*OFFICIAL* Alienware Area-51M R2 Owner's Lounge

Alienware Area-51m R2 Drivers

Spoiler: Area-51m R2 All Drivers in a single ZIP file with the correct installation order

Alienware Area-51m R2 Drivers 07-Jul-2020


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


After you download the ZIP file and before you unzip it, make sure it is not blocked by right clicking on it, go to Properties, then see at the bottom if it says "this file came from another computer and might be blocked..." click the UNBLOCK button then hit APPLY followed by OK! To prevent Windows from blocking downloaded files automatically, make sure you read this guide:


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


The drivers are organized in numbered folders with the correct installation order.


When Install the LAN Driver, Choose CUSTOM, then uncheck the box which says Killer Software. You can also expand the Drivers and uncheck Ethernet Drivers, E3100. You only need the E3000 Drivers. Keep the DELL Checkbox.


Same for the WLAN Driver, choose Custom, and only select the driver for the WLAN Card that you have


Please restart after every driver install even if you were not prompted because some drivers will fail to install if there are any other pending operations (ie. had the Intel HID Event Filter Driver fail to install once because I did not reboot, the driver package was installed but the actual device in Device Manager was not updated)

Alienware Area-51m R2 Service Manual

Alienware Area-51m R2 User's Guide

Where to buy:

Dell
HIDevolution









If one choose 4 NVMe SSDs instead of 2, then they lose the 2.5" bay as daughter board will be in its place ot accommodate for 2 more m.2 SSDs

 

Really interesting, thank you for sharing!

 

Some more awful results for you guys. Only thing missing is my ham and eggs. Need something to cook it on.

https://twitter.com/_rogame/status/1259148403226873857/photo/1
https://twitter.com/_rogame/status/1258807850278834176

@Papusan

 

> 2x32GB DDR4 2933MHz

I wonder how high you can overclock the memory. As well if you can tweak the timings for your likings. As a reminder... DDR4-2933 is the official specs for 10th gen Intel Core i7/i9. Not an overclock.

And will the refresh finally get an subwoofer?

 

Releasing May 12th or 13th ?

 

That I don't know yet hopefully on Monday I might try to get more info

 

I don't understand why you call it *awful*.

Envoyé de mon SM-G965F en utilisant Tapatalk

 

Well... maybe because the Time Spy CPU (Physics) score is 1,000 points lower than 9900K @ 5.0GHz in an older laptop, even though the newer CPU has more cores/threads.

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/7334305

Fire Strike has slightly less (about 800 points) gap on Physics, but it is still beaten by 9900K...

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/19479320

In comparison, I'd say awful is an appropriate choice of words. The numbers should be flipped in the opposite direction.

Maybe the person running the benchmarks doesn't know what they are doing. That is certainly a possibility. Or, it is overheating and thermal throttling like a big dog.

 

No AMD option eh?

 

This is patetic from newer and with 25% more cores.

https://www.3dmark.com/compare/spy/10894529/spy/11927083#

https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/19358797/fs/22588329
5 years old notebook with 25% less cores. What a progress.

AMD chips won't come with 2080 Super cards for notebooks in very long time.

Intel will continue to dominate the premium gaming laptop ...

 

Ahhh that smell of fresh that Intel and Nvidia decide to serve upon the world and say they “improved” their offerings...

Really pathetic.

At least with the 1080/1080 Ti cycle, Nvidia didn’t release a half assed Super iteration as a marketing gimmick and just stayed on 1080/1080 Ti

 

I bet the only progress for Area-51m refresh over R1 will be the better screen/panel.

 

And the RAM speed... of course! Dellienware HAS to drip feed *something* so people want the R2...

Plus, Azor himself said better screens were 6-8 months away on the R1s release. They withheld adding that as an option to the R1 for the exact same reason. I would bet all my money on it.

 

Well you can be sure they "learned" from R1 to START with heat controls and locked BIOS in place to begin with …. They won't be very accepting of any of THESE burning up VRM's.

 

I hope the R2 motherboard will fit into the R1 chassis

 

If people want to try drop in the MB for 10th gen chips and reuse their 2080, I expect they will run into some compatibility problems added by Dell. Either due structural changes inside the chassis or in firmware. Most likely both. + find a MB will be difficult. +expencive.

 

why they should make them incompatible? As long as they advertise this laptop as "fully" upgradable the chassis must stay the same and give us more options to choose. You can buy a DGFF card directly from dell or cheaper from eBay and aliexpress as well as motherboards for the R1. So this is not the problem.

 

We must be careful what we ask for. If we get it, it might not be everything we hope it would be. But, if you really want a "high performance" notebook that doesn't overclock worth a damn, there is always this option. And, yes... it runs hot. Like the other 99.9% on the market, it has been lovingly "engineered" and features include inadequate thermal management and castration by cancer firmware at no extra charge. Unforgivable and blasphemous, it has a BGA filth GPU, and second fiddle 2070 is the highest GPU configuration available. It merely adds insult to injury that it is perma-welded to the motherboard. Kiss GPU replacement/repair or upgrades goodbye. Say hello to a stupid expensive disposable motherboard. Yeah... be very careful what you ask for. It has an AMD desktop CPU... woopty-doo.

Schenker XMG Apex 15 (Clevo NH57AF1) Laptop Review: Extremely fast, extremely loud

 

R2 comes with a new MB/chipset. We don't talk about upgrading the R1 with everything of hardware from the refreshed model. All you can hope for is a upgrade path with 2080 DGFF card used in the refresh. If Dell want that.

 

There are two SKUs tested here from what I can see, the 10900 non-k and the 10900K.
I did a comparison against the 9900Kx, mostly from my own bench numbers, and noted the speed required to be within 10900/K numbers.

10900 non k
Fire Strike: 10900 non-k 27.2k - 9900Kx at 5.0Ghz 27.6k*
Time Spy:10900 non-k 11.7k - 9900Kx at 5.0 Ghz 12.8k*

10900K
FireStrike: 10900K 28.6k - 9900Kx at 5.2Ghz 28.6k*
Time Spy: 10900K 13.1k - 9900Kx at 5.1Ghz 13.1k*

Things to mention, the 9900Kx is running 3333MT/s ram, while the 10900/K is running 2933MT/s.

 

Their firestrike 10900k physics score is still too low. And we don't know what actual speed they were running at. Was it all cores locked or stock boost? (I believe 4.8, and 4.9 with TVB)?

 

TVB will only boost clocks as long the temp is low enough.

Intel says TVB provides another 100 MHz boost to performance if the chip is under 70C, and it only applies to a single core. We'll be sure to test TVB in our tests under real-world operating conditions.

Finally, you'll notice that Intel has increased the 10900K's all-core boost over the 9900K by 200 MHz, while the 10900 trails by 100 MHz. In all, both of these chips look promising at this price point, but platform costs might muddy the picture.
https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/intel-comet-lake-s-cores-53-ghz-high-power-better-pricing

 

Please check your PM

 

I worry that undervolting will be impossible. Plus locked BIOS... CPU perf really could drop substantially against a tuned R1 if that's the case.

 

If XTU interface is disabled and XTU won't allow undervolting, the ONLY way to undervolt is to use tools mentioned on win-raid.com and find the UEFI capsule text for the BIOS, then use RU.EFI by a USB boot drive and find the proper bios offset location for the "AC Loadline" parameter (the correct one in Internal VR Settings-->Core I/A Domain, as there is one for GT, System Agent and something else too, which you need to ignore them), and change the AC Loadline value in Core I/A Domain from its default of 110 (1.1 mOhms) to 1 (0.01 mOhms).

That will reduce the operating voltage. I do not know if that will survive a power off however. This same procedure was used to disable "Bios Lock" on bioses that had it enabled (the ones that were not fully locked out for modding) so you could dump your BIOS with FPTW64 and then unlock menus by editing the dump (check win-raid.com).

 

All this... Forget it with Dell max locked out firmware.

 

3DMark confirms up to Intel Core i9-10900K, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, 64 GB of DDR4 RAM and 2 TB RAID 0 SSDs for new Dell Alienware Area-51m

 

Did you know that DDR4-2933 is the default (stock) memory clock for 10900K? Intel® Core™ i9-10900K Processor | Intel.com

It will be interesting (if not surprising) if Alienware allows it to use XMP profiles, manually adjust any of the timings, or run the memory any faster than the stock default 2933 memory speed.

 

I didn't know that! So at least now Dell will be forced to give us more RAM speed!

 

Had they other choice when you read all the complaints?

For the records... 2666 was default ram speed for 8th and 9th gen Intel chips Dell used in their gaming flagship

Without all the complaints maybe yo all would see 2666 for 10th gen Intel chips

 

XMP will not be allowed. Using XMP voids your CPU warranty because XMP requires overvolting of the memory controller. Such chips will only be warrantied if you have drank the kool aid bought the Intel Processor Replacement Plan.

 

The akward moment when your 10 core 20 thread 250W+ PL2 CPU still can't push the combined score past 30K... country home... take me home.. to the good ol 4930MX days... cause this ain't it

 

XMP is nice for the Plug and Play installation. I'd much rather prefer having access to memory timings, ratios and VCCSA/VCCIO voltages to tune by hand. This way you do not have to worry about XMP and board setting your SA/IO to something like 1.45v And being able to tune the kit primary/secondary/tertiary timings manually can surpass XMP performance my a fair amount.

 

Maybe crippled firmware and some more handicaps after launch when yesteryear AW m17x could pull 700W and still performs like beast.

 

https://wccftech.com/intel-core-i9-10900k-10-core-cpu-hot-power-hungry-at-stock-benchmarks-reveal/

Oh damn, this does not spell alot off good news. Seems like an AIO will have an hard time to keep the temps down. Interested what AW will create to be able to OC the beast. They'll probably lock the powerlimits like on the 17 R5

Selling a unlocked CPU with locked powerlimits fits right in the alley of Dell. Especially considering they'll hide behind the fact that the clocks are unlocked. But they won't tell you powerlimits affects clockspeed.

 

I honestly think they build laptops and don’t even know this type of thing. They just ask Compal/Foxconn: “build me a laptop that fits in this CAD drawing of a chassis with these parts”, and they don’t know truly what’s under the hood and how it happens or if it even fully “works” together/appropriately.

Hence the crap thermal limits/power limits/memory not running at spec/VRMs not selected to work and not burn out/etc/etc/etc.

 

You forgot: "build me a laptop that fits in this CAD drawing of a chassis with these parts for this price". It goes exactly like that. Back when Clevo was the main ODM they sourced clevo chassis and modified them. Now they're just building planned obsolescence machines that get sold broken straight from the factory.

The 51m was a nice try getting back to their roots. It did not even take a month for the good feeling about the new machine, to change to a sour taste with such a dismal smell.. that smelly smell that skunks don't change their stripes.. ( with much thanks to @Mr. Fox, @Papusan for the good lessons regarding OEM's ).

The 51m looked like a nice attempt, the R2 will be a more locked down machine while they have learned from their mistakes (by giving their customers the freedom to tweak THEIR machine). I love my R5 but never again. Will build myself an watercooled sff and also say goodbye to the DTR scene after a hefty 12 years. It will not change for the better, and it's time (for me to really) let go of DTR's.

2020 is still long from over but it looks like it won't become like the old days we could tweak the hell out of our machines... sad but meh i'll just vote with my wallet and build my own machines again. Literally.

 

For the longest time I’ve also been putting off building my own PC again... I’ve been using laptops for about 10 years now, always trying to have upgradeable/tweakable PCs along the way with the flexibility to be able to travel/move it with me. Sadly it’s been becoming more and more locked down on every front.

 

For gaming 4.8Ghz should be doable. Any professional work, ie. rendering will be a whole different story.

 

Agree, but i used to buy AW's to bench on them. I occasionally played some sim games but benching and tweaking the hell out my machine was what i used to do. Locking down the powerlimits was the last straw personally for me that i thought i'm done with AW. i returned to them after a 4 year break and now i'm contemplating on getting a ranger r5 (2013). but it wouldn't make a difference, it's a pretty much dead platform by now (except when someone can get the 2000 series working on it).

having a 10900K in your machine is fine and all, but not if you cannot even use it's full potential. AW needs to use some serious binned chips if they want to keep the temps down. But those are my assumptions. If they fail to cool a BGA chip, and LGA chip with fail as hard. my 17R4 was the last time i gave dell money. maybe í'll just keep buying warranty so i'm eligable for a new machine when it breaks down. The R5 is holding up over a year already (fixed the cooling) so if it does not become too hot. But hey it's an AW. it's still an ticking time bomb.

 

Theoretically speaking intel 10900k should be 25% faster than 9900k, but also 25% more power hungry.

I don’t think area51m was designed to handle 170W CPU cooler in mind.
This type of heat needs other means than 10 cm slap of copper fins

 

It is doable. Create an heatsink that also sits behind your display and divide the heat throughout the chassis, the main heatsink and than the second. The first heatsink will have active cooling, while the second one can be used with passive cooling. By using Graphene that runs under the display and connects directly to the heatsink you won't need to create a bulky hinge.

AW also needs to go back to seperate heatsinks for the CPU and GPU. by using a shared heatsink, they're creating an hotspot within the chassis that will radiate and make your whole keyboard hot. Your motherboards also gets hotter and hotter. Overtime the motherboard traces will have been degraded so much that the machine will get to a point where it refuses to boot. By heating and cooling down the MOBO you're expanding and contracting the MOBO with the traces also doing the same. The xbox 360 would get so hot it would get an red ring of death, which was essentially an unseated SOC due to the heat degrading the solder in turn which breaks the connection the SOC has with the mobo socket.

There are clevo's with dual 1080's running well into the 400W 500W with the graphics creating most of the heat (around 250+ watts). those use a VC with a small piece of copper for the phasechange and the cooling down of the VC. before that it was always done on pipes with much thicker machines. They need to innovate and that's something Dell refuses to do.

 

The reason why vapor chambers work so well on laptops is because, in essence, they are 100% shared coolers and not a split between the GPU and CPU like normal heatpipe coolers.

 

True, except pipes transfer heat and a vapor chamber spreads the heat. With pipes there can be a hotspot, with a vapor chamber that lays perfectly flat and can expand the heat throughout the chamber you'll only get a hotspot when you exceed the wattage the VC can handle. Else all your heat gets spread accross a pretty big surface, which you can solder other copper fins on them to improve the heat dissapation (with pipes the heat need to be transfered to the fins before it get's dissipated.) The problem is the current pipe layout has already reached it's full potential due to the hotspot that occurs. And guess where the hotspot usually resides now, exactly towards the CPU. The GPU side has never been a problem on AW it's the CPU that get's chocked.

 

I've dedicated most of my time on mods that could raise the thermal ceiling on this machine, I expect that LGA1200 will require all of the lessons learned in order to have any leeway above stock clocks.
But there are only so many things you can do and still retain the portable aspect of the machine, at some point the only real answer is a proper desktop.

 

Indeed. You can only put 5 pounds of sand in a 5-pound bag, and trying to add more sand than bag it won't take too long before something breaks. Either the bag fails or you start spilling sand and make a mess. Or, both happen. You need a bigger bag. Ain't gonna turn out right without a bigger bag. Then people start to whine and moan about it being too big and heavy.

 

R2 finally announced.

https://www.laptopmag.com/news/alienware-area-51m-refreshed-intel-10th-gen-and-nvidia-super

 

I have to say it's quite unimpressive/dissapointing to see that they needed an extra year to get an extra two more display options. There was no spec sheet, only some hyped up rambling about a "King" which does not top any benchmark charts (except if you exclude barebone DTR's).

It's funny to see how they're using an picture with an SD card AGAIN. maybe this model will come with an SD card. They added the 5700M which is nice. But for the people who bought the first gen, you're not missing out on anything.

 

Lol it’s completely different -.-!!!!!!

I anticipate 0 parts compatibility with R1 practically.


https://wccftech.com/alienware-area...rade-cpus-gpus/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

 

One of the news pages reports an SD card reader, but honestly the reporting goes back and forth on every new article. About the only thing they all agree on is the fact they will have 10th gen Intel and Nvidia Super GPU's. Seems like they are just all in a panic to get their articles released without really knowing all the details.