Overclocking the Auroras?

I have been sitting here waiting to see a post just like yours ever since Dell purchased Alienware. I guess they wanted to wait until they were ready to kill the XPS line before they crippled the Alienware line. They had hoped that all of the XPS users would jump on the Alienware and be used to what you are seeing. Well at least now I have another excuse to not go with an Alienware computer other than the looks.

I guess I should elaborate so anyone reading this doesn't think I'm just Alienware bashing. On every other x58 board that has an unlocked bios, all you have to do is raise the bclk to get a little overclock, even at the stock voltages. With this board, you cannot change ANYTHING in the bios and still get it to boot. I tried a "baby" overclock of 20x150 or 3.0ghz....any board should handle this without touching voltages or anything else...THIS BOARD WILL NOT BOOT. So I thought it was weird, but I tried raising the voltage a little, and you can guess what happened...still no boot. So what I've discovered is the bios IS locked, it just gives the appearance of letting you change settings, but anything you change will prevent it from booting. I confirmed this by doing a little research...on the models that have the factory overclock they actually have a bios setting for the overclock that changes everything and allows the overclock, but even if you mess with those settings....NO BOOT! So even the "overclocked" models are set to a preset overclock... and that's it. In my mind this is very misleading advertising. If you advertise an "unlocked bios" like they do, you should give your overclocking customers a true unlocked bios, not just something that gives the appearance of being unlocked. I've built and worked on 100s of i7 x58 computers, and I can honestly say this is the worst motherboard and bios I've ever seen. Why did they do this? Alienware's used to be overpriced, but at least you knew you were getting top quality hardware. Now they have these terrible Dell motherboards and ship with cheap samsung value ram. Two things no self respecting system builder would put into any high end gaming computer. Now I have to deal with my customers who were expecting overclocked computers. Thanks a lot for selling your souls to Dell, Alienware.

I can confirm some of this to. My friend has a Area 51,and is have problems OC to.Come on Dell ......Don't let me down again.....

Yeah, was using Mushkin Redline here. I think the high end RAM is the only way to even get the thing to 3Ghz. Even then, as you said, it's unstable. I tried Prime95 and kept getting a failure on logical core #4. Vista worked, but I wouldn't trust the OC for actually DOING anything (gaming, graphics work, etc).
At least you stopped at 6 hours, instead of 18 like myself lol. What can I say, I'm persistant.

And to the post 2 up, yeah save yourself the trouble and make your own if you can. I wanted to get parts from egg, but I thought "hey I have a dell account, and they have alienware.... why not save myself from having to build one". Heh.

I had high hopes for Dell and AW. I think I'm just going to build my own.

just got my alienware pc and same here. wont overcloxk to measly 3.g from 2.66 . not having time to build another pc , i thought while dell owns alienware i would go with alienware . Looks i was wrong. dell has messed with alienware and just another xps with alienware look. THIS PC WILL BE RETURNED. HOW CAN DELL EXPECT TO SELL ALIENWARE AT THIS COST AND NO OVERCLOCKING ABILITY . TAKE ALIENWARE BRAND AND RUN IT INTO GROUND. THANKS DELL

At any rate, I had posted that I can confirm everything that is being said against the Aurora/ALX. Mods had removed my first post because I was badmouthing their company for ripping off it's customers. My bad
The system uses some unknown mother board (I've tried to identify it's name, manufacturer, etc with several apps) and it just keeps saying "Alienware". Alienware does not actually produce their own boards, a manufacturer does.
Back to my point however. The system BIOS does not follow in line with any other Alienware products. It is extremely restrictive, and prevents you from being able to use the board to it's full capabilities.
This is NOT a product that is typical of Alienware. What Dell has done is synonymous with taking the guts of a Gremlin and sticking them into the body of a Ferrari, then calling the result a Ferrari, and charging Ferrari prices.

I screwed up, and am paying for that mistake by doeing what I should have done from the beginning, and built my own system. What initially started as a $2000 computer has turned into a $3200 one, due to the components I am replacing. In honestly the only parts that really warrant full replacement are the motherboard (for one with an OC friendly BIOS), and the ram (samsung value series I believe).

Do not make the same mistake I and other have. Avoid Dell and Alienware if possible.

The only good thing that's come out of this, is I'll be getting a free Win 7 upgrade.... that I'm told will not even ship until December. That doesn't make up for the added expense of having to replace a motherboard with one that's decent though.

For reference, I was able to use the BIOS to get a i7 920 to 3Ghz and boot into Vista. No idea if it is stable however. I gave up caring, and am now spending my time reading about OCing the replacement board that will arrive this week.

After about 6hrs of messing with settings I finally got it to boot into windows 7 @ 3.0ghz, but it fails prime 95 stress test. I have officially given up. I've tried everything possible to make this work, even using more voltage than I would usually use for a 4.0 overclock. I just kept thinking there must be something I was missing that would make it work. Now that other people have confirmed the issue I know its not me, and these things just won't overclock even using high end OCZ Platinum Ram. I guess I'll be calling Dell tomorrow to try to figure something out. I have 5 customers I will probably have to refund, and in my opinion Dell is to blame for false advertising. I specifically asked the salesperson to make sure I could overclock these before I purchased, and was told it would be no problem, but it they could provide no customer support for overclocking. HA!!

Unfortunately no. Sure you may be able to get a stable OC of a few hundred Mhz, but with any other performance oriented board and bios you should be able to get something like an i7 920 up to 3.8Ghz-4Ghz with no trouble, and that is on air. The Aurora's are watercooled, which is SUPPOSED to make overclocks in excess of 4Ghz (4.5 perhaps) possible.
The main issue seems to be the BIOS. It simply does not allow you to do what you need too. Beyond that, it seems that the board itself has great difficulty in accepting any sort of OC using the few paramiters it does allow you to tinker with. For instance, you should be able to get a modest OC out of any of the i7 line without even touching the core voltage. On this board however I found myself running 1.35v-1.4v just to get to 3Ghz. That's the sort of voltage you use for a 4Ghz OC (an increase of 1.34Ghz), not 3Ghz (a measly 340Mhz increase).
There are all sorts of issues. I had difficulty in getting my Mushkin Redline kit to run at it's default clock and cas timings, and ended up having to underclock it to keep it stable (these are good chips too), Intel's Extreme Overclock Utility (there are are no other OC apps that came with it) has difficulty communicating with the board/BIOS... and to spite the fact the board LOOKS similar to an Asus P6T Delux, I'm unable to find out who really makes it or anything. It's as if the thing just fell out of the sky.

May be something too that. Honestly though there are just too many things it COULD be. I know that's why I've given up. Funny you mention the Rampage II Gene though, as that's exactly what I'm replacing it with (great reviews, and should work very well in this case).

I think its something more than just the bios, I think the board itself is made poorly, too. As you said, just increasing the bclk on stock voltage should get you to 3.2 or higher on almost any other board, so there is something seriously wrong with the bios being tampered with (not allowing the settings you input) or the board itself. Since it is mATX form factor I had assumed they used the Asus Rampage II Gene, which is the only Asus mATX board...but after working with it hands on I think this is some creation based on that Dell came up with using MUCH inferior parts for voltage regulation and other key components. This MB and bios is just pure junk.

Well, I've gone and replaced the original board with an ASUS Rampage II GENE, and I can assure you, the OCing issue is the board itself, and not just the bios.
Here is what I have everything running at right now: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=809129
Take note of the voltage. The original board would need at least +0.150vcore to do anything over 3Ghz, and it was impossible to reach 4Ghz.
I also had difficulty getting the thing to post with the above RAM settings on the old board, let alone boot windows.

Also, I have reason to belive the original board is a Foxconn. When I removed it from the case that's what was printed on the IHS on the back of the board.

Note if you plan to use the a different motherboard. With connectors for the power switch/power led/hdd led are different on the asus board than the original, making it nessesary to putt the ends of the connectors out of the plastic housing and replace them into a different housing (using the proper configuration).
Additionally, I had an issue with the AlienFX lighting failing to initilize on startup. Seems I had a "Force BIOS" option turned on in the system bios. This bipassed the lighting cards bios ship, preventing it from turning on when I booted the system. Simply switch that off and everything will work fine. It also turns out that the lighting card will also continue to control fans in the case based on the thermal control software settings (everything seems to get written to the lighting control card).

So there ya go.

Thanks for posting back...the only solution it seems is to replace the MB, but if you are going to do that you may as well build your own computer from scratch. Bottom line is you are paying for the case, everything else you can get better parts for half the price. I will not let any more customers buy these...I will have them wait until the cases are available on the secondary market if they are that in love with the looks, or steer them to a similar case from someone else. I really cannot recommend anyone buy these as of now. If they fix the MB/bios issue it might be a good buy for some people.

after thinking over weekend and from my prior post , I decieded to return my alienware. Just wasnt worth spending 700 to 1000 bucks on replacing parts on new pc. .I do like case and setup . when getting info on returning i was offered 270 bucks within minutes to keep my system. I am speculating ,but seems to me that dell might have hand full with refunds on alienware desktops.i have already ordered parts for my new build . good luck to those who keep your alienware systems.  MAY ALIENWARE BE REMEMBERED FOR WHAT THEY USE TO BE , NOT WHAT DELL HAS AND MAKING THEM TO BE.

Yeah, the only reason I even replaced the board was because it was the easiest/quickest option.

So yeah, build your own if you can. I would have, but didn't have the cash/credit where I needed it, when I needed it in order to do so (and I'm impatient). Too bad Dell had to go and screw the pooch like this.