Area 51 R2 A look on the inside

Hi all,

Been playing with my desktop most of the day and I looked into a few areas that might be of interest to people:

So this is the inside of the system with 1 GPU:


Now I had a think and I saw this which holds in the graphics cards:


Now to me that basically looks like it is sat in front of the PCI fan and stops air flow.


So I removed it. Its only 4 screws and it slides out. I did see the point of it for lan parties but I am not moving 28kg's+ of weight anywhere! Has helped with airflow and dropped my temps a few degress when underload!




One thing else I did notice was this:


Appears to be a thin plastic sticker over another fan mounting point. As you can see the lugs and screw point for a fan tray are there. Once the sticker is removed it is essentially an air intake. On the motherboard there is also 2 more fan headers that can be used. Gets me thinking what else could go there? Hybrid 980ti? Fury X? All I would need is the same fan tray that is attached to the memory fan and boom another PCI fan!

 

Another piece of info I have just learnt.
If you have a 5820k The slots run differently

Important Details
Electrical PCI-Express Specification

Slot 1: x16 (or x8 if an Intel Core i7-5820K CPU is selected)
Slot 3: x16
Slot 5: x8 (or x4 an if Intel Core i7-5820K CPU is selected)

 

Hope this answers some of the fan questions:



http://asetek.com/customers/gaming-pcs/alienware/alienware.aspx

http://asetek.com/desktop/cpu-coolers/510lc.aspx

 

Nice, thank you for this. This was my dream machine which I have actually ordered but canceled the order at the last minute after knowing it cannot take more than 3 980 GTX in SLI, as in, it can support 3 980s in SLI but not Titan Xs or 980 Ti due to a BIOS limitation. I wanted to build this as my dream desktop then upgrade it whenever I wish but again when I learned that it can only take a specific motherboard which DELL has custom made. that turned me off.

Enjoy it to the max bro. I hope you have some Liquid Ultra on that CPU

 

Actually a quote from Alienware services on there youtube channel, was on the Area 51 R2 video card replacement video:



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 ·

 

ANother discovery Slots 1,2,3 inside the system can all be put into raid. downside is they are all the HDD bays so you need adaptors for SSD's

 

You might want to put the backplate back since the extended portion is a hook grabbing onto the front plastic part. Doesn't disturb airflow but will pull some heat from the back of the card.

Maybe remove the fan grill also to improve airflow and reduce noise by air turbulence.

Would you mind selling me that liquid cooling unit lol?

Or you can just double tape it

 

I tried the back plate didn't really do anything 1 degree maybe that was about it and that could just be air temp differences.

I am selling the system now anyway so no more testing. Getting roughly the same system but in a NZXT H440 case with a Asus X99S motherboard so it actually has a bios that works!

You can buy the whole system if you like

 

How do know the 980 ti won't work in sli on the r2 - do you have a link? I had Titan x sli and 3 replacements....never worked. Not heard about to comparability so anything you can share would be great. Cheers.

 

I can't buy the whole system.

Sell AIO unit only please? ;_;

 

Enjoy:

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

Last comment from an official DELL rep:

Not very assuring

 

Well, Dell is selling the Area 51 R2 with dual and triple TITAN X's. Somebody says that a Dell rep told him that a new motherboard was designed to handle multiple TITAN X's.

 

Yes true, this was just changed 2 days ago, previously they had pulled off the Titan X Sli setup, even for Dual so that probably means a new motherboard which they placed fixed this. The recelt DELL BIOS update has no mention of any SLI fixes for cards other than the 980 GTX so we are not sure if a Titan X or even a 980 Ti SLI setup would work.

What matters here is customers that just paid an arm and a leg a month or two back for getting the latest and greatest Area 51 R2 may or not be limited in terms of GPU upgrades. Nothing strange for Dellienware

 

So they have replaced the mobo already? so what about all the current owners?

 

They have, and this is my main gripe, is they got all the current owners burned by supplying them with a motherboard that is limited in GPU upgrades.

You can call them and buy the new motherboard from them though. At least the option is there, better than not having it at all and be super limited with upgrades.

 

That just makes me angry!!!!!! I am not paying for another mobo!

 

Uh, what? Who confirmed that Dell is putting a whole new mobo in the Area 51 R2?

Couldn't they just roll out a BIOS update?

 

The latest BIOS update has no mention of updated GPU support:

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/alienware-area51-r2/drivers

BIOS A02:

so it must have been a new motherboard revision

 

Interesting.

 

yo gschneider can ya email me at [email protected]... i got a question about the removing of the bracket you did for the area 51, thanks man!

 

cool thanks for sharing this pic. i just bought my Area51 R2 and have been using it for 2 weeks now.
makes me wanna try removing the Support bracket for the gpu as well since the air being blown by the PCIE fan was being block by it making it rather less effective or tbh useless lol.
also about that extra fan hole, makes me wonder if a radiator from a Hybrid kit for 980ti would fit it nicely?
and has someone tried using a HyperX Predator PCIe SSD? one of the hyperx rep already contacted me on my question on amazon and said it should work, just wondering if anybody here has tried this and did it do any good? thanks.

 

(also call tech support re: pci-e ssd)​

AlienAndy | My Rigs
A ² has an explanation for how he mounted the kooler(s); however, there may be multiple ways to skin a kat​

Other ideas: ($28) Fan + Bracket (dp/n) VNPD3
240mm Kooler​

If VNPD3 fan clip won't solve things, then 120mm-240mm Cpu/Gpu Koolers 'may' need the front trim bezel removed
left: 'a look on the inside'
right: owner drilled new holes for correct lower fan spacing ​

in otherwords, if VNPD3 doesn't allow perfect spacing for a dual-120mm fan setup like one finds on a Korsair or similar kooler, 'removing the front trim' & taking matters into your own hands may be reqwired

______________________

1080 SLI Hybrid I7-6850K Asus Sabertooth X99 Performance Build




a look on the inside​

 

wow this is like a professional job which by all means i don't have that skill yet.
good to know a hybrid cooler can reach that bonus slot thanks for sharing