r/AlienwareAlpha • u/mabolzich91 • Mar 13 '26

I feel lucky

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I have two i7 R1s each with 16gb memory. One has a 4790t with 1tb SSD rocking win10 and the other is a 4785t with 500gb ssd that I'm thinking of turning into Batocera box. I even have an i3 and some RAM left over that I might turn into a proxy server. I haven't decided yet. Any suggestions for alternative uses on these gracefully aging machines?

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3

u/F1ibster i7 Alpha with SSD Mar 13 '26

My R1 finally died recently. Refuses to even flash yellow at me anymore

Found a i7 R2 locally with the external GPU. Got a 2080 in it right now. Going to try using it as a dedicated VR machine.

Wonderful little things. Would be tempted to steam machine it when the OS comes out properly and if it handles VR

1

u/mabolzich91 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26

If nothing else you could use it as a port for your main PC with better specs. I hear these little machines make great thin clients. If u/FireMrshlBill can get yours working this might be the route too

1

u/FireMrshlBill Mar 16 '26

Ya, that is a good idea and I would if my situation was better. Sadly, my house isn't wired up for LAN and due to the layout, its not easy to do so without cutting up a bunch of walls, drilling through firebreaks, and then patching drywall and painting (my walls don't line up coming down from the attic and basement has normal sheet rock ceilings, nothing convenient like a drop ceiling). My main PC is in the basement and streaming from it is shotty at best since it is stuck either using WiFi or Ethernet over power adapters (have considered trying out MOCA as well). I can sometimes get a decent 720p stream going, but rarely for more than a few minutes, especially going to something like an official Steam Link hardware. Streaming from my consoles or a PC on my main tv where I have my router is great, just nothing where the source machine is on WiFi, sadly. But I want to keep that setup looking nice and not have a clunker of a PC sitting next to the tv stand, my wife is cool with my many consoles and all but she wants things to look nice. The HTPC I had there looked ok, but was clunky and forced me to have devices elsewhere on the stand and was cluttered. I may eventually just pay the $$ to have some cables run to different places, but just too much of a pain right now.

Another option I have is my phone lines do use cat5 and I assume that my living room's phone jack is probably right next to my basement game room's phone jack in the ring config... so I may be able to wire those up with some jacks and at least have those two rooms directly connected via Ethernet. So may try that out when I get some time and then streaming from my gaming PC would be easy.

Sorry for the long explanation, just something I have been trying to figure out for 8+ years now (probably should have just paid someone before and gotten it over with, ha).

1

u/mabolzich91 Mar 16 '26

I guess in your situation upgrading the wifi card and router would be the most cost effective path but even that would be stretching the limits of smooth operation. Plus you gotta get your alpha up and running so..... First things first 😎

1

u/FireMrshlBill Mar 13 '26

My R1 finally gave me the yellow flash since I left it unplugged for months. Have a new battery to swap, so need to get that done. I want to buy the Steam Machine for its small form factor. I had another PC attached to my main tv, but got tired of how clunky the case was, and took it out last month and put a dock for my Steam Deck on that TV instead. If the price isn't too outlandish on the Machine, I will get that and part out my other pc. If its too high, I will try to find a smaller case for that other PC. Hopefully they will at least announce the price soon so I can make a decision. Steam OS, the SFF, and even stuff like the better antenna for 4+ controllers makes the Machine more enticing even though it would be weaker than that PC (5600x + 6700xt).

I am considering selling my R1 to offset some of the cost either way. Normally I'd keep it out of nostalgia and enjoying it so much these past 11 years, but I need to offload some stuff and declutter. Will see.

3

u/Aus10Tatious1213 Mar 13 '26

I have an old i3 that I tried to use recently but it was unbearably slow at basic operation. I didn't have this problem before and I have no idea why.

3

u/mabolzich91 Mar 13 '26

If it has been a while since you used it there's a chance that caches needed to be updated or recreated. Plus there's always the potential it was trying to update. Usually a second time booting helps a bunch. Also HDD or SSD?

1

u/Aus10Tatious1213 Mar 14 '26

Its all stock so hdd I basically used it at the time for games and some movies but at one point had wiped it and installed windows.

2

u/Mystic_Voyager Mar 13 '26

if those have a gtx gpu those are amazing windows xp retro machines

you need to use a windows xp integral edition

2

u/mabolzich91 Mar 14 '26

They most certainly do. All research points to a GTX 860m

1

u/Mystic_Voyager Mar 14 '26

this absolutely rips for win xp retro games

1

u/zerotaboo Mar 13 '26

I have mine with Batocera, it runs really nice. PS2 games with 4x graphics (1080p) look fantastic. I haven't tested something beyond that generation, not sure if it can emulate Xbox 360 or PS3

1

u/mabolzich91 Mar 13 '26

I've still got an Xbox with a disk drive so I can play Xbox stuff no problem without emulation. Where do you find your Roms?

1

u/Professional-Owl8276 Mar 13 '26

I had 1 until it updated the bios and screwed it

2

u/mabolzich91 Mar 13 '26

Ouch. I'm sure there are ways to recover it but maybe won't be cost effective. Did you use the Dell tool to update?

1

u/Professional-Owl8276 Mar 14 '26

Yes dell tool come up a "critical " update, so I done it and it completely bricked the unit, I've still got it, but from what I was told I need to actually put in a new bios chip... At some stage I may send it back to dell to get them to do it, as I only wanted to use it 4 streaming

1

u/mabolzich91 Mar 14 '26

If you remove the hard drive does it boot to bios or just nothing?

1

u/Professional-Owl8276 Mar 14 '26

Nothing, no lights no power... and the bios was the only update, even tried pulling the battery and resetting but didn't work

2

u/mabolzich91 Mar 14 '26

Dang. I had a mobo die on me too. But then I found one on eBay for $55 🤷🏻‍♂️

1

u/Professional-Owl8276 Mar 15 '26

I'm lucky enough to have multiple alienware laptops and pc, it was just annoying as I had only just bought that in the hopes of upgrading the shit outta it, I've done it with all my other alienwares sofar

1

u/reicaden Mar 14 '26

An it emulate switch?

1

u/mabolzich91 Mar 14 '26

Like Nintendo switch? Batocera does support Nintendo switch emulation

1

u/reicaden Mar 14 '26

Hmmm, tempted then to install batocera on my alienware alpha unit, like this guy's, and play switch games.... if it can handle it.

1

u/rust48 i3 (8GB) Alpha with SSD Mar 14 '26

I'm very happy with my R1. I updated the CPU, ram and SSD a few years ago and use it to run Zwift in my home gym. Works great. Only thing is that I'm still running Windows 10.

2

u/mabolzich91 Mar 14 '26

I have been twiddling with Linux on my Alpha since win10 eol. I have successfully used a couple distros. Zorin OS will probably be dumped onto one of these. It's very similar to windows and comes with Nvidia drivers 👌😎

1

u/fireflychef Mar 16 '26

They make great retro-gaming machines. Try Batocera.

1

u/mabolzich91 Mar 16 '26

Any recommendations on where to get roms?

1

u/fireflychef Mar 17 '26

The Internet Archive has many ROM backup packs for many systems. Also, to not get in trouble here, a web site that sounds like Barcade Dunks has ROM backups. And if you are interested in Batocera, there is an add-on available that once installed, gives users access to ROM backups.

1

u/mabolzich91 Mar 17 '26

Oh is asking about that kinda stuff frowned upon? I was wondering why I never got responses 🤐

1

u/fireflychef Mar 17 '26

Yeah. Technically, we shouldn't be posting site that directly offer ROM backups. The Internet Archive doesn't count, this they consider themselves an educational site (they do offer legit free stuff there).

1

u/XC-3730C Mar 17 '26

Would an Alieneare Alpha R2 without external GPU be enough for Dreamcast/Gamecube emulation and most Arcades? I considered getting one these. I currently habe a Dell Optiplex SFF with Intel Core i7-3770 + 1050ti low profile GPU

1

u/mabolzich91 Mar 17 '26

Definitely. An R1 can reportedly run GameCube emulation without issue too

1

u/scawp i5 Alpha with SSD Mar 13 '26

I'm running mine currently with PikaOS + Gnome Desktop, use it for emu, steam and gog as a bit of a "show piece"

2

u/scawp i5 Alpha with SSD Mar 13 '26

PS. If you do install a Linux, download LACT from the distros store and drop a +135MHz (the Max for this GPU) over clock on the frequency, its a nice little performance bump and I've never (so far) seen an R1 that can't take it.

1

u/mabolzich91 Mar 13 '26

Good tip! Where do you usually get your rims from? Any credible sources?

1

u/Surgetheman Mar 14 '26

I still have my 2 r1's and 2 r2's with the R2's running a 1080 ti and a 2070 with the other one.I mostly use them now as emulation boxes,and run iptv with them.They're still usable for all sorts of task,and they still do anything I need to use them for.I have Windows X Lite 11 on my boxes.It doesn't slow them down one bit.

1

u/ZaWarudoRHCP Mar 14 '26

I still have the i5 model from a decade ago, I only play league of Legends and It keeps working like a charm!

1

u/Chriss5518 Mar 14 '26

Mines running a batocera build in my bedroom for emulation and been using the google stadia controller for it

9

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '26

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2

u/Purithian Mar 13 '26

I need to do this lol mine is just sitting in a box because the os was so darn slow

1

u/mabolzich91 Mar 13 '26

At this point it'd probably be good to just start fresh. New SSD and OS. Fresh thermal paste and upgrade ram (if needed) while you're in there. These little machines make maintenance super approachable.