Alienware Area 51 ALX restoration.

[ALXAndy]

So tonight I have done more work. Basically nothing much to see, as it's all wiring tidying. I had my torch out (flash light to you sceptic tanks) and was digging through the IO wiring and found a plug that wasn't plugged in. Looked at the label on it and it said "Bluetooth"... Hmm... Followed the wire and sure enough, hidden in the front of the case is a bluetooth module. I've had the case for three years and it's always been disconnected lol. That will come in handy !

 

So other stuff. Well first up let me remind you that the colour scheme is black, white and red. Most of the stuff will be black and white and the wiring is all black and red braided.. OK so here is the board I will be using (WITHOUT the Apple logos and cooler) it's a Gigabyte X79 UD3.

 

 

Again, a reminder that it's just the board, no cooler, no apple logos. So in my initial post I said that ram was TBC. Well it turns out I will be using a set of quite expensive ram I bought for DFI but never used.

 

 

2333mhz tight timings. Only issue is, well, look at it. It's bloody orange So, what to do.. Well, those of you who know me and have read some of my logs may remember I did a build called N-Fenix. I was tight on funds so I had some crappy unbranded ram, but I brought it to life using these.

 

 

Yes, it really is as big as it looks. They're absolutely enormous

[ALXAndy]

OK guys, more work done First up the ram coolers arrived today.

 

 

So I removed the orange coolers with my heat gun.

 

 

And duly fitted them.

 

 

They look stunning. I absolutely love these, just as pretty and intimidating as any ram IMO.

[Liam-McShane]

 

They look stunning. I absolutely love these, just as pretty and intimidating as any ram IMO.

I liked the modules nude better. Those bloody sinks are ridiculously massive

[ALXAndy]

I liked the modules nude better. Those bloody sinks are ridiculously massive

 

When it comes to PC parts and cooling nothing is ever big enough.

 

[Sebastian Kurpiel]

My 7th grade self,I just graduated high school last month, is literally so stoked for this build I love this case and you now inspired me to go hunting for a alienware case to upgrade my rig Does anyone know where I can find alienware cases?

[JarJarBanksy]

As much as I generally dislike alienware, you are totally right that this is a freaking awesome case. I am kinda jealous of you for having it.

 

Those hot swap hard drives on the side really sold it for me. It made it feel like it has enterprise build quality.

[ALXAndy]

My 7th grade self,I just graduated high school last month, is literally so stoked for this build I love this case and you now inspired me to go hunting for a alienware case to upgrade my rig Does anyone know where I can find alienware cases?

 

They're quite rare. At one point Dell was selling off the old cases to recyclers in Ireland (near Shannon where they're made) so they were quite plentiful but nowadays they're hard to find, especially in what could be considered to be good condition. They're an absolute asshole to have to move around and I finally decided that the easiest way to move the thing was to remove the left side panel and carry it from inside. Because of this you will find plenty of pretty badly damaged examples on Ebay..

 

The last time this particular case was up on Ebay it would easily fetch £500. That was like the base line price. I was so lucky, because I managed to pick it up for £200 shipped with a BDR and DVDRW as well as the 1200w PSU. That never happened again, and believe me when I say I used to stalk Ebay day in day out looking for one.

 

As built systems complete with the original X58 get up they still command £1000 or so. They don't usually sell, but people will not let them go for cheaper.

 

This particular ALX (will explain that in a moment) cost around £2700 minimum to build. When I ran the service code once (before it faded off) I looked up the spec and this guy who bought this one spent around £6000. He had dual 5970s and RAID 0 SSDs which back in 2009 cost a small fortune..

 

ALX. Well first of all it's where I get my username. Secondly, ALX is something the real, original Alienware started in around 2006. ALX models carry chrome plated everything, and in some cases the case itself is completely different. The original ALX came with a flared top and inside it was a water cooling unit with a temp gauge etc. Not only that, but you got a specialised customer service team who were open 24 hours a day. Since then there was a Predator ALX (Predator rev 2.1) which came with a aluminium internal chassis and the silver parts outside were all plated with chrome instead of being sprayed flat silver. Not quite the same as the original which differed hugely but was still far more luxurious.

 

This particular ALX comes with full chrome plating and a motorised front door (as you see in the vid) the basic regular versions don't have that function. No extra customer service and what not but still the ridiculous price tag. I've owned every ALX model since the original (hence my username).. I'll post some pics at the bottom of this post

 

As much as I generally dislike alienware, you are totally right that this is a freaking awesome case. I am kinda jealous of you for having it.

 

Those hot swap hard drives on the side really sold it for me. It made it feel like it has enterprise build quality.

 

Honestly it's amazing. The build quality is just staggering. I don't know how many of you guys have ever tried to lift a Dell Poweredge server but trust me when I say this thing is built every bit as good as one of those. Yeah the silver insides are a little disappointing but once I get the case closed that will vanish.

 

OK pics of some of the units I've owned over the past several years. At one point I only used Alienware chassis.

 

My black ALX predator 2.1

 

 

My silver ALX predator 2.1

 

 

My black predator 2.0 non ALX. You should see the difference now

 

 

My lunar shadow Aurora.

 

 

A 2.0 non ALX panel and a 2.1 ALX sound deadened panel.

 

 

The bogey, my green 2.0

 

 

My MJ12

 

 

Aurora ALX

 

 

Black Aurora

 

 

Twins. My black and silver 2.0s

 

 

 

So it's fair to say I've earned my username

[hearthofsin]

that's a lot of alienware cases nice.

[ALXAndy]

that's a lot of alienware cases nice.

 

I moved from the UK to the USA in 1999. I married an American.. Any way, between '99 and 2008 I was out in the USA and I was broke. Like, all of the time. In the end I just gave up. Certain parts of the USA have been destroyed by the recession.. Any way, during that time I used to work at a Best Buy in NJ and used to sell the very early versions in the Chieftec Dragon chassis. From that moment on it was a love affair lol.

 

So, once I ditched my wife and moved back to the UK I could get on with more fun things. My ex wife was incredibly insecure and controlling, which was why we ended up splitting up. She wouldn't let me buy anything and in the end I just snapped..

 

So yeah, basically between 2008 and 2014 I used nothing but Alienware. The only one of them that I bought built was the green one and I paid £270 for that delivered. Basically there was this recycling company out in Ireland getting their hands on all of the returned orders. So they were fully built PCs but could not be resold as new due to consumer laws.

 

Believe it or not up until 2007 Dell was basically sending them to landfills. Literally burying them. Then new laws came along about waste and being green etc and that's when they started to sell off returns, slightly damaged cases, unused cases.. And that's when I started basically camping out on Ebay waiting for them to come along

 

What I regret is selling them. Obviously in an ideal world I would still have all of them I really, really miss the green one. What I would loved to have done there is take the ALX parts and panels and make a green ALX. That would really have been something.....

[ALXAndy]

Update. So I have now finished all of the braiding. 24 pin, 8 pin EPS, 8 pin PCIE, 6 pin PCIE, front panel header cables, USB cables and so on. There isn't a single cable left that will be visible that hasn't been braided. I've also covered the pump with satin black vinyl.

 

 

Here is a better shot of the floor panel, showing the cable routing holes.

 

 

And my lady's Titan Black with a Corsair H55 on it and some anti kink coils. I did this because of the way the hoses bend, I don't want them kinking.

 

 

Just waiting on SATA cables now.

[hearthofsin]

that is a lot to go through man. 
you've had a lot of nice alienware cases. and i'm not as ignorant as others are. i can apreciate the design that went into these cases. i actually really like alienware and i don't get why so many people hate them. they mostly are a bit too flashy with all the lights and such for my taste now. 
i just find it so funny when people argue that alienware laptops and desktops are too flashy and look at me with all the light and they fuckn typed that on their rgb keyboard. 

braided cables lookin good man, also i would kill for a titan card @.@ 

[Gilbert]

I was always a sucker for Alienware case designs. Now days i just stand by a Define case because they're not TOO flashy but can be if you want it to.

[ALXAndy]

Update. I removed the anti kink coils from the GPU AIO as they looked stupid. They were supposed to be red and they were actually pink. So those are gone... I've braided both pump power cables, just need to do a couple of fans now. OK, so the SATA situation. I'm growing inpatient so I ordered six of these things.

 

 

They should arrive tomorrow because I paid for first class. Also I dug out six red SATA cables and numbered them. This is important, because if I ever set up a RAID array in the hard drive bays I will need to know what is what.

 

 

Finally I did this to the floor pan a couple of days back. I planned on more graphics but sadly the blade has completely had it

 

 

I will order some blades ASAP....

[Psykomantis00]

Wow you really like Alienware. I don't understand though. If you can do all of this why not just build a pc in the first place? Or did you just buy these cases? 

[ALXAndy]

Wow you really like Alienware. I don't understand though. If you can do all of this why not just build a pc in the first place? Or did you just buy these cases? 

 

I've always bought the empty chassis apart from a one off where I got a fully completed Core 2 unit for £270. To build with the same spec in a reasonable case would have cost me about £500 at the time.

[ALXAndy]

Update. Good old sod's law. That would be Murphy's law to you U.S residents. Basically I got tired of waiting for the SATA extenders from Hong Kong so yesterday I ordered six joiners from the U.K first class.

 

Got up bright and early and went to the door mat. Hilariously the extenders from Hong Kong had arrived but not the ones from the U.K. So that's £12 down the drain.. They said they were shipped so I think I'm going to send them back, especially as I paid extra to get them today.

 

Any way with the SATA extenders there was nothing stopping me putting the rig together to a bootable state. So I fitted the floor and the board.

 

 

Then mounted the H55 to the CPU.

 

 

Big ram..

 

 

Big issue.. Uh oh ! so I connected up the front headers and pressed the power button. Nothing. Tried again, nothing. Then I realised that I had basically used one of the power button wires as a ground for either the power LED or HDD led. This meant I had to spend two hours cutting them off and basically starting again. In the end I finally managed to trace the power button, then the LEDs, then resoldered all of the wires..

 

Then fitted the GPU

 

 

And then fitted the sound card, Revodrive and back plates and test fired.. And...

 

 

Kick ass. Only one slight issue at boot. Because the header wires were wrong I somehow corrupted the bios. However, Gigabyte are cool and basically it copied the bios over from the second slot and restored OK.

 

Phew.

 

Still plenty to do but I can now install an OS on it

[hearthofsin]

nice looking build what about the top vents? can you make them work with the unoriginal mobo? i heard there could be some issues?

[ALXAndy]

nice looking build what about the top vents? can you make them work with the unoriginal mobo? i heard there could be some issues?

 

They work perfectly, so do the lights. TBH as soon as you see lights you know it's working OK.

 

There was an issue once where a version of Command Centre did not work with non Alienware boards. Alienware released a version that worked with any board, so I have that on a CD.

 

So yeah, everything is working as intended I've got some more pics I will upload later, just cooking my dinner

 

I did have an issue with the H55 on the GPU. Basically the pump wasn't getting any power from the fan header and the card overheated and shut the PC down. That's all fixed now, I decided to use my molex - 6 3 pin thing. I ran 3dmark earlier and here's what I got @ 1080p.

 

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7470573?

 

Not bad at all. My wife will be very happy with that

[ALXAndy]

So I'm done for today. The interior is complete now so I just gotta ship over the side panel from the USA.

 

 

 

Fitted a few hard drives.

 

 

Then changed the light scheme to red.

 

 

And set the vents..

 

[elfensky]

There was an issue once where a version of Command Centre did not work with non Alienware boards. Alienware released a version that worked with any board, so I have that on a CD.

 

Oh, that is great, I didn't know that. This case is looking more and more attractive. I always did like its design.

A little something that might interesting you, seeing your love for Alienware cases. Or not.

[ALXAndy]

Yeah the original Predators are nice. I'm in the U.K though...

Now what I'd really like is one of the original ones.

[russler]

a mate of mine has this case and ive always wanted him to do something with it, firstly spray the inside, but i kinda like the silver with your theme for some strange reason 

[ALXAndy]

a mate of mine has this case and ive always wanted him to do something with it, firstly spray the inside, but i kinda like the silver with your theme for some strange reason 

 

TBH I've left so little of it on display that there's no way it would have been worth it. Next time you're over your mates take a look down into the guts at the IO board and just how much crap you would need to remove in order to paint it. There's about 80 screws in the hard drive docks for a start lol.

 

I fully intend to put the side panels on. The right one can go on tomorrow and the other one should be about two weeks tops.

[ALXAndy]

Update. So basically the inside of the rig is now complete, and I've installed Windows and pretty much everything else Mrs ALX needs. We played some Borderlands tonight, rig didn't miss a beat. Talking of beats..

 

 

That's the first time I've ever managed to get that working. I'm now convinced that the case arrived to me with an already faulty PSU and was probably why it ended up going back to Dell. Still, it's working better than ever now.

 

Also.. I have paid the shipping for the side panel. £84. Oucho... Still, it has to be done.

[Sebastian Kurpiel]

I'm so peanut butter and jealous of your computer... I really want a new case. but my standards are so high since I saw your build.