Thoughts on Alienware X51

[KeithTalent]

The SPD is essentially a memory bank on the memory module where it stores the speed and timings that it should be run at. For the most part, if you just buy memory from a good manufacturer at a fairly standard speed (i.e. DDR3-1333 not DDR3-2166), you will pay less and probably have far better compatibility. Also, Anandtech ran a test awhile back and showed that most computer-oriented tasks weren't memory-intensive enough to have those high speed modules matter. If I remember correctly, encoding (memory intensive) and a system using an integrated GPU saw the biggest benefit from higher RAM.

For the most part, you don't need to know anything about the SPD or stuff like that.

This. I know only a little about that stuff now, but when I first built I knew absolutely nothing. Do not let these guys scare you.

KT

 

[cmdrdredd]

Yeah, you need to spend hours tweaking parts to determine exactly what went wrong and then spend another hour on the phone with whoever manufactured the part determining if they will RMA it or you get to buy a new part.

Don't get my wrong, I advocate building your own most of the time, but if this is not a hobby you enjoy doing, it is not worth the lack of real support.

If you build it you know each part so you can easily RMA it yourself without waiting for some guy on the phone reading out of a book. There is no in the phone. Everyone from Intel to Asus to western digital and crucial have online RMA forms.

Plus with most prebuilt systems you used to have some proprietary stuff that you couldn't replace yourself because it didn't use standard atx design. I dunno if that changed with time though. Been a long time since I have worked with a prebuilt system outside of a server or Mac.

 

[American Gunner]

You missed out OP. You could have got a nice XPS for $550 but they are sold out now.

http://slickdeals.net/f/5975938-XPS...HD-Blu-Ray-AMD-Radeon-HD-7770-535-refurbished

That does suck. That looks like a pretty good deal.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Yeah, you need to spend hours tweaking parts to determine exactly what went wrong and then spend another hour on the phone with whoever manufactured the part determining if they will RMA it or you get to buy a new part.

It's usually not rocket surgery to tell which of the ~9 parts is the problem if you are running at stock speed, or at least which of a pair of parts (for example motherboard and hard drive).

Also, RMA'ing a bad hard drive is a lot easier and cheaper than boxing up the whole PC to send it back to Alienware or CyberPower.

 

[Markbnj]

A motherboard should be accessing the DRAM's SPD for setting the timings. If you go with fairly standard RAM speed and timings (think DDR3-1333 CL9 or CL10), you should be fine. Also, I'd avoid buying RAM modules with different timings.

SPD only covers a small set of the timings that can affect stability. Here's an example of what I had to do to get an Asus P5P43 board stable. Granted, this was an odd board due to the support for DDR3, but I have had similar experiences with other boards. Until I applied these settings, which were suggested by an OCZ engineer, the system would intermittently blue-screen, typically in the video driver.

Set AI Overclock Tuner to {Manual}
Set DRAM Frequency to {DDR3 - 1333}
Set DRAM Static Read Control to {Disabled}
Set DRAM Dynamic Write Control to {Disabled}
Set DRAM Read Training and Write Training both to {Disabled}
Set MEM OC Charger to {Enabled}
Set AI Clock Twister to {Light}
Set VTT CPU Voltage to {1.35 volts}
Set Memory Overvoltage to {1.75 Volts}
Set CPU and PCIE Spread Spectrums both to {Disabled}

Set DRAM Timing Control to {Manual}
Set Memory Timings to CL 7-7-7-20 (CL-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)
Set Row Refresh Cycle to {88 DRAM Clocks}

For a lot of boards SPD will cover it, but if it doesn't then the only way you'll know is through odd errors that don't give you any help in figuring out what's going on.

 

[DaveSimmons]

^ yes, but if OP goes through General Hardware we'd recommend a motherboard and RAM combo without timing or voltage issues.

 

[tacosrcool]

Too bad Alienware is owned by Dell (which they suck in my opinion). Better to just build your own

 

[Wardawg1001]

I know this has been said numerous times already, but building a PC really is incredibly easy nowadays and much much cheaper.

I recently bought all the parts for a system after debating a long time on whether I wanted to bother with the hassle of putting it together myself. Once the parts arrived I actually took them over to a friends house who had a lot of experience putting PC's together from scratch, and he literally put the thing together and had it powered up in about 2 hours. Granted, had I actually done it myself with only help from the internet, it would have taken longer, about 4-6 hours I'd guess.

Hit up the General Hardware section here on Anandtech to get help with picking out the parts to make sure you are putting together a system that makes sense, not picking incompatible parts, and getting parts from high quality vendors and/or on good deals.

EDIT: More on topic - I don't have personal experience with the X51, but I would steer away from Alienware. They are really just Dell now but still at the pricepoint that Alienware commanded because of its reputation. You get the convenience of top level customer service for things like the warranty, replacements, technician visits, etc, but at the cost of price, customization, quality, and technical support. If you really want to go for a pre-built, I'd recommend one of the boutique shops, just do some research first on the different ones around, as some of them kind of fall off over time.

 

[QueBert]

One thing to consider when building your own, how patient are you? I had to RMA an MSI MB years back, and it took almost 6 weeks from the day I sent it to get it back. Dell or any other company will have a much quicker turn around. RMA'ing with a lot of hardward companies is a PITA. I had to rma a video card, after 3 weeks I got the same card back, still not working. They said I had tampered with the heatsink (I hadn't) so they weren't going to honor the warranty. I ended up getting them to fix it, but it was a drawn out process. My neighbor has a Dell XPS he paid way more for than had he built it himself. But when the video card died, he called Dell, they had a tech at his home the next day swapping it out for a new one. Same thing when his PSU died.

 

[Craig234]

I guarantee that it would have booted right up if you reset your CMOS. If you have a fancy motherboard, all you need is a button press to reset it, or you can just pull the watch-style battery.

I've forgotten a lot of this - if I did, would it reset all my CMOS settings correctly automatically, or would I find myself haivng to manually find CMOS values to enter?

 

[cmdrdredd]

I've forgotten a lot of this - if I did, would it reset all my CMOS settings correctly automatically, or would I find myself haivng to manually find CMOS values to enter?

It defaults everything to the baseline factory settings.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

This. I know only a little about that stuff now, but when I first built I knew absolutely nothing. Do not let these guys scare you.

KT

Agreed, building a PC these days is almost like putting together an oversized Lego set or something. Very simple. Look for MechBgon's instructions on how to build one if you're interested in trying.

 

[Markbnj]

^ yes, but if OP goes through General Hardware we'd recommend a motherboard and RAM combo without timing or voltage issues.

Heh, true, and maybe he would have followed those recommendations. Guess what I'm saying is that if a guy is disinclined to build his own system, you can't always ensure him that if he slaps together apparently compatible components the thing will run and be stable. It's not quite that simple.

 

[KeithTalent]

Agreed, building a PC these days is almost like putting together an oversized Lego set or something. Very simple. Look for MechBgon's instructions on how to build one if you're interested in trying.

Ah yes, how could I forget that. Very useful! :thumbsup:

KT

 

[American Gunner]

So I have a computer that is a few years old, and I was thinking about maybe updating it for the time being and then building one after our summer vacation. I plan on updating the RAM and video card. Anything else I will need to do so that it can run newer games?

 

[cmdrdredd]

So I have a computer that is a few years old, and I was thinking about maybe updating it for the time being and then building one after our summer vacation. I plan on updating the RAM and video card. Anything else I will need to do so that it can run newer games?

What CPU do you have? Many titles still need the CPU as well as being able to feed a newer gpu without bottlenecks.

 

[Aikouka]

So I have a computer that is a few years old, and I was thinking about maybe updating it for the time being and then building one after our summer vacation. I plan on updating the RAM and video card. Anything else I will need to do so that it can run newer games?

As long as it's an i-series Core processor with at least 4GB of RAM, you should be fine to upgrade the video card. I assume it's an OEM machine, so we'll need to know the current video card as well, because OEMs typically don't put beefier power supplies than what the machine needs. They'll usually have enough power (it really doesn't take that much to power a machine with one GPU), but they may lack the connectors. Although, it is worth to keep in mind that two molex connectors can be combined via an adapter into a single PCI-E 6-pin power connector. Higher-end video cards tend to use two of these (sometimes 8-pin instead of 6), mid-range will use one and low-end don't need them.

 

[imaginary17]

I was going to buy an X51 myself until friends were telling me just to build one. So I eventually did. It was hard at first because of those fears of not knowing the parts and how to assemble it. I'd say from a scale from 1 to 5 and 5 being very difficult. I'd give it a 2. I give PC building a 2 because of wire management, being cautious of static and returning stuff that is DOA.

Expect 3 hours of building a PC. Had to go on youtube to get some tips and reading the manual. Yes, reading the manual.
ahaha..

A noob mistake for me at first was that I was going to get a 2011 chipset and a 1155 mobo. LOL. Good thing for forums. I thought mobo was compatible for all chipsets.

 

[American Gunner]

Never mind about my previous question. It's looking like that machine is fried. I will just wait until after summer vacation and get going on one. Thanks for all the input guys.