Area-51m R2, thermal profile concern

Question

Hi everyone! Yesterday I received my new Alienware Area-51m R2, after a long and painful experience with a defective Area-51m R1 that I will return in the next days. No problem since now, except one concern about fan control. On my old Area-51m R1, when in AWCC I set the thermal profile on balanced, fans were turned off for low temperatures (35-45 Celsius) and very quiet for mid temps (45-55) then, when temps reached 60 Celsius degree, fans started to throttle in order to maintain temperatures low. From 60 degrees onwards, the higher the temperatures, the faster the fans spun, in an exponential way. Practically it was able to manage temps pretty well on its own, both for gaming and normal usage, and i never had the real necessity to touch any further setting. My concern arise from the fact that the same balanced profile, in the Area-51m R2 behave in a completely different way: fans are constantly at 36% for CPU and 38% for GPU, also when temperatures are very low and the pc is idle, and throttle up only from 87 degrees onwards. Is that normal? Furthermore, profiles 'Cool' and 'Quiet' behave in the same identical way as 'Balanced', while 'Performance' and 'Full Speed' throttle fans at full speed, no matter what. It is very annoying that I can only choose between 'all' and 'nothing', and that there is not a way to maintain temps in a mid range temperature without shoot fans at full speed. So, is this a normal behaviour and I'm missing something or there is some problem with my machine?

23Skyrider · Accepted Answer

Ok, I have spoken with a Dell technical support specialist, and he was very helpful in explaining me why A51m R2 has this behavior; I'm reporting here what he told me, if this should help anyone.

Basically A51m R2 has a cooling system more advanced that R1, this allows to reduce the fans' usage and consequently extend battery life. Furthermore he told me that temps near 105/106C are pretty normal and not to worry about the fans starting more aggressively only at 87C, this is a normal and intended behavior.

So, long story short, no bugs or malfunctions here, the balanced profile should still be able to control temps of the machine without human intervention, and if you have to stress your machine more during gaming or working you can always put the thermal profile on performance.

A51-06 · Answer

Are all your thermal drivers in check?

23Skyrider · Answer

Both Dell SupportAssist and Windows update say my drivers are up to date, so yes, I think so

A51-06 · Answer

Well I dont think you should worry about anything like that unless it reaches 97C which is the throttle zone as I like to call it. Just run some ePSA in the F12 boot options. Also if you wanna save the battery Health of your new laptop go to the settings in the bios and switch the express charging to auto.

Erick2014 · Answer

Same situation here. Thermal profile balance, cool, and quiet - fans does not even turn until you’re 80C plus. Performance and full speed - fans are full 82% to full throttle speed. It’s a waiting game if this is a bug in AWCC.

23Skyrider · Answer

To Alienware Area-51 ALX 2006: I'm not really worried about temps, I know that 80C are not so much and Area-51m R2 has a superb cooling system, the problem is that I want to know if this is a normal behaviour, and also I'm very curious to know why there are these differencies between R1 and R2 profiles! Is this bounded to the different BIOS/firmware or it is a AWCC bug?

To Erick2014: Ok, so I'm supposed to think this is a normal behaviour of this model, still I'd like to know why this is so different to R1 version, and if there is a way to obtain such a similar profile also on R2 version (possibly without using AWCC custom profiles, which are very problematic...)

23Skyrider · Answer

@Alienware Area-51 ALX 2006

Wait, I have never reached these temps, the maximum I have reached is 95C, under heavy CPU stress tests and deep learning working. An other example, I can play The Witcher 3 all at Ultra, 60 solid fps and in performance profile temps never goes over 65C. A51m R2 cooling system is really superb, there are really no cooling problems, my concern was ONLY on the software management of fans, but it turned out it is an intended behavior.

A51-06 · Answer

Ok Ok, Hold the literal largest phone in the world.

YOUR TELLING ME 105c and 106c is NORMAL?

thats literally 221F and thats an ovens temperatures!

Maximum I ever let my laptops hit are literally 97c and maybe 100c if I overclocked too hard but yeah pretty werid how that tech support guy says that normal when I have to make 2 points here:

1. If the cooling system is so great as he said, then why is it hitting 105c or 2 0 1 F.

2. The Thermal Junction on your Laptop is here:https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/processors/core/i9-processors/i9-10900k.html

Alienware

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