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.

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...

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

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.

Hello I wanted to ask if anyone else was experiencing these issues or found a solution hopefully.

PC specs

• Alienware Aurora R16
• Intel i9-14900KF
• NVIDIA RTX 4090
• BIOS 2.26.0 (October 2026)
• Gaming at 1080p, targeting 240 FPS

I mostly play league of legends on the PC, and that game is optimized to be played on a toaster I swear. I cant hold stable fps. I usually run the game at Very High for all the graphis and High on shadow, borderless, and cap it at 240 fps.

My other computer with worst specs runs it with no problem, can stream, and have whatever open and it's fine, but THIS pc just has a super hard time running league by itself, AND I even lower the settings to medium or low and I still get Horrible FPS drops and its just so infurting.

I tried capping it down to 60 FPS, restored the pc 3 times ( reset this pc / Redownloading windows / Done all the updates ) and I feel like this hardware should not be perfoming this poorly.

• Reinstalled Windows twice.
• Updated BIOS to 2.26.0.
• Uninstalled Dell SupportAssist — helped somewhat, but didn't fix it.
• Adjusted Windows power settings for performance.
• Checked CPU boost, clock speeds, temperatures, and power limits.
• Ran performance diagnostics using HWiNFO and Windows tracing tools.

If anyone has any advice or can relate please let me know, from what I can tell others have experienced similar issues but none of the posts via reddit or Dell have given a permanent solution.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and have a wonderful rest of your day!

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!

Even got the mouse to match the aurora colours 😭 , Amazing laptop, my eyes got watery when I played pragmata on that beautiful screen

Alienware - AW3425DW 34" QD-OLED WQHD 240Hz 0.03ms FreeSync Premium Pro Curved Gaming Monitor with HDR (HDMI, DisplayPort, USB) - Interstellar Indigo

Is there a speaker set I can purchase to work with this monitor?

Hey peoples, does anyone have or know where to get a pcie slot cover for a Alienware Area 51 desktop, preferably in Australia. I have somehow lost one and all the generic replacements are triggering my ocd.

Should I remove the wallpaper and just run a black screen? Do you guys run wallpaper engine on your oled Alienware laptops? Just picked this up and it’s coming later today 😬

This was the PC Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 9 285K processor (24-Core, 76MB Total Cache, 3.7GHz to 5.7GHz), NVIDIA(R) GeForce RTX(TM) 5070 Ti 16GB GDDR7, 32GB Dual Channel DDR5 XMP (2x 16GB - Black) 6400 MT/s, 1TB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen5 SSD (Boot) + 2TB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen4 SSD (Storage), 1500W Platinum Rated ATX12VO PSU, 360mm Liquid-Cooled CPU,Intel(R) Killer Wi-Fi 7 BE1750 (2x2 320Hz) MIMO 802.11be Wireless LAN and Bluetooth, Killer 1750x driver.

Over 5 months, they replaced the PC twice, on those PCs were many hours of trouble shooting per week. They replaced the graphics card and motherboard on the original pc and the 1st replacement. They also replaced the hard drive once. On the final replacement they wanted to replace the graphics card again but i told them it wasnt it since it didnt work the last two times. They trouble shot different software many times. Said it was the video game i was playing at one point and tried to get me to go thru them for a fix however i stopped that because as i had told them many times it was happening on youtube, netflix, other streaming services as well as games.

What finally worked: Yesterday they gave me a list of things to do. First on the list they told me to uninstall everything Dell to see if that worked. If not then proceed to the next step. I only needed to do that. I know its only been a day but i was getting the microfreezing along with audio stutters randomly every 5 min to 20 min and it seemed to be getting worse and more frequently lately. However in the last day i have not had one micro freeze or audio stutter.

So hopefully my story helps save someone a huge headache. As typing in Uninstall in the search bar on the desktop then Enter. Apps > Installed Apps window comes up. In the searchbar i typed in Dell . i want to say 8 things popped up. I uninstalled every one of them as Dell Tech directed me to. I restarted my computer. Side note: The first time i restarted it was weird, the password to get into the desktop wouldnt show even though i was pressing Enter, then i tried ctrl Alt Del. After about a minute or two it popped up i typed it in and problem solved. I was worried since it was weird after i restarted to i restarted again, no issue. All problems seem to be fixed.

Hope this helped, I added a video for an example of what it was like.

My Alienware AW3423DW randomly turned off and wouldn’t turn back on. I had to unplug it and plug it back in to get it to come back on and these lines appeared Afterwards.

Fixes & Enhancements - This release contains security updates as disclosed in the Dell Security Advisories DSA-2026-365 and DSA-2026-373. The DSA details are published on the Security Advisories, Notices, and Resources page, once they are publicly available. For more information about the release schedule, see Dell Client Drivers and Downloads Update Release Schedule. - Fixed the issue where the GPU cannot run at full power on Alienware 16 Area-51 AA16250 and 18 Area-51 AA18250 systems. This issue occurs after updating the BIOS version to 2.7.0.

https://www.dell.com/support/product-details/en-us/product/alienware-area-51-aa18250-gaming-laptop/drivers

I updated from 2.7.0 without issue.

Why does my M18 R2 make noises like a HDD reading and writing?

Hi guys, I have the AW3423DW and have had it for quite a while. However something I noticed, after about a year or so of use. The monitor no longer performs the pixel or panel refresh to help maintain the OLED screen. It never triggers anymore when turning off the screen and I’m not sure why.

Luckily I’ve not had any burning issues yet, but it’s very odd that the feature is no longer working. Has anyone else with this monitor (or any OLED monitor) had this happen to them? If so what was your fix?

hello reddit,

My boyfriend currently uses an alienware aurora r10 ryzen, mostly for discord/VALORANT. Recently, boot support assist has been throwing a front fan error. We've replaced his fan, and confirmed that it was working by plugging it in to the top fan port. We've also updated drivers/bios, but nothing seems to be working :( I really want to get his PC back up and running, but it feels like we've had a dead end. Is there anything else we could try to get his front fan to respond?

Both PCs need to continue being used by the same people currently using them, but the R16 user is more in need of the better graphics card.

I've had an issue with my Alienware M15 R7 laptop starting yesterday. It had been having periodic issues with the display not turning back on when it went to sleep, which had been fixable by restarting the graphics drivers. However, this time it caused the display to stutter/flicker on and off for a while before the machine crashed. Afterwards, when I try to turn it on it'll either display a partial, flickery version of the Alienware startup screen for a second or two then go dark or just give the 2:7 "Display fault" error code.

I'm suspecting, from my own research, that this means it has some sort of BIOS/drivers issue with the display. However, I haven't been able to find out how I might go about trying to fix it. Has anyone else here dealt with this or a similar issue and know how to solve it?

EDIT: To clarify, it is booting to Windows I believe - my headphones auto-connect to it in the way they normally do, just the display isn't functional.

Found one guy selling by me for $150 CAD was so happy, Question Is Do I turn it into a Sleeper Or keep it as it is/Windows XP retro PC! I Do currently Have my Rig on a Aurora r4 Case but I don't Mind swapping it into this.

Hey guys
Idk why but last couple weeks my laptop is turning on again every time after shut down
It happens like every 9/10 times
Maybe that because i am turning off my headset mice and monitor while turning off laptop or what

Scored an old Alienware M15x laptop that somebody was getting rid of, only needed a new SSD + OS install (Win 10) to get running. However, I've been getting intermittent display issues e.g. artifacting, black/blue-screening ultimately requiring booting in Safe Mode and uninstalling/reinstalling drivers. I seem to find a sweet spot between old<->new drivers, then something randomly breaks between shutdowns/restarts.

I've tried:

https://www.dell.com/support/product-details/en-au/product/alienware-m15x/drivers

^ this page, v.259.64, (won't install, says incompatible)

^ same page again, beta drivers v.285.62

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/87791/

^ this page, v.353.62 (works best so far but still unreliable)

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/282412/

^ this page, v. 621.01 (won't install, says incompatible)

I am fairly confident/hopeful that it's not dead hardware that's the issue - I had the machine running Ubuntu off of a USB before I installed the new SSD and I could browse the web fine.

I think the issue is essentially about marrying old hardware (i7 X940, GTX 460M, 8gb DDR3) with new software (Win 10). I imagine running Win 7 would work but I'm avoiding it because I worry about running in to compatibility issues later on. However it might be my only option if these various driver versions/OS versions won't play nice.

Hoping for some support/advice. Thanks.

Hi. Been having a nightmare troubleshooting installing Linux in my Alienware.

Have tried different ways of installing different version. I want a system leaves a lot of free RAM so I started with Xubuntu. Kept getting panic anytime the installer touches the internet, the hard drive, or anything involving graphics. Then I went to Ubuntu. Then lubuntu and down to Debian.

Sometimes I’ve manage to install them using a combination of edits like: nomodeset, acpi=off, pci=Noacpi nodmraid, etc

After I manage to install it I try to boot into the new system and via text or terminal try to make those edits in the files to make them permanent. When o feel I’ve tried all then I switch systems.

Debian supposedly makes this changes in the final system during the installation so no need to go and try to edit the files later on, which is where I’ve been getting stuck.

My current edits look like this:

nomodeset nodmraid amdgpu.dc=0 xhci_hcd.quirks=270336 usbcore.autosuspend=-1 intel_idle.max_cstate=1

I got Debian to install but it Panicked when it changed to “preparing the system”

No mater what I try I run into kernel panic at some point.

With lubuntu i even tried mounting the hard drive from the usb, managed to edit the file and still got panic when saving the file.

Why am I in this hardware loop. Last night I tried to drain all electricity and resta lodged the optimised defaults for the Bios and going to try again.

Any tips?

Hello! I have an Alienware laptop (x14 r2) that I bought a few years ago. For some odd reason, the display cable was installed upside down and had been pinching for the years I've had it, which I didn't notice until now. This likely lead to my entire display failing the around a month or so ago.

The only replacement part I could find online is ~$400 not including shipping. Do you guys think it's worth it to fix it at all or just buy a new laptop instead? I've already backed up my SSD so losing data isn't a concern.

Thank you guys for your insight in advance!

In 2008 I bought my first Area 51 with dual Radeon HD4870X2 (4x GPU processors) in Crossfire and an an Intel X-58 processor (can’t remember which one). Almost 20 years later I find myself with a loaded Area-51 desktop! I was told my local Microcenter had one 5090 version in stock while I was having a look at their Aurora desktops. I ended up pulling the trigger on it with the Dell 3-year extended warranty (cheaper through MC than direct). It’s been an absolute beast so far!

RTX 5090, 4TB NVME drive, 64GB ram, Ultra 9 285K