My Alienware Ruined My Winter Break/Christmas

Hi,

Just received a new m17x Alienware system and opened it up yesterday. To preface, I don't have very much family in the US so Christmas is a muted affair where all my friends are away, leaving me to play video games. I expected to receive a $2500+ system to enjoy the break alone and play. I don't have another computer that works since my XPS 1530 crapped out on me a couple months ago.

My system is nothing but trouble. It restarts every 20 minutes and freezes. I called support on Christmas Eve for over 2 hours to try and they had no way to fix the problem. They said I should just return the system and buy a new one, to which I retorted that it would just ruin my credit score to keep buying and returning $2500+ items. I'm sure he was lying to me as 1 hour later, he said that he had talked to his supervisor and they were willing to configure me a new system to send over on Monday, but since so many items were on backorder it'd take over 2 weeks to arrive. I'm a student in the US studying engineering and I have about 6 weeks a year that I can play video games in peace without the pressure of studies. This is time that I'm not working over summer break and the all the time of winter break. I'm sure you're wondering why I got an Alienware but I do play video games occasionally during school, it's just hard to finish a campaign without feeling guilt.

I think that Alienware has really ruined my holidays by sending me a lemon of a system, lying to me about the replacement process by advising to return and re-order, and then offering to replace the system but with a 2-3 week wait. I want to them to compensate me for this so how should I go about making that they realize that they've really screwed over. Who should I talk to, because I'm sure I'll get a supervisor who doesn't care, won't take $1 off the price tag, and tell me that that's how the ordering process is. I'm hoping that the knowleagable board members here can let me know of the best process. I know that there are EPP care specialists who really have great customer service and will bend over backwards to help customers who've felt wronged but how do I talk to them. Thanks!

Please try to convince me to buy Alienware again or even Dell. My experience with the XPS 1530 was horrible and I've convinced 5-6 friends to avoid Dell like the plague. I don't want to do the same for Alienware.

Best and Happy Holidays.

 

what are the specs of your system ?

have you tried installing the lstest drivers, and BIOS / Firmware updates ?

 

Intel i7 740-QM / 6 GB Ram / ATI Crossfire 5870 are the most relevant specs.

I installed the latest drivers with my Dell technician. I flashed my VBIOS and did everything that he needed do. To give more color to the problem, I even did a full system recover with the AlienRespawn and my system froze during the start-up where you type in your name, password, time zone.

 

You should consider running a memory diagnostic program like memtest. This frequent feezing is usually caused by bad ram or mobo. Sorry to hear about your bad experience but hopefully we can turn this around. It's time to start pulling ram out to see if they are bad.

 

The first thing I would do is to check all temperatures but it sounds more like a possible RAM issue to me.

 

Alienware does not hand out compensations. Unless you can show that your system has defects, the best they can do is offer a replacement which in your case they already have. If the issue persisted, they would probably throw in a few upgrades for the trouble.

 

Alienware has not been negligent, so you don't really have a case against them that would require compensation over and above another replacement system. If you are completely frustrated with your current system, and they have already offered to set you up better the second time around, then why don't you just return your current system and take them up on the replacement? That sounds fair to me. Your time and angst, well, that's life. No one buys you out of your time spent for anything, except maybe your employer.

 

Its the 6 gig a ram thing. It happened to mine when I first got it. Run memtest86-3.5a.iso. Memory was bad and instead of hassling with dell I just got two 4gig Corsairs from NewEgg and and all crashes and blue screens disappeared. Was doing exactly what your is doing and I have the same specs. They had different model of ram also.. dumb dumb some may disagree but I always use the same brand.

 

If that is the case, couldn't he run off one of the 2 sticks until he gets it resolved? Would be a quick temp fix. 2GB might be a little limiting but 4GB would be fine if it works.

 

yes he could run off one of the sticks hopefully its the 2 Gb stick that is bad

Dell can send replacement RAM out fairly quick as well.

 

If they offered a return and reorder thats a refund. When they offered a new replacement, then he was not lying.
A new build replacement takes 7 to 14 days to build and ship, you should have jumped at the replacement as it would most likely come with some upgrades for your trouble and being a new system worth alot more. Check out this link if you want to take your complaint higher up the chain.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...placement-systems-warranty-repair-issues.html

 

Thanks all for the help. I'll try to run the system with one stick of ram (either 4 gb or 2 gb only). If that doesn't work, I'll just get a replacement system just in case this one has more problems than I've experienced. Thanks!

 

So I ran memtest but I could only get to 6% before it froze. The time wasn't moving and I waited a good 5 minutes before I shut it down. Does this mean that there's something wrong with my memory or just the test?

 

The RAM. Do what they told you and take the 2GB stick out and try it.

 

Ok. Can you direct me a link that will guide me how to disassemble the system? Thanks. I'm a noob.

 

M17x Modifications - Alienware M17x Wiki

 

Just took out the 2GB stick and is working perfectly. Will hold this system until they can get me a re-order with more goddies. Thanks everyone! This forum is great!

 

Spoke too soon. Just crashed again. It seems to crash whenever I'm downloading from Steam.

 

Great to hear!

Mine is still on order and reading all these posts gets me worried

I have been down the ASUS G73 route and my lord I don't have the patience for more of that.

EDIT,

Ok, take out the 4gb stick and put in the 2gb only and try it.

 

I put in the 2GB RAM. Hopefully, it'll work.

 

Using 4 GB RAM or 2 GB RAM still has not worked. I think it has to do with downloading because it happens most frequently when I'm updating from Steam.

 

Did you try reinstalling the OS yet? Sounds like some problems I had when I first got my R1. Frequent crashing and lockups. Install from the disc not the recovery partition. It's worth a shot if you haven't done it already.

EDIT: Just saw that you tried with Alienrespawn. Did you try just the windows 7 disc? Although it does sound like the problem is hardware related.

 

Thanks. It does sound like the problem is hardware related. I got a BSOD with the description: Stop 0x00000101 "A clock interrupt was not received on a secondary processor within the allocated time interval".

I think it may be a physical defect with the processor but I have no idea why it manifests itself when I'm downloading heavily from the internet. Perhaps it could also be something to do with the network card. Regardless, I think it may be something that I can't fix myself. Oh well, Alienware better compensate me for ruining my Christmas.

 

This sucks to hear. i just got mine last thursday and so far so good but Ive barely used it. I bought mine for work and I happen to be off until the end of january so i have my kik butt desktop to play on. Id be furious if i were in your shoes. I feel your pain.

I can add one thing. This probably wouldnt happen on a macbook lol.

 

Macbooks had their share of fatal errors, to say otherwise is rather silly

 

If you have not done so already, it is always a good idea to google any error messages you get, because some one has always experienced the exact same issue and in some cases, solved it!

 

If you only have 6 weeks to enjoy the system, you may also want to consider just getting the refund while you're within the return window. You can then wait until the next major gaming session approaches and try again. By them, you'll hopefully encounter newer technology and/or cheaper prices.

 

Lord Zath, that's a great point! I think I will return the system and then get a new one. The only thing is that I got a great price on this one and I'm not sure how I can repeat it.

Specs
i7 740-QM
6 GB RAM
Crossfire 5870
1920x1200 RGBLED
500 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive
Default other components

Price before tax: $2187.90

I feel like Dell was clearing out their old systems in anticipation for the R3 and I won't get such good deals for 8-12 months. It was just a huge hassle to get the system, so I kinda have regret but I guess the most rationale thing would be to wait...though I'll need to find a computer to hold me over as well.

As for the BSOD error, the OP who had the crashes had overclocked his system and was experiencing heat issues. My computer usually doesn't the get the error message (5-10% of crashes) and I have all stock components with no OCing. Thanks!

 

Mister Mister- If you have 2 banks of ram, please remove one stick of ram. Boot up the system and play for a while. See if the issue is still ongoing. If so, power down and switch to the other stick of ram... Play for a while. If the issue is resolved then you know it's the first stick of ram. If the issue is ongoing then it may be the mother board, driver or bios issue.

Keep us posted. StevenX

 

he has tried testing the individual ram sticks

 

You'll be able to get similar deals on the r2, I got one with the SLI 285m, 8 gigs of ram and a blu ray for about $2500. So basically same as your build.

It's worked great for me out of the box(knock on wood). But if I was in your shoes I would get a refund and get the R3. I mean what's a couple of hundred extra bucks mean, if the experience is as bad as you've had. You should be enjoying this beast!!

 

Thats nasty, its a processor issue, more specifically hyper-threading. Get that new system ordered. If you tell them what deal you had before and your ordeal, you can get that deal with possibly some upgrades.

 

Since you're in a time crunch, look at the Dell outlet. There are some good deals there and I "think" they have a descent track record. There is no build time so you can get it fast, especially if you push for overnight.

 

Unfortunately, they are one in the same. AW is just a Dell line now same as XPS.

 

well...
If you can try to fix it...Then fix it...
Its a bit frustrated when somethings happens to the alienware laptop.
This happen to all of us. Cheer up.
But when you have fix it and you have solved the problem. I would say that you gonna love your alienware.
Everyone of us here do have problem with alienware and after we fix it, we know that we just have a great experience with our Alienware.
Cheer up friend.
I know you can solve this.
Whether send it back or try to fix it.
Its your choice.
And when its fix, Alienware gonna be the superior laptop that you ever seen.

 

It's not the processor but rather his secondary video card not waking from idle and causing a driver crash.

 

I got that error when my first processor (720qm) was dying. Dell swapped procs not video cards to correct. I wonder if its just the same generic message??
Still not fun regardless.

 

Try running Furmark multi-gpu in the background while you perform the tasks that have been crashing your laptop. If the problem does not pop up like it traditionally has, then Joker may be right (what's new?). Joker, I think you also had a thread about some registry entries that keep the 2nd card from going to sleep or something. Or maybe not.