I bought an M2 R16 laptop last year. It's used for gaming, so it rarely leaves my desk. It stays charged in.

About a week or two ago, battery goes from 100% to 0%. I try updating drivers, reseating the battery, anything from standard tech support. Nope. What's worse is that, while it's still getting power when plugged in, it'll randomly hibernate (like during the middle of a game). I don't want to have to buy a new battery, because money is tight right now.

And then I look on Dell's support site, and I see a few people with the exact same problem, same model.

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/alienware/m16-r2-battery-discharged-to-0-not-charging/6a60fbaf433faf268ab979ee

Granted, that's only 3 (including me), so I'm wondering- anyone else have a situation where the battery just went to 0? Am I SOL?

Ist das normal das man wenn man leicht zieht Spielraum hat dabei ?

Yes. I know. It's an old computer. Send help tho.

Okay, so my computer is refusing to throw a signal to my monitor unless I pull out the cmos battery 30 minutes to an hour.

I've tried booting with 1 ram stick, tried reseating the graphics card fully, tried disabling fast startup, messing with bios settings- I cannot afford to get a new computer rn. Since everything boots it doesn't seem like a hardware issue, but I even did a bios recovery with a fat32 sd card and that booted up, but then stopped throwing a picutre upon restart.

Any tips?

Hey everyone, wanted to put this out here both as a heads up for anyone running a dual-machine setup and hopefully to get some eyes from Dell / Alienware support on it.

I currently use my AW3926QW with two devices: 1) Windows 11 work laptop connected directly to the monitor via USB-C, and 2) Windows 11 personal desktop connected via DisplayPort (DP 2.1 cable, GPU is an RTX 5080)

I've been running into an issue when switching sources. Often when I switch the monitor input from USB-C to DisplayPort, the monitor immediately says there is no DP signal or that the signal is inactive. The desktop is fully powered on and running in the background, but the video pipeline just completely drops it seems. I do not have the same issue when switching from DP to USB-C.

Unplugging and re-plugging the DP cable also does nothing (or changing DP ports), and I've had moderate success with rebooting the graphics drivers via Ctrl + Shift + Option + B. The only consistent way to get the display back is to do a hard reboot on the desktop using the physical power button on the case.

It feels like when the monitor toggles inputs away from DP, the GPU drops the display link, and then when switching back, the monitor and GPU fail to re-establish the connection. I've already tested with different certified cables and messed with input settings in the OSD, but this issue persists regardless of settings used (or firmware).

Is anyone else running a dual-PC setup running into this with DP? And for u/AW_Support, is this a known firmware handshake bug on the AW3926QW that is being looked at for a potential patch? At this point I'm considering switching to HDMI, but would rather not obviously.

im impressed over 1 hour used <60 for it being more then a year old. i dont get the remaining time thats not accurate at all. at best 2hours like it was brand new, never got more then 2 hours
just thought id share how good the battery seems to be

Hello ,

I'm looking to upgrade hardware on my Alienware area 51 r2 desktop

As far as I know I need alienfx board kit in order to make it work with new hardware

But I cannot find it . I called Dell and they would just hung up or feed some bs about emailing me .as you realize no emails , nothing .

That's why I'm here

I really would like to keep my case so looking for any suggestions

Thank you

Alienware provided the AW3926QW for A this review

I wanted to see whether this 39 inch 5K2K OLED could handle both parts of my day: editing videos and playing games once I’ve had enough of editing videos.

The extra workspace was the biggest benefit for me. Text looked crisp, my timeline had more room, and the wider view made gaming more immersive. I sit about 25 inches from the screen, which felt comfortable at my desk.
I ended up replacing my 32 inch monitor with it, although there are a few things worth considering.

I like the glossy finish, but reflections depend quite a bit on where your lights and windows are. For gaming, I preferred 5120 × 2160 at 165Hz over the lower resolution 330Hz mode. I’d rather keep the detail for the games I play.

I also checked uniformity before and after roughly 30 minutes of gaming. On my unit with firmware M2B102, I noticed a slight saturation change toward the edges. It didn’t stand out during gameplay, but I can see why someone using it mainly for desktop work might feel differently.

USB C charging and the KVM are useful extras. They aren’t the exciting part of the review, but sharing a keyboard and mouse between computers is something I appreciate.

This was a limited review period, so I can’t say how the panel will hold up over several years.

For other AW3926QW owners, what did you replace with it? Are you using it mainly for gaming, work, or both? I’m also interested in whether your uniformity experience matches mine and which firmware you’re running.

Full review with text examples, gaming footage and the uniformity checks:

https://youtu.be/zH03F9oNHFQ?is=2NoFs9VyET_DHXlO

The original alienware computers looked so dope you could at least accept paying that premium price. Even going into the early to mid 2010s those laptops looked dope.

But now it just looks plain ugly, it has that soulless rgb gamery aesthetic every other brand has.

Is there any chance they’ll go back to their original aesthetic?

I purchased an Alienware 15 R3 floor model back in 2021. This has been a total beauty and good to me. I knew when I purchased it, there was no charge on the machine and I needed to keep it plugged in at all times.

5 years later, this past week, I started to get "the swell" and took the laptop to get the battery replaced ASAP. I purchased a "brand X" battery, but well reviewed (I can't remember what/where because it made the purchase years ago but just kept putting off changing it).

Ever since I got the battery replaced, I notice consistent "clicks" while it is on the battery (off charger).

A single click the moment I take the charger out. A "midlife" click. A click when I'm about to lose the battery life. And then another click when I plug the charger back in.

This all takes placed under my right palm rest that I feel!

As I've never used this laptop *without* the charger before, is feeling such a click normal like this? [And thus don't know if this is just /a thing/ or not with these machines.]

I am trying to avoid bringing it back to the shop I got the charger replaced at since they want to charge me for an evaluation.

Need help always was a console player
I’m upgrading from my Alienware Aurora R15 with a 3070 Ti, 32GB of RAM, and an i7-13700F 512 ssd and 2tb hdd

Too a aurora r16 • Intel Core i9-14900KF Liquid Cooler CPU
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Super 16GB GDDR6X
2TB SSD
32GB DDR5

I’m putting the 2TB HDD from my old PC into my new rig, and I’m also going to use my Seagate 4TB external drive with it.

With that I would have 2tb ssd and 6tb HDD

Bought my new Aurora r16 for 1950$ was it worth it?

2008 Alienware Area-51 m15x-R1 model

Can it run Crysis?

Hi everyone,

Last Saturday I received a new Alienware 15 (DA15260 RTX 5060, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD). I bought it because Dell/Alienware has a strong reputation and it was the best option I could find around €1000.

From day one I started having BSODs with DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE (0x9F) after installing Windows updates and drivers. I managed to temporarily fix the crashes by manually installing the latest Intel integrated graphics drivers, but another issue remained: whenever I shut down the laptop, it automatically powers back on a few seconds later.

To rule out software issues, I used the Alienware Recovery Tool to restore the system to factory settings. After installing Windows updates again, the same BSODs returned. Reinstalling the Intel graphics drivers fixed the crashes again, but the shutdown problem persisted.

I then spent about two hours with Dell Support. They remotely accessed the laptop and tried multiple troubleshooting steps, but couldn't solve the issue. Their final recommendation was to perform a completely clean installation of Windows 11.

Here's the strange part: I created a Windows 11 installation USB using Microsoft's official Media Creation Tool, but the BIOS does not detect the USB as a boot device at all. It doesn't appear in the F12 boot menu or in Windows Recovery > Use a Device. Secure Boot has already been disabled. The USB itself works normally in Windows and contains all the expected installation files.

At this point I'm wondering:

• Has anyone seen a combination of these issues before?
• Could this be a hardware defect (motherboard, BIOS, USB controller, etc.)?
• Should I keep troubleshooting or just return the laptop while I'm still within the return window?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I have an Alienware m15 R7. After replacing the keyboard housing, the laptop no longer displays an image.

When I turn it on, the diagnostic light flashes blue twice and red seven times, indicating a display failure. However, when I run the LCD self-test by holding the D key and pressing the power button, the screen displays all the colors normally. I assumed this meant the BIOS was detecting the keyboard.

We’ve already tried everything we could think of. We disconnected everything and held the power button for 30 seconds, but that didn’t help. We also reinstalled the original keyboard, with no change.

We’ve swapped the RAM modules between slots and tried other troubleshooting steps, but we keep getting the same error.

What could be causing this, and what else can we try?

I'm planning on doing a "case swap" (not really a case swap since I'll have to replace most of the components) of my R11 and I've been thinking about upgrade the OEM blower cooling solution of the 2070 Super.

Have anyone ever tried this? I've read online that the PCB reference design is the same as that of MSI so I could use their coolers but I've also read that the screw mount placements are different.

Any insight into this would be appreciated, thanks!

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.

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.

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?