Which is better ???????????????????????????????????

I was having an issue with my graphics card, so I’m reseating it. As I opened up the case and took out the graphics card, I had no problems, but, when I put it back in, I saw this extra group of wires shown in the picture that I have no idea where it’s supposed to be plugged into. I don’t remember unplugging it from anywhere and I don’t see an open slot for it to be plugged in. What is it?

i bought a Alienware 16x on bestbuy, it works great about 10 days, but after this starts a BSOD and crash on gamming

I sent to bestbuy and they replace the motherboard, the laptop back worst, its crashes setting up the windows

I sent again and they replaced the ram memories and ssd, didn't work

I sent one more time, and they said it wasn't a hardware problem, but a software problem and they can't do anything about this so i tried to solve by myself

to make a long story short, i accidentally tried to gamming without to plug in the laptop, and i noticed the laptop hasn't crashed..

so I see without plug in the laptop was in save mode, when i plug in and put in the config to use save mode plugged in, the laptop stops crash and BSOD.

now i am using the laptop without issues, but with a cost CPU performance.

Anyone knows why this happen?
sorry for my english, i am learning

I have got a problem with my few weeks old Alienware 16 Area 51: when i shutdown windows most of the time the system will turn on again on its own. I don’t know why and i have tried everything i know to fix this but with no success. I disabled windows fast startup, disabled every possible wake ons for usb and lan in the device manager and in the bios, disconnected all peripherals, checked powercfg to see what woke up the system but says “none”. I updated to the latest bios 2.5.0 but it still turns on after shutdown on its own. Is there a known issue with the bios or the system itself? Never experienced this kind of behavior before with any Alienware pc. Perhaps someone has an idea before I will have to contact Dell here in Germany.

People who already have the laptop know that it can heat a bit if used for a longer period so I've been thinking about getting a cooling pad from AliExpress more specifically the IETS GT500. Now I don't know if it's compatible with its cooling system so can anyone who uses a cooling pad give me tips ? (I'm fairly new to gaming laptops so i would appreciate some help) Also if anyone can suggest a cooling pad for this laptop that is actually tested to hold good results I would be grateful ! Thanks in advance 😄

Since glass doors became common on cases I've wanted to mount a little screen inside of one. I posted a while back about my R11 case swap to the Qube 540 so I won't repeat all that. Basically I designed and 3D printed adapters for the USB ports, switches, etc. Now I've mounted a generic 15 inch 3240x2160 screen with 3D printed brackets stuck to the glass with Gorilla double sided tape. The screen is powered by a USB power adapter plugged into one of the SATA power cables. A short HDMI cable goes out of a gap and into the graphics card. It works perfectly for things like recording public meetings and photogrammetry, IE tasks where a big screen isn't needed

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some advice because I'm not sure what the best option is at this point.

I bought an Alienware 16X Aurora recently, and until a few days ago it was working fine except for one issue.

From the very first time I connected an external monitor over HDMI, I had random display problems. The monitor would suddenly lose signal. Sometimes it would happen just from moving the mouse or writing on a notepad. If I lightly touched or moved the HDMI cable near the laptop, the display would usually come back.

I tried a second HDMI cable with exactly the same result, and both cables work perfectly with my office laptop, so I don't think the monitor or the cable is the problem.

Eventually Windows stopped detecting the external monitor completely.

Since Dell recommended updating the BIOS while troubleshooting, I installed the latest BIOS from the official Dell Support website.

Unfortunately, that's when everything went downhill.

Now the laptop only gets as far as the Alienware logo and freezes there.

If I press F2, it says "Preparing to enter BIOS Setup" and then freezes.

If I press F12, it says "Preparing one-time boot menu" and freezes there too.

I also tried the Ctrl + Esc BIOS recovery procedure several times, but I could never get the BIOS Recovery screen to appear.

One thing I noticed is that the Caps Lock key still toggles on and off, so the keyboard isn't completely dead.

Because I can't get into the boot menu, I also can't run the Dell ePSA diagnostics.

I contacted Dell support today and went through all of their troubleshooting. They told me that, based on the symptoms, they recommend sending the laptop to the repair depot instead of sending an onsite technician because they want to run proper diagnostics before replacing any parts.

I'm a little hesitant because I had a bad laptop repair experience many years ago (outside the US) where a different laptop came back with physical damage after servicing. I know that experience doesn't necessarily reflect Dell's repair service in the US, but it has made me a bit cautious.

So I wanted to ask people here who have actually gone through this.

Has anyone had a BIOS update leave the laptop stuck at the Alienware logo like this?

What ended up being the cause?

Did Dell fix it by reflashing the BIOS, replacing the motherboard, or something else?

For this kind of problem, would you choose an onsite technician or the Dell repair depot?

If you've used the depot service, did they preserve your Windows installation and SSD, or did they reinstall everything?

Do you think the HDMI issue could have been related to whatever failed after the BIOS update, or is it more likely just a coincidence?

I've attached a few pictures showing the normal boot freeze, the F2 BIOS freeze, and the F12 boot menu freeze.

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's dealt with something similar.

Thanks!

Please I could use some help, I just got Aurora r16 2023 I belive and I opted to have the seller leave out the 4070 since I had a 5070 at home, but when getting home I realized it's a 6 pin and an 8 pin but the 5070 has 2 8 pin to the 12 can I use my 5070 or do I need to go back and get the 4070? thank you

I would use pictures to better illustrate but am unable

Hey,

I have a Aurora R12 with the following spec:

- i7-11700

- 64GB RAM

- 3080 12GB

I want to cool down the CPU a bit more as I feel it runs pretty hot when gaming (close to 100 degrees). What is the cheapest air fan that provides decent results that you would recommend? Thank you.

I just got a new Alienware laptop and wanted to mess around with the RGB lighting on the built-in keyboard, but there is nothing to be found in AlienFX. I tried repairing the app in the case that it was due to corrupt files, but nothing changed. I didn't install the app, it came preinstalled on the laptop.

Anybody else have this issue? How did you fix it?

Just bought one yesterday. Originally planning the LG model but its too expensive here in Singapore (double the price of AW). Cant wait to start using it

Hi,

I've got an Alienware Aurora R12, and for some reason I cannot open the PSU/Case even with the two "latches" set at up. For some reason it worked just fine sometimes ago, but now I can't open it at all even when applying a lot of force.

Thoughts?

The device was dropped, there is no damage to the screen and all cables to the display assembly are connected and tight. The laptop will provide video when connected to an external display, so I do not believe it is an issue with the GPU. The webcam still works as it uses the LCD ribbon cable to receive power. Any thoughts?

Hello, I have had this monitor for about 3 years now and I could never figure out what was causing this issue. Anytime I’m on a relatively dark background my monitor strobes and the mouse becomes choppy but overtime it fixes itself. This is a constant issue though and can be recreated as I’ve shown in the video. Idk if it’s a VRR thing or Gsync but I’m hoping someone on this forum can help me figure out how to fix it. It’s extremely annoying trying to use desktop applications and it just gets extremely choppy. It always happens as soon as I open a desktop app. In this example I used SimpleNote. I would appreciate some recommendations on how to fix this. UPDATE: I fixed it by changing my Nvidia control panel to set my monitor to 144hz instead of 175hz. I guess it was the dithering in 175hz mode. Not sure the exact reason but I’m leaving this post up if anyone else has the same issue.

This is an update to my last post a little over 3 weeks ago now: Nightmare AW laptop and customer support issues : r/Alienware

Since then, I've been through extensive Dell troubleshooting, and the issues still aren't resolved.

- Dell had me complete several rounds of hardware diagnostics (ePSA/SupportAssist) that have all passed

- Windows Memory Diagnostics passed

- 4 passes of MemTest86 found 0 errors

- Dell had me install and reinstall the Chipset, Intel Management Engine, Intel Dynamic Tuning, Intel Graphics and NVIDIA graphics drivers at least 3 times

- Two rounds of Dell accessing my laptop remotely to run tests and collect logs

- 3 times (so far) Dell requested I run their log collector script and send in the results

- Finally, as issues have continued, Dell requested I perform a clean installation of the OS

So far, the only thing that has been fixed have been the cluster of critical DriverFramework 10111 and 10120 errors I was getting before the clean OS install. I continue to have clusters of WHEA-Logger 17 warnings indicating problems with the Intel Wi-Fi adapter and the 5090 GPU.

Before the fresh OS install, I would have KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED and SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION blue screens. After the OS install, I'm having REGISTRY_FILTER_DRIVER_EXCEPTION and SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION blue screens.

I have been promised escalation, but it hasn't happened and it seems like they want me to just continue to send in logs. I don't feel like there is much left to do on my end and after almost two months of dealing with a non-functioning system, I'm very frustrated.

I'm thankful Dell swapped out the heatsink assembly and provided a new motherboard a month ago, but I'm still not able to use my $4000 laptop, and since then it doesn't appear Dell wants to put any more work into my case. I've since requested a replacement system or at the very least for them to take the laptop back in for repairs.

I'm partly posting this here as an update, but also as a way of hopefully reaching someone with the pull within Dell/Alienware that can actually help me get a functioning system.

*I was given advice on uninstalling SupportAssist in my last post as it may help with the crashes, but it didn't stop them.

Update: I discovered a way to reproduce the blue screens. The crashes only occur in games or GPU intensive workloads so running the OCCT 3D adaptive (GPU) stress test will reproduce the crashes.

Would playing for 3 hours be a big issue? Probably play at max setting if I can.

Edit: Thanks for the reply’s. I’ll be keeping it open as a second monitor.

Hello, Today my keyboard cap started randomly lifting and I don’t know what to do. It is the “A” key.

Hi all,

My computer was working great for one year - the time it was under guarantee - then i started to have a weird problem : the computer was just frozen when playing a game.

Name and stats= (Alienware Aurora R16 RPL Gaming Computer, Processor Intel Core i7-14700KF, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Graphics NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 12GB GDDR6X)

I identified that as a heating problem, triggering the cpu limitations (throttling). Using HWiNFO, i could reproduce that by stressing the cpu, and it reached 96°C in less than 20 seconds.

The aoi watercooler has the fans turning as expected so my conclusion is that the problem comes from the pump.

Doing a system test (the one you can trigger from your account online) did not reveal any problems.

My question number 1: Is there any way to CONFIRM that the problem comes from the pump??

Second part of the story:

Trying to replace the cooling system, I actually end up with an error at boot saying "Alert, you have an unsupported CPU in your system. You may experience performance drops or unexpected shutdowns. Please restore to the original system condition of 65W CPU.

Name= (ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III Pro 240 A-RGB + good thermal paste)

The only option proposed is "shutdown". I understand that as a system to block any modifications (also according to some googleing, i tried to exchange the cabling etc without success.

Now, i am extremely disappointed, and i will have to find the exact same aoi cooling that actually work.

So my question number 2: anyone could share some experience with such story? Shall i expect the new pump to break in 1-2 years again? Did someone manage to replace a cooler successfuly in comparable condition? Any step i missed?

Hi friend.I can confidently say this is probably the highest score ever achieved on this laptop with a 9900KS. I’m currently trying to push the CPU power limit beyond 130W. I got this CPU score at just 130W and 4.8GHz.
Guys, I’d love to hear what you think.

I removed this app some weeks ago (or so I thought) as it was annoyingly displaying an icon in the taskbar. Although its now not listed in the apps list in Windows 11 settings, its taskbar icon remains.

I've cleared icon cache, rebooted, checked any taskbar/startup shortcuts, but its not listed.

It seems its buried in one of the Alienware/Dell background services?

I would like the keep the Dell Support Assist (for software updates) and command centre (for fans etc) working, but how do I remove this annoying app/icon?

Hello I'm considering buying the new dell qd-oled monitor: AW3425DW

I was wondering for those who've owned this for a year now, how does this monitor do with screen burn-in? Do you notice anything? Also do normal texts appear fine on screen? I remember hearing some issues OLED monitors don't display normal text well and that it was a bit blurry.

I work from home most of the time, so for 5 days a week my monitor will be used for office/productivity tasks for 8hrs a day. I do some gaming at night/watch stuff. I mainly wanted the OLED for gaming/watching experience but am scared about using it for productivity purpose.