Alienware Area-51 Desktop Owner's Lounge

Thanks for the tip will have a look into it, the fan runs and pump feels like its pumping. Hopefully its just a dodgy connection or maybe I connected to the wrong pins for the CPU fan, I think I might have connected it to the CPU fan port on the motherboard.

 

Thanks to everyone that encouraged me to build a pc! After a lot of research I have decided to build a PC for the first time. For over a week I have been studying component options and now I am just about ready to start buying parts.

 

So I tried putting the BDROM drive from my M18R2 into my Area-51 R2 and it was too thick. Seems the alienware area-51 r2 uses a thinner drive.

I was able to make it fit and power on and everything. It didn't seem to like being in the vertical position though and wouldn't read discs. It's back in the M18xR2 and working fine.

Can anyone recommend me a BD-R drive that will work in the Area-51 R2 and also will work in the vertical position that the area-51 uses? Perhaps one someone has actually tried and knows that it works?

Thanks

 

I have an alienware Area 51 r2 with the 850w psu and I'm thinking of upgrading it. Dell don't stock the 1500w psu - only available in their new builds. Does anyone know if it can take any standard psu in the case? Or where to get the dell one / part number

 

Should be able to fit any power supply in there I think. Do you actually need more than 850W? That should be enough for 980 SLI at least.

 

Actually ...Titan x sli. I'm thinking 850w is enough ...definately no need to over clock the cards....but I keep nagging myself about it.

 

I think it should be fine, the new architecture is much more efficient than Kepler. I think you probably have at least 100W safety barrier even with the Titan X SLI. (250W a piece).

 

My Area-51 will be getting a Titan X soon =D

 

You can install a standard ATX power supply like the CM AX1200i, should be easy enough.

But you have to replace all cables with your PSU, I don't know if the cables included from EVGA, CM, Corsair etc are long enough to reach some of the Area 51's internals. And I think the MIO board uses a specialized 10 pin power connector from the PSU like the Area 51 R1 (cmiiw).

Titan X SLI max power draw rated at around 550w stock, overclock and I think you can hit 600-650 easy. So you have little headroom if you have processor highly overclocked.

Also, keep in mind that Alienware rates their power supply max wattage from the peak power output on burst/momentary measurements. 1500w and 850w isn't exactly what you're getting.
If Alienware/Dell were to sell their PSU on the open market, it would have to be listed as lower than 850 or 1500.

Similar to the Alienware R4 PSU which is rated at actual 825w instead of 875w.

 

Hey thanks for the info and advice, much appreciated.

 

Does anyone know if this 2800mhz ram will work in the R2? There hasn't been a single bios update yet...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231824&ignorebbr=1

I'm afraid it might not boot.

 

Can't answer on the RAM. Does the Area-51 need a BIOS update to fix something that is broken, or does something need to be un-crippled?

 

A lot of X99 motherboards needed a bios update to get past 2400mhz. The Area-51 R2 motherboard is still on A01 and Zero actually could't get 2600mhz to work.

Whether that was just his ram not able to overclock that high or the motherboard not supporting it, we don't know. I haven't seen anyone run over 2400mhz on this motherboard yet anywhere.


Just bought some G.SKILL 32GB (4x8GB) 2400Mhz DDR4 ram off of a member at another forum. Should work fine since it's 2400mhz, which is what I'm running at right now with my 2133mhz ram.

 

The base Area 51 now comes with an R9 370 with 4 GB as opposed to 2 GB from the 270. However, it is a rebrand of the R9 270 1024sp, which is weaker than the regular R9 270.

 

i can confirm 2800mhz ram does not work..... and xmp profiles are horrific the best i can get to post is 2400mhz 16-16-16-36 @1200v timing on my corsair lpx 2800mhz ddr4... extremely pathetic we need a bios update and fast everything is gimped on these junk motherboards alienware uses everything overclocking related has been a complete hassle.... been gaming and overclocking for over 10 years and not a single machine has been more tedious to overclock than this....yet they are trying to appeal to the enthusiast....

 

Hello all,
I got a Area 51 R2 tri sli gtx 980, run all right expect I'm getting usb headache problem with random connect and disconnect with win 8.1 (64) latest update.
Anyone experienced this problem?
I'm thinking of downgrading to win7.
Can the motherboard be swapped on this unit? space is tight...
Thanks

 

I have 2400 on 14-15-15-35 1T, crucial ballistix sport (X99 Deluxe)

From what I've noticed, the motherboard is made by MSi. Don't bother looking into the BIOS because it's bugged atm and can't save your settings (tried it on Microcenter's Area51R2).
If you're using the AlienOC control, you might want to try intel XTU as an alternative, it might work better.

I'm not sure on the quality of the motherboard causing the OC issue, sounds more like BIOS limitation.

No, you can't swap out the motherboard, you will lose alienfx and alienCC (results in top fan and pci fan running full blast). The form factor is mATX but has different spacing on the PCI lanes, not sure if it conforms to a normal mATX mounting points. It might be possible but some of the cables are not designed to be modular (if you have a different usb/24pin/8pin/front IO/sata plugs configuration/location on your motherboard you might have trouble making the cables reach there)

You should check drivers, either search Dell or download from Intel. You can also use this online tool http://www.ma-config.com/en
Make sure xHCI/usb3 is enabled in the BIOS (try update bios also if possible)







Got a Titan X to replace my 970G1 today, I put a 40mm fan on the top to have air circulation on the back vram chips since I don't have a backplate for it yet.

Aurora 7500 R4
5820K 4.2/42 1.167/1.167v
2400 14-15-15-15 36 1T 1.3v
EVGA 750G2
Alienware Aurora Asetek 869 liquid cooler ( http://www.overclock.net/t/1548482/asetek-869-alienware-oem-gen-2-premium-aio) / Gentle Typhoon AP15


EVGA GTX Titan X SC

Overclock with mod bios pending

 

Well the Alienware Area 51 R2 that I just ordered from HIDevolution was ordered with CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) Quad Channel DDR4 at 2666MHz so I dunno how do they get it to work

 

^ why did you not buy direct from dell?

If the corsair module supports XMP, then it's most likely that it's just a simple bios option. Else the memory is manually configured.

2133 memory modules are the easiest to run in an X99 board, so it's likely dell didn't bother offering higher because of the extra time needed to configure the memory properly

 

I ended up canceling the order after reading this:

http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19626565

They were offering a triple Titan X in SLI mode but after reading that thread and showing it to them, it seems like it won't work 100%

Great desktop with the best looking case ever crippled by the DELL clowns who probably designed these new BGA garbage Alienware laptops. What a shame, I really wanted it. I wanted a desktop for upgradeability in the future but this desktop seems more crippled than a laptop in terms of upgrade paths as it doesn't support faster RAM or GPUs other than the 980 in SLI mode

 

So Titan X in 2-way sli doesn't work either? Man I really need to sell my desktop then.

 

Why the fahk you need tri sli Titan X? The most I would go is dual-card since the scaling is horrible on 3/4 cards.

 

Never knew that! that'll even save me more money

 

BIOS A02 is out! http://www.dell.com/support/home/il...ea51-r2&languageCode=EN&categoryId=BI

Some new settings are in

No idea on TITANX SLI support or RAID

Also no idea on memory speeds past 2400.

 

According to this, the Area 51 R2 does support RAID but only with the 3.5" drives. I don't know if it is true or not, but it is straight from Dell.

 

LoL. Raid only with 3.5" drives on Aw desktops and 0 raid support on laptop's. Great. Dell pushes for the future. We live in 2015 nearly 2016 not in the year 2005.

 

Dell A51-r2 does support raid on slots 1 and slot 2, I just bought some 3.5" to 2.5" adaptors in and then set my raid up with 2x 500gb SSD's

I have Slots:
1: SSD raid 0
2: SSD raid 0 These are in raid for my games and large volume storage that I want rapidly

3: HDD 2tb for music, videos, back ups, etc...
4: SSD, OS Windows 8.1 Drive
5: SSD, I have no idea why I have this one lol its just there

 

The mobo has 6x SATA 6Gb ports one is used up by the ODD

 

Shame on Alienware clowns. These are the worst motherboards i have ever dealt with in my 20 years of building pc's. I have never dealt with such gimped motherboards on a "enthusiast" centered machine. the A02 BIOS update doesnt fix any stability or ANY issues with the machine. We are coming up on a year since release and NOTHING has been fixed. My next project will be getting a true X99 motherboard and trying to get everything to work because i cant take it anymore.

For those that dont know or are on the fence about getting these Area 51 R2's wait.... I do love mine and the case really does make a difference in cooling and it looks really spiffy. but these motherboards gimp the x99 so bad its pathetic.

-Overclocking is extremely tedious.
( Any adjustments you make bios level that are past Dellianwares level 2 preset simple dont post or BSOD immediately. You can only overclock using Intels XTU software. With that i was able to push 4.7 stablle at 1.27 volts and get max temps of 72 after 1 hours of prime 95 stress test. i stick on a comfortable 4.5 ghz atr 1.24 volts and get max temps of 65c after 1 hour of stress test which is a fantastic overclock for the I7- 5930k. You are just stuck loading the overclock every single time you reset since i cant figure out how to make XTU profile auto load when i start windows, and any overclocking in Alienware control center doesn't stick and the bios wont post. Its stupid you can put the EXACT same settings from XTU in the bios and it BSOD. but in XTU its perfectly stable.)

-Memory is severely limited.
( To further gimp these pathetic motherboards, the highest memory you can get is 2400 mhz. Doesn't matter if you use a XMP profile or not. This is sad almost ALL X99 motherboards have been updated to support higher frequencies. Except these junk bargain bin msi boards.)

- No titan x sli support
(cant figure out why this is but het another gimp...)

-Slow SATA6 controller
(I dont know if its x99 in general but on my previous build LGA 1055 board which was just a ASUS Saber tooth my 1tb Samsung 850 evo ssd was getting Read speeds of 510mb and write speeds of 480mb same ssd in this new alienware is getting read speeds of 430mb and write speeds of 400mb. It may not make a real world difference in performance, but another gimp none the less.....)

Im just shocked that they are selling this as a "enthusiast's dream" when the motherboard is this severely gimped.

 

The limitation of the bios falls into the motherboard. a new motherboard would alleviate all the issues this one possess. These are just pure junk. no way around it.

 

Tragic... But have you tried to use Trottlestop?

 

Attached pictures of my settings. I've never used Intel XTU.

 

Well, that's sad to hear. Haven't anyone bought this up in the Dell forums / Alienware forums? Maybe a new bios would fix most of these issues if there's enough demand / complain.



offtopic: can you give us the Dell P/N (image of sticker) on the CPU cooler? I'm really interested in a 120mm rad being able to hold 1.27v below 80.

 

It can't. It's most likely clock throttling unless he's increased the power limits. 65c sounds way too low.

0K31VH

 

Can't find p/n 0K31VH, do you have a pic of the sticker instead? :v

 

Attached

Also a comparison between the stock Alienware A51 R2 CLC and Corsair's H105

 

It looks a LOT like the Corsair H75, cmiiw, interesting to see that the unit can hold 1.275v LGA2011 CPU. Is the pump power connector standard 3 pin or a Dell 7 pin, how loud is the fan under 100% load?



The previous models used by Alienware

Asetek 223 (Alienware Aurora P55, P67, X58. Area 51 R1): http://www.overclock.net/t/1548046/asetek-223-alienware-oem-gen-1-cooler-pics-and-whatnot
Faulty Asetek 223 ( http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/p/19580642/20695908): Aurora X79
Astetek 869 (Zalman LQ315, Intel RTS2011LC): http://www.overclock.net/t/1548482/asetek-869-alienware-oem-gen-2-premium-aio

 

Pump is 3 Pin. The fan should be around 4000RPM tops which is insanely loud.

 

SSJ92 have you got your bios shots of your settings I will upload mine too

 

This machine was really wonderful so many good years of performance, it even to my perspective played older games better than the newer consoles which is quite interesting, i owned the Alienware X51R1, it really went through great years, just sold it recently. Wonderful memories.

 

The Area 51 R2 new A02 bios has a Thunderbolt option in it, does it mean I can plug a pci expansion card to the motherboard pin would work?

 

This is massively worth knowing just spotted it on a Youtube video for Alienware services:


mendyc158 4 days ago
Does anyone know if you can change the Motherboard? So I can buy it and keep the case as long as I want while updating all my hardware (like in 10 years I will need to change the motherboard, or even before)
Reply ·


Alienware Services 2 days ago
+mendyc158 Yes, the motherboard is a standard sized ATX. If you change it, you may not have all the features (lights and such).
Reply ·


This is massively worth knowing just spotted it on a Youtube video for Alienware services

 

Triple GTX TITAN X is now available!

 

For a meager upgrade cost of $3600 from the R9 370. Sigh...
But the better news is that a BIOS update is coming soon. So yay!

 

Better be a decent update that actually does something useful this time!

 

So did A02 bring Titan X SLI support or we'll be seeing another BIOS update soon?

I'm actually thinking of just listing my desktop here lol

 

You uninstall the alienfx with revo uninstaller and delete all regedit entries, reinstall windows with new motherboard

Pull out new motherboard and replace with original alienware, boot to windows to install an older alienfx software that's compatible with a 3rd party motherboard (cass-ole on dell forums has more info on this), shutdown pc and power drain

Put new motherboard back in and you should have alienfx on a 3rd party motherboard

With no guarantee that the BIOS would work

Titan X = 1k usd
Titan X x3 = 3k usd
Dell Titan X x3 = 3.6k usd + 200usd for AMD 370

Does it come with a permanent penis enhancing solution to justify the price?

 

a Swedish one?

 

I don't feel bad for the USD prices, look at the Canadian...

 

dell.ca 3x titan x (area 51)

4700 Canadian Dollar equals
3810.30 US Dollar

around 200usd more expensive than dell.com (NA)

Does it come with a penis enhancer that makes your dong taste like maple syrup?