M17x R3 planned obsolescence??

Hi guys,

I just joined this forum because I see so many people with similar problems, and I just wanted to share some thoughts:

I bought a M17x-R3 in 2011, worth 2500€ (3000€ after taxes). Was supposed to be the top of technology, I thought I had a laptop for years.

6 months ago, and after only a few weeks the warranty expired, the nightmare started. I couldn't switch to AMD 6990M card. I contacted support and they told me that my AMD VGA was broken, offered to change it for 700€. Well, I thought I could do it myself. I bought a new one, repasted, reinstalled and everything worked again.

3 months ago, same problems again. PEG was not detected in BIOS, and when I presed Fn+F7 nothing happened. I thought it could be the VGA again, very odd, but perfectly possible anyways. So I bouhgt another 6990M, repasted, resinstalled... but this time, it didn't work. I even tried with another AMD 6970M, same result. I passed an integrated BIOS diagnostic, and it returned a HDD error. I entered DELL website, typed the error code, and it stated I had to urgently contact support to replace HDD (a SSD unit SAMSUNG 256GB). Very odd, I passed other tests tools and it resulted to be a bad sector (92MB over 256GB, and according to DELL I need urgent replacement??).

Well, I decided this HDD had nothing to do with my video problem, so I thought it could be related to power supply. I downloaded a service manual, teared apart all the system leaving only motherboard, processor, VGA card, memory and keyboard, for a minimum power profile. Tried again with the 3 cards, no success, PEG not detected in BIOS. When I plugged again the memory modules, one of them was broken, didn't work again...

So I decided this could be the mainboard, so I bought a new one and tried again with the 3 VGA's, same result, PEG not detected.

Now I'm lost, I've wasted so much time and money with useless fixes. During the past 6 moths after the warranty expired I've had a broken VGA card, HDD with bad sectors, memory modules broken... and I still don't know the root cause of my video problems. This is very odd, and only solution seems to be "buy a new laptop". Not acceptable for such a expensive laptop.

Does anyone know any solution for the video issues?
Regards.

 

The R3 a load of issues especially with the damm AMD cards... Not seen as many issues on the R4 at all.. I have a feeling that with everything you've faced, its kind of broken to the extent it can't be repaired... I would probably sell off the components and get a new one...

 

I think the high end video cards in the R3 are just crud, there are multiple horror stories of the 580M dying as well as 6970/6990M dying very prematurely in the R3. I'm crossing my fingers the 6990M in my Clevo lasts longer.

 

Those AMD 6000 series and the NVIDIA 5 series ferni cards were probably on the same fail level as the NVIDIA 8000 series cards....

 

I know when my 6990M used to disappear from PEG, the following routine would typically work:
1. Removed the Radeon
2. Boot up computer with radeon card removed
3. Reset bios settings
4. Re-install radeon card and boot back into bios. radeon shoudl be recognized again.

I've done that procedure numerous times, but I've never had a card die (except the 580M, which is garbage)

 

Hi again guys,

Thanks for your comments but I don't think I'll buy another one. This experience with gaming laptops has been too bad, I think I'm done with them, seems like a waste of money and time. I will use what is left of my laptop for web browsing, watch movies, and play any HD 3000 compatible game... Quite an expensive tool for that.

I think this supposed "planned obsolescence" is a bad move from DELL, they will finish by killing its own market. At the end, people's not stupid, they will not waste so much money in a product is going to be useless after 2 years. For browsing and gaming you can always buy a pad or a console... they are cheaper and definitely more reliable.

hey mate, what do you mean reset BIOS seetings? Unplug-replug CMOS battery? If so I might give that a try...

 

You can try removing the CMOS battery, but what I did, was enter the BIOS (with the ATI Radeon card removed) and go all the way to the exit menu, where it says load default settings. Select that option, hit exit and save, then turn off the computer. reinstall the radeon card and see if that helps.

 

Just FYI, I used my M17x R2 (2010 model) for 2.5 years with no major issues (1 Intel 6300 died on me inside the warranty period). That being said, that was a Flextronics model and I find those models tend to have a higher reliability rate than the R3/R4 which are made by Compal. To have so many failures within that timeframe is most unusual, TBH.

 

yeah, maybe it's just bad luck, but I see so many guys here with almost identical problems. All of them after around 2 years of use, precisely when warranty expires... Just sharing thoughts... In any case, 2-2.5 years of life for a laptop worth 2500-3000€ is completely unacceptable imho.

I used to have an Acer Travelmate 8200 before. I used it for almost 4 year with absolutely 0 issues, and with much more gaming workload than I have used this Alienware. It fell from my hands and broke, if I had kept it, I'm sure today it'd still work.