I don't want the Tech to Kill my M17x

Hi Everyone,
Just seeking some advice - on how not to let the Dell tech kill your M17x while they are fixing it.
I've arranged a Graphics card switch, which will hopefully rectify my horrible framerates and annoying electrical beeping sound...

But how can I ensure the Tech know what they are doing?
Also How can I make it easier for them to make the switch?

Thanks in advance! Sorry if I missed a thread which already addresses this!

 

The only thing i can really say is to watch him like a hawk - thats all you really can do, short of doing it yourself.
Also make sure u give him a decent amount of space to work in so he's not piling stuff up as he dissasembles it.
If your watching his every move he will be more consious of what he's doing and more careful.

Besides it's not that hard to take apart so i wouldn't worry... if anything goes wrong its gonna be on them not you.

 

The Tech Killed my system and it took 4 months for them to replace the door stop!

tip of the day if they dont know how to remove power strip or palm rest, ask them to leave!!

 

Id say just take apart your system urself and ask politely to do the work yourself. If he refuses then putting everything together is a lot simpler than taking it all apart. He's less likely to break or damage anything in the process

 

you may want to have the service manual available online for him in case he needs it.

 

i would rather send it in to the depot. at least there they have all the parts they need unlike onsite techs....

 

Won't help if it's my tech! My "tech" insisted he knew what he was doing. Broke off the hinge on the touchpanel strip, and messed up palm rest. This is after 1 hour not knowing how to get those two parts out. Then he proceeded to pry the plastic LCD cover off of the screen, snapping it, and cutting himself bleeding all over. During the whole ordeal, I knew he didn't know what he was doing and I insisted that I pull up the manual on my other computer. He was too arrogant to accept the help. Finally he caved in after he cut himself and I had to bandage him up with gauze.

Next time, at the first sign that my tech doesn't know what he's doing, I'm just going to step in. There is nothing wrong with it. you pay $2500+ for a computer, it's only right to make sure it's done right even if you have to do it yourself. That tech had no clue what he was doing and had never seen an M17x before. I knew this when he said "wow, even the keyboard lights up!?"

LOL

p.s. sorry if my story was hard to read, typed it up and I'm so very tired

 

Depot is your last resort. I just got my M17X R1 back from depo and it was mangled with scratches/spots where the paints been chipped off. WUXGA managed to get 6 dead pixels, was missing the two M2.5XL screws that held the power strip onto the laptop and the guy who was working on it numbered the parts by carving the numbers into them, I had a 17 in my nameplate. Im currently getting a complete replacement, depot was a horrible experience.

 

Agreed.. Depot can be a lot worse than having a tech to your house.. And a tech coming to your house will most likely NOT know much about the m17X series as 2 techs I had didn't know how to take off certain parts.. Just watch him like a hawk and get the service manual ready just in case.. And if he does mess something up, then he can get Dell DSP to do a complete replacement, they have that extra option we might not have after 30 days.

 

"You break it, you bought it."

 

If only Dell looked at it that way Elkay. I know with the experience I've had with the tech's it's the exact opposite. They seem to think "You bought it, we break it" LOL Best thing I could recommend is get the service manual, read through it so you understand how things are actuallys supposed to work, and watch them like a hawk to make sure they do it right.

 

huh? unlike hp, dell dont have a repair center. there's no where you can send your AW in to be fixed besides having an on-site tech come to your house.


and the tech that came to my house didnt know a thing. he sucked. i had to ask him several times to please handle my system very gently since he was slamming my screen shut without the palm rest in place, etc.

 

Dell does have a repair center, I don't know where you got that info but they do. They just don't tend to use it as often as HP.

 

i've had two dell techs come "work on" (read: FUBAR) my m17x-R1. terrible experiences. the second guy seemed to at least know how to take apart the system, but he bricked 3 mobos in the span of two days. now dell has sent me a refurb for my third system in just under a year. at least they upgraded me to 280Ms from my 260Ms and doubled my ram to 8 gigs. i just wish they would have thrown in a warrenty extension considering my history and the fact that this is a refurb..what do you guys think?

p.s. sorry if this somewhat hijacks the thread, but it started out as me sharing my experience to show that the dell techs indeed are great at destroying systems

 

You guys are scaring me with your horror stories...my second replacement (first was mobo, now it's video cards) is in two days, because "it'll fix the stuttering you're seeing"

Hopefully it goes alright! My first tech wasn't too bad...he didn't know how to put the palmrest back on but that was about it

 

The palm rest can be kind of a bugger to line up right if you haven't done it before, sometimes it seems like it doesn't fit the first time. Don't be too worried about that. If your "stuttering" issue keeps up, you might want to read up on DPC/Latency issues if you haven't already, and head over to the Dell/Alienware Replacement thread in the main Alienware section.

 

Simple. Put your lappy on one end of the hallway, then fill the hallway with wild animals, shark pools, land mines, bear traps, tripwires, acid pools, and guard dogs and paid militia.

Then tell him to go fix it.

 

The AW/Dell repair depot I sent mine to was located in Houstan/Texas, but only use the depot as your last resort. If your in-home tech doesnt know the system in and out, sit down and offer to help him in the process, you'll both learn something and be able to watch what he does.

The dpc latency issue from what I've seen has been fixed with the beta 197.84 driver on dells site, no spikes over 1k. Thats playing WoW / playing music and watching youtube videos at the same time over the span of 10 minutes and the highest latency spike was around 1000.

The beta driver has worked for me so far (I have SLi 280m). Before I used the 186 driver off nVideas site (latency spiked over 60,000), again if you run drivers off nVidea's site you run into the problem of having latency issues, the driver wasn't created solely for that machine, thats what a AW rep told me atleast.

 

Aside from the people in this thread that have stated that they sent their computer to the depot, as an ex-Dell employee, I assure you that they do have multiple locations across the world that are Dell authorized depots, in the same way that they have Dell authorized on-site technicians.

If I ever have a problem with any of the Dell or Alienware systems my family currently owns, that causes the phone tech to recommend to send it to the depot, I politely refuse to send the system to the depot. I advise them that I paid for on-site service, have had bad experiences in the past with the depot, resulting in system exchanges (offering to provide case numbers & service tags for proof), so if they can not send the correct parts to repair the system properly, let's just start the process for a system exchange now to save everyone the hassle. 98% of the time they'll have an on-site technician knocking on my door the following business day with a box full of parts. The other 2% of the time they'll get approval for an exchange.

You might ask, "If you are an ex-employee, why do you still buy Dell products?"
I understand that in order to keep their prices as low as their competitors, they had to cut expenses somewhere. It just stinks that the jobs of my friends & myself were the cuts that were needed. Despite everyone in my department getting laid off & our jobs being sent overseas, Dell's level of service (excluding one country that I pay for premium service to avoid speaking with) is why they still have my business. The power of an Alienware M17x (either revision) doesn't hurt their cause either.

As my signature currently shows, I am in a situation of my M17x-R2 getting replaced (approved yesterday) because it arrived with cosmetic damage & the on-site tech caused additional damage both times he came out. I'm fine with it because I know that ultimately, everything will be taken care of to my satisfaction, with a couple upgrades &/or concessions along the way to compensate me for my trouble.

 

I respectfully disagree, taking it apart he managed to break the hard drive caddy tether... scratch just about every damn part of the system with his screw driver. After he put it back together, the palm rest and the strip that has the touch keys were uneven, I have to jimmy the laptop to get it to close and now, when I move the my laptop around there are little pieces inside that rattle. This all happened today, mind you.

My tech was incredibly knowledgeable. He informed that this system was ACTUALLY designed with gamers in mind. He also told me that I had a top of the line system with two graphics cards. My mind was completely blown.

He wanted to send it to the depot. I said it, just leave, I'll tell dell to send me a new one.

 

How exactly did you get those upgrades/concessions along the way? Also, if you don't mind explaining, why did you choose the i7 620qm over the i7 720qm? Aren't they both the same price? What is the advantage of taking the 620qm over the 720qm?

 

Depending on what apps he runs it can be a huge benefit. First benefit is a lot of applications, even to this day, are only able to use 1-2 cores not 4-8 like the 720 has. If they can only use 2 the higher clock per core of the 620 makes it run a lot faster. The second benefit in some scenarios(don't think this applies to the M17x though) is that it has an on chip gpu(think integrated graphics) to save battery when not doing heavy graphic work.

 

This all started in December with a system exchange for a loaded Inspiron E1705 that was a shock hazard. After 3 refurbs that were not "equal to, or better than the original" (one even had a smaller screen) &/or malfunctioning upon receipt, Dell decided on a new exchange, which ended up backordered for months & did not ship until the last week of April... to the wrong address. To speed the backorder, they had upgraded a few of the parts from the base model, such as a 320GB hard drive because the 250GB was going to take an additional 2 weeks. The concessions were an orion backpack to replace the Dell backpack I bought with the E1705, to ensure it was large enough to hold the system, plus a ST2210 monitor for the 8 weeks waiting for the system (after it was ordered), only to have it shipped to a wrong address, causing an additional one week delay & multiple days taken off work because someone needed to be home to accept the delivery.

With the new exchange (thanks to the on-site technician damaging mine), a single 4870 is no longer an option, so I'm getting upgraded to a single 5870.

There are a couple threads around here of the benefits to each. For me, single core speed, but dual cores, plus hyperthreading if needed. The i7 620m was the closest dual core processor Dell offered for the M17x that was similar to the T7400 C2D I had in the original system (but even the 920xm has less L2 cache). When we were specing out the M17x over the phone, we discussed the "pros & cons" of the 620m vs the 720qm & decided that with the software I used the 620m would serve me best (plus I was uncomfortable with taking a chance on the quad cores after reading all of the issues the quad versions of the M17x-R1 were experiencing back then). Since I was getting so many things upgraded, compared to the E1705 (RGB LED LCD, bigger hard drive, intel n wireless, faster RAM, etc.), it was not worth the effort to push for a 820qm or 920xm.

If I decide I want quad cores, I can buy a 920xm or 940xm later & upgrade it myself.

 

Thanks guys for your help.
It seems that you can't be part of the M17x fraternity without having a tech visit/horror...
Mine wasn't that bad. The tech actually had seen a M17x before and had pulled apart a M15x. I read the serviced manual and helped him along the way.
I think a lot of the time, the techs are rushed by heaps of work to be done, and don't realise how complicated the M17x is.
Anyhow, Dell authorised a MOBO exchange and both cards were changed "just in case".
I think they didn't want to hear from me anytime soon
However, I now have a fan which is making a rattling sound... it goes away when I switch to integrated graphics... which suggests it's a GPU fan. Bah.
It wasn't there before the tech came. Time to ring them back. Grr...

 

I see, thanks.

I'm considering threatening to ask for a refund if they can't or won't do any complimentary upgrades. It's absolutely ludicrous that I spend more than three thousand for a system that has motherboard connection issues, and then have to wait for a replacement because the tech incompetently installed the new motherboard. There are now spare pieces rattling around...

Do I actually have a case? He showed utter disregard for the fact that the laptop cost me as much as it did. He scratched it, tore of the ribbons on the hard drive caddies, didn't reinstall most of the exterior components correctly, and left loose pieces in the laptop.

 

The techs are paid by the job, so the quicker they do yours, the quicker they can go do another.