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

Sorry for the late reply; I spread it manually with the included spatula. Main problem was the stuff is so thick and sticky that spreading it was sometimes pulling it back up off the CPU, had to get creative with it in some instances. I think the coat may have ended a bit too thick in some spots.

 

3 Finger tap == middle click
Is there anyway to get the a 3 finger tap to do a middle click instead of open Cortana, without AutoHotKey?

 

I assume there was no way to change it within the Windows settings? There is a tutorial on Youtube on how to install precision drivers, which may help with the gestures? Let me know and I can find a link for the video.

 

Howdy. I'm new to the Area 51m. I just bought one from another member here. As far as speakers go, I've noticed that if the volume is turned up(over 50%) when certain higher pitched tones are played I hear a vibration/rattle sound from one of the speakers. When you are first setting up the laptop and Cortana is talking to you triggers it for example. Almost sounds like a blown speaker. Is this normal/common? This still has a couple months of Dell warranty. Should I get them to replace the speakers? Any help appreciated. Thanks!!

 

I have been having an issue with the keyboard randomly stop working when a USB mouse is used, sometimes only after a few minutes, sometimes after an hour.

Very disappointing and debating whether I should return or not. Anyone have any ideas? I read something about USB power management so turned off allow this computer to power down this device for each and every USB related item. Seems like no luck.

 

Glad to be back.

Looks like I have some catching up to do regarding CES stuff.

 

The speakers aren't great on this laptop but I can't say I've noticed any sort of vibrations or blown speaker type noises. I'd definitely contact Dell and have them replace it whilst you still have warranty.

 

A bit OT, are you happy with the G703GXR? I want another gaming laptop, but don't know what to get. Is it better, worse or equal fan-wise as the 51M?

 

Hi everyone.

As I promised ( somehow to myself) I'm back here to give you feedback after quite a year of owning this laptop.

At first what I can say is "so far so good"...

To sum up for those who don't know my history here :

My unit is a top one Area51m i9 9900k 32gb ram 2080 rtx bought from HidEvolution around March 2019... 2 weeks later it died (smoke etc..) mb & gc was replaced on site and it died the next morning...then a big waiting marathon awaited me... to finally get a replacement...

Later after everything stabilized I've applied some modding :

- Thermal pads (following some application tutorial from this thread)

- thermal paste (nanogrease on both GC & CPU)

- reasonable undervolting on cpu and gpu (using Throttlestop and MSI AfterBurner)

- bios downgrade to 1.5.x (x cause I don't remember exactly as I'm in the train without my unit) capsule update disabled

- graphic bios with 200w version still applied

.....and we're after some months...

My unit is still running very fine.

As months passed temps rised to reach 86°c peak after hours of gaming (PUBG Overwatch...) but never facing any blue screen or any other problem... yes GPUZ is showing some THRM throttle.. usually slowing from 1900+ mhz to 1800s but still very playable on a 21/9 3440x1440 screen.

I still got problems with integrated speakers and voice range as those make speakers distortion...

Got some strange behavior with Ethernet sometimes at home once or twice a day (win10 ethernet symbol change to show disconnected network and if a ping command is running it'll warn about a general failure) but I'm highlt suspecting a driver issue or a home network problem (ethernet cable) as I'm not facing those problems at work...

As a conclusion I'm still very happy with the amount of power and stability this unit is showing

 

You need to install Alienware specific audio drivers, otherwise sound is incredibly distorted. Play with audio setting on Alienware Cammand Center until you find sound is pleasing.

 

Yeah, as I expected. Worlds fastest and worlds most upgradeable laptop won't get support for last years 9th gen 9900KS. Just sad. We will most likely see the same for the memory part..


https://twitter.com/aw_umar/status/1214950201183617025

 

I would say the two laptops are about the same, although it does look like the asus is able to hold the claimed 5ghz clock on overclock and not deviate as the area 51m does. Overall build quality feel of both feels about equal.
After i got burned by the 51m i did some research on the specs of laptops, and it appears only asus uses the 200w variant of the 2080, and i had a play with the asus g703 display unit that was at the shop to confirm it could hold a 5ghz overclock before i bought it, but as with overclocks it may have variation between units i would recommend to check it in person before buying (lesson i learned the hard way)

 

You mean Realtek ones you can get on Dell Website ? I did fine tuning with AW Command Center and still got random fuzzy and distorted sound when playing voice sounds

 

I'll give that a shot. Thanks!!

 

I found "party" to be the best personally, don't ask me why. After my AW13 R3 which sounded phenomenal these speakers seriously suck no matter what you do....

 

I have no means to check out a computer like this in person as basically no shops seem to hold them where I live.

 

I just signed up yesterday to say that I am totally enjoying my 51M. I purchased it from Amazon last July and it has been rock solid for me. I did replace the 256G NVM with two Samsung 970 Pro 512G NVM's (raid0), and also replaced the 1TB with a 2TB 870 EVO and just to be sure my already good temps were good, re-pasted CPU and GPU. Temps did improve a little, but weren't bad before but the factory paste job was sloppy and the paste had the consistency of bathroom putty, lol!

But, the reason I signed up and am posting is to ask, why does everyone seem to rag on this laptop so much? It's been great for me. I have not turned on my tower for several weeks. I moved all my peripherals over the the 51M months ago, including VR because the performance and everything else is so much better, except the noise. But my tower is water cooled, with slow fans, dual pumps and rads, 1080ti and I purposely built it to run hard and silent.

I think AW did an awesome job with the 51M. Sure, just about every gripe I've read here may have some merit, but at the end of the day, this laptop IS a DTR and an awesome machine for me. I have zero complaints and feel that I got exactly what I paid for.

I have played around with XTU and Afterburner, but Alienware CC is just too easy to use and I just do a +160 on the GPU and -100mv on CPU @ 5.0 OC and call it a day. Btw, the 9700K/2080.

I am thrilled with this rig and hope it holds up for several years for me.

Why is everyone so pissed off?

 

@Prema

Is there any possibility that this helps you to give us a Prema Bios Mod for the 51m? Set us free!!!


https://westoahu.hawaii.edu/cyber/intel-boot-guard-bypass/

 

Got it article https://www.windowscentral.com/how-enable-precision-touchpad-drivers

 

Its more down to Dell/Alienware's methods of dealing with things (could be worded better but I'm not long awake and still tired), for example, they had a fair amount of 2080's burn out in the early days, which meant they implemented a 190w vBIOS not long after releasing a 200w vBIOS. Then introduced a 180 vBIOS to reduce power even more to the 2080 to prevent further burnouts. Then they started providing BIOS updates that reduced the thermal limit of the 2080 to 75-78c when the NVidia limit is 87c.

Instead of actually providing a hardware fix/recall they started limiting the abilities of the laptop. There is still no 2666mhz memory support despite it being advertised as being able to reach those speeds a year ago when it hit CES 2019.

Those are just some of the things that annoy people.

I have to admit though, regardless of the above its the best laptop I've owned and does everything and more I need it to. Since getting it, I've been getting into overclocking and undervolting the CPU and doing some benchmarking, making me want more and more like the 2666mhz memory to see if it makes an improvement.

I haven't bothered too much with the GPU, it scares me and caused data loss the last time I did haha.

All in all, I am more than happy with mine for now, I think its more this forum providing me with the confidence to play about and mess with it, that's got me wanting more. If I hadn't been so involved here I likely wouldn't have noticed any of these vBIOS/BIOS issues.

Excellent, did it work or help any?

 

Yup they sound pretty gd awful, and there's really nothing that can be done to fix it, and both my speakers have an annoying vibration. I've got an XPS 13 and that sounds just as bad, mainly bcos the keyboard rattles.

About the ONLY good thing I can say about Apple and particulary their iPad Pros is that they sound great for what they are.

 

One step closer for sure, I have no doubt someone will do it, it not if it’s when.


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I have seen a few posts about this, but honestly it seems to be a really small sample, my sound is fine. Sure it’s not the greatest but it’s not bad I don’t get pulled out of immersion by it, it’s adequate really pretty decent.


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We never got any Prema love on the aw 18/17/15 so I doubt we will on the 51m..

 

Just curious - what color unit did you get?

 

Same

 

Sad!!! One can hope though

 

My thing is they just sound a bit somewhat muddy no matter what sitting in front of the unit. "Party" mode with the controls seemed to even it up the most, but they are far from good. I just cannot grasp why my AW13 R3 almost creates real 3d space sound but this $3,000 unit has to have trash speakers with no subwoofer even.... wtf...

CORRECTION: I am not using party - I am using a custom equalizer setup in the Realtek Audio console - raising the first column slightly on the left, then dropping the 500 down a bit then lowering the 16K down about 40%. Combining this with the "plains" environmental setting its about as good as I can make it. It sounds not bad if you step back about a foot, but the firing down actually seems to make it muddier sitting directly in front as your apt to do.

 

It would have made sense to support the KS part, lower voltage/power draw and heat.. Making it more likely to be able to hold higher clocks. But then again, it will score worse at the same clocks due to hardware mitigations that can't be turned off.

 

I really cannot understand why this CPU is not supported... on what rationale? I mean even _if_ it didn't reach higher clocks etc due to artificial constraints, why _not_ support it to shore up the idea of the A51M being upgradeable? My guess then is the bad press from it is undesired, its not some real technical hurdle.

 

If I bought into this I would be so pissed. There should be support for sure as this was the selling point that this laptop is upgradeable.

 

Probably not cost effective at this point.

 

I think it really depends on how you look at it to me. "Upgradeable" isn't unlimited support for everything that comes down the pike, OTOH, I can understand that CPU's might be limited, but if the systems depend on a DGFF GPU, then they darn better make at least one more generation with them as that is what most people want.

 

Yes upgradeable meaning at least a generation or two but it’s been out less than a year!! Plus the Bios is locked!

 

The Luna. It's connected to a Dell U38 95% of the time and I only move it when the grandkids come over and want to do VR. The finish doesn't seem to suffer the defect that I've read about here and it still looks brand new.

 

Chasing benchmarks is kind of like being a long time musician and then going to youtube and watching a 7 year old make you look like a n00b!

Frustrating, lol!

 

In 2 months my a51 will be a year old already. I just pulled the trigger on a 3 year extension for onsite support. It cost me 600 euro to extend with 3 years making a total of 4. I think a reasonable price for a peace of mind the next 3 years. The 2080 will hold up for some time, maybe in the future a AGA with 4080 will be a upgrade ^^.

I do hope alienware releases a new AGA that can fit a little bit bigger cards.

 

Despite all the hassles, I many times just sit back, enjoy a game and think to myself : this is fine.

Enviado desde mi GM1913 mediante Tapatalk

 

More about this disgusting tech... At least, not all Notebook brand use it the same way...
How Intel and PC makers prevent you from modifying your laptop's firmware...

Asus was the first brand out with 200W vBios from the factory. Frank Azor was fast out say Dell would change the firmware. Msi has also a model with 200w vBios.

If Azor had done his job and never jumped on the 200 w railroad maybe Dell's engineers have never touched the sBios with the capped temp target for graphics.

Alienware's Product marketing Manager Eddy Goyanes at CES last year talking about worlds most upgradeable laptop... You all should shoot him an tweet.

 

Thanks for the new info @Papusan

So from what i can gather there is only the asus and msi using the 200w? and alienware is now running ~180w 2080s?

 

You're welcome

Yees. Both Asus and MSI still using the 200w vBios. Dell promote 180w Bios as urgent. See the post with MSI Jokebook Gt76

 

I just reinstalled Win LTSC and I'm having no luck getting the touchpad working for 3 finger taps == middle click.
I get the Precision panel, but it has no effect on the touchpad.
What sw did you already have installed Dell Touchpad Driver + Alienware Pointing Devices?
Also my touchpad is just listed as PS/2 Compatible and Touchpad in devmgmt.msc.

PS: I just want to say I think Alienware Command Center is among the worst software ever created by humans.

 

Does anyone get video over USB-C? I just get a messed up repeating image.

 

Yes, but to thunderbolt dock. Never tried direct to monitor

 

So I've always gotten the problem where my 2080 gets throttled to 500MHz, fairly frequently, then eventually jumps back up to normal clocks only to get throttled again. This happens even if I thermal limit to 75C. Is this the BIOS limit, or do I have a hardware issue?

Should I attempt to roll back the BIOS? I have a gsync panel but I guess I can give that up until/if Alienware fixes this. Any other downsides to downgrading to an earlier BIOS? Is 1.5.0 the target, or 1.3.2?

 

Dell won't fix this. They say it's working as intended. Roll back to bios 1.5.0, you lose g-sync if you have a chei-mei panel.

 

I decided to try this just now and it Works! Thank you for reposting this

BTW this is on a CLEAN install of Windows 10 did NOT have the AW touchpad drivers on, it had basic Synaptic support but none of the gestures or any other settings in system touchpad UNTIL I followed this process.

Now it's all there and the light and FN F11 works as it should / gestures and right click and all.

 

I performed the rollback to 1.5.0. Is it safe to also roll back my vBIOS to 1.0.0.3 or should I leave that alone?



Also, very happy to see that I kept GSYNC after the rollback, so I guess I have a different panel.

 

Been trying for freaking hours, the best I could get was 3 finger tap to middle click but then my scroll was stuck on Downward motion scrolls up, and a restart just made the 3 finger tap go back to Cortana while still having scroll stuck. Uninstalled all pointing drivers, went through the process again same scenario.

Gona format C: and start again.

Just to clarify you didn't install any toucpad drivers, the touchpad was functional just w/ the default that comes w/ Windows... then you:
1.- From device mgr you selected "Touchpad".
2.- Updated the driver from Synaptics driver from Lenovo.
3.- Touchpad stopped working.
4.- Restart, Update from internet.

 

Check your GeForce control panel, click set defaults / reboot then test for awhile to see if it comes back.
Mine did that once and that fixed it.


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