Area 51 vs Area 51 ALX - Motorized Door, Motherboard Differences?

I would say it is definitely an ALX. Were the regular ones even black? I've never even seen a grey one though...

The front (the floor is terrible, just moved here...this thing looks really out of place in this room, lol)

Normally, you just press the alienhead and it goes down, and then up, right? Mine just sort of falls down...I'm going to double check the MIO board connections. I'm pretty sure when I looked awhile ago, it was plugged in and had one labeled DOOR or something. I trust the tech that worked on it, I've dealt with him on a lot of stuff. Neither of us could figure it out.

Post some pictures of the inside of the doors. I can tell you then. The none ALX is painted. Sounds like from what you are saying is Dell says it is not ALX so they would not use an ALX door so replacing it would mean nothing. It needs the correct door. You can try sending Dell Chris_M your service tag so he can look into it for you.

You should have the paper work that came with the system. It will also say if it's ALX or not.

You have the newer board. Your old board was the verson 1 and the one they replaced it with is the version 2. Only thing changed is the color and Alienware branding. Both boards are used on both ALX and non-ALX systems.


The green board you had was the exact same board that Dell used on the XPS 730x. They sold all Area 51's with that board for about a year before going with the Alienware branded board.

If yours is black and anodized then it's the ALX and should have the motorized door. All ALX have the motorized door.

That's what I figured. Why wouldn't it work? The whole front panel was replaced and still, nothing. The power to the USB is turned on in the BIOS (forgot the exact setting). I rarely use the drives so it's not huge but I'd still like it to work. :D

Yeah, no spray paint. I looked at the connections and doorsw_l and doorsw_r are plugged in right..

I think they did give me the right front bezel. (forgot to mention the person in mentioning from Dell is not who put in the order, but the person who followed up with me)

Also looks like the door is getting power, as the comp is off but the alienhead is lit up. Hmmm...

The non ALX came in black too. Open your door and look at the corner. If it's not ALX you can see where they spray painted it.


Look at this picture and you can see what I mean.

ODD_SW1 is plugged in as well. Weird. Maybe the MIO is bad? Everything else is fine...

Is there any diagrams for these Mio cards?

That is weird. I would keep on Dell about it.

Weird...what does yours say? I got the tool from the driver site.

I'd like someone from Dell to help me out on here because the phone support people have been clueless 9 times out of 10.

You have no choice but to call Dell. They are the ones that will need to send the part/parts so you must go through them in the end.

As far as being an ALX in the end you should really know what you bought. You should remember what you payed for, have the bill and the service tag will also confim the model. It is under warranty so please just call Dell and let them figure it all out. It is to much to try and do in chat. There are many parts that make it all work and when you are not even sure if it's an ALX it makes it that much harder.


P.S. You are missing a plastic side panel in your picture.

Are you the original owner or did you buy it used and have the warranty transferredd over to you? Is it a system someone made form parts or did you buy it new from Dell?

The reason I ask is you do not know what you bought.You are saying Dell says it is not an ALX yet they would know, 100%, if it is or not by the service tag. Then there is the fact that you just joined the forums 2 months ago but you own a system that has not been sold for about a year. And now when I look at your picture I notice it is missing a panel that I bet you didn't even know was not there. You do not know if the motorized door ever worked. You never said " oh it was working and just stopped " but instead you are asking how it is supposed to function. Did you have the system for all this time and never notice the door didn't work until now?

The ALX was a $2,000.00 dollar option yet you do not know if you have it or not? I think most people would remember paying that much for something extra.

To be blunt it sounds fishy. Did you buy it from a 3rd party? It' cool if you did or didn't but ether way it helps me understand a lot better.

I think the camera flash is making it look like it's missing...

The reason I was suddenly questioning whether it was an ALX or not is all due to the follow up Dell guy telling me it wasn't an ALX, and that none of them had a motorized door. Another reason I don't want to call them...lol.

I don't get why the diag tool says the motor isn't installed, and that it's an Aurora MIO...it definitely has an ODD cable and slot...I'll probably end up just calling them anyways. I've had this system for a while, I just never bothered...it was just something I decided to have them try and fix when the board got bricked. It's a new front panel...everything is plugged in....everything else works...weird.

I am not the original owner...I thought I had mentioned that. I bought it from somebody and the warranty was transferred to me. (the original owner was somebody with a little more money than sense, so I get DUH when I ask them about it). A three year warranty was bought and paid for. It's not like I got a broken one and am demanding somebody fix it.   It was definitely not made from parts. I'm mostly interested in the differences between the two (such as the door) because there is very little information about it online, and it's often contradictory.   What plastic side panel are you talking about?   I would rather wait for someone from Dell to check the thread out Monday vs. calling them because I don't think it's a stretch to say that usually they have no clue. It took multiple tries to get the correct lid color on my m11x when the hinges were replaced. It's not like I need it fixed right away...I'm mostly just interested in it at this point.   I've used Alienware since the Predator P2 chassis came out (which had weird stuff similar to this as well, and multiple AlienFX cards), and bought an m11x at launch. This is the only one I didn't buy new (because they were a ton of money, like you pointed out).   I don't think your trying to sound like a jerk, but I don't get why suddenly I'm being interrogated. :P