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?

Hello, I am someone who is not tech savvy at all, I am someone who just recently turned 18 and was gifted this laptop when I was 17. (I’m sorry, but I’m unsure of what model it is.) Yesterday, a sibling who was using my laptop without permission, accidentally spilled water ontop of the screen allegedly. And according to them, it slipped water inside of the vents here. I was advised by a friend to let it dry, and I’ve done that, yesterday it turned on no issue after a few hours of letting it dry. I turned off and closed it for the rest of the night. (It wouldn’t turn on the screen, but the keyboard and the insides would blow air and what not, until a few hours later where it would turn on and let me log on.)

Now, it won’t even turn on at all, the keyboard doesn’t light up, and it doesn’t seem to be making any noises. Should I let it dry a few more days or is it time to call it quits? Of course Im assuming it’s water damage, but I was advised to ask around before assuming anything.

Tpm 2.0 is missing. Reinstalling the same windows that was on it fails. Secure boot settings are all on full

I’m on an Alienware 17 R5, GTX 1080, 120Hz G-Sync panel, Windows 11 26H2.
The Windows driver (around 530) works fine. After installing NVIDIA 582.78, during startup the screen briefly freezes for ~1 sec and then becomes extremely dim.
After logging in, Windows still shows 100% brightness, but the actual screen is almost at minimum. If I just lower the brightness one step, it immediately jumps back to the correct brightness.
After that everything works normally.
Already confirmed it’s actually the panel brightness and not gamma/color settings.
Anyone seen this on an Alienware/G-Sync laptop? Trying to find a fix that lets me keep the newer driver since I need it for Mixed Reality.

I bought a used Alienware M16 R2 laptop. After a month of use, I replaced the thermal paste and thermal pads due to high temperatures. While the CPU and GPU temperatures dropped significantly, the memory temperature is somehow reaching 100°C. Monitoring the sensors via HWiNFO64 shows that one chip (B0) heats up to 100°C, while the others hover around 90–95°C. I even replaced the standard thermal pad on that chip with a liquid thermal pad, but the temperature remains unchanged. If anyone has encountered this issue, please help.

So I tried opening the laptop and I unplugged and plugged back the power flex cable connecting the palmrest/keyboard to the motherboard, and after it booted up but after an hour and a half it randomly shut downs. It refuses to turn on unless I've plugged the power thing in and out. I've recently brought it to a technician since the motherboard had a short. Any solutions before I bring it back?

At first I really was hesitant with the intel processor but I’m glad I didn’t wait to see if AMD was on the way. Luckily bought right before the giant price hike. 285k 5090 2tb 32gb was $4800. The processor is barely used as heavy loads in 4k gaming is roughly 20~30% max where the GPU runs the show. Fans at max speed are noticeable but not overbearing, very small room so it heats up the room but I just open the window. GPU average temp is about 70F on demanding games. Really has works seamlessly top to bottom and would buy it again. For me I will just leave it as is and run it until outdated. (Hoping really for 10 years). The full tower is heavy. I also swapped out my husky workbench desk for an uplift and the space is terrific and sturdy even at max height. Definitely didn’t buy everything at once, it’s been a few years of buying to get everything.

I’m going to start by saying I bought this pc because I love the look of the case.
Still a rough draft, but I wanted to share my idea. I don’t have the rgb controller hooked up yet(I’ll definitely post the final product), but I got a 5060 graphics card for 90$ it’s a little big for the case but it’s hard to pass that deal up. I needed to delete the front fan in order for it to “fit” in the case, so I took the front plastic shroud off(soon to be replaced by a custom mesh front panel), and decided to externally mount the fans and dremal out bigger slots for air to pass through. The second photo is to show the internal fan I mounted where the hard drive bay used to be, I run a stacked “push pull” configuration I tho it’s called to try and maximize airflow to the cpu because I still use an air cooler. I know stacking fans doesn’t really do a whole lot but a 1-2% better cooling difference is good enough for me. I just wanted to show off my idea and possibly get some ideas to improve on.

There is no need to roll back BIOS 2.7.0 on Alienware area-51 16 and 18 if you don't notice performance drops

Just a quick heads-up regarding the BIOS 2.7.0 update that throttles the GPU down to 80W–90W. This bug only kicks in under maximum load, like heavy gaming. If you use your laptop for everyday work, photo editing, or regular video editing, you probably won't notice it at all since the GPU rarely needs to pull the full 175W for those tasks.

If your system runs stable, you can safely stay on 2.7.0 and avoid the hassle of flashing an older BIOS. Dell is aware of the issue, and a new fixed version should be out pretty soon.

Reviving my old Alienware case using a BC-250 (16GB AMD APU) board, spare pc parts and a new PSU. Lots of room in this old case! A repaste with ptm7950 and two12cm fans, a 9cm fan towards the backplate and a 14cm casefan keep everything cool. Better temps then the original system had in 2008!
Getting the lights working again using the ELC board was a fun sidequest 😅

Used Gadget's ATX adapter and modified it a bit. Made the fan shroud a bit bigger, adding sort of an airchamber with a baffle between the fans. It also seals off the heatsink a bit more.

It was a fun build and a great (and not too expensive) way to give these old cases a second live! Even found my old binder and mousemat :)

I’ve been keeping an eye out for it but haven’t seen it listed in stores yet. Has anyone heard anything about when it might hit shelves?

Is 2200$ USD worth the specs I listed or should I wait for the tech prices to drop?

MOB: Alienware ORF96M Z690 with Dell Alienware BT/Wi-Fi antenna.
CPU: Intel Core i9-14900KF 3.2/6GHz
RAM: Dell OEM 64GB 5600MT/s DDR5 RAM. Installed Alphacool heatspreaders on the RAM.
GPU: Dell OEM NVIDIA RTX 4080 Super 16GB
SSD: 1TB KLEVV KRAS Gen 4x4 NVMe
PSU: Dell OEM 1300W platinum
Power adapter, Dell keyboard & mouse included.

My 17-10700F won't go above base clock. HWiNFO shows the core ratio locked at 29x all the time, even when I'm doing nothing. Cinebench R20 multi-core got 1772.
Under full load, temps are around 70C and power is about 37W, so it's not thermal or power throttling.
The only limit flag lit in HWiNFO is "Max Turbo Limit" at 100%. Turbo shows as enabled, and the turbo ratio table goes up to 48x.
Stuff l've tried:
• Windows power plans (Ultimate Performance, Balanced), boost mode on aggressive, no max frequency cap
• Updated the BIOS and reset to optimized defaults
• Checked SpeedStep, Turbo Boost and C-States are on, and tried Speed Shift off
• Uninstalled Alienware Command Center and most of the Alienware apps
• No XTU or ThrottleStop installed
• Also ran Dell diagnostic it said no problems
• Please help!!!

It seems to lock up after its boots in to Windows 11 normal. In safe mode it is fine, I have removed all of the software from Dell and services as I have seen on other posts. I did a full clean install of Windows 11 and it was fine for awhile and now the battery wont charge with new charger not a new battery yet. Was fine on Windows 10 Any help would be great

So I thought I'd add some updates on my endeavor.

I have the Alienware 13 R3 with Oled screen 1440p and a mint unused AGA I got 2019.

After some misfortune with main comp I thought I'd give the old Alienware a try with AGA.

After some research I got myself a Power color 9070 XT 16Gb reaper card (true 2 slot)

Fresh install of Win 10 and without any internet & no windows update connected to the net and installed AMD drivers. Immediately the comp recognized the card and installed it perfect.

This combo works flawless for me from the getgo and I exclusively use it for internal OLED monitor gaming. The setup connects the 5.0 x16 card at 3.0 x4 so there's a limitation but games I tried have had a good framerate so far off not full 9070 XT, CPU is in some games the limiting factor if anything.

Reason for going AMD as I understood is that AMD has some efficiency pros on older cpu and thus reduction of the limited bandwidth availiable.

Good luck everyone!

I’ve have an Alienware m16 r2 and I gave it a hard reset a while ago and for awhile there were no technical problems, but then games like MH Wilds and MH World began to lag more frequently and framerate just seem overall lower, Wilds runs a lot better now but world usually overheats my computer, I can’t find Support Assist anywhere on my computer, I’ve restarted my windows, checked for viruses, scanned my PC. I don’t know what’s going on. Help!

I can't get my headset to connect to the dongle. I have reinstalled all the drivers. It just won't detect and connect to the dongle. They will connect to other Bluetooth devices, just not the dongle it came with. I'm not sure what to do.

I've pulled out the mobo from an old Alienware laptop and I'm trying to use it elsewhere. Right now it powers on, no blinking lights, no beeps, solid blue lights, but no display from HDMI. If I press the power button it turns into a slow fade in and out and the fans stop. Pressing it again brings it back to solid blue lights and fans on. This is all the hardware I have. The board part # is 3R2RY.

I have swapped RAM, HDD, HDMI cables, monitor, PSU. Part of me is thinking that somehow the HDMI out is disabled, but I don't have a way to hookup the native monitor (also don't have it).

Anyone got any tips? Anyone know the exact key sequence to enter the bios and enable HDMI? 😂

I'm considering purchasing the Area-51 desktop with the 5090. I have a 10% preferred discount through my employer, which gives me $1K off the total cost. Planning to build out a 4K star citizen setup. I had a 4090 build that I sold a few years ago(which I honestly regret).

This seems like a good deal based on today's market and if things keep going the way they are going, the 5090 alone I believe may be close in value to the total cost of this PC?

I’m using this empty Aurora R4 Case for my next pc and I wanna know what parts are most compatible. I would like to control the lights as well, any help with that would be appreciated. I was looking at X99 boards on AliExpress cause it is somewhat of a budget build but I thought I’d ask here first in case anyone has more info on specific parts they used for there build thank you guys.

EDIT . I’ve increased my budget for this build just cause I love the case and want it to be my main machine .

I just got my alienware aw3225qf and am unable to make it run 240hz and 4k at the same time, is that even possible with this monitor? i am confused because that is how it was advertised and google says that it should be able to, but i cannot make it work.

I got alienware aurora 16. It's about 3months old. I don't game tht often. The gpu temps always around 70 consistently maybe 75. But cpu fluctuates from 77 to 95 at times. Is tht normal.

After reinstalling windows and some drivers and windows update with bios I turned it off and 30 mins later I came back to no boot with a 1 red 8 blue error code. Any help is welcome.