M17xR4 Repair Woes....

Howdy folks,

Earlier this week I attempted to play Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls, and discovered that my AMD 7970M could not handle the burning city in Act V. Within a few minutes of entering that level, the M17xR4 would hard lock. I did some web searches, and found sporadic posts of this issue, and in most cases, if the issue was resolved, it was resolved by either underclocking/overvolting the GPU, or replacement. This same issue cropped up with both AMD and nVidia cards. I was able to get it to work once, but changing the detected hardware capabilities for Diablo 3, but this only worked once. After a horrible experience with tech support rep (not going too much into it, but one thing he tried to do was install the Dell drivers from March 2013, over Catalyst 14.4), who basically told me that the M17xR4 is not supported for Windows 8, unless you pay for the Premium Support package, and that Alienware would not help me until I restored Windows 7 (which was what the M17xR4 initially shipped with, Win 8 was a free upgrade due to when I purchased the laptop). So, I spent the majority of that day (I called in the morning) restoring Windows 7. Once that was done, I proceeded to test Diablo 3 again (saves are stored on Blizzards servers thankfully), and the problem persists. So, I called back that evening, and had a much better experience, which resulted in having a tech come out to replace my 7970M. The tech came today, and was not at all familiar with Alienware Laptops, and it took him around an hour to swap out the card, and in the process he ended up bending several pins on the heat pipe radiator trying to put the card in the socket. Once that was complete, we powered it up, and Windows would hard lock on boot (right at the point it was trying to load the AMD driver). So, a quick trip to safe mode where I uninstalled the AMD driver, and I got the desktop. I reinstalled the AMD driver, reboot, and then we get a BSOD when it tries to load the driver. At this point the tech says it is a "driver compatibilty problem" and is ready to leave. He calls Dell and tells them that the problem persists, gets a new case number, tells me to call Dell to further troubleshoot, and leaves. I call Alienware back, and after around 30 minutes of him-hawing around, the Alienware support rep decides I need a motherboard and GPU replacement, and offers to have the whole laptop shipped to the "Depot" or send out another technician. I decided that I did not want another Dell tech to come out, and have to gut my entire laptop, and risk further damage due to inexperience. So, now i am waiting for a box to ship it back to Alienware for "repair." My previous experiences with "Depot" repairs is not too good, but I am hopeful that at least the Depot technicians know how to work in an M17xR4.

Due to the situation, I spaced out the damaged radiator when talking on the phone, but sent an email to the tech with a picture of the damage, so I hope they fix that too, but bottom line is my Alienware is out of commission for about 2 weeks :-(

Has anyone here had a good experience with a "depot" repair? I am worried about possible missing pieces, dings, scratches, or other cosmetic damage on return. I have already removed my (purchased from Dell) RAM upgrade, and secondary hard drive (also obtained from Dell) in preparation for return. I am also thinking about removing the SD Card blank.

Rich S.

 

Do not send it to the "depot." It will be worse than having a technician sent out. The depot is basically a graveyard.

If they cannot fix the system, the warranty allows Technical Support to issue a system replacement. Just stay with it.

 

I've seen both sides of the coin. Most of the users here will say that the depot service is not that good, but on my experience I've seen many issues resolved by them... Especially No post, no power, and LCD issues. In case it doesn't go as expected, let me know and I will help as much as I can to get it resolved ASAP.

 

Hi,

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Something fell through, as I never received the box to send my system to the depot. So, I called again this morning, and spoke with another support specialst who setup the order to send me the box. So, now I should get the box to send it in by tomorrow. As of this morning, it has been 7 calendar days since I reported the issue, and 5 calendar days since the decision to send it to the depot was made. Not having my main computer sucks :-( Thanks again!

Rich S.

 

LinkRS,
The issue with Act V on D3 also happens to me aswell, this issue is with the drivers and not a faulty card. I play tons of D3 and just simply avoid Act 5. Since ROS came out AMD has not made any further supported drivers specific to the 7970M to address this issues in D3. I have downclocked, dropped the voltage, and upped it. I also set all settings as low as they go, the issues is clearly a software problem because no matter what i do this still happens.

D3 is the ONLY game this happens with and its those fire effects that are happening in the background that trigger it.

 

Or ignore my advice and send it to the depot.

Good luck. You'll need it.

 

Hi Mikecacho,

I thought it was a driver problem at first, and went through several different versions of drivers to try and stabilize it. If it really is a driver issue, it goes on for more than a year, with very little information on the net that points specifically to the AMD cards. I found several posts of people with the problem that included both nVidia and AMD cards, and people trying the things you mentioned, and it actually working for some folks. Still others swapped out video cards to solve it, and others just (as you have) skip that area. I was actually able to get my current game past that section of the game by forcing the game to treat the 7970M as a DirectX 10 card (instead of DirectX 11), and that worked exactly one time (but it got me past). I was not able to test the section with he replacement card, since I either received a bad replacement card, or the tech damaged it or the main board during the replacement. I just finally received the shipping box today, and sent it out. I'll post back any of my results

Rich S>

 

Hi J.Dre,

I didn't ignore your advice, as I already had the repair setup before I posted. This will be the third time (second for Alienware specific) I have had to send a system to the depot for repair. The first time was for a Dell laptop, second an Area 51 that arrived DOA, and now this one. The first time was a horror story, but it eventually turned out ok, the second (which was pre-Dell Alienware), was fine, and this makes the third.

After watching the in-home technician fumble through what should have been a simple swap, I didn't want to run the risk of that again as the support rep now wanted to do a whole motherboard and video card swap. With something that invasive, I couldn't see it turning out well. I figure that the techs in the depot should at least have access to the "correct" parts and know how to do it.

Thanks for the luck wishes, I will undoubtedly need it... :-(

 

I use modded Vbios and drivers, this issue can not be solved by Blizz since AMD needs to make a specific fix for the 7970M. There are previous drivers that support D3 but not the ROS expansion. Its really annoying, as i have passed that point as well, but when i run greater rifts i get that board from time to time, and it is hit or miss, mostly hit and the card stops responding and i am forced to reboot.

 

Hi Mikecacho,

In case it helps, here is one of the links I was referring too. This dates back to March of this year, and shows several different cards. Plus there are several different "fixes" mentioned. I tried them all (except for underclocking) before my card was swapped out. I never go the chance to test with the replaced video card, as the M17xR4 would no longer load windows with the new card.

Computer crashes during play in Act 5 - Forums - Diablo III

It is going to be about 2 weeks until I get my M17xR4 back, but I will post an update once I can test some more.

Thanks!

Rich S.

 

They all pretty much have the same level of knowledge. I do not recommend the depot because it is not a required step in the process for you to receive replacement parts or systems. Another reason I do not recommend the "repair depot" is because all of Dell's systems go there for repairs. There is not an "Alienware repair depot" specifically for Alienware systems, which means you'll likely have someone who has never worked on an Alienware before attempt to repair your PC. The level of care of the depot is very low. They toss around computers, forget to replace parts, scratch/dent your screen and laptop, etc. At home you are able to keep and eye on the person doing the work. In this depot, nobody is watching your computer, which leaves them to treat your computer however they wish. Obviously, not all cases are bad, but at least 80% of the people on this forum, who have used the depot, have reported back negatively with the things I have mentioned above.

Let's hope you are in the minority and your system is returned to you functioning at 100%. Good luck, again.

J.Dre

 

I've seen that link awhile ago, it does nothing to help.

 

UPDATE: My M17xR4 arrived at "the Depot" on Friday, around 1100 CST. This afternoon, it updated to say that the repair was complete, and the system has been shipped back, with an expected arrival of this Wednesday. Assuming no work occurred over the weekend, I am not sure what they could have done in around 10 or so hours of "business time"... I'll post with another update once I receive it, and have a chance to check it out. Thanks!

Rich S.

 

UPDATE: My M17xR4 repair was completed on Monday 15 Sep, and shipped out that afternoon. It had a scheduled delivery date of today, but actually arrived on Tuesday. It was returned in what looked like the same box I shipped it in, but not as carefully packed. External inspection has (thus far) revealed no damage. However, they technicians did NOT replace the damaged heat pipe radiator, as it is still installed. There was a note inside indicating that they replaced the video card, and "thoroughly" tested it, and it was repaired. When I turned it on, it did indeed boot to the Windows desktop (which it would not do before I sent it in), but was using the standard Windows 7 drivers for both the Intel HD 4000 and the 7970M, which means that the 7970M could not be used. When I ran GPU-Z, it reported an OpenCL error and that I should update the video drivers. I then installed the Dell drivers (to add the necessary Intel Media components to the HD4000), and ran 3DMark, and it worked fine. I am in the middle of restoring my Windows 8.1 install (from a backup I made before reverting it to Windows 7), but hope to complete this by tomorrow afternoon. At that point, I will run Diablo 3 to see if the crash persists.

Thus far, the only issue with this Depot Repair instance are as follows:
The laptop screen was covered in smudges, it looked like they wiped the screen with a dirty cloth
The Radiator on the video card heat-pipe is still dented and bent (from the in-home technician)

Positives:
Once they finally shipped me the box, turn around time was pretty quick. I dropped it off to FedEx on a Thurs, and had it back the following Tuesday, over a weekend.

I'll post back in the next couple of days with the results with Diablo 3

Rich S.

 

UPDATE: Act V in Diablo 3 did not crash!!! I ran through the entire Westmarch Heights (with the flames) this evening, and other than the reported server latency issues, it ran wonderfully. I am to much of a pessimist to call it a complete victory yet. I want to run through it again, perhaps a couple of times to make sure that this isn't a fluke. There was one instance before the replacement that it worked too (after tweaking the preference file). I post a final update after I have ran through it a least a couple of times. Thanks!

Rich S.

 

UPDATE:

Well, I have now ran through Westmarch Heights 3 times over 3 separate days with no lockups. I think it is safe to say the issue is resolved. However, the next question is how much of a stink I need to make about the damaged radiator on the video card heatpipe. I am attaching picture to get some opinions. Thanks!

Rich S.

 

Dude ... that's cosmetic, won't affect functionality in any way. Might as well make a fuss over scratches on the bumper . But if you're concerned about the looks; take pliers and bend/pinch them straight again.