M17x R2 - What do you do when batteries are no longer available?

It appears that nobody does batteries for the M17x R1 and R2 anymore. I never use my laptop on battery but I do need it in case of power outages so that I have time to shut down without losing all my work.

It used to be possible to purchase a backup battery although these were for desktops. Does such a thing exist for a laptop or am I asking a stupid question considering all laptops already have a battery?

 

I seem to remember in the past some company had developed a spare battery that was like a flat notepad cooler, that you plugged into I think the USB for an extra hour or two, but it was very expensive.

I pulled this from PCWorld:

"But if the battery is running out unexpectedly fast, or if your laptop is having trouble figuring out how much power it has left, you might be able to fix the battery's "gas gauge," so it at least gives a more accurate reading.

If you suspect the battery can't tell if it's charged or not, run it through a couple of cycles. Drain it of all its power (yes, this is the exception to the "don't drain the battery" rule mentioned above), recharge it to 100 percent, and then repeat."

This article goes maybe a little too wacky
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328074

See if you can find maybe a docking station that has a battery built in that would work with your model (but be careful, this is beyond my knowledge in terms of ac,dc, volts, amps, etc). and what I read, using it to plug into your USB or Media slot can actually cause a bon fire, with your laptop as the campfire.

Another person said, Get a spare battery and an external battery charger. My guess there is a solution but it will take time to find.

 

Some good info there danger007, thanks. However, yesterday Support Assist popped-up a message to inform me my battery was dead and needed to be replaced. I already opened a case with Dell about this but of course they never replied.

I am now looking at getting a UPS so that in case of power outage it will give up to 20 minutes of power and auto-shutdown the machine. They used to be horrendously expensive but the prices have come down significantly ever since. So much so that I will likely buy 2 more for other equipment in the home.

 

Unless you have a desktop computer that has a 1200 watt PSU, then it still is slightly expensive. However yes for a laptop at around 200-300 not bad. APS is probably the best from my experience reading reviews. Tripp Lite so so. The rest, $=quality. Good luck. If you are still under warranty FIGHT with Alienware/Dell, don't let them get away with not honoring their warranty. If it is out, yeah they ignore you as if you have the plague, after all you no longer are a customer, just a sucker for buying one in the past

 

The prices on Amazon are more in the region of $40 to $200. APC certainly has some great reviews but Eaton appears to have nothing but satisfied customers, most giving 5 star reviews so I am leaning towards their solutions. I'm not so impressed by their customer service though. Like Dell, they seem to have an aversion to responding to customer inquiries.

My laptop is still under warranty because I paid for a 3 year extension when the original 4 year warranty expired. I know they no longer make batteries for this model so my guess is that they are not replying because they are unable to solve the issue. I have updated the support request twice. I tried again few minutes ago but their system will not allow anymore updates.

 

Actually if you go to Dells website they are now selling someting called the "Dell Power Companion" however it looks like it has only limited compatability and something about having to have the power adapter (unclear as their details and specs are very limited).
http://pilot.search.dell.com/dell power companion

 

Probably due to geolocalisation but that link gives me a page in French with a long list of power cables only.

 

I grabbed a part number off of the US Dell Parts/Acc site, but you should be able to find this part number despite location, Dell Part# : 451-BBLZ (it shows a release date of 7/29/2016, so maybe not released yet in your area and so the page didn't take you as you stated)

I would really really like to know more about your 3 year contract extension. The reason I ask, is Dell and Alienware have categorically denied they have ever or will ever offer a 3 year extension on a 4 year old laptop (that had a full 4 year support and accidental damage coverage). Was this through Dell/Alienware or someother 3rd party. They denied they ever had a 3 year extension, but 1 month after my policy had expired (they of course didn't return my request for extension - email/voice) they offered a 2-3 year, then said oh, I am sorry only 2 year we don't do 7 year policies on laptop (4x3). I had my 7970m die on me several days before my policy expired, but since I am not a novice, I did my own troubleshooting as it pointed to UEFI boot drive issue (something above the level of Dell tech scripts which would have said, reinstall as only solution, well after about 2 weeks once all UEFI issues were sure that they weren't the issue then it leaned towards the dGPU, but because I reported to it Dell to have them fix it, they then treated it as what we call a pre-existing condition in health insurance, so they would not cover my laptop at all - but that has been documented elsewhere, I am just curious to see about your warranty extension.

Let me know if that sku/part number helped out at all.

 

Thanks for your input danger007. Although the product is not available in France I did find it using a search engine however it is not compatible with the Alienware range (see https://accessories.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&sku=451-bblz).

With regard to the 3 year warranty extension, I am very surprised at what you say because prior to my original year warranty expiring, whenever I logged-in to Dell's site and viewed how much time was remaining on my guarantee, there was a button to extend the guarantee. Clicking on that gave me options of 1, 2, or 3 years. I asked Dell's sales rep if I could purchase another 4 year extension and was told that 3 years was the maximum they could provide.

Obvioulsy I don't want to post details about my company or the payment transaction here but, if you want to see a copy, I can blur out all sensitive details so you can still see the part covering both the order details, date, and price. Even then, I prefer that to be via PM, if that's OK with you?

 

Ah, a member of the EU (no not a bad thing, a good thing actually), also I extend my sympathy to what your country is going through. Your country is considered one of the more open societies and hate to see how your country has had to impose restrictions for safety.

Back to the topic of the warranty, it might be an EU issue. There in the EU they actually look out for the customer more than the corporation (regardless of what those for or against the Brexit say). Sadly here it is just the opposite. Sell defective, pay court settlement, continue business as normal ). We should be also providing great entertainment with our elections. The EU might require a longer warranty than Dell wants to provide so in EU they have no choice but to offer it, here they might not be required. I had thought you were in Canada but Europe does make things different.

No I wouldn't want you to do anything that would jeopardize your private info. I was more curious about the length why it was different. Are you also offered an Accident warranty with the support one?

I remember around 2005 they had a flat battery that you could put under your laptop that provided a charge to your battery. However from reading up on this topic, the USB port is no longer a good choice for the charging of the battery, think someone said it was a volt/amp thing.

I got this nice 26000mah from my cell provider. I asked for a charging cable that was missing from my cell phone, so they sent me screen protectors, the cable (even name brand Samsung) and that charger which it said it could charge some laptops, but Alienware wasn't on it and reading up on that it also advised don't even try using it on most laptops unless specified.

Definitely chase them down on your warranty, you paid for it, they can't hide forever, even from you over here in the US and don't let them give you the slip either. Ask for manager after manager so they get you taken care of.

 

<quote>There in the EU they actually look out for the customer more than the corporation.</quote>
You are of course entitled to your opinion but we in Europe would not share your view. As a perfect example, despite glyphosate having being proven to be a deadly carcinogen and the French government banning RoundUp from being sold here, the EU commission chose to override that decision and extended Monsanto's license for another 18 months.

Accidental damage cover was offered but I didn't need it because all my equipment is already covered by my company insurance.

As Dell had not replied after 3 days (2 days ago), I blew a fuse and tried their online chat option. As my machine is still under warranty I am permitted the use of that. I got answered immediately and after having been transferred to 3 different departments, which took no less than 25 minutes, I had to leave on business so I asked the guy to reply to the case I had submitted via email. He duly obliged.

Yesterday I received his mail informing me that the screenshots I had attached were not visible and he requested me to rerun the diagnostics tool, which as I had already warned him, would give the battery a PASS. So I reran the Support Assist tool which clearly showed the battery as being dead and needing to be replaced.

Today he writes to agree that the battery needs replacing at a cost of €116. Even though I have decided to purchase the Eaton UPS units I will buy the battery for when travelling. I only hope Dell can supply it because according to their web site, they don't make it anymore.

 

They are going to charge you 116 Euros when you have a warranty?

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend on the EU looking at the consumer comment. The reason for the view is that many of our products here in the US have EU certification for things that if not done, left out, added on or whatever the product couldn't be sold in the EU. You ban Genetic Mod food, beef from antibiotic cows, things like that. MS having to make a different browser available. Google, facebook and others more open on their privacy or having to provide more privacy. That is why EU is viewed as looking out for the consumer and not focused on helping companies make profit at your expense, at least that is why many view the EU in that way. As I said here the companies do harm and after racking up billions, then they pay out a few 100 million and then keep repeating (GM with defective ignition switches, products with BPA, and natural gas/water pipeline explosions/breaking, we have homes that literally blow up without warning due to old gas lines)

I think with Dell they try to wear the customer down when it is something more than just clicking an option in settings. It allows them to drag it out, hoping you give up and just live with the problem, if that is possible or you go buy a new laptop from them. It is a very common business tactic that some companies will use to save (common in the US with our ISP's and cell phone providers, utility companies and a few others)

 

Unless the battery fails within the 1st year, it isn't covered by the warranty because it is considered a consumable. Mine is now 6 years old so I don't expect it to be covered.

With regard to Dell's common business practices, I have been a loyal Dell customer since 1998. At first I watched as their product line became more and more innovative and their customer service was amongst the best in the industry. The one thing that really seduced me was the possibilty to create the computer exactly as you wanted it.

Bit by bit all the plus points have gone downhill. Their goal today is to maximize profitability rather than have a loyal customer base.

In 2014 I purchased a new AW17. After 5 months of on and off site interventions it still wasn't working so Dell gave me my money back. Today's Alienware products are rubbish compared to the M17x R1 and smaller versions of the same. The fact that I am no longer able to choose the operating system I want, the keyboard languge, or the graphics card, has sealed Dell's fate. I won't be buying Dell anymore.

I would love to buy a top end MSI gaming laptop but being in France means I may not have anything but a French system with Windows 10 as an added poison chalice. The only way I can get the MSI I want is to buy a stock unit from the UK and then order an extra keyboard but I would still be lumbered with Win 10 so I won't buy anything.

Bollocks to all these manufacturers who believe they can force the consumer to accept dross!

 

I knew about dells reputation before I bought my Alienware and that Michael Dell was considering taking the company out of the stock market, so they don't have shareholders to answer to or dividends to worry about paying. However I had hoped Alienware was still treated as their elite brand and hence elite customer service (after all why bother with Alienware and all of its touches to make it not a Dell). The haggling I am use to in buying something this expensive.

Probably the first 30-60 days I was treated properly with support (of course I didn't call tech support as my system was working) the first warning sign came when they sent a tech to pull out the 660m and put in the 7970m (long story short, I could have done it, but knowing legalize of big companies, if I damaged when installing they could refuse or delay a replacement, the person had no manuals to know what he was doing (even stated he briefly looked through as this was new) and asked me where he should put the paste and how much). Scary intro to in-home service.

Do you buy it in France or buy it and then have it imported into France (non-french Dell site)? I am surprised they don't tailor the keyboard to the country (of course I would expect English as an option or default, sorry to sound pigheaded, since Dell is US Based).

You would think companies would look at what made things good and continue down that path, of course that would be too much common sense to do that. I always wonder when a company has a great product they feel they need to totally redesign from the ground up the following year or play around with what works and puts out a clunker the next year (Hey isn't the Microsofts SOP).

To skip the MXM slot defeats it purpose. Surprise Nvidia doesn't put more pressure on Dell to stay in line, for upgrading the graphics card (since that is what deters many from buying a laptop without upgradability), as that slot was a top factor in whatever model I was going to buy in 2012.

I assume your license for Win 7 is tied to laptop if not go buy an OEM copy of 7, then look around to see if there are Win 7 drivers for that MSI or if MSI supplies them as a "backup" solution.

Bollocks to all these political parties who believe they can say one thing and do another once in office (sorry I had to put that in as I thought about politics right now here. Worst choices since I first voted a while back. Congress it is either duck season or rabbit season (ref daffy duck and bugs bunny) and there is nothing at all in the middle. So do one thing, 2 years later change, next 2 years live with it, then it is changed again)

 

I bought in France when Dell still allowed the customer to design the laptop according to his requirements. In my case that meant all available options, Windows 7 Ultimate in English, and an Italian keyboard. The latter is important to me as it has accents that apply to France and Italy whereas the French keyboard does not have Italian accents. Because I also work with other languages I found a program called PopChar which inserts accents from any country so my next machine will have a UK keyboard.

Dell no longer allow you to personalize your machine outside the specs provided on the Alienware site, besides which I find the current range of Alienware laptops are nothing more than overpriced junk compared to offerings from MSI, Asus, Origin, etc. I'm going to wear a Dell R&D cap to give an example:

TASK: Overhaul the revered M17x R1
M17x R2 - Rewrite the AlienFX software so that users can no longer program left and right speakers individually, stop users from running AlienFX at high speeds.
M17x R3/R4 - Rewrite the AlienFX software so that users can no longer use pre-programmed FX routines written by other users for R1 and R2, make sure that the 3rd party WinAmp plugin will no longer work with AlienFX, change the professional anodized aluminium casing for plastic and sell it to potential buyers as being lighter, drop all support for drivers and BIOS for previous models (support for R1/R2 officially stopped in November 2010 despite R2 still being retailed 6 months later).
AW17 R1/R2 - Remove all the lighting FX from the chassis and replace with straight LED bars, change the deck for a plastic that shows all fingerprints thereby making a brand new machine look 10 years old (a total embarrassment wherever you go), replace the excellent M17x JBL speakers with a pair of tinny sounding Kliptsch units.

In short, those who have never had an Alienware in the past may be very happy with their latest purchase but people who have already been AW customers probably won't say the same. Reliability continues to plague the range and support has gone downhill too.

Concerning Win 7 on a new machine, it appears that Intel, and maybe even AMD (I'm not sure), have altered the structure of their latest chips so that they will only work with Win 8.1 or Win 10. I have already tried installing Win 7 on an Asus machine I purchased earlier this year but the PC gives a message that it requires 8.1 as a minimum. Indeed, if you look at AW's offerings now, you can only choose between 8.1 or 10, 7 is no longer an option.

Will Linux run programs built for Windows? I'm talking about MS Office and PC games.

I can perfectly understand your frustration with US politics. I share your view however I don't think that this forum is the place to discuss that. It's just too off-topic for the mods to tolerate.

 

No problem on the politics - been a frustrating last two week with them, okay peace.

As far as I know you can run some apps designed for Windows in Linux. Now I know very little to nothing about the windows-linux workarounds, other than WINE and that was mostly for games. I couldn't even give you a single unix terminal command. I run the Knoppix release distrubtion of linux. It runs off a DVD which means no hard drives are being tied up as I don't really use more than two to three times a year in a troubleshooting capacity for Windows.

Cost savings! Reduce the number of parts you have to stock, inventory, tracking go down. Will then buy more of those parts, get lower price from those companies for buying in greater numbers. Tech support, you would think would improve, they only have X number of variants now (I think all Nvidia for example at the moment) however they will cut the department as they dont need as many people who know many configurations - tech support cost are therefore decreased, standardizing of the common parts addition cost savings. Warranty service only worries about X number of variants and parts, more cost savings and knowledge of what is actually breaking down more often, a loss to customer as they will never say!

In the end, the private owners of Dell get to see profits go up as they cut costs in streamlining variety of products in the more expensive product lines. Assume customers will remain loyal as once you have been with them you probably won't deal with learning about a new company and its product and support.

They keep their prices the same as previous configurations or they pass on minor savings (only under certain situations - to impress customers with their willingness to decrease prices), a win-win for them