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@micky69 wrote:

1. hi,i recently purchased an alienware aurora alx r1,

2. i am disabled and thought it would be good to occupy my time..and there in lies the problem i don't have a clue were to start??,

3. i bought it as i love the look of this pc,this is some of the specs...it has an MS 7591 mother board,intel core i7 920 2.66ghz,6gb of RAM,the os is windows 7 64 bit and an nvidia geforce gtx 460,i only got the pc last week from ebay its in fantastic condition however

4. i don't know how to overclock things and

5. went to play the first game on it last night and was shocked at how bad the graphics are,

6. there is something in the fusion part of the pc where you can change between "balanced performence" and "high performence",

7. this pc needs upgrading desperatly but i don't know what will be excepted and what would not (work),i love the chassis on the alx and am reluctent to let it go there must be a way to upgrade the pc??,any help would be much appreceiated and any advice also,

8. please please dont hit me with tech talk as i'm so rubbish at understanding all the tech talk i mean that with no disrespect at all explain to me as you would a monkey:),have a great day and if you read this then many thanks for taking time out,kind regards micky

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1. Welcome to the Alienware Owners "club" and Forum

2. The manuals for your Aurora-R1 (circa 2010) are here

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/alienware-aurora/manuals

3. Sounds nice and similar to mine. 

4. You DO NOT need-to or really even want-to Over-Clock it ... please trust me on this (unless you want to make it un-stable, un-reliable, and possibly fry something). It's old so I suggest you treat it like a classic-car (be gentle with it or it will die) :Smile:

5. That could be several things. What games are you playing and at what resolution and effects-settings?

6. Instead, you can make all those setting in Control Panel itself. Yes, the "High-Performance" Power-Profile is what you want for a desktop.

7. I still use mine also (but I've done a few key upgrades over the past 8 years). Once you are sure the machine hardware is working properly (not over-heating for example) and the Windows (software) is not corrupt or compromised (infected with something) ... you can start thinking about upgrades (if performance is still not up to your liking).

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General/Alienware-Desktop-General-Hardware-Troubleshooting/m-p/5555517#M57436

8. Your honesty is refreshing, but you will find that state-of-mind won't get you very far.

Since you decided to buy Used (instead of new) you are your own Tech-Support. You own that machine and you are the "System Administrator" of it. I suggest you learn all you can about Computers and Windows. There are several good websites, forums, blogs, and sometimes even good YouTube videos (although many are non-sense).

Remember that an Alienware Aurora is just a normal (fairly high-end) Windows desktop computer. The only thing really unique about it is the MIO-Board controller (for lights, fans, etc.) and its matching Alienware Command Center software suite. 

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General/Command-Center-2-7-25-0-Will-not-display-Temp-Readings/td-p/5532170

So, when you put all that together ... it means that in this forum, we can really only help questions specific to any unique Alienware hardware and/or software. For other stuff, we might be able to make general suggestions (then you go off and get it done). In no way can we walk you through every little step. Like myself and the other valuable, knowledgeable, and active Alienware owners that answer questions here ... we volunteer our time and energy here. We all have family, jobs, and other interests.

hi,ok i won't try to overclock the machine as you have suggested and i totally agree that i am on my own and value any little help without taking it for granted,the resolution is set to automatic but that's wi th the pc in balanced as apposed to high performance. Thanks for replying,i am a keen flight sim player but it's awful to try and play it,so as you suggested i will treat it like an classic old car lol,can you tell me what you have done to your R1 from the motherboard up with the makes and all the mghz,ddr's and all that stuff that means absolutely nothing to me so if i chose to upgrade i know it will mesh together. The pc has not been upgraded or anything,thankyou for taking the time to message me back and the content of the message and i feel welcomed thanks to you,have a great week,

kind regards micky

hi,will leave you alone after this maybe i should sell it as the upgrades could outway a new desktop,if you can think of any other ways aswell as what you have done to your R1 to drag it into 2018 then please let me know,thanks for replying,

regards micky

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@micky69 wrote:

1. hi,ok i won't try to overclock the machine as you have suggested ... so as you suggested i will treat it like an classic old car lol,

2. and i totally agree that i am on my own and value any little help without taking it for granted,

3. the resolution is set to automatic but that's wi th the pc in balanced as apposed to high performance. Thanks for replying,

4. i am a keen flight sim player but it's awful to try and play it,

5. can you tell me what you have done to your R1 from the motherboard up with the makes and all the mghz,ddr's

6. and all that stuff that means absolutely nothing to me so if i chose to upgrade i know it will mesh together. The pc has not been upgraded or anything,

7. thankyou for taking the time to message me back and the content of the message and i feel welcomed thanks to you,have a great week, kind regards micky

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1. Good

2. OK

3. I already told you how to set the Power Profile. There is also a Windows Resolution for your monitor, and finally ... graphics settings inside the games themselves.

4. Without knowing the name and version of the Flight Sim, it's hard to advise further.

5. You already posted your motherboard specs ... Intel core i7-920 , 6gb of RAM ... all that is fine for now.

I installed a 240gb 2.5inch SATA SSD (as bootable C: ) for Windows, Apps, programs, and favorite games. 

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General/9-Optimize-Windows-7-64-bit-to-use-SSD-drives/m-p/5541076#M43017

I installed a MSI Gaming-X Nvidia GTX-1070 Video card (pulled out the old AMD-5870). 

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General/Recommended-NVIDIA-graphics-cards-for-Alienware-Aurora-R1-2009/m-p/5590861#M92456

I upgraded to Windows-10/64bit (back when it was free) 

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General/Alienware-Aurora-R1-Windows-10-Pro-Upgrade-Smooth-sailing-so-far/m-p/5512004#M13979

And some other minor things like USB-3_Card, Blu-Ray Burner, and various spinning Hard-Drives.

6. Yeah, well, it's never to late to learn. If you are determined not-to-learn ... the only thing I can think of for free tech-support is friends and family.

7. You are welcome. 

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@micky69 wrote:

hi,will leave you alone after this maybe i should sell it as the upgrades could outway a new desktop,if you can think of any other ways aswell as what you have done to your R1 to drag it into 2018 then please let me know,thanks for replying,

regards micky

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Running a nice flight-simulator, at high resolution is not a trivial thing. You need a high-end computer to do that well. Any computer is just a sum of its parts (all those details you don't understand). An Aurora-R7, configured with the minimum parts to do that is about $2000 usd. If you can afford that, I would go that route. You also need (at least one) nice monitor (usually large). That will obviously be better than an old "upgraded" computer.

I already mentioned the upgrade-parts above.

The SSD upgrade is cheap. Your machine will boot much faster. Windows will generally run much snappier and fluid. If you install the Flight Simulator to the SSD, the scenery files will load-in faster.

If that doesn't help enough, you will need a new video card. I would suggest a Nvidia GTX-1070. Problem is, while they used to be $400 (a year ago), looks like now they are now $700 (thanks to the B-i-t-c-o-i-n Miners). Price is going up instead of down. And the GTX-1070 isn't even the latest version, and it's always been below the GTX-1080.

My Aurora-R1 (with SSD and GTX-1070) will run flight-sims and games like Fallout-4 ... all day long without a problem.

So, I would suggest a SSD ... but before buying a nice video-card ... I would be sure I couldn't swing getting a whole new (fairly loaded) machine.

hey telsa1856,many thanks for all your help i really am grateful,i will get on with all your suggestions,many thanks 

regards micky