Area-51 R2-R5, motherboard upgrade

We tried reaching you on a private message asking for the Service Tag number to ascertain the warranty but did not receive a response. Please feel free to reply to the private message whenever you are available.

Anything can be upgraded if you Cut it up with a dremel 

I would not call the side panel cut an upgrade but a custom mod for cosmetic improvement.  looks great and professionally done.  regarding front 240 mm radiator installation it is not absolutely necessary to cut the case bezel.  a 240 mm rad can be mounted on the top fan only leaving the bottom half hanging.  

Adding the window is a nice touch. How did you mount it on the inside? Silicone and/or a backplane with screws into the door cover? 

It was likely cut to improve airflow.  After you put the bezel back on I suspect you probably can't see the cut.  Or if you could, nothing a black air filter couldn't cover up. 

Hi, why are you asking for my tag? My Area-51 is 6y old, so there is no warranty anymore since a long time... Also this is not the point of this post. The point is to show that you can swap the motherboard in the Area-51 case.

Hi, I used silicone to glue the acrylic window in place. But I also kept the top lock, and the bottom metal part otherwise you can't close the side panel anymore.

Hi, you are correct. you can't see the cut anymore after I put the plastic bezel back:

So ok, maybe I should add a few details. This entire project started with me wanting to upgrade the CPU after 6 years. As a result I replaced the mottherboard, then the CPU cooling as the original Alienware 120mm water cooling was not enough to cool an intel i9 11900K. So 1 thing led to the other, and I finally ended up replacing almost everything. Only the FIO board and the optical drive remain.

These are the components I changed:

• CPU: Intel core i9 11900K
• Cooling: Corsair H100i capellix 240mm
• Mobo: MSI Z590 carbon wifi
• RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance (4x8GB)
• Case fans: 2 x Corsair  LL120 controlled by a commander pro (1 fan is the intake in the front bottom of the case, the 2nd fan is an outtake fan mounted at the top back side of the case)
• Case leds: 2 x Corsair RGB led strip controlled by the same commander pro
• Power Supply: Corsair RM1000x
• GPU: Gigabyte Aorus Extreme 3080 RTX
• Hard drive 1 (OS + games):  Samsung SSD980 Pro 2TB NVMe
• Hard drive 2 (data): 4TB WD RED
• Keyboard: Corsair K70 RGM MK2 SE (white version) + icue Nexus
• Optical Drive: original Alienware DVD drive
• Mouse: Corsair M65 Elite
• Mousepad: Corsair MM800 RGB Polaris

Side Panel: I cut the side panel and added an acrylic window and some Alienware stickers.

About swapping the Motherboard... The biggest issue is that you need to connect 2 cables from your new Motherboard to the FIO board: One is an usb3 header cable, which you need if you still want to use the 2 front usb connections. The other cable is an usb2 header cable that you need to connect between the FIO board and the FIO connector on the motherboard. This is needed so you can power on the mobo using the alienhead power switch. For this I used a normal (long enough) usb2 header cable, and made a small hole in both sides of the cable so it will fit the pins on the mobo and FIO board. If you need more info on this, I made a 3 part youtube video on this. Just look for my YT channel Mobi666.

Nice. How did you print the AW pattern on the acrylic?

I downloaded the alienware font, and then just printed out some stickers in matt grey. (via a local printing company).

Latest update: I swapped the 240mm AIO for a 360mm one. Had to do some additional cutting into the front metal frame of the case, which I did with  a dremel.

Wow.  We have a Area 51 R2, And I was thinking of upgrading it rather than replacing it. Some sort of irrational attachment I suppose…

Anyway, how is your system doing now that you have upgraded it?  Anything you would’ve changed?