5mo old replacement Alienware 17 catches fire

Alienware had replaced my old R4 with a new Alienware 17 with at 780m GTX in February 2014. On the 6/7/2014 I was playing Diablo 3 and the system had sparks, blue flame, and smoke coming out of the bottom. I quickly unplugged the device. You could clearly see it was coming from the video card. I tried calling alienware support but could not get through before they closed. I am on the west coast and they close at 11 or 12 central. I checked my warranty support online that night and was surprised to find out that the replacement system did not come with any additional warranty time and that my warranty END date was 6/8/2014. I thought whew I am covered. .... I also tried to use the purchase warranty extension button but was only met with HTTP error 500. skip forward to the 8th I try calling Alienware support and they insist that my warranty expires on the 7th and that I am no longer covered and they will not repair the laptop. I'm going to try to call again tomorrow to try and speak with a manager during the day. I think this is a bit absurd for the laptop to literally go up in smoke ONE DAY before my warranty expiration and then for alienware to give me the runaround on it. especially when I'm offering to PAY them to extend the warranty as well. I've narrowed down the issue to the 780m GTX it has some wicked burnt out components and once removed from the laptop the unit is operational again.

do you guys have any advice?

 

Wow.... There have been alot of these new generation machines catching fire. What's going on with that. I've read at least 4 stories..and that's only people that are members of our community. Imagine the real number. What's going on alienware, cut corners on the solder too?

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Yup, it must be the 4th case I've read about a R5 catching fire... Jesus...

 

That's pretty bad imagine if you leave it to download while at work and come home and your house is in flames.

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You removed the GPU and it functions normally? Interesting... Did you monitor temperatures at all over the past 5 months?

As for the warranty, you should have asked about it. It's too late now.

 

Yeah, I must say I don't like reading these stories. This is why I'm a monitoring addict...

 

hmmm... I know there is only a few cases right now, but this does have me worried a bit. Going to call and extend my warranty for three more years.

 

Better get fire insurance too for the house..

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Damn... Are you gaming all day long for the laptop to catch fire?


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I bought my Alienware 17 4800MQ | 780m | 16Gb Ram | 120Hz 3D in Dec 2013. I only gamed on it for short periods of time and always kept it on a cooling pad. I was playing BF4 in April and everything was fine until my laptop went to a black screen and it started smoking from the back. I shut it off right away and it made my whole room smell like burnt electronics. I called Dell the next day and after a few weeks they told me it was my video card and its on back order. They could not replace it with a 880m because they didn't offer it on there site. Well took over a month but I now have a Alienware 18 4910MQ | Dual 880m's | 16Gb Ram | 256Gb Msata 2Tb Hdd Raid 0 that they replaced it with. I loved my m17x R3 and my R4 and never had any issues. But now I don't know if I should sell this beast or take my chances. I wish you luck and hope they come through.

 

Strangely enough, all the fire cases with the new Alienwares have been with the 780Ms... Well, this is really making me reluctant to upgrade the 7970M to a 780/880M...

 

Yeah, all fires are now with 780s, I think a 880 is in my future... to replace my current fire hazard 780

 

if you look on the benchmarks 880m runs iven hoter then 780m....so good luck

 

hmmm..... Do they make laptop fire supression systems

 

:thumbsup: