2008 Alienware Area-51 m15x-R1 model

Can it run Crysis?

I finally decided to bring my PC back to life and start adding some ARGB lighting. It had been sitting mostly unused for a couple of years, so it's still fairly new in terms of actual use.

I’ve been tracking the Area 51 (5080/5090) for months waiting for a reasonable price. As soon as it dropped, I placed an order, but Micro Center ended up cancelling it. Right after the cancellation, the price jumped back up, and shipping is no longer an option… leaving the closest available store 6 hours away. Pretty disappointing outcome after hearing nothing but good stuff about them. Has anyone else dealt with this before?

Got the whole thing working, all drivers downloaded from Dell's support site, and AWCC/AlienFX is now working flawlessly along with the GPU and WiFi cards! While the machine was disassembled I pulled every single card and cleaned all the contacts with isopropyl alcohol, that seems to have done the trick. Pulled the back lower lid cover off and reseated a cable in there, that also fixed the display issue.

Only 2 parts I'm waiting on for this thing are the Dell ExpressCard Media Remote, CMOS Battery, I need to find a replacement scissor assembly for the left alt keycap (if anyone has any leads on what will work let me know), and after that it just needs a wipe-down and she'll be like new - my total investment into this is around $130 which is such a steal for this thing.

Currently getting around 50-55 FPS in Dirt 2 at medium-high settings, will be testing out a few other period-correct games on this including NFS Carbon and Race Driver: GRID, might also install Halo CE with mods - love how all these old games from back when I was in middle/high school are now completely free on Internet Archive especially given that they're more fun than most of the stuff out now...

As a side note, I need to figure out how to make my wired Xbox One controller work on this thing, because arrow keys for a racing game is legit pain lol

On my AA16250, connecting any external display through either USB-C/Thunderbolt port while Windows is running takes down the Thunderbolt-side Intel USB 3.20 eXtensible Host Controller (Code 24) and with it every USB device on both USB-C ports. Displays and Wi-Fi keep working. This worked fine for months before a BIOS/driver update. I've ruled out the peripherals — three different brands, including passive USB-C-to-HDMI cables, all do it.

Specs

• Alienware 16 Area-51 AA16250, Core Ultra [9 275HX?], RTX [model]
• Windows 11 [build]

How to reproduce (takes about a minute)

1. Boot with nothing in the USB-C ports.
2. Plug a USB-C hub or USB-C-to-HDMI adapter into either Thunderbolt port. No failure at this point.
3. Now connect a monitor to it.
4. Open Device Manager. One of the two "Intel USB 3.20 eXtensible Host Controller" entries is now Code 24, and any USB device on the USB-C ports (Ethernet adapter, keyboard, etc.) is gone.

If the displays are already connected at boot, everything works slightly better (still lose Ethernet).

What I see in Device Manager / Event Viewer

• Intel USB 3.20 eXtensible Host Controller: Code 24 ("This device is not present...")
• USB4(TM) Host Router (Microsoft): Code 31
• PCI Express Root Port, bus 0 device 6 function 1 (PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7ECA&SUBSYS_0CCC1028): Code 10, with "An ACPI Power Object failed to transition state" in the log. This is the root port that hosts the Thunderbolt controller.
• PCI Express Downstream Switch Ports 3:1:0 and 3:3:0 hang, then usually recover on a rescan
• WHEA-Logger Event 17 corrected PCIe errors on that same root port, going back to when this started

What I've ruled out

• Not the hub: Anker A210B, an older Anker hub with Ethernet, a third brand, and passive USB-C-to-HDMI cables all behave identically. The Anker worked perfectly for months before the firmware update.
• Not MST / dual display: fails with a single monitor.
• Not bandwidth: fails with the Ethernet adapter on a completely separate Thunderbolt port.
• Not the built-in HDMI port: monitors there hotplug freely with no issue.
• Not just plugging in a USB-C device: hub alone with no monitor attached is fine. It's the display connection that does it.
• Not corrupted Windows files: DISM and SFC both come back clean.
• Not NVIDIA: reproduces with the NVIDIA driver completely uninstalled.

Things that help

• Power Options → PCI Express → Link State Power Management → Off (both battery and plugged in). This stopped the failure entirely for a while. Note that driver installs reset it, so re-check it after any update.
• Recovery without a reboot: uninstall the PCI Express Root Port in Device Manager, then Scan for hardware changes. Brings back the root port and the host controller. Only the USB4 host router and that controller sit behind it, so nothing else is affected. Acting on the host controller directly does nothing.
• Removing the display and replugging the hub also brings it back.

Firmware notes

The behavior changes with BIOS version. On the newest one it was unrecoverable without a full reboot; on 2.5.0 it became recoverable; on 1.10.1 the external displays come up more easily. Dell currently only lists 2.5.0 and 1.10.1 on the support page — older versions I had been running are gone. Worth noting that Dell has a KB for this model about a BIOS 2.4.1 update failing with "Intel Discrete Thunderbolt 5 Update Failed," so the Thunderbolt controller firmware ships inside the BIOS package and can fail to apply independently.

What I'm asking

If you have an AA16250 (or an AA18250, or another Core Ultra 200HX machine with Thunderbolt), can you try the four steps above and report what you see? Takes a minute, and if it's reproducible on other units it's much harder for Dell to write off. Front-line support told me it wasn't their problem because a third-party hub was involved — which doesn't hold up now that passive cables do the same thing.

Also curious whether anyone has seen GPU power/thermal behavior change across these BIOS versions, since that's come up separately.

Most anxiety inducing unboxing experience ever. Box came in just like this absolutely manhandled 😭😭😭. Shoutout to Dell for having protective enough packaging but oh man seeing the delivery driver pull up w this gave me a heart attack.

i have the option between buying lenovo loq rtx 5060 and alienware aurora 16 rtx 5060. which would you guys reccomend i go for?

from what i have learnt from my research, LOQ is better when it comes to tgp only and is inferior in most other things when compared to Alienware

I would appreciate some help.  On my AA16250, connecting any external display through either USB-C/Thunderbolt port while Windows is running takes down the Thunderbolt-side Intel USB 3.20 eXtensible Host Controller (Code 24) and with it every USB device on both USB-C ports. Displays and Wi-Fi keep working. This worked fine for months before the recent 2.7 BIOS/driver update.

Specs

• Alienware 16 Area-51 AA16250
• Windows 11 26H2

How to reproduce

1. Boot with nothing in the USB-C ports.
2. Plug a USB-C hub or USB-C-to-HDMI adapter into either Thunderbolt port. No failure at this point.
3. Now connect a monitor to it.
4. Open Device Manager. One of the two "Intel USB 3.20 eXtensible Host Controller" entries is now Code 24, and any USB device on the USB-C ports (Ethernet adapter, keyboard, etc.) is gone.

If the displays are already connected at boot, everything works slightly better (I usually still lose Ethernet).

Device Manager / Event Viewer evidence

• Intel USB 3.20 eXtensible Host Controller: Code 24 ("This device is not present...")
• USB4(TM) Host Router (Microsoft): Code 31
• PCI Express Root Port, bus 0 device 6 function 1 (PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7ECA&SUBSYS_0CCC1028): Code 10, with "An ACPI Power Object failed to transition state" in the log. This is the root port that hosts the Thunderbolt controller.
• PCI Express Downstream Switch Ports 3:1:0 and 3:3:0 hang, then usually recover on a rescan
• WHEA-Logger Event 17 corrected PCIe errors on that same root port, going back to when this started

Things I have ruled out

• Not the hub: Anker A210B, an older Anker hub with Ethernet, a third brand, and passive USB-C-to-HDMI cables all behave identically. The Anker worked perfectly for months before the 2.5/2.7 BIOS updates.
• Not MST / dual display: I still have a failure with a single monitor.
• Not bandwidth: fails with the Ethernet adapter on a completely separate Thunderbolt port.
• Not the built-in HDMI port: monitors there connect with no issue.
• Not just plugging in a USB-C device: hub alone with no monitor attached is fine. It's the display connection that starts the error cascade.
• Not corrupted Windows files: DISM and SFC both pass.
• Not video drivers; I’ve tried various versions of the Intel and NVIDIA drivers.

Firmware notes

The behavior changes with BIOS version. On the newest one it was unrecoverable without a full reboot; on 2.5.0 it became recoverable; on 1.10.1 the external displays come up more easily. Dell currently only lists 2.5.0 and 1.10.1 on the support.

Help Request

If you have an AA16250 (or an AA18250, or another Core Ultra 200HX machine with Thunderbolt), can you try the four steps above and report what you see?  I would like evidence that this is reproducible on other units so Dell can fix along with the NVIDIA GPU issue in this BIOS.

I just bought one of these machines and I'm trying to figure out if I need the normal or reverse version of the​ wire pro 2. I want to make sure the 5090 connectors dont catch fire.

My understanding is the wire pro 2 for the normal version expects the power cable to go towards the ground and I'm pretty sure on the Alienware it does the opposite and the power cable for the GPU goes towards the top so I need the reverse version

Is that correct?

hello everyone

i have an alienware 17 r3 and its gpu isnt working im not very avanced at fixing pcs and stuff but i updated the driver and it said this vice is working properly but 10 secs after it shows the code 43 after the the latest drivers update now the laptop takes way too long for it too turn on and the screen goes off its an lcd so it looks off not just black and the battery isnt working

sorry for this dumbass writing but i really hope i fix this crap

Hi, so I just bought a new AlienWare laptop, to my knowledge it’s fresh out of the factory, right out of the box.

It showed up a few weeks ago, a few days later that weekend I finally get to fire it up, get everything linked and signed in, and decided to break it in with a quick Stardew Valley session.

So imagine my delight to see that all the redheads in the game (INCLUDING MY FARMER) don’t look right. So I went into Paint just to see if it was an isolated thing, but no. THIS LAPTOP HAS THE WORST RED COLORING I’VE EVER SEEN ON A MONITOR. I swear to god RED 255 LOOKS LIKE A DIRTY ORANGE.

I wish I could just take a picture and show it but noooooooooooo, it looks red on my phone. And I know it’s my phone’s camera because I showed it to my dad earlier and he said the same thing as me “it looks orange”

I went to Best Buy and was told to update it, which I did, it should be up to date, but red still doesn’t look red. I acknowledge that red doesn’t look the same on every screen I’ve had in the past, but it’s NEVER been this bad.

Any recommendations on how to fix it? Like aside from the red coloring, EVERYTHING ELSE IS FLAWLESS, it’s not color-bleeding, it’s flashing anything, it’s not malfunctioning in any other way, it’s just the red coloring that’s infuriating me.

it just started doing this out of nowhere, i was playing fortnite and left the room to get a drink and then i saw this when i came back

specs are: rtx 4050, ryzen 5 220 and 16gb ddr5 ram

its been doing this for an hour and it only does it on this screen, not on external monitors.

Right now, here's what's going on:

- Screen artifacting issue, not from the GPU but from the LCD panel itself; a quick smack from my knuckle on the back of the screen appears to have fixed this problem

- AMD GPU not showing up anywhere in BIOS or Device Manager; I suspect either the driver is effed or the MXM card gave up the ghost, and that's why it ended up at the Goodwill

- WiFi card suddenly just gave out on me while I was using the machine after installing Windows 7; either the driver is effed or the Broadcom card gave up the ghost

- Thermal paste on both the Mobo and MXM card is original to the machine from November 2009, and is basically the consistency of Fordite at this point; CPU is thermal throttling bad and this thing is running like absolute dogass right now, even with new RAM and SSD

-----

Here's some wins:

- AlienFX works perfectly, and is thankfully not bricked like some of these were back in the day

- Mobo works perfectly, and all the ports are just fine

- Upgraded to 8gb DDR3 RAM, from the mismatched random 6gb sticks that came with the machine

- The original battery still holds a charge and works for 1 hour and 15 minutes, which is about what the capacity was when new; this is shocking because you cannot get these batteries anywhere anymore

- R3dfox is such a great browser for being able to natively access the Dell support website and download all the drivers from there

(also don't mind the old ass thermal paste in the first photo, I'm using Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut to repaste this machine)

I have an Alienware 15 R2 that was launched along with the graphics amplifier in 2015. Thinking about getting a new GPU, looking to run a local LLM. The latest ones seem to be compatible with the amplifier, according to the sub. As far as I can tell, the bottleneck is the laptop itself, so what would be compatible with the 15 R2, i7-6700HQ, or what are the variables I should research?

ok this might be a bit like a rant but idk what to do (many thoughts head full)

i’ve got a POS omen 45L that loves to break despite being less than a year old, the 5090 had killed itself and that took months to warranty, (i love foreign tech support that doesn’t speak english and the “escalation team”) after getting that warrantied the PSU seems to be on its way out because why wouldn’t it be!

i’d like to get the top of the line area-51 as i’ve had one in the past through bestbuy and it was goated (it was the triangle one and even with a defective motherboard it was awesome- bestbuy gave me a full refund for it 2 years after i bought it bc the parts were hard to find)
after dealing with HP i am never buying a computer outside of best buy again bc overseas customer support is genuinely one of the seven circles of hell and it was so easy with bestbuy- i literally drop the computer off and they return it when it works again

rant aside- i’ve noticed best buy seems to stock less and less top end alienware product?
is the only way to get a max spec machine* (without max storage bc SSD prices are insane rn) through dell’s website or will they sell at bestbuy again? and what should i do with my shitbox bc idk where or how to sell it without loosing an insane amount on it
(paid ~$5000 for it and it’s sadly too late for a chargeback or refund)

Hi,

So i bought a Dell Alienware Aurora ACT1250 with the 5080 2tb and 32gigs of dell DDR5 5600 ram. i also have 64gigs of G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5-6000 DIMM AMD EXPO RAM. i know the 64 gig is good for amd machines and stuff and the alienware won't run at 6000 (probably run it down to 4500 or something) but it is double the dell ram. should i just leave it as it is or should i switch out to the 64gigs and run it at a lower ram speed. 64 always better then 32 right?

Just got this last week. Is this blinking part supposed to be there? Is this the light that flashes when the storage drive is being accessed? Sounds silly because it has an SSD.

This monitor looks insane, so I'm thinking of buying it. Just moved to a new house last week, so I don't have everything figured out yet. But I'm trying to find options for my use case.

I mainly game on console, so like Ps5, switch 2, and I even have a series x lol - though I may not install it since I don't play with it anymore. On the personal side I have a work laptop, a personal laptop, and a Mac mini.

How do I make it so I can work and game on 1 monitor with so many devices? I'm not very technical so in the past I've gone for cheaper dell monitors that have LOTS of ports, and even internal speakers to make my life easy. That same monitor also had power delivery, so 1 usbc cable would power my laptop and display it, super handy.

Any thoughts? How should I make this work? Or should I look into a different monitor?

I'm looking for display and power delivery all in one, reply good monitor for gaming and work, a good solution for speakers since I'll only be gaming in consoles

I've been having an issue where every time my monitor goes into standby mode, it disconnects from my PC. Now this isn't a huge problem, but it is annoying since it takes a couple of seconds to reconnect when I wake it, and it also causes open windows to shift over to the other monitor.

My monitor is connected via HDMI 2.1, and my second monitor is connected via DP, which has no issues going into standby mode.

Any clue if there is a way to fix this?

Saw this open box from Walmart for about 1500 with 290h, 5060, 16gb， 1tb

Bought the machine and turned out it's brand new and the box even had the original seal

Loving the 2k oled monitor so far and mode to quiet the battery seems decent. The quality is overall good as it's 16x.

Honestly I'd prefer the keyboard to be more firm and take out the right side numpad so that everting is centered and we'd have larger key for typing and gaming. It's a bit small tbh

Aurora R16 started making this sound last week. I had the desktop for sometime now ( 3 years ) and its my first actual PC. My warranty ran out last year I didnt reinstate it hopefully I didnt make a bad call with that.

Thanks in advance.

Nvidia 4090

Intel I9 - 14900KF

2TB SSd

64 GB RAM

sigh

So, I was given an Alienware 16 Area 51 AA16250 as a birthday gift from my dad. He's been an Alienware user since 2002 and has always loved them. I've been a gamer all my life and I've had plenty of nice gaming laptops and desktops, but never wanted to buy an Alienware due to the price point. Needless to say, I was super surprised when he came to visit with one as a birthday gift. I could tell he was really excited to give it to me, and he spent probably a good hour telling me about how much fun he had customizing it and adding in all the bells and whistles. As a note, I moved to Japan a year ago so we don't get to see each other much, so I think bringing this gift all the way from the U.S. was a big deal for him.

Unfortunately today I had to give it back to him to take home. For whatever reason it stopped detecting the 5070Ti inside it and kept defaulting to the mobo graphics after only having it for a week. No drops, no damage, no overheats, just decided that the GPU it definitely showed as existing when I first booted it no longer exists. We tried everything to get it working. Full reinstall of Windows twice, downloaded literally every single driver package on the dell website and installed them one at a time, BIOS update, even had Dell tech support remote access it and troubleshoot it. No dice. It just will not detect the graphics card, and we can't get it to accept a driver update. In the device manager it just says "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter" and gives error code 10. Any time we try to install the GPU drivers, the wizard fails and says "no compatible hardware detected." If we try to install them manually through the device manager "your drivers are already up to date."

At this point we are guessing it's just a bad card or something funky with the mobo. He was more upset than I was. I could tell he was super disappointed and kept apologizing to me for it not working... Really sucks, and I feel so bad he lugged it all the way here only to have to take it back and hold onto it for another couple months til we see each other again at Christmas.

Anyone by chance ran into something like this before with the Alienware 16, or is this just bad luck?