alienware x51 r2 issues

I don't own an x51, but I've watched Alienware's disassembly video of the internals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRjTe_bGQVQ

I've also been on utube, watching videos about heat build-up in the case, & possible ways to address it. The videocard & hard drive(s) are sandwiched on top of each other. There is a small front inlet fan; it tries to blow cool outside air into the case, but the videocard fan is expected to exhaust the gpu heat plus the hard drive heat, due to their proximity to each other, & the fact the video card fan is the only fan in that area that can exhaust heat away. Your hard drive will get hotter under load, during game play, so no doubt you feel the panel get hot.

On utube, one owner said he took his side panel off of the videocard access side, & removed its inner metal/aluminum liner; he felt the metal side-panel liner was absorbing heat & retaining it, removed the liner to "fight" heatbuild up. It's worth a try (the liner can always be fitted back on if you're sceptical it doesn't help after removal. Perhaps removing both of your panel liners is worth a shot as well. I don't own an x51, so can't say if the side panels even go back on with the liner(s) removed, but look into it - as I say, that was one trick I'd heard about.

It occurs to me you're supposed to have a dual hard drive caddy in there. If you're only using one hard drive in your caddy, maybe you can get lucky & be able to fit (or mod) a hard drive cooler in there as well. It's worth looking into.

The other trick is to lay your console flat, instead of straight up & down. Another trick was to remove your dvd drive & caddy, if you rarely or never use it. From there, you might get away with an inlet/exhaust fan set up in that 5 1/4" slot, if it will mount of course. It's worth looking into if your dvd drive isn't needed.

At the very rear case area where your video card exhausts, you should have a lower venting section; I don't know the dimensions, but it was worth looking into the possibility putting one or even two 40-mm fans down there to help suck some heat out; whatever size fan fits, if it can be fit down there.

If you're worried your hard drive is getting "hot", have you used a hard drive temperature reporting utility? I use Piriform Speccy but there are others out there. For instance, hdd temps approaching 120f / 50c or more make me nervous. I'm a huge fan of the 10,000 rpm WD Velociraptor, it's a smaller faster spooling 2.5" drive in its own massive 3.5" heatsink. Perhaps you might also want to think about switching from your 1Tb drive to a smaller 2.5" SSD, to open up your hard drive caddy area, get some breathing room up in that joint. Huh?

There is another alienware forum:

http://www.alienowners.com/forum.php

You might shake that sight down, see if it has info for heat build up remedies or not. You can keep searching older posts on this site also, in the top right search box. Otherwise, I've given out all my best advice :) If I were a future x51 owner, knowing what I know, I'd be down with  buying a spare side panel through eBay & modding extra fan(s) into it ... that much I've told myself. Good luck!