Do Dell offer upgrades for Alienware Laptops?

Hey all,

So I am looking at purchasing an M17x R4 but I was wondering whether Dell offer upgrades after the Laptop has been purchased.

For example if I ordered a normal HDD and in a few months time wanted a small SSD as a boot drive .... Would dell offer a service to buy and have it installed?

Does this apply to CPU, RAM AND GPU upgrades as well?

Thanks

 

You can buy parts but you install them yourself.

 

To be honest...buy it from the cheapest source and install it yourself.

Example...My M18x was ordered at the time with a 2760qm processor, dual 560m GPU's, 7200 HHD.

Now I have 2960xm, 580's SLI, 128GB SSD.

There is always room to upgrade on the cheaper side if you look properly.

 

will that void the warrenty?

 

Keep the stock parts they won't know the difference.

 

If you dont mind me asking,

How do you change your GPU's. I am sure I have read somewhere that they they are soldered to the motherboard?

Also.. Where did you buy them?

 

I don't have the time right now...look on youtube...plenty of video's.

 

Wait a minute...M17x R4 only has one GPU...why the GPU's?

 

R1 and R2 has SLI capability. They dropped SLI starting with R3 since they released the M18x and it also allowed them to implement Enduro/Optimus although not without a few bugs.

 

Just spoken to dell via their chat option.

In regards to upgrading a hard drive this will void your warranty.

When it comes to upgrading RAM this will NOT void your warranty regardless of the make.

This leads me to the question of what happens if you fill your hard drive up? Dell must offer some sort of upgrade service to counter this?

 

I was only talking about your SLI GPU. I know mine is only capable of a single GPU.

 

Leads to the questions why didn't you think ahead and order a bigger hard drive?

 

I'm going to counter what the Dell agent stated. Their policy is that the warranty is void on the component replaced. it will not affect the rest of the system unless for some reason the part you installed caused the damage to the other component. They won't cover damage caused during a user install. The main thing is just to keep the old stuff just in case. I'll be keeping my old ram and hard drive lying around.

There is a post somewhere on the forum where an Alienware rep actually stated that modifying your system will NOT void your whole system warranty. This includes a repaste which does nothing to your warranty (unless you did a bad repaste and caused it to fry of course).

EDIT: It was this post I was referring to a while back. http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ttling-see-post-191-later-26.html#post8398547
It was Dell rep Bill B.

Alienware warranties are generally more flexible than the Dell ones but I never had trouble on the Dell side with upgrades and it was a L501x (15" XPS) where I got the info that they only void the component upgraded because I was asking about swapping in a better LCD.

 

Its not to much filling the hard drive thats my problem - I just used it as an example.

I would like to install an SSD as a boot drive but Dell's prices for this as an upgrade option were way overpriced. Especially when you consider how easy a job it is.

 

Are you talking about mSata for boot or regular HD?

 

Got to be honest my technical knowledge ends here.

What I meant was to use my SSD for quick boot times when turning the laptop on and off. Everything else would be put onto my 500gb standard hdd.

 

He wants to do what I did. Reuse the supplied drive as a Data drive and install a 2.5" SSD as a boot drive. You should be fine but look for the transposer inside the black rubber holder in the spare bay. You will need it. The transposer is black so you might overlook it like I almost did but it was included with mine (I only got a single drive).

For the install later remove the old drive (to make things simple) and install the SSD. Perform a clean install using the Windows DVD included with the laptop and follow the driver install order on the Dell site for the R4 model. Reinstall the old HDD in the 2nd bay when you are done.

 

Exactly what I was looking for!

One final question .... Once Windows 7 is installed on my SSD should I delete it off my 500gb hard drive?

 

If you don't need it anymore go ahead and do so.