Alienware area 51 R2 Motherboard upgrade?

Since Alienware's turned their backs on the entirety of past R2 buyers in not making their systems Broadwell-E compliant or compatible as of today - neither releasing a Bios update or updated CmndCntr overclocking utility - & only offering NEW buyers to such VIP treatment while relegating past buyers to second-class citizenship status or Steerage, in Titanic parlance, no doubt you might prefer to switch to a brand that can offer such niceties as better CPU choices & overclocking ability. MSI of course made their entire x99 lineup Broadwell ready as of last April - both for their past 2014 x99 offerings & their brand new 2016 x99 offerings like the Godlike Carbon - sprinkled with a brand new MSI Command Center OC utility on June 3rd for all. The message from the Aliens - now three months late with their firmware / software updates - appears to be that in order to be Broadwell compliant you must purchase a new R2 system or swap your motherboard to a company that values its past its present its new & its future customers alike as the flip-side of the coin

Since Alienware refused to update their MSI-based motherboard to a second-generation X99 platform & prefer they & their new customers stick with 2014 1st gen tech to celebrate their 20th Anniversary, your want to move into a newer State-of-the-Art MSI motherboard &/or CPU comes as no surprise, while of course only their decision does, but then again?, comes as no surprise at all, not to me

Below is a good assortment of our swap info. One owner tried the Black / Red Godlike for a bit then moved to a different brand. A recurring theme seems to be whether or not the side panel lights always work or not; some say yes some say no. Normally, I would advise someone to make a clone / image of the existing 7/8.x/10 drive, boot into it & in a few moments test the CmndCntr / AlienFx for proper working status. If ok, on a new drive, install Windows clean, have your .netframework handy, install CC & re-test on the new drive / install. Worst case scenario, if original drive is the only one that allows working AlienFx, I would keep it alive, uninstall all old driver software / install new mthrbrd drivers-software. If no scenario allows proper AlienFx operation / side panel lights etc, I'm sure I have no useful advise to recover them, other than your desktop shipped with a driver CD with the original CmndCntr version 4.0.1 or similar, which might Goldilox, you'd have to check. I know of no one who called the swap difficult: remove old / install new & be sure to buy all of the necessary new cables the owners have pointed out

Since MSI makes the R2 mthrbrd, most MSIs tend to have a universal front panel header pinout

* A51 R2: swap to a new motherboard, is it possible?

* Motherboard Swapped A51 R2 Easy

* Tutorial: Upgrade A51 R2 with E-ATX X99 Mainboard

* Area 51 R2-Upgrades, Mods, Clarifications

* Upgraded Area 51 R2 to X99A Raider Motherboard

* 1080 SLI Hybrid 6850K Asus Sabertooth X99 Performance Build

* The ALX Files: Operation Kalifornikation A51 R2 Kase Build, Surfin' with the Alien

* Install CmndCntr on New Motherboard

other brands like Asus Giga AsRock may need a different front panel wiring scheme

if you're successful you will of course make your own post here & add your experience to the Swap Archive List above I hope. With due diligence on your part, with thorough reading, all of your qwestions should be pre-addressed for the most part. Your best bet may be to chime into the Sabertooth post where the owner tried the Godlike V1, for the best possible explanations from someone with 1st hand knowledge / experience with that board. Good luck 

photo courtesy HardwareCanucks.com 19page MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon Motherboard Review

- at nearly half the cost, the x99a Gaming Carbon is eqwally compelling -

it & Godlike puts R2s tacky XJKKD (non-Broadwell compliant) mthrbrd to complete & utter shame

overclocking? oh yes ... 6950x got spanked by x99a to an impressive 4.5GHz

"In the end, we did create a successful all-core overclock that was better than the “safer” automatic profiles while remaining within our voltage tolerances. Not only were we able to push all cores to 4.5GHz but also increased the Uncore to 3.2GHz and boosted the RAM to DDR4-3400.

This board is enjoyable to work with and creating a successful overclock will fill you with pride and satisfaction in a job well done… and when dealing with such bloody expensive systems isn't that a major reason we all purchase them in the first place?"

we expect bigger brother Godlike to have same or better OC potential, find a review ...

x99a JLED1 led output header has interesting implications: an industrious person who 'lost' AlienFx case lights might (at their own risk) wire up a doo-dad to regain case lights, maybe yes maybe no

*** note it says 12volt output

• to be compatible, A51 led lights must also be 12v LEDs
• chances are they're 3.3v or 5v LED
• if so, an inline resistor of some value would be necessary to reduce 12v to 3v/5v

Since onboard motherboard led controllers are coming into fashion, while here MSI has written software to control color output, 'loss' of exterior lights & regaining exterior lights may come down to the use of a motherboard such as the above, & from there, simple or exotic methods to incorporate case light LEDs into the motherboard led output header ... ... ... 

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x99a Glowing Review

"On the BIOS & software side of the equation the Pro Carbon is also crazy impressive given its asking price. While knowledgeable consumers will not be overly surprised by the new BIOS or software package both are still the best that MSI has released to date ...

... this is one of the best MSI motherboards we've tested to date. No matter what your skill level, no matter what you consider to be most important - be it features or the ability to overclock - X99A is almost sure to satisfy. The very fact that MSI was able to do all this & keep its price aligned with Z170 based motherboards is simply fantastic. If you're looking for a relatively inexpensive board to run alongside a shiny new Broadwell-E chip, run out & look at this one"

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but recently I've been bothered on what MOBO to choose the msi godlike carbon or the Asus rampage v edition 10, both have good reviews, but i am still undecided for now

edit for new post: ah yes, the two reigning champions. Where yours is a $550 - $600 (US) endeavor, I've spotlighted the x99a here for others to consider, given its $330 pricetag at Newegg

to me this implies that with new Area-51 buyers? it's Broadwell Done Wrong!

XJKKD has surely served its time & place for all past buyers, but when asked to comment in public over why Area-51 did not receive a motherboard revision for Broadwell from MSI in Alienware's 20th Anniversary year - à la 2nd generation X99A Gaming Pro twin or similar - & how selling old 2014 tech to new 2016 / 2017 buyers may affect those buyers as well as the 'old performance' rhetoric used to sell those motherboards now antiqwated, Product Planner Joe Olmsted refused to comment, ya think? The old XJKKD mthrbrd is a competent effort given its $200 - $250 value, however we should be aware that MSI had to lower their usually high standards in order to produce what the Aliens wished for: a low-cost mid-level board they could market as top tier & overcharge for as top tier someday:

NotebookReview.com: Ask Alienware's General Manager, Frank Azor, Anything on AWA! p.15

call Dell Sales & they too will inform you that XJKKD is not a $500 MB ... it's a $550 MB ...

Knowing it's priced double its worth while openly admitted by the GM of the company it isn't even worth its price at the short 1year warranty or less, one should qwickly become cognizant of the types of people & company we're dealing with here. The lack of want to offer a revised mthrbrd or talk about it in public resolves itself just as qwickly. The near two years it took for a Bios upd8 to run 64Gb of memory wasn't a special favor to you the owner, it was released in time to help sell an old system to new Broadwell buyers & charge $850 for base 2133 memory with only a $250 market value ... yes?

I have a forum friend who will debut Godlike Gaming in Area-51 R1 soon, & your choice of boards?, the best I can say is that if one spends $500+ they'd best be buying a $500+ board in trade, & that something is very wrong when same old XJKKD is priced at the same cost levels of the two best 2nd generation X99 boards that reside here on Planet Earth. In situations like this, it isn't so obvious whether to sell XJKKD for the $200+ its worth to help pay for new mthrbrd or hold onto it for any number of good reasons. It's a nice predicament you're in, truly. With retail MSI / Asus products you're sure to get what u pay for with a lasting warranty as well

FYI: whomever you are, take extra care when transferring CPU into mthrbrd socket so as to be sure not to bend any socket pins by accident & be sure to obtain a high-qwality thermal paste for between the CPU & your liqwid-kooler ... lastly, it is possible the mthrbrd tray in A51 is socket 2011 v3 only :/