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Alienware Area 51 R2 Thunderbolt port?
I there a way to put a Thunderbolt cable connector to a Alienware Area 51 R2?
I know there is a connector in the MB but nothing is attached to it. is Dell as a such a connector so I put it in and use it.
Thanks
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Alienware - Rodrigo
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Posted May 11th, 2015 15:00
Yes, the option is not included in the Bios. Therefore, this feature is not going to work.
DELL-Chris M
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Posted July 18th, 2015 06:00
e.Blue,
Take and post a picture of your Bios showing that screen option. I will then take the picture and email the team.
DELL-Chris M (old account)
#IWork4Dell
Here's the proof of the Thunderbolt that is available with the BIOS A02. This is a printScreen from my original post on June 10, 2015: http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19608440?pi21932=9 .
DELL-Chris M
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Posted July 19th, 2015 16:00
Emails sent.
DELL-Chris M (old account)
#IWork4Dell
Anonymous User
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Posted October 2nd, 2015 12:00
Hi, so what is the final answer? Would a card like the Asus thunderbolt ones work?
DELL-Chris M
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Posted October 3rd, 2015 22:00
We do not know. Even though the Thunderbolt port is on the motherboard and the option to enable it is in the A02 bios, there is not a Thunderbolt card being sold with the system nor is one listed on the internal parts page.
DELL-Chris M (old account)
#IWork4Dell
It's interesting that this is the only X99-based MSI board with a Thunderbolt header. MSI did use TB on previous designs, but these pre-Skylake boards had an actual Mini-DisplayPort on the motherboard itself.
The use of a header (and subsequent requirement for a PCI card with DisplayPort pass-through) seems to be par for the course for any X99 boards that do support Thunderbolt -- for example, ASUS, the Lenovo Px00 Thinkstations or workstations from HP. But what's unclear is whether these boards are simple electrical devices or whether they contain more advanced circuitry that requires BIOS support. (And even if they merely enable latent abilities in the motherboard, there could well be device whitelisting to contend with.)

Alienware - Rodrigo
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Posted May 11th, 2015 12:00
This feature is not supported by the Alienware Area 51 R2. Unfortunately, there is no way to connect a Thunderbolt cable to this system.