Making An Alienware Great Again 

"A small liquid cooler would fit, but to be honest I'm not really a FAN" 2:10

There's a local computer shop I go to and they've been trying to sell an at least 12 to 13 year old Alienware computer case for $40. They use to want close to $100 for it. It's absolutely massive. I think there was some sort of older AMD Athlon build in it originally.

Always loved the old school Alienware cases. Would love to a build in one.

Wow I remember owning this pc when I was a kid/teen, my grandpa bought it for me as a Christmas gift in 2011. It was a lower spec version, but it still ran games like a charm. When I got a little older and started gaining knowledge about pc parts, I tried upgrading it with a new fan while the computer was still plugged in and completely fried the motherboard (the burnt smokey smell was horrible). After this happened I bought a few parts from Best Buy, and used some still functional parts from my fried Alienware (cpu, fans, hdd) to build my first ever custom PC.

I used to work at the Dell CAR at UPS Coventry where these would come in for repair, there was actually a version of the case that instead of just the hole vents on the top, there were like slats shaped like the front IO cover at the front that ran all the way back. When the system got hot they would all open to vent. Thought it was the coolest case I’d ever seen at the time.

"A small liquid cooler would fit but to be honest I'm not really a fan" The comedy writes itself really

Love this project. It's a great twist on the "sleeper" concept, but using an old high-end case rather than an old crappy one. Would love to see more similar projects in the future!

2:10 'a small liquid cooler would fit but to be honest I'm not really a *fan* ' I got it.

I still have this pc I bought 10+ years ago and it’s still kicking to this day . All I did to it as time went on was upgrade the Ram and throw a 1080ti into it. Oh and along with a SSD. Thing still kicked like a champ. Quite impressed it lasted all these years .

Love how the top of the front panel retracts. That is class

3.5" to 2.5" HHD/SSD adapter caddy would really clean it up. can find online for like $4 to $5

I like how this case has a front panel sliding door. It's pretty cool that it still works

Me: *about to have an early night* RGINHD: *uploads* Me: “welp, here we go”

I love how there's an additional plastic covering just to make sure the gpus air flow is cut off... 😆

awesome build dude, love that slow opening optical drive door on these old chassis, so cool!

Thanks for delivering on the project. I voted to overhaul it

I, too, call my bedroom the "office" I also call the toilet the "oval office"

Very nice! Grats on your new build!

Nice little system that you have there. Thank you for sharing your video.👍👍

I think this channel is really underrated, and I enjoy your content. Keep it up, man :)

I find the older alienware gear to be very interesting and fun to watch. thanks for posting as usual

nice, i love these older Alienwares.

Of all the chasis I've been watching in tech videos, this is the one that impress me the most

I love the Alienware ALX case its just so cool with the neat features and its so big so there are so many possibility's

Great video. Nice to see the case of my teenage dreams brought back to life and on a budget within reach.

Thank you for the info. I got my R3 bout 6 years ago for free ond only last week was able to get it running (temporarily). I have been looking around for replacement parts for a few weeks now and this video should help a lot.

Your voice is quite genuine. Solid review.

Always excited for these upgrade videos

Nice, you treated it with love and it loved you back!

G'day Random, Great to see the Internals went to new homes & the case has been given another life also, I know the case has the Alien Theme but it reminds me of The Snowpiercer Locomotive

I enjoy this guy’s videos so much

the opening of the top of front cover of the case looks so cool

I always wanted one of these cases. These things always looked amazing

This guy is so humble, so refreshing

Got a whole r4 from my buddy that’s been sitting in his basement gonna do a amd switch, gonna be a sleeper thanks for letting me know I’m not the only one that had this idea.!

I've built around 10 systems in these aurora cases (including a few of the ALX versions with the active cooling slats). They work rather well for something dell produced. The alienware motherboards were certainly a weakpoint (most of the R3 &R4 variants I got had failed motherboards.) I have a soft spot for them as they were early to the RGB craze and the cases were built like tanks (like dell server gear). I have sold all of these since and I only have an X51 R2 that I will sell and a pre-dell area51 case that my friend wrapped, just need to find an power supply adaptor plate. As for the command centre software that can usually be made to work but involves checking out many different revisions to find one that will allow installation and sometimes messing with the USB header settings in the bios.

Finally someone mentioned the 1600 AF lol. I'm using it in my build in March unless other deals come about

I just watched the first video on this computer last night! Talk about good timing.

Hey came across your channel and got to say great videos. Got yourself a new sub

I have the same one games perfectly I have upgraded parts 1050 to asus strix and I have new ssd and 20g of ram I love my pc and I’m glad that people like u are making videos on it

This is a wonderful guide! I have this exact Alienware I picked up in 2008 and over time has fallen way behind. I am attempting to update it to make it a solid video editing PC that can play some Total War at high specs. I ADORE the case with the lighting which is a big part of why I have kept it around all these years and I'll be curious to see how it can stand in this day and age. Considering it came with (at the time) the max RAM of 12GB, I'm certain getting it halfway decent today shouldn't be too costly a task.

As an old skool (I started with a P100)/budget gamer, I love this channel. I've also always wanted an Alienware, but they always seemed unaffordable at the time.

my goodness. i just went back to watch the original video yesterday. he must be tracking my viewing history.

I just bought a aurora with an i7 8700k and a 1080 for only €600. Working perfectly!! Couldnt be happier 😄

That disc drive cover is just 👌🏻

i really enjoy these videos been going on a rghd video binge

I've seen a few nice alienware cases on the used market. They're mostly priced more than they are *really* worth considering the level of jank and age of the case, but there's definitely a badass factor to them.

Bro I can’t believe you got rid of the stock cpu liquid cooler, that thing was so cool!!

I just love Alienware cases, just as much as Dave

I did the same thing back in 2017 and it worked brilliantly with the command centre.

I have one of these. I love it. The case is the best I've ever had. Came originally with an i7 3960x, 16gb, GTX 690... I upgraded it to a 500 SSD, i7 4960x, 24 gb ram (I have 32 but couldn't get one of the 8gb sticks in due to a replacement cooler) and a gtx 1070ti. It's my old editing pc but now it's my son's gaming pc... and yeah it is HUGE but I love the size of it too.

Looks great and a very worthwhile upgrade. Have you considered 3D printing for the custom SSD bays. (or double sided sticky tape) Great video. Keep up the good work.

Love these old cases!

I’ve got one of these Aurora R1’s from 2010. It still works fine. It has the original Alienware liquid cooler and a GTX 295. Command centre works fine if you install the Win7 version for the R1. Get it from the dell website. There’s also a firmware update for the controller board for the lights etc. This version of CC also works ok with Win10, which I’m currently running. Newer CC versions will not work however.

Awesome! I had a very similar one with the AIO water cooled i7-920 , but with an ATI 5870 and 12 GBs of RAM.

Omg thank you. I have this same exact case sitting doing nothing also.

I love this. Keep it up!

I'm like you, theres just something about old alienwares. I remember getting a game Joint Operatiod and in the back page of its manual it had ab alienware advert and I always always wanted one, although I knew that unless we won the lottery I'd never get one, but wouldnt stop me opening that manual up and looking at the picture.

I have the 1660 version of the same Zotac card and man that card is very compact and great for smaller PC builds.

Nice build the only thing I would have done different was to add a 3.5 to 2.5 converter so I could put the SSD in one of the HDD cages. Since you have extra 5.25 external bays available, I would add a front I/O that supports memory cards readers and 3.0 USB or even USB C if your MB supports it. I would also add an AIO since I happen to have an extra one available, but not sure if I would by one just for that build. If I was planning to put a CPU and MB that supports OC than for sure I would put an AIO in the case fro CPU coiling.

I have this very same case whose parts were cannibalized. Thank you for sharing!

Loved mine. The build quality is impressive and the weight!! Damn that thing is heavy! I was planning to do the exact same things but instead i sold it since i already had the Lian Li Razer to build...

Great video man

I still have and use the Alienware Aurora R4 which i bought in 2013. Only thing i did upgrade is the GPU (from gtx 690 to gtx 1070) and the HDD to an ssd (+the HDD of course) other specs are: i7-3820 / 32gb ddr3 ram / Dell 1000w PSU and a AIO liquid CPU cooler. Still runs everything like a charm

I love your videos sir!

Such a awesome case!

I love these alienware videos

I like how your video always have the seagull flying around

This case is dope af

PC people like to diss all prebuilt systems, but many of the prebuilds have very solidly built cases. I like what you did with this.

4:26 if your wondering what that gap is, its for the hard drive fan, they built a fan for that little slot so your hard drives stay cool! i have one in my alx!

Thanks for this. I have an old alienware aurora and wasn't sure if I could remove the mobo to put a new one in. Good to know.

I can't wait to do this with my 2010 Aurora.

Some advice. Command centre should work with pretty much any mobo, but you may need an older version as some were locked out and some not. Also, you didn't wire anything wrong certain games use the case lighting actively. So in metro if you enable the flashlight it will go whiteish pink. In dying light it goes green at night, white with a flashlight and red if you fall too far.

That case is dope

Like your honesty, i`ve heard some people refer to mums spare room as the studio after sticking up 2 sound tiles. lol

These are the best and prettiest computer cases ever made.

Nice build! I gave up on mine after I looked up the price of the micro atx boards and I just moved all my stuff to a new case with a new r7 processor

dude i love your fucking videos man, you are an inspiration for up and coming PC enthusiasts...

I had the same AW Aurora R1, got it for free... also 920, similar gpu... I overclocked the 920 for a while, paired it with a 1060 6gb... went to a 980x with the same gpu, @ 4.5 on cpu (6c/12t).... then went and converted it all to an R4 motherboard. Using the same lighting board... I only had the 550W psu to begin with, but got the 875W on ebay later on... Anyway, after the mobo conversion, I ran a 3930K for a while, @4.5 over all 6c/12t... also went up in gpu to a 2070 @ +200/+700... same oc I had on the 1060 to be honest. I even ran that gpu with the 980x, and it didn't bottleneck anything at 1440-4k... similarly the 3930K was fine at near all resolutions... and am now running a 4930K, similarly @4.5 over all 6c/12T, same OC on the 2070... Of course all the Alienware software and lighting works as intended, and the stock AW motherboards are pretty solid in overclocking. Lots of nit picky options for every little hundredth of a volt on just about any given component. Speed adjustments, cuts, etc for everything. Quite good... It runs really well too, benchmarks up with in the top 90%, or is it 10% ? Of 3Dmark that is... in near any of the tests, even ray tracing... It basically does what the 2070 can do at its current OC, as there simply is no bottleneck. It will allow up to a 2080 ti to flex its legs with ease really, no real reason to move up in the world unless you could use more cores, or really needed a better option power wise, as this is a 135W cpu... with my own allowed to hit 185w if it wants. . . So uhhh... there's that. But I honestly think the approach I took was the right way to go... proper mobo, everything works, couldn't possibly get better performance... I mean, unless you got a better gpu of course, but that's a budget choice is all. Im good being maxed out at 1440p to 4k in any given title... as well as being able to max out most all VR titles with ease. And for quite a budget build, all things considered. It really is a wonderful case though.. airflow is incredibly good, with fans dedicated to the HDD array... the tooless, quick swapping, raid setup that it has. The PSU area has great ventilation. The GPU area has its own pass through of fresh air to hit the GPU fans... The RAM and VRM get their own little fans and such... all controllable and programmable when the software is working too... Its great.

0:32 What a Glorious name to have lol.

Looks like my Alienware Aurora R2 case. Mine was not an ALX. I replaced the MB a while ago and only a few months ago got around to replacing the lighting - which stopped working under Win10. I used an LED light string designed for TV backlights, which has a small IR remote and is USB powered. Works great. But it's a lot of work to rip out the old lights and retrofit the lights. But if you are up for the work, works great and is no longer OS dependent. Nice case, but it's very heavy, as I'm sure you know.

Nice Build👌👌

Thx for the video! very helpful since i'm still using the same old R4, was thinking about buying a whole new pc but the case makes me hesitate, tho i'still don't know if a RTX would fit inside

Yesterday I found a 2009 Alienware Area 51 by the dumpster. This one is even more dramatic than the one in the video, with 5 RGB zones and crazy set of fins that open up as the computer gets hotter. It was one of the pricier models from that period, with this particular configuration costing about $3500. Initially thought I'd just pillage it for parts, but upon closer examination decided to keep the monstrosity. I love my PCs the exact opposite of Alienware - as compact and power-efficient as possible, but It's impossible not to fall in love with how ridiculous this machine is!

You should do an updated GTX 950 review for this year. I tried my old one out and oh boy it was rough. I'd love to see your take on it's modern performance

we did the same thing with our Alienware Aurora R2 we put a AMD FX board in it and it runs really nice with a H60 Water Cooler and 32GB of DDR3

Old but gold 😍

For that SSD, you could have used a dual 2.5" to 3.5" adapter for a couple US dollars/pounds, so that you'll have a much cleaner mount for it. Just a tip. :D

I have a regular aurora r3 that i have used for the last 8 years but in 2014 i got a barebones aurora case off the ebays and proceeded to throw a mATX Am3+ board in it, it's been running fine as well since 2014. My only gripe on these is how the PSUs are setup, there's 4 12v rails so really heavy duty loads need to be split across the rails to keep the PC from crashing.

Back in high school my dumb ass bought one of these and now I think I'll gut it and just use the case form factor as it does look really cool. I hope the lights still work

Oh my god, that pc... that starting of the video is like the best thing I ever seen, I swear the god If I had that pc,I would just doing this: 0:00 to 0:02 for like 3/4 of my lifetime :D and again, and again, and again, and again, and ag...

Glad you use the same Ram as me lol, been corsair LPX on DDR3 and DDR4

3:53 "Would you like some tea?" RGHD: Eeeeeey I'm werking 'ere!

What were temps like? while squishing in good components it's always a curiousity to see the dated chassis' airflow hold up to newer components

Funny was trying to get this exact PC last nite. In tact. Still waiting on offer up

What was that Red Dead 2 setting, my dude? And which video and guides did you use?

👽 I like the minimalist design

I just love it

After seeing your videos on old alienware laptop and tower cases i was wondering what was the largets tower case they ever made ??? You have me thinking about a frankenstein build but here is my one problem i would like to find the 18" laptop they made and replace it all with kinda what they have now in the newer A51 but how would u change the screen out to put in a 144hz one ? do u know what we the largest alienware tower case ever made ?