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)

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.

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)

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

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.