First ultrawide and pairing with a 5080 / 9800X3D rig. Couldnt be more excited to set it up!

Got the itch to get back into gaming. Saw a used one on Marketplace for about $700 USD. I can afford to take the loss financially but obviously don't want to buy something that's a few power-ons from breaking down. There is absolutely nothing normally priced on Marketplace save for a few AM4 desktops that I would just replace the GPU and call it good. Most Gaming Laptops are ~$1000+ for used 4060 or better or $500-700 for a 3050 or worse laptop. Similar or worse for used desktops.

The seller Facetime'd me and showed me him playing Marvel Rivals @ 100-120ish FPS on his monitor. I've read through previous posts but looking to get a final consensus on the performance, heating concerns, and if any cooling pads genuinely make a difference.

I will be using Linux and have used it for ~10+ years. Plan on Fedora/Cachy. No issues getting it setup and adjusting TCC Offset/undervolting intuitively until stable. I'm also a musician, coder, and dabble in videography/content creation. This laptop ticks all boxes and I am super excited. I have however read about the notorious 100C temps and throttling that occurs even when temps are cool. These reports died out after ~2022ish so I'm assuming it got fixed and is a non issue but I can never be too careful.

My only goals are Rivals/Overwatch/Multiplayer FPS games @ 120 and AAA Titles like Cyberpunk @ 60+ FPS on medium 1080/1440p (before factoring in Frame Gen/DLSS).

Please let me know your opinions on whether this is a good purchase. Any other suggestions/experiences would be appreciated.

Specs:

RTX 3070 8GB VRAM GPU

Ryzen 5900HX

16GB DDR4

2TB SSD

Hi guys,

Is it possible to sync all my RGBs with the music(i use apple music app) i play on my laptop( Area-51 16), currently i can't find any good method to do this?

And secondly, why AWCC is not having this audio sync option in alienFX 😭🥲!

I’m looking to purchase an Alienware 18 5090. Right now it’s on “sale” at microcenter for $4300. Is that a good price or should I wait for Black Friday and hope for a better deal? Prices keep going up.. thanks!

https://www.microcenter.com/product/713031/alienware-18-area-51-aa18250-18-gaming-laptop-computer-liquid-teal

My Rig, Alienware Laptop

Device name Brandon

Processor AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX with Radeon Graphics (3.00 GHz)

Installed RAM 32.0 GB (31.2 GB usable)

Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU (12 GB)

AMD Radeon(TM) 610M (483 MB)

So i can run any call of duty,battlefield and many other games on Ultra and get 200+ fps, After about 30 min it drops to 90ish, than lower and lower, Ive set the games to just preformance and low settings, same thing happens, Any ideas? anyone!? it's been driving me nuts for a year now

Good morning,

I recently purchased an OLED and it's my first and my oh my the blacks on this thing are amazing. It is a bit dim sometimes during the day and the reflections are a bit annoying but shifting the room around fixed most of that.

My biggest issue is there's no firmware updates!
https://www.dell.com/support/product-details/en-za/product/aw2726dm-monitor/drivers
This is all I could find and it's just an "Initial release" WINDOWS driver. And the monitor doesn't have a USB port either.
Does anyone know what to do? Am I missing something?

I daily Linux and have setup system fonts and themes to fully utilise inky blacks and sharp AF text on QD-OLED but the HDR experience is terrible. I think the 400 peak 10% brightness actually looks really good but there's this warm tint I cannot get rid of when turning on an HDR mode.

VRR also flickers a bunch so I turned it off even though that's an amazing feature to have.

Overall I feel a bit peeved that I spent $479.52 (R8000 in my currency) and get such bad support and can't use all the features of this monitor.

My 24 inch 1080p IPS AOC monitor had more firmware and driver support for more operating systems and was overall a better out of the box experience for less than half the price.

Can't find anything online in any forums about this monitor really either. Feels a bit like a scam.

But I do enjoy the total off pixels, that is always a shocker in games like Cyberpunk or anything with dark scenes. Outlast is prime example, my eyes literally need to adapt to the darkness rather than fighting the backlight glow of my older IPS panels. I think an AOC Mini-LED might've been an okay compromise because of the better support but I hope this post get some discussion going or someone from Alienware will see it.

255hx 5060 32gb 1tb, Got it for 1200 cad!

Loving it!!

Hello, firstly I know the Dell outlet stuff I see today will be gone tomorrow or the next few days! But good machines pop up a lot on there. So in the first place, I wanted to ask is it still worth waiting for Black Friday - to see if Dell do deals on the outlet machines as well? Further reductions?

Secondly, I wouldn’t buy a scratch and dent machine but would go for the certified refurbished ones. What are people’s experiences of buying certified refurbed machines? Anything to watch out for? Would the inside components potentially be run down from heat and so on? Basically I’m trying to find a very powerful machine that will last a while.

For example, I can see it’s around £4800 new for what I’m looking for (area 51 18 with top specs) vs £3280 for the same specs and machine refurbed.

Thank you!

Does anyone run linux on their laptops and if so does the backlit rgb keyboard work?

Up until a few days ago you could configure An Area-51 desktop and add a 5090 card for a $1,500 upcharge from the 5080 . Looking at it today (Oct 26) the upcharge jumped to $5,000 and it shows it being out of stock if you try to add a 5090. If Dell can't get their hands on 5090 cards any more, then who can?
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/desktop-computers/spd/alienwarearea51aat2265/aat2265_reg_01#customization-anchor

Looking for the best card to swap out my rtx 2070 super. Have an 850w power supply.

Thanks in advance.

I’ve tried both the original cable that came with the monitor and a other HDMI 2.1 cable.

In neither case does the monitor actually run in 2.1 mode.

The maximum refresh rate is 144Hz, and it’s limited to just 8-bit color.

WTF?

GPU 3080ti with HDMI 2.1

The factory application from Dell is excellent. The GPU temperatures were perfect. After repasting there is no noticeable difference to the GPU temperatures. Fan noise is consistent as well. The CPU though used to spike instantly to 104 C. It still does this but not as often or instantly. My recommendation is not to do it. It is a delicate operation taking about 1.5 to 2 hours. Not worth the time and effort for minimal gains. Element 31 thermal paste had a lot of Liquid Metal in it. That took careful removal. I previously reposted a system that was serviced by Dell’s service center in Texas and I found that they did not use Element 31 Thermal grease because when I repasted that system with PTM7950 I found a curious lack of Liquid Metal. Now this new system that has not been touched by anyone had plenty of Liquid Metal in it.

Intel i9-13900KF and 4090. Great gaming PC for the last couple years doing 4K on a LG OLED 42”. Always kept BIOS and drivers updated. Over past year, it would sometimes not POST - no keyboard lights and nothing on monitor. Power cycling would usually bring it right back up.

Last week, the machine started heavily freezing and became unusable. Could barely log into Windows before it would freeze. I swapped out C: NVME for an old 2024 backup, and I was able to play games for few hours, but I was sometimes getting weird lines and artifacts as if it was a bad video card. Figured old drivers.

That night I ran all the windows updates and driver updates, the next morning, I was not able to boot Windows or login without it quickly freezing. I pulled the two memory modules out and tried one at a time. Same issue. I bought a new video card (omg, 5080 very expensive) and installed it, same issue. I tried to reinstall the operating system, same issue.

To be clear, the machine takes a couple power cycles for it to show anything, and loading any type of operating system always causes it to freeze. Diagnostics always passes without finding any error. “Support assist recovery OS” freezes, and USB stick to reinstall Windows freezes.

CPU very rarely go bad, but I started looking at buying various replacements compatible with this chipset. Few hundred bucks, but way cheaper than the video card I’m returning…

After reading some of the forum post here, (Thank you!) I called up Dell and after checking a few things, mentioned this forum reporting free Dell repairs for some, and Dell Knowledge Base Article [000227933](tel:000227933) , they are sending me a depot repair box and said they will test to confirm and replace the CPU at no cost. But if it’s a motherboard or power supply issue, I will pay out of pocket.

Seems fair to me. I will keep you updated. Let me know if you had a similar journey.

One pic is of two PC configs with AMD CPU's, and the same two configs a week later.

And the other pic is the same but with Intel CPU's.

October 17 and October 25

Hi guys, is anyone able to see the Dell "AlienFX board cable conversion kit" for sale? I think the product code is 470-bczc. Whenever I click on a google result link, I get sent back to the store frontpage. Didn't find any on ebay.

I've recent;y dual-booted my Alienware X14 (R1) with Fedora 44 and KDE Plasma 6.7.5

But I'm having some trouble with Fn+Multimedia keys and keyboard backlight -- I cannot control the keyboard backlight. Some of the multimedia keys don't work at all (F1: performance mode, F9: toggle bluetooth), and the Mic Mute indicator always remains on.

Any tips and help are welcome.

Hello, I’m looking for a gaming machine and will be purchasing during Black Friday. Ideally a laptop would suit me as I also need one for work.

I expected the desktops to be cheaper and was open to getting one if there was a good deal for similar specs. However, just looking at the website - I’m seeing the laptops mostly running 1000-2000 GBP pounds cheaper than the desktops. Is there some parts shortage for desktops components driving them up currently?

Thanks

I used to own an Alienware Area 51 275HX RTX 5070 Ti. It had presence sensing settings in the windows power options menu. I could select how many feet it would automatically wake up in and such. This support article describes all of it.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/managing-presence-sensing-settings-in-windows-11

I sold that and upgraded to the same system but with a 290HX plus and a RTX 5090. Now there are no presence sensing settings present.

Did Dell remove presence sensing in the new refresh?

I liked them and they were quite useful to have laptop ready before you even touch it.

Just recieved the Alienware aw2725d and after four hours of usage it automatically started pixel refresh but by mistake | turned off then again I did a manual pixel refresh but there is black distortion only in HDR I am using true black 400 in osd menu and nvidia 10bpc display settings this is only happening in HDR mode calibrated using Microsoft hdR tool.

Absolute pitch-black levels in a dark room and later realised I was sent the 2026 model with an OLED and (?upgraded) CPU (unsure if 275hx to 290hx plus is considered an upgrade). And cherry on the top - it was almost brand new (0% battery wear, and practically 0 cycles)

The 5090 runs well for a 16 inch laptop in overdrive mode

Alright so my laptop (m16 r2) had a broken keyboard piece -- no biggies

So i contacted dell support and asked for a keyboard replacement

Dell promptly intervened after a few weeks

And the repair guy also broke my motherboard

Dell thankfully replaced the dead motherboard with a new one...

Which is not working (yay)

I tried flashing a fresh windows OS and even the damned installer was tweaking out

Firefox is not working and constantly crashes same for word powershell or docker/wsl...

And now it has been three weeks since i've started fighting with dell support to get them to fix the damn thing

Im in Europe and i wonder what do i do now?

Dell is being unresponsive and i feel like they are stalling for time wasting my time in hopes i give up

I talked about this with a lawyer friend and he said that i should send them a letter and if nothing works sue

Help is desperatly needed, this is my work+school laptop and my projects have stopped to a grinding halt...

My setup used to be a Aurora R16 with some razer Components, but I hated how soulless the New Aurora's Look. Found this r4 for free nearby fell in love with the case and I knew I had to use that as my case for the first time building a PC instead of buying a Pre built I think I did okay... It's Running win11 btw just reskined to look like win7

Luckily my Dad used to be an Alienware geek Back then so I took his TactX Peripherals (found the headset on eBay too, arriving soon) I'm replacing the dell with an Old Alienware monitor to match.

Bonus at the End of my Next current project, gonna be my Retro PC, Can't decide between XP or Windows 7...

God I'm getting nostalgic, can we please go back!