M17xR3 Random Reboots

What is the RAM size and speed?

 

South Africa Alienware support (AKA time wasters) doesn't want to help me at all, they keep telling me some BS that its a software thing. OH YEAH I'm sure a software thing would be doing this like its happening for everyone else on this forum.. They claim they can't do any replacement or anything if they cannot identify the issue. Scodoublet what did you do that convinced them to replace it for you?

 

I told them that since they can't identify the problem to fix it then I just want a replacement machine and they agreed. I mean you can show them the event viewer where it shows all of the system failures.... it's not like you're making it up. That's ridiculous that they wont help you because they cant figure out what is wrong... Why should it matter what's wrong? If they can't fix it then they should give you a new one right?

 

DIMM1: 4Gb PC3-10700 (667 MHz), A-Data Technology
DIMM3: 4Gb PC3-10700 (667 MHz), Hyundai Electronics

As reported by CPU-Z. The Hyundai stick is what came with my m17x. I replaced an original 2Gb Hyundai stick with the A-Data stick. Hope that helps.

 

Hi guys
quick update from the AW team
after a phone call last week, they ask me to run some tests
diagnostics came out all clean
now they asked me to remove 1 memory stick and with that i had know reeboots
soon i put the other stick i got a reboots again, them swapped stickts to make sure it wasnt a bad memory stick and with 1 stick i dint get any reeboots but with 2 sticks bang reboot again.
now just came of the phone with AW tech and they are goin to try 1 solution tomorrow , they sendint a tech to my house to replace the 2 memory sticks witha diferent brand , they think it might not be compatible , now if i do get more reboots with this new ram the next step will be mother board and if its this case i think it mught me a bad batch of mother board cause a lot of us are getting the same problem.

so tomorrow i will give u another update of the make of the new memory and how the R3 is going to behave

 

Wow, before this I had been calling local South Africa Alienware support. OH MY F*****G GOD! I can't believe I put up with their crap! I phoned them over 5 times yet they WASTED every minute of my time. Those buffoons told me it was a software problem. They are without a doubt the worst technical support team I have ever dealt with in my life.

I take back what I said earlier in the forum about Alienware support in general, because I phoned US tech support today, and surprisingly they were actually courteous and actually listened to what I said and are arranging a replacement for me, unlike the hogwash called south africa AW support.

The only complication is I'm in South Africa so I will have to send my PC back to the US for this to be done, so I'm arranging it with the supplier I bought my PC from in the US.

 

thats good news , if they dont sort mine out with this mem change i will ask for a new one , cause it might be a bad batch of motherboards

 

Yeah I think it's a motherboard problem considering that it works for some people that switch RAM's around. Must be a problem with the RAM slots or something.

 

Hello everyone. Im having the same issue, with a little difference, its not a reboot, its just a shutdown. I bought the 3D M17x R3, and when I changed RAM the restarts continue. Also I noticed that If I move the laptop a lot, it shutdowns without any BSoD.

I'll try that solution about sound, but I think it's something with the power supply like some of you do.

 

OK guys. Take this for what it's worth but after talking to AW tech support again today to check up on my replacement not being here yet they said there was a slight delay in the production of my new system because they found what was causing the random reboots. They claim that they had a bad batch of motherboards and they had to go to a different distributor and it took a little extra time to get them in.

Sounds legit to me especially with people claiming that they removed a couple of their memory sticks and had no trouble with certain memory slots. Hopefully this new one works fine when I get it hopefully on Tuesday.

 

Thats good news, im gonna ring them tomorrow , as they are coming on thursday to replace the motherboard gonna make sure they got the new batch

 

I got my new one and wouldn't you know it... they managed to find a way to even screw the return process up. They sent me a brand new laptop with the original packaging/hat/mouse pad etc. but no return box and no return shipping label or instructions... ugh... every step of this entire process has been a cluster F!

On the plus side, I've gone a whole day with no random reboots on the new system. *crosses fingers*

 

Hi guys, just had the tech in my house and he changed my memory sticks to a diferent brand, and sinca 16h no reeboots.

Now i also spoke to AW techs about the issue it the faulty motherboards, and what he said is , any R3 bought after the 1st of april 2011 are good with no motherboard probs , any R3 bought before de 1st of april 2011 more than likely will have the fauty mother board , they also said these customers are being contacted as we speak and are bein offered a new r3 replacement.

so there you go guys, anyone with an R3 after the 1st os april 2011 will have to keep looking for a solution for these reboots, i will keep you guys posted every 24h and see if i get any reboots with this new memory

 

These techs are not 100% accurate because I bought mine in June and they said it was the motherboard issue.

 

hows ur replacement doing? still no reboots?

 

It's still working good with no problems. I'm pretty happy so far. I just have to get the old one sent out now and hope they don't give me a hassle if they don't get it in ten days because they messed up again and didn't include the return info or label.

 

Hi ppl
Just to let u guys know nearly 3 days now since they changed my memory sticks to diferent brand and no reeboots, pc has been on since thursday

ill give you anote update in a few days

 

Ive been reading your stories and im glad you guys got it fixed.

 

Just had a reboot

back to the drawing board
phone call to AW tomorrow .................. this should not be happening on a 2.5k pc

 

I've been having the same issue as well! I bought my M17x R3 2 weeks ago. I've had 10 crashes since then.
When I installed "WhoCrashed", all my crashes have been analysed as "Driver Power State Failure".
So I'm guessing its all related to the Nvidia GPU.
Anyone know a fix?

 

@priyankpk - I'm not sure you're having the same exact issue or not. If you are it's not due to the Nvidia GPU you have. I've been informed from Dell that it was due to a faulty batch of motherboards. That seems legit to me because so many of us had such different specs but still had the same problem. Replacing memory doesn't seem to have helped for some either.

I ended up getting a brand new system from Dell because they couldn't fix the problem after numerous calls. If I were you I would call them up and get the same thing if possible.

 

Hi guys another update from AW tech
they asked me to run the laptop on the intel graphic card for 3 days wich i did and i didnt get any rebbots.
they called me today and booked a tech to come and change the mother board and the graphics card, they think it might be a faulty graphic card . they are coming friday to change the stuff .
ill give u another update next week how it all goes.

but i think if they said to try the graphic card is cause they might know its the fault now .

lets hope they right and they can fix this issue for good

 

Hi guys,

I have a similar problem. I bought mine on June and I have the AMD 6870, Instead of the laptop rebooting, mine just shuts off randomly when I was playing games or watching movie.

I called the tech support, and they couldn't find out anything, and they end up replacing my heating fence earlier this afternoon, because they said that overheating is the only possible issue. I'm pretty sure it's not though, because it wasn't even that hot when it shuted off.

Anyone experienced this problem, and did the new mother board fix it?

Thanks

 

The new system they sent me supposedly has a different motherboard in it and I haven't had any trouble yet. They even gave me nearly $400 off my original purchase price because they said the different par was a lot cheaper.

 

You might need to try a full power drain for starters, turn off the PC, take out the battery and hold the power button for 10 seconds. then re-insert the battery and turn on the PC. Are you working off the original windows install / alienrespawn partition recovery or did you do a clean install of windows?

 

Try running a stress test on your processor and graphics card. That way you will be able to watch temps and see if that is the problem. Also try running diagnostics from the pre-boot menu, reboot windows, hit F12 in startup and run the pre-boot analysis.

 

Finally after much convincing (with the help of US support) I have gotten local AW support to agree to replace the faulty parts. The technician should be coming this week or next week.

*edit*

So far, they have replaced my motherboard, AC adapter, HDD, RAM and GPU. I'm testing to see if the reboots keep happening but so far so good.

On the plus side, instead of replacing my 320GB HDD and 8GB of RAM, they gave me a 500GB HDD and 12GB of RAM

On the minus side, the technician who replaced my motherboard either didn't connect my internal Nvidia 3D emitter / mistakenly removed it, so my 3D doesn't work -.- I'll talk to them again next week to get it fixed...

 

Hi guys , sorry for the long delay on posting back about this issue but been on holiday 4 weeks ...


Now, after AW replaced my motherboard + GPU + HeatSink + Memory
they gave up on trying to fix this issue , also because i said i would refuse having my 3 month old laptop opened again ( this is after 5 tech calls to my house to replace parts)
Now they offered me a brand new replacement , wich i said yes , and kinda pushed for a few upgrades
so the new one will have the new 6990M gpu (looking forward to see that working on full power ) and a intell wifi 6300 ( i had to updagrade that myself on this machine so this way they do it in the factory) ... so for booth upgrades they asked for 190£ wich i agreed and paid , now its a 2 weeks waiting and i shall receive my new AW , and this time hopping for trouble free ( fingers crossed)

 

My problem is fixed they only had to replace my Hard drive, RAM, Graphics card and motherboard (twice). Oh and because they removed my 3D emitter when they first replaced my motherboard, they replaced my screen section, 3D emitter and cable. Glad to report *EVERYTHING* is now working properly, and I guess for my troubles I got 4GB extra RAM for free, and 180GB more hard drive. Now I'm just going to get them to fix my screen because there is a minor problem as small color vertical lines appear, some prob with the LCD almost seems like it leaks liquid lol.. although thats odd coz its an LED, and it's been happening for a while and there doesn't seem to be any damage, I can just wipe it and it disappears. BTW anyone who has an Nvidia card go get the latest driver from nvidia's website, no modded INF file needed, and its optimized for BF3 FTW

 

wow that is a lot of stuffed changed lol after the fith call at my house i refused to have the pc opened again lol and they sent me a new R3 with a gpu upgrade

 

lol, local support refused to change my PC at the start when I asked them because I knew this would be a hard problem to root out. Their loss lol.. costed them more. Haha, the tech came to my house at least once a week for the past 2 months, fixing various stuff lol..

A note for anyone who is still having this problem, it's a problem with the motherboard / RAM.. best idea is to call tech and get them to replace your motherboard & RAM

 

One info about the reboots, I have read from alienware forum, don't install the card reader realtek drivers, two days since I did it there is no random reboots.
Plaease try it and share the info.

 

This is a different issue, When I install these my computer bluescreens on every single startup. This was a completely random rebooting issue, mine has been fixed for a while now since they replaced the motherboard, video card, RAM and hard drive all at once. So one or more of those parts are at fault

 

My M17xR3 randomly reboots about every 2-4 weeks, not sure if I have the same problem?

I am running it everyday for long periods of time, often putting it in sleep mode with tons of programs running.

When it happens, the mouse pointer stops moving while I am using it, and then about 5 seconds later the entire system just reboots instantly.

 

Does it happen when your computer is under load, like ur using lots of programs or games, or does it happen randomly even when you are just browsing files or on the internet?

It is different to what we are having as yours does not instantly turn off, it freezes before.
Your problem sounds more like an overheating issue, im guessing either processor or graphics card.

Check your cooling is working by booting up and hitting i think its F7 or F10 or F12 and open diagnostics. run it and it will check all your parts for faults. One of your heatsinks may have packed up so you will need to have it replaced.

You will probably also want to invest in a good laptop cooling pad to prevent this in future, and if you are experienced enough perhaps a good repaste of the CPU and GPU

 

I have an M17x R3 that I got this past summer that is having these same random reboots. It always happens while sitting idle or browsing the internet. It has never happened while playing a game or putting the system under heavy load. Event log lists it as Kernal Power failure. I've been dealing with tech support this whole time with no fix. They seem to think it has to do with the OS. >.< I am so fed up and frustrated. Honestly what I want is a replacement. When I asked for one I was told it wasn't an option. I would appreciate any advice on what to do or who to talk to. I swear I'm developing an ulcer over all of this.

 

Well I went to the BBB and filed a dispute. It ended up getting forwarded to the same person I've been talking to. Who by the way, has been no help. And is still no help. They still refuse to replace the system, or refund me. I don't know what to do at this point. Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

Didn't read past the first page, sorry. If this OP is still having issues and everything else seems to check out and he has an SSD, that might be it. Lots of complaints over at the OCZ forums about BSODs with Sandforce-chipset SSDs. Some are resolved with firmware updates, others seem to remain open issues.

Consensus wisdom is that the SSD should be installed as the second device (bay 1, instead of bay 0). I also found my R3 with a 240GB OCZ Agility3 SSD here that the SSD seems to benchmark better *WITHOUT* Intel Rapid Storage Technology than with. So it's gone in my system. YMMV...