My M17x R3 A Nightmare of Epic Proportions

Hello all, I apologize for this very long post but I am frustrated beyond reason and have run out of ideas.

After having (overheating and performance) issues with three Radeon HD6870’s in my M17x R3 on Friday 10-26-2012 Dell had a tech come out to my home and replace the GPU again, this time with an upgraded model the Radeon HD 6970 (Thank you Dell)

Unfortunately this is where the nightmare escalates to a whole new level!

Saturday morning after launching World of Warcraft I find that I am getting 8-12 FPS which is completely unplayable. So I do the usual like make sure my power brick is fully plugged in and the Catalyst Control Center shown the Radeon 6970 GPU selected. My power management is set to high performance etc… and another odd thing is in my WEI the rating has dropped to 7.0 due to the GPU
So I call Alienware tech support and give the tech control of the machine. After about an hour and him trying to install 12.7 beta drivers and not doing clean installs (f8 with driver sweeper etc...)I let the tech know I had to step away for a little while and to please continue working on the machine. I ended up being away close to an hour and when I returned found my machine running with nothing but a white screen. I rebooted and I was back to just a white screen.

So I make a second call to Alienware tech support and explained that my machine was worse that it had been when I called and let the first agent remotly work on it. This tech took control of my machine installed the HD6970 driver from dell and after about an hour I was told I should be good to go so I launched wow and frame rates seemed to be ok. However there WEI was still showing 7.0 due to the GPU score. I thanked him and told him I would call back if I encountered any problems.

Bam - launch World of Warcraft that evening and 8-12 FPS O_O

So I booted off the USB drive with the respawn image and did a fresh install of the factory image (which had been working perfectly up until this last tech visit to replace and upgrade the GPU), deleted the 6870 driver (F8 driver sweeper) and installed the 6970 driver Once the image was reinstalled (My WEI was back to 7.5 with a GPU score of 7.5) I let the machine run all its windows updates, reinstalled my Avast and went to battle.net and ran the World of Warcraft Installer.

Sunday morning I also reinstalled Curse Client Ventrillo and 3D Mark Vantage. Now when I played World of Warcraft frame rates were what I expected 60 or so FPS on High but after playing for awhile my screen suddenly when black, fans stopped running and no curser on screen , nothing.. However the laptop was lit up as if it were running normally (keyboard, power button etc… this required a forced shut down and restart to correct.

I resumed playing WoW and kept GPU-Z and HW monitor launched in the background to monitor temps after an hour max GPU temp was 68c and max CPU was 65c then again suddenly I had the black screen, no fans, no cursor but all lights on so I did another forced shut down with the power button and turned it back on. Then it struck me! On both occasions when I had powered the machine back up after this mysterious black screen I never got a message that windows had been shut down improperly or any other error messages.

So I decide to try a vantage run and keep an eye on temps. The machine made it through “Jane Nash” but a little while in to “New Calico” I got the black screen, fans running, no cursor and had to do a forced shut down and restart.

My third call to Alienware tech support, the agent took control of my machine and ran every single hardware test the“Alien Autopsy” suite included and a disc check. After a couple of hours I His conclusion was “Our Hardware is Fine”

So I did a vantage run for him but he made me stop after Jane Nash and instructed me to play World of Warcraft. I asked why and he said he would explain later. So after a little WoW play with no issues I pressed about his stopping the Vantage run and he said he saw an error on his side and eluded that 3D Mark vantage was causing the problem. So I uninstalled it and explained that this machine had had both WoW installed since I bought the machine and 3D Mark Vantage on and off for benchmarking and that I had never once had these problems until Friday when the onsite tech came and replaced the video card. The tech asked that I continue to play WoW and call back if the problem persisted but he thought I would be fine now that vantage had been uninstalled. So after some discussion our call was ended.

The black screen happened three times while playing WoW after that tech call.

So at 10pm I did a fresh install of windows 7 from the OS disc included with the computer. Reinstalled all the drivers according to this Dell tech article: Article ID : 439200 (Alienware M17x R3: Initial Drivers Installation)

Installed command center from the Link Chris provided: ftp.dell.com - /FOLDER00633308M/2/

Did all windows updates and installed Avast.

This morning I went to battle.net and started my thrid full install of WoW since Saturday morning. However I suspect I will have the same problem tonight when I try to play WoW since this all started with the introduction of the new HD6970 to the system.

Prior to Friday I had no issues playing WoW but my GPU was overheating.

I am now at my wit’s end after six plus hours on the phone with Alienware this weekend, One Alien respawn, one fresh Windows 7 install installations and three WoW installs and I have a laptop that is less functional than when this all started!

So now my 8 month old M17x R3 has needed no less than six onsite tech visits to replace the Gpu 3 times, this HD6970 is the 4th. The motherboard for USB port issues, the entire lower body due to the soft touch coating peeling and in the process I have had the onsite techs break two bottom plates and still I have a laptop that does not allow me to do the one thing I purchased it for, play World of Warcraft!

When do I throw in the towel on this machine and start asking for an alternate solution? Maybe a replacement system?

Any and all suggestions are welcome.

 

Send us an email to [email protected] with a brief description of the issue, your service tag and contact info. We'll go ahead and review your case.

 

NataliaatAW has contacted me via the Alienware Club Forum.

Thanks

 

Well after all this and the best Dell could do was send a box and shipping lable so it can go to the repair depot O_O

Video of the issue. The screen blacks out at 4:12 requiring a forced shut down and upon restart no Windows errors displayed.

Alienware M17X R3 Radeon HD 6970 Failure - YouTube

 

I would have never sent it to the depot. After that many attempts they should have replaced your machine with a new unit. End of story. Email the Dell Board of Directors here: [email protected]

 

So you had no blackouts after clean installation, but GPU overheating?

 

I had the same exact issue after I swapped from a 460m to my 6990m. My problem was there was black tape on the heatsink and it was preventing the heatsink from making good contact with the new card. if you have the same issue when you get it back, check the heatsink for tape, and if it has any remove it.

 

I am still having the screen blackout problem after the clean install.

I pulled the 6970 and repasted with Prolimatech PK-1 and the max temp I have seen is 68c.

I really do not want to send to the depot and have asked for a replacement but it is falling on deaf ears and the social media rep / tech haneling my case will not even acknowlege me asking for a suitable replacement machine.

I just purchased a new Aurora R4 that arrived 3 days ago that I am thinking of sending because of all the problems I am having just trying to get my M17X sorted out.

I called Alienware tech support again this morning in a last ditch attempt for a better solution than the repair depot and the agent I spoke to says she will submit the request for a replacement system and I will have a response in 48 hours from her.

What I really need is a contact person or a phone call from a Dell rep that has some empowerment and authority so I can discuss my case directly to them!

FYI in every case of the three HD6870's I tried repasting but it seems that they would crap out after a couple of months. This HD6970 completly screwed the macine up from the start!

 

Update!

Today my replacement M17x R4 arrived.

With that said a huge thanks goes out to the Alienware technical support agent I spoke to!

She really listened to all the troubleshooting I had done on my own and with tech support previously and to the list of ongoing problems I had been having with my R3. She then and spend a good amount of time reviewing my past calls, service calls and dispatches. When I expressed my serious reservations about sending my machine to the depot she understood and immediately went the route of requesting the replacement.

So with that said I am also a technical support specialist in the electronics industry and the supervisor of our support team and usually the only feedback we get is from customers that complain about our service. It is rare that someone will send a compliment when they received what they felt to be exemplary service.

So today I plan on sending an email to her, and her managers expressing my thanks for the level of service she provided.

 

Hi JD!

I am having a similar Issue with my R3. When your machine would do this would the audio hang and buzz as well? My laptop does the exact same thing with the black screen and I am getting ready to call tech support over Thanksgiving break. Did the screen go black at random times or at a certain time? Cause then I'd say even though we have different cards (I have a 580m) the problem might be similar.

Thanks!
-Matt

 

Did you try monitoring the temperatures?

 

I am have the same problems with my computer. The audio buzz and the screen goes black and requires a hard boot to reinstall. My thing is for a $4000 computer this should not happen with the many people have a problem. Shouldn't dell call it a factory defect recall and replace all the computers with this problem. With JD they gave him the factory circle jerk until they reallized he was going to raise hell about it and decided to replace his computer to shut him up. I am pissed if cant tell mainly because now that im reading all these different people with problems dell should have called and told us that they were have issues with the M17x R3. Any company that depends on a loyal customer base for repeat buisness would do everything they can to fix issue like this. But instead they make you purchase this ridiculously high insurance policies that which pays for the computer within 2 years and you realize that your getting screwed.

P.S. if a Dell rep wants to email me my email is [email protected] please feel free to do so and if anybody has any way the can fix the problem without getting a new system please email me. My insurance ended 1 month before the problem happened so now i dont know if a can do anything. My computer is only 1 yr 3 months old.