leaving all active but around 1Ghz, disable the dedicated GPU to use the integrated (or if it not possible to heavily underclock and reduce the power limit of the dedicate one) all in order the get a good battery life on those uncommon ocassions that I know I would have sometimes, to me sounds a good idea get one of the most powerfull laptop that is what I would use 98% of the time and for that rare 2% of the time disable more than half of the machine to get a good battery life when I really don't need to use the full power of the machine instead off buy a lot less powerful laptop, that would have a CPU slower than the next generation of consoles and have near 0 upgradeability beyond memories only because sometimes I need good battery life, why should I make sacrifices like those, just because for something that represents a tiny part of my use time. If this works I should not have to choose between **** myself for not having a laptop able to survive a minimun amount of time far from a plug, buy a less powerfull laptop that will be very affected by the next gen consoles, or having to have several laptops only for those times when you need the battery life.

TL;DR: I think it has all sense in the world to disable half the computer to convert it in a lot less powerfull PC to get good battery life not because you want this laptop always having good battery life, in wich case you would choose another laptop, but because you need it one specific day in which you will not need all that power, rather to have a lot less powerfull PC always

 

Hmm, that would be unfourtunate. What things do you try/use to reach those 3 hours?

 

Not sure whats up with Area and 2070 but the super thin ELUKTRONICS MAG-15 is on top of Futuremark's leaderboard...

Maybe make a couple of power profies in ThrottleStop for low performance.

 

I would do it if I have one Area 51M xD, I'm asking these things because I'm considering to buy one

 

Give me a couple of days and I'll see what I can do.

I need to downgrade my BIOS first though. I'm on 1.7.2. To downgrade to 1.5.0, can I just click the .exe on Dells website and run it that way without issues?

 

I got the non gsync version of the area 51m because I thought the laptop would use optimus. PCworld's lying ass claims of 6+ hr battery life. That's not the case though. Dell being the dumbasses they are basically made it so the display is directly connected to the dedicated GPU so you can't use the internal GPU. So no matter what tweaks you do to the CPU you will never get more than 2 and a half hrs on battery because of the 2080. Trust me I've tried.

If anyone from Dell is reading this, I can't understand the decision of making it have a nice big battery and not putting switchable graphics. Look at the GT76 it's got pretty decent battery cause it has optimus.

It's light enough and not even that bulky, I could deal with bringing it around, but in this day and age not having switchable graphics is retarded. I'd easily sacrifice Gsync for it or others have figured out ways to have both with just a restart.

I think the razer blade pro has it down in terms of portability and gaming. It's got good power, cooling, and portability. Sure you won't get as many frames but honestly I have a small form factor desktop that's just as mobile as the area 51m + two bricks and my small form factor desktop has a 2080 ti and 9900k overclocked to 5 ghz. If I'm going to get a laptop, it better be portable enough and have decent enough battery life.

 

Force downgrade Alienware Area-51m Bios (or any alienware) to locked lower versions

And be careful if you think about jump directly on coming Bios updates from Dells support or Win Update. The XPS owners is stuck with new EC firmware although they downgraded to working Bios.

 

Thank you, just re-seated in these positions and its booting up. But I think my slot 3 may be broken. Regardless of what config I use (outside of slot 3) the 2x8GB sticks are recognised, however, the machine doesn't even post when any of the sticks are in slot 3.

Is this a motherboard swap out if that is in fact the case that slot 3 is dead?

 

Take out all sticks and start up and let it puke errors. Then shut down and clear out NVRAM. Put single stick in the broken slot and try again. Repeat the procedure if first stick fails.

Dead ram slot means MB swap

 

Cheers brother, do I need to do anything to clear out NVRAM or is that what starting it without the RAM in will do?

 

3 hours of youtube/office work is possible. Check my guide: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-area-51m-undevor-and-overclock-guide.830857/

Additionally, turn of AlienFX, that consumes quite some battery.

A hardware switch like Asus does would have been nice. Maybe in the R2.

For my use case, battery endurance is just fine. Currently, waiting for an Ultrabook for when I need stupid amount of battery life.

You can use the Arear 51m with just the 180W power supply if you're not doing GPU intensive tasks. However, even limited 50W (GPU power down mode), the RTX 2080 does great at games.

 

Google how reset nvram/cmos for Area. Take out/run without ram usually won’t clear cmos.

 

I prefer it not have Optimus. So I see it as a Pro. Not a con. Optimus can be buggy and switch between the graphics when it isn’t supposed too and cause weird hitching and stuttering in game. So not having it is giving you the most performance since you’re always using the dedicated gpu.

And did you read any other reviews besides PC world? Because every review I’ve seen or read has claimed 2-3 hrs. And from personal experience that’s what I got when I had one.

What we really need is a MUX switch. That way you could manually switch between the dedicated and integrated graphics.

And if you think Razer has their stuff together you should buy one. See how quickly you return it. Their QC is by far the worst I’ve seen out of any manufacturer.

 

Razer is worse than Alienware, that's a fact. Alienware just needs to fix the stuttering issues it's having with the rtx 2080 graphics. Otherwise the laptop is good even with the caveats it has, then again every laptop has it's limitations...

 

Gave up on my area51m today. Getting a full refund after 3 months of usage, built my new desktop yesterday with 9900ks + 2080ti. Desktop always win I guess. I will still follow this thread and see if the laptop gains any updates

 

Oh boy do I know that first hand. Anyone that likes Razer either never owned one or is a YouTuber that got a cherry picked unit. They’re terrible. They look nice. . .but that’s all you’ll get.

The Area 51m was very functional for me when I had it. But two power bricks was a bit much for me. Kinda wish I waited for the 780w eurocom psu. Think that would’ve fixed my only real issue with it. Hopefully they do fix that stuttering issue you mention.

Honestly besides Razer there aren’t many manufacturers I would straight up tell people to avoid. Dell is really close with the way they handled the m15 r2 and m17 r2. I really hope they fix them in the r3. I’ve never seen a 9750h run so hot.

 

This X2 Kid 2 has a M15R1. Its scary hot. And they "improved" it by soldering the ram.....but even the R2 is super hot. I purchased him a backup drive cuse im not sure how long it will last.

On the other hand, kid 1s dell G5 is still going strong after 4 years of university. And still does ok for gaming with a 9xxm. Hinge is starting to go though.

 

What stuttering issues? I'm running games smooth with my RTX 2080 A51m

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Yeah the R1 was hot also. But it was easy to open up and repaste. That with an undervolt had it at decent temps. Now you gotta rip the whole thing apart to do the same thing. Supposedly it gets decent temps also if you repaste. If reddit is to be believed.

If it wasn’t for the looks I’d say the G5 and G7 are just better overall. No fancy gimmicks. Just a laptop. No wonder they last. And I’m sure some duct tape and gorilla glue will fix that hinge.

 

Now there won't be any questions like "when a BIOS upgrade to make for us 2666 MHz RAMs work?"
That is indeed "improve".

 

You mean the same issues the 17 r3, r4 r5 and now the 51m line-up has ? it's Dell what where talking about, not ASUS or Clevo sadly... Waiting for Dell to fix their machines, is like waiting for companies like Shell, BP etc switch from coal and fossile fuels to environmental friendly fuel cells. Since Dell took over they switched their parts supplier (from Clevo to Compal) and company ethics (from innovating to resorting to false advertisements to Sell and please the stake holders).

 

Woah woah what's going on? I have KS aswell.

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I’m not saying razer is any better than Alienware when it comes to qc or reliability. I am speaking In terms of overall laptop design. Every laptop manufacturer has their issues, have you forgotten about the people with burned out 2080s on the Alienware’s. Also the Alienware software is pure garbage. My lunar light demonstrates discoloration on the palm rest in just a few months.

Just seems like razer has terrible support.

I am currently running a razer blade pro and it runs great and cool. It’s got enough battery life to last a day of light work, mostly surfing and word processing.

I loved my Alienware for gaming but it’s a bad laptop. My dancase small form factor and 17 inch laptop was just as portable and even more powerful, so it didn’t make any sense.

 

That score is set by Prema, the master of bios mods. He probably modded that PCs bios to achieve that amazing result and OC'd the crap out if it.

 

What game are you stuttering on? FYI BFV stutters with Windows 10 since update 18XX and up and RAM above 16 GB. This is because Windows caches a lot of crap into RAM into the “standby by list” when it has that much available, and BFV is constantly loading things in and out of RAM. So when BFV needs more RAM than what is truly available (the empty part, not in the standby list), Windows frees up RAM from the standby list and BFV allocates it, causing a stutter. CONSTANTLY! It’s maddening.

There is a small app made by a guy that caught on to this, intelligent stand by list cleaner, try it: https://www.wagnardsoft.com/content/intelligent-standby-list-cleaner-v1000-released

I’m finally playing BFV smooth again after finding this solution. I have this running permanently at Windows boot. It helps reduce stuttering in other games too, but BFV benefits the most for me.