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

Dell released an update for the Dell/Alienware Digital Delivery Application today or yesterday, not sure which. It's now at Version 4.0.41.0, A15

Brings two fixes:

- UI improvements for Narrator
- Security strengthening

https://www.dell.com/support/home/u...WT64A&productcode=alienware-17-area51m-laptop

 

Guys, finally! After 3 months of waiting, I got my Area 51m from HID
With 9900k/2080/32GB RAM
Welcome to the family son

P.S. First impressions are emotional and fantastic, this is a real desktop replacement and it's a truly feels like. I don't know how someone here even thinks to go with MSI or ASUS...

 

Congrats! Good build! It really is an impressive notebook. Have fun!! Their is no equal build quality from any other manufacturer

 

well the Eurocom Sky X7C i9-9900K outperforms the area 51m. Not everyone looks to MSI/ASUS as there are alot more boutique laptop builders. BTO is another example. The only difference is that they do not advertise, just like you won't see an Lamborghini or Ferarri advertisement. The people that know what they want, know where to get it. AW needs to rely on marketing, else it won't sell. That's the difference between an ODM (BTO) and an OEM (Dell). With BTO (Build To Order) you can have a build from the website, or custom designed. That's not possible with AW since the HW (and maybe SW like the mediocre bios gui whil it should have been UEFI) are all from an ODM called Compal. That makes it harder to make exceptions due to everything being mass produced, not custom made. Just compare the order options of AW compared to BTO or EUROCOM for example.

The GPU is also MXM btw so everyone got played by Dell. as they've lowered the Throttlepoint to prevent RMA. That offcoarse lowered the performance point of the 51m. Not to mention the Eurocom is a beast without mods (tested by notebookreview). mod it with Prema bios and it will become untouchable, just like what Umar thought of the 51m.

 

Wooaahhh there partner. Chill out!

Is it so bad that some of us actually *like* this system better that others out there available right now? I know for the US, there might be other great options but for me Dell warranty matters so Area 51m is THE best laptop I can buy.

Sent from a Galaxy S9+

 

Not for me, is it for you ? i don't own one. Just reacted to a question. The warranty of Dell is indeed great, but nothing better than an HP, Asus or any other major brand in the US.

Edit: I'm from the Netherlands so "I know for the US, there might be other great options but for me Dell warranty matters" does not apply to me. In the Netherlands you have consumer protection which are also a crossover off the european laws so nothing from the US applies to me. I've owned a bunch of machines of AW and they where great (when they still used Clevo chassis) but since they went Compal they went south.

That's not a personal opinion, but a fact. everyone jumped on the DGFF bandwagon thinking that MXM was dead, while it's alive and kicking DGFF's ass without burning VRM's or capping performance. Also a fact. myself was looking at the 51m and almost pulled the trigger, but if you look through all the marketing BS you'll see it's nothing more than an attempt to win customers back by using an old name which has sentimental value (and that was a machine which put AW on the map and reaffirmed their position at the time) i'm not buying any marketing crap anymore.

 

I don't care if Eurocom gets few extra points in 3dmark or other benchmarks, it outperforms 51m but there is no big difference in performance. Ferrari and Lamborghini powerful and exotic cars with style like Alienware area 51m do the same thing with desktop replacement laptop.

 

I can understand that bro, was just naming some facts. Story is mainstream people will buy mainstrain while enthousiasts know where to look/shop

 

The clevo based machine are ok. The design is tired and dated. Needs to be modernized a bit and fit and finish brought up to standards. I have had 4 Clevo sli machines that were all the same cluncky chuncky 90’s style chassis pretty much in small iterations, Warranty through Dell and the pure beauty of the 51m is great. Performance is no slouch either. Great choice, GAME ON! enjoy it and have fun.

 

Bro, I mostly agree on your statements but Clevo rtx 2080 mxm cards are also dying due to vrm power rail failures, just like alienwares rtx 2080 without the smoke and burning, the die literally dies.
Ask eurocom support if you don’t believe me or one of my friends who did the mxm upgrade @lsflp

basically what I’m trying to say is at the moment it’s better to go the dell route as warranty and service is much superior than what Clevo sellers offers, PLUS not every rtx 2080 in the alienware dies

 

Yeah true man you're right about that!

 

Thanks for your great input. I had to make additional posts at Reddit because that discussion was filled with even more conflicting information. Hopefully this will clarify, but who knows what goes at Reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/...ant/evsej5i?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

 

Is there any advantage of buying from HID Evolution over Dell? Also Im pricing the Area 51 trying to get the best deal. How good of a deal have you guys managed to get?

 

The advantage is better quality control and most importantly, the ability to configure the laptop with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut + Fujipoly Extreme Thermal Pads which is a pain in the butt to install on your own.

Additionally, they have a paid feature where you can pay 99 bucks to have select the best panel with the least backlight bleed out of the lot

 

I got one with 9700k / 2080 / 16gb / 1tb hdd / no ssd / 144hz non gsync / dark color / 1 year base warranty for $2179 before tax from Dell Outlet.

 

Seconded

 

Hello I recive this error can someone help me...I try: repair windows, new windows, all tests from dell/bios, from windows, all drivers update... can someone help me I run 1903...

 

MXM is dead. The MSI & Clevo options are all custom options. They don't even fit in previous gen models without heatsink modifications.

Last real official MXM card was the Quadro P5000M (1070 version of Quadro). 980M is we're talking consumer GeForce segment.

All others are modified designs and not nVidia reference design. There are P5200M from HP as well but those are missing EPROM. There are eBay 1070 MXM 3.0b as well but they are recycled P5000M boards with the 1070 GPU implanted.

Unless I missed somewhere that RTX series is on MXM 3.0b boards somewhere? Does the new Quadro RTX use MXM 3.0b boards? I would love to see that, maybe I can upgrade my M18xR2 lol

 

As far as i know, Clevo sells the RTX 2080 in mxm 3.0 format. Don't know if it's a or b but its based on mxm 3.0

https://clevo-computer.com/nl/upgra...135/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-8gb-gddr6-mxm-3.0

Edit: found another one, but this one is based on 3.1: https://www.ebay.com/itm/P750TM1-G-...MXM-3-1-2994-CUDA-100x124mm-Kit-/132960535674

I think it would be strange to discontinue mxm based videocards when companies like zotac release small sff based pc's with mxm gpu's inside them. Else in 2019 there would be no mxm cards available and no new products based on mxm

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13882/ces-2019-digital-storm-spark-a-miniitx-with-mxm-rtx-2080

https://mobile.twitter.com/eurocomtech/status/1106290908608299008

 

how on earth did u hold 5.3 ghz? my cpu has low temps but won't stay stable past 5ghz and wont undervolt...

Attached the PDF I am printing and sending to Dell with my laptop for the RMA over the issue with the angled m.2 port in ssd slot 1. The PDF includes images and examples for anyone interested in taking a look.

Also includes images of the shattered threading in one of the speaker standoffs


Also, interestingly, the other standoff for the mini half sized m.2 ssds seems really low (too low to use) in the ssd #2 slot.
Even holding it straight there's almost a 1cm gap...


RMA box Dell sent me only has two extremely thin bags for the power bricks and foam end-pieces for the laptop. The antiscratch bag was not included and the there is no other padding. The box may even be too large for the unit!
Gonna ship what they sent me and let Dell know that I am assuming any damage from the loose power bricks or the foam will be covered by the repair center.

 

Dont mean to sound rude but I dont get why people think this way. Most phones ship with over 3k resolution and many with 4k. To me a 17 inch screen is way large enough for 4k. Just look on youtube for 4k videos and see the difference between a 1080p video and a 4k video on any laptop, if you have a 4k panel.

The only argument to make about why laptops shouldnt be putting on 4k monitors is for the simple fact of cost to performance ratio from that of its desktop counterpart. You need the top of the line equipment to push 4k on a laptop an for significantly less money one can push that same 4k with a desktop.

Other wise many of us would love to have 4k OLED gaming monster panels with quick response times on are lappys. Of course OLED uses much more power if being used with a white background so it can inhibit the benefit of mobility.

But to each their own, I would say try using a 4k laptop next to a 1080p laptop, physically next to each of them and then if you say its not worth it then that would be your sound opinion.

 

Hey guys !

Anyone got the 1 TB SSD from the original configuration and its Crystal benchmark ?
I'd like to know how it performs vs a 970 Evo 1 TB.

Thanks

 

I believe you should start putting a piece of paper into each Alienware or Dell laptop package telling customers to contact you first in case of issues since Dell does not treat you like authorized vendor. This should prevent misunderstanding like the person from Reddit is experiencing.

 

I have. The pixel size to screen ratio is not great. 4k only really shines when you get up to 50” screens. Make a 17 1440p or 3k hdr screen and I’d be impressed. There is a reason the industry has shifted away from 4k laptop screens.... but yes In the end to each their own. It’s your money... buy what makes you happy

 

Yes, 1440p or 3k screens would make much more sense given the situation with TDP restraints. The area 51m is a great machine though I would like to see some other screen options.

 

The industry has not shifted from 4k laptop screens. In fact, many modern laptops offer 15" 4k OLED display made by Samsung. It's a great display, only issue is that it has 60hz refresh rate, but if you play at native resolution - you will not go over 60 fps in games like Metro Exodus with max settings ;-) There is no 17" version available but I'm sure Samsung will make it too.

 

Well, it would appear that I am having problems with an Area 51m all over again. My replacement Area 51m, which has worked flawlessly for the past month, now has issues. On my last one, first the GPU died, then the mobo..... On this one, I was playing X4 Foundations for about 2 minutes when the screen went crazy and froze. It restarted. But now the GPU was disabled. I reinstalled the drivers after using DDU, and now it does what it did on my last system: when enabled, screen goes black and pc restarts. However, there is a new development this time...... Now, there are moving green matrix lines on the screen from the moment the alienware logo comes on and stays there. But generally only in dark areas of the screen. Black, grey or dark blues for example. They also move when the cursor moves over them. So yeah..... I dunno what is up at this point. I suppose I will take it apart and check the connections, but the whole "Black screen when 2080 is enabled" makes me think I have another dead GPU. No idea what the revision number was on this replacement, but I was on the 1.0.0.5 vbios..... What a headache.

 

Did you repaste / repad at all?
Did you get the warranty replacement system directly from Dell?
So thoughts being traded around by some people is that the ribbon cables are the weak link. No hard evidence to support this, just some hunches.
I sent you a PM.

 

Is there a reason why u didnt go for longer warranty period given the failure rate we've seen on those 2080 cards?

 

Agreed this is highly suggested. I went for Pro Support. ;p

 

I can call their sales and upgrade the warranty. I added two years to my wife's 17R4 for $225 this way.

 

3 years of everything for warranty tho I only plan to keep it if it has some semblance of upgradability

 

and this is what I worry about, future gpu upgrades, I think dell tried to cover their tracks a bit by including the amplifier port even though this is really unnecessary it shows that even they are not sure about the future of the dgff design.

The best cpu for this laptop will be the 9900ks when that comes out where every core turbos at 5ghz

 

To answer publically as well, no I never repeated it opened this new one up at all. Didnt drop it or allow any screen damage.. just a code 43 in device manager and green weird moving lines.

 

https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/20052800/fs/19316750

Well this is weird. Radeon VII AND RTX 2080 are both running at the same time. On my AW 13 R3, it normally disabled the internal card. Will try later with AW 13 R3.

I had to disable the RTX 2080 in device manager in order for the Radeon VII to be utilized. Performance is similar to RTX 2080. This is a stock vs stock (GPU) run.

I am also back on 1.5.0 since it has a changelog for the AW amplifier.

My set-up LOL

AMP > Area-51m
AMP (HDMI) > M18x as display

Those are not "MXM 3.0b" they are custom non reference boards. Original mxm 3.0b boards were all interchangable and were made by the nVidia reference design.

The last real mxm 3.0b card, the quado p5000m:

Spoiler

980M (last consumer mxm 3.0b card before nVidia stopped making reference design cards):

Spoiler

780M previous generation:

Spoiler

I can post a lot more but the point is, these are "standard" designs, meaning if I had a Clevo, AW, MSI, etc. I can transfer between laptops and it should work fine.

All the newer Clevo & MSI "MXM" boards are non standard designs, so it's almost no different from Dell's DGFF since to make them work requires lots of work (I never even seen a Clevo 10/20 series working in an MSI).

That's a CPU-Z validation. It can hold 5.3Ghz on a small load like that but for benches and overall stability purposes, 5.1Ghz is the highest I can do. I can easily do 5Ghz but not with an undervolt. I can do 4.7Ghz with a -100mV undervolt.

 

Nvidia never manufactured mxm cards, they only designed the Standard in MXM-SIG which they are part of.

The rtx 2080 altough it's clevo made, it's the same size as the msi counterpart (same dimensions). The only problem would be cooling and bios compatibility.

There was some guy that got the msi gtx 1060 mxm working on a msi gt60/70 ivy bridge model. Which is a 5 year old machine. Same would go for the alienware 17 (R1) which someone made working with a msi based gtx 1070. Even the mx17 r4 is seen working with a zotac gtx 1070 mxm.

Those are two different systems with two different mxm manufacturers running quite good for legacy systems.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-m17x-r4-gtx1070-mxm-successful-upgrade.825475/

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/msi-1070-in-alienware-17-r1-ranger-success.797893/

I think you're right about the cards not being made according to the Nvidia mxm standard, but in reality it's quite possible to retrofit mxm cards to other laptop manufacturers. It only needs to be recognized in the bios for it to work. With custom drivers and bios you can come a long way.

I thought that that was being an enthusiast. Modding your laptop beyond the manufacturer's spec, not just abide by them. I'm pretty sure the laptops that can run a gtx 1080mxm msi can also run a rtx 2080 msi based.

I think that if you want to run clevo based cards you need to make chassis modifications due to the extra powerports clevo uses. But as shown, nothing is impossible. Even cross fitting mxm cards in different manufacturer laptop chassis ( because AW was clevo based, and it's now shown it can run MSI and Zotac MXM cards)

 

If you live outside US, buy directly from Dell. Even if you buy from HID, based on my own experience as well as experiences shared by several others in this thread already, opt out of their thermal upgrades because they have not been doing them properly for a while. Plus, liquid metal only matters in this laptop between the IHS and the CPU dye. Other than that one place, it doesn't matter what you put between the IHS and the heat sink and on the GPU (as long as it is a high end thermal paste) because the heat dissipation is bottle-necked by the heat sink and the 2 fan cooling system. You will NOT get beyond 1-1.5 degrees celcius better temps with liquid metal as compared to high end thermal pastes unless you replace the heat sink with a liquid nitrogen cooler and use the laptop while fixed inside a desktop tower casing with no back panel on due to custom cooler. If you want to achieve 5.1 GHz stable and beyond, get a desktop.

 

You know you won’t get good results with Liquid metal and liquid nitrogen? Stop spread wrong info (this was second or third time). The higher heat the better will Liquid metal works. From 8C and below you will get destroyed (LM will start to solidify) and on top heatsink will slowly raise of from the die/IHS.

 

The connectors themselves are just fine. What's weak on those are the contact pins and a little mishandling during installation can ruin them to an extent that some pins make contact while others don't anymore. This results in unexpected behavior that could eventually lead to a lot of unwanted issues. But if one is installing the connector properly then it is totally safe. In my case, the connected came damaged from HIDevolution with 2 pins bent inside.

 

You just described another dead GPU... Sorry bro, and if you didn't downgrade your main bios it would have upgraded itself through win update to 1.6.2 automatically, which is supposed to be protecting these things from dying... Sounds like you got some bad luck.

 

i understand you are from singapore? problem is dell singapore and malaysia dont offer area-51m so people from this region had no choice but to buy from HID. From what i can tell based on your posts, after you transfered your warranty to singapore, dell singapore fully supports the system in terms of parts replacement. another issue with buying from HID is that parts upgraded by HID is not covered by dell warranty.

i wonder if you need a complete system replacement, is dell singapore able to fulfill that?

 

So guys my 1st unit died in april. Right now i am still without replacement. First time i got refunded, i placed another order (as dell gave me 15% discount in order to apologis)
After a week i get an email saying that my order will be delayed by 20 days. Four days after my order gets cancelled. I got in touch with CC who told me that this was due to an "unavailable lcd panel" that i selected (was tobii plus gsync). Basically the available one had same specs, same price, BUT DIFFERENT NAME! I told them to restore my order with this new lcd but they said was not possible, so i had to ask for a refund (which took 8 working days) and place another order, the 3rd one. I told CC that i used a discount code before so i would like to have another one to use. They refuser saying that they are not allowed, so i had to pay the full order and by the time they shipped the order i will get a refund or a coupon (wtf a 450 euros coupon??). I called tech support and in 3 minutes they gave me another code, so finally i finalized my order, plus dell gave me a fre 17inch laptop sleeve.
After a week i get another email about my order being cancelled AGAIN. Why? Because the laptop sleeve that they gave me for free wasn't available anymore!! So i had to place another order, call again the tech support to get ANOTHER discount code. Now i am waiting to get my laptop.
Call me stupid, but this a51m was the only suitable option for me, that's why i accepted to go through this. Dell CC behaviour was unacceptable.

 

Do you guys see this in your dell machines? Bios and windows reports as 2400 MHz, or this is just a joke? This is in my AW13R3:

 

Since I bought a stock system from HID with thermal mods, there was no problem in getting warranty services from Dell and I've availed warranty for everything literally. Screen, chassis, motherboard, GPU, heat sink and even audio daughter board lol. I was never asked any unnecessary questions by Dell and services went smoothly. I also had to buy via HID because of non-availability in Singapore otherwise I would have gone the Dell route.

LMAO! I can feel your pain and frustration man! This part is really annoying, I fully agree with you! But this is hilarious as well! I'd totally be pissed off if this would have happened to me! I salute your patience and determination!

 

Nope! Nothing has changed since the release 8 months ago. The cheap pancake thin MSI Joke GS65 manage 3460 ram speed without problems. This is a firmware and MB problem (not good enough MB traces/paths). All know faster ram stress all hardware/components on MB. But below Intel’s own memory specs... Make your own conclusions by yourself. On top changed aka pushed firmware upgrades to the worse (see... intended to lower the stress on the components).

 

Heh, I agree. My luck has not been great with this one. My bios still reads 1.5.4 in HWInfo, so I dunno if win update did anything yet. There is one difference in this time and last..... Before, whenever the 2080 was enabled it would black screen and restart in a cycle. Now, however, it lets me enable it and to install drivers with no black screen and restart, but windows itself does not let the card run per se, giving an error code 43 instead. Last time it would simply crash if I enabled it. Now, it just turns it off immediately but does not show as disabled in device manager. Strange stuff.

 

I dont mean to flame the thread but jeez, you guys are professionals at turning brand new alienwares into paper weights.

Maybee the owners lounge is just ment to be like this for DTR laptops. The insurance claims dell has to put in as a loss for all the returned machines would have to be in the 10s of millions. I know when they were designing this im sure they had this in the back of their mind.

That might have been one of the reasons they stopped providing replaceable parts in their laptops for so long. Dell didnt want to deal with all the returns from customers destroying the internals of their laptops by trying to squueze the life out of the system for an extra % increase in performance. Its also the reason Alienware couldnt function as its own business before they were bought out by dell. Granted, the QA back then was terrible and the designs were even worse.
I guess I like to see success stories rather then buckets fulls of seeping and oozing failures.

Sorry for the blunt remarks, hope you take my opinions with a grain of salt. Also thx for this great thread, its exiting and annoying at the same time reading about everyones new alienware DTR.

 

The Clevo & MSI cards are NOT the same size. There was a post somewhere here showing the new 2070 MSI MXM card, they changed the design again from 1070/1080 models.

Yes 1060 worked in older laptops. I was one of the people that installed 1060 in my M18xR2: https://www.3dmark.com/fs/16862474

However, that design was 95% spec to mxm 3.0b, so it just required heatsink modding.

Newer cards, like the Clevo cards, require MXM slot modifications on any computer that isn't a newer Clevo with 10+ series: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ix-gets-an-8700k-and-gtx-1080-upgrade.814711/

They are all custom designs and they're trying to make it so no one can use their designs.

All those Zotac, etc mini PC systems are actually using mxm 3.0b style designs. Thats why they're easy to mod into systems. But Clevo & MSI have clearly separated themselves from the standard.

Gone are the days where all the cards are basically running a standard design. Anyways that was my point, the "standard mxm 3.0b" is basically dead. BTW MXM-SIG is controlled by nVidia.

 

i agree on that, they're actively trying to make it harder to mod the cards in to different manufacturer chassis. As a standard indeed it's dead but as shown it does not mean it does not work anymore. but yeah you're right, it's not plug and play anymore like it used to be.

But tbh isn't it fun to tincker on your machine and make something work that's not supposed to work, than having it working just like that.
The upside of the older AW chassis was that they where easy moddable, not so much plug and play. there where countless of svl7 vbios mods @@Prema mods back in the day and now it's all dead.

The 51m did not bring it back, and i sadly don't think they will come back (not @aw anymore).

 

Well, at least in my case, I have not taxed this system at all. Nor my last one. My first Area51m was never OC'd or manipulated in any way. Just went black on me while sitting idle for a couple of hours. After getting a replacement GPU, it was fine for about 5 days and then the MOBO itself simply died. No sign of life. This was, again, after little gaming and zero manipulations on my part. The only thing I had done at that point was to Undervolt to -100mv. That was the extent of me doing anything to it. After graciously receiving a replacement laptop due to Frank Azor's help, I again have not tampered with anything. No OC, no repasting, etc. It was just playing a game for about 2 minutes then froze up with weird artifacts and had to be hard rebooted. Since then, I have code 43 in device manager and green moving lines that strangely seem to be in columns on my screen (I've heard this could be due to incorrect refresh on monitor but as I have no working drivers, I can't change it). So, no OC, no messing with it.... second laptop, third problem in less than a month and a half of time with a laptop in my hands. So, it cannot just be people messing with their stuff. There is a serious issue going on with some of these systems. And either I have the absolute worst luck, or there is something bigger afoot.