Peeling palmrest on my Alienware 17.......

I was rather cheesed off the other evening to discover the soft-touch coating has degraded on the corner of my 17, after 8 months!

As I said to Dell Support, this is a laptop that is cossetted, stays in one place and is used with external mouse etc, I believe the term 'desk queen' could be appropriate....

I'm an old bloke who looks after his stuff, and quite I'm annoyed about this, when I sold my last laptop at five years old (Dell Precision M6500, second-hand mint condition purchase at two years old) it was as the day the box was opened.

Anyway, there were no arguments, a tech will be coming to fit a new palmrest at my convenience next week; what I am curious to know is as this issue has been raised hereabouts by a few people if Dell have improved the coating on recent builds, or will I be sobbing acid tears again in another eight months?

It does make an extended warranty seem more tempting.......

How many here have had this issue?

Regards

Dave

 

You can buy a replacement palm rest on eBay or from Parts-People. You should still have a few months of warranty left if it's only 8 months old.

 

I am having it replaced under warranty J.Dre; Dell Support didn't quibble about that - what do you think about the Alienware extended warranties, is it the same as regular Dell? I had three years on my previous laptop (Dell Precision) and used them twice - they were subcontractors but seemed pretty well trained and effective.......

 

Mine is peeling all over the damn place as well. Corners or the palm rest, middle of the edge on the palm rest and the top of the screen in the middle and on both corners.

Quite obviously there is a flaw in the coating but as I have just under a year of warranty left I have not gotten to bent out of shape about it. I will phone them at some point and have them ship me some replacement parts prior to warranty expiring.

The last contractor they had come do work on mine will never touch my laptop again haha...he was terrible.

 

That's good. They should replace it. You are entitled to that in accordance to their warranty. :thumbsup:

I think extending the warranty is a great idea, but a much better idea at the time of purchase. Extending the warranty after the fact is costly.

 

I believe it's considered cosmetic as it does not affect performance and may not be covered by the regular hardware warranty, however there are exceptions that could be done by the support team.

 

And today the 'trained technician' came to call......

Aside from leaving a screw in the palmrest adjacent to the power button which stripped one of the brass inserts from the old palmrest, he failed to notice this, and spent the next two-hours-plus wondering why the new one wouldn't fit!

It was me that noticed the brass thing, and by this time, after several attempts and two phone calls to Alienware support he had compounded this catalogue of errors by using the wrong length screws to fit the palmrest, the result being graphically demonstrated in the picture above.

Having now lost a half day that I could have spent far more usefully, I stand to lose another half day tomorrow when a new palmrest is to be fitted.

@ Alienware-L_Porras Now THATS what you call cosmetic....... Your comments are eagerly awaited - what is Alienware policy on damaging customers laptops and wasting their time please?

I am so pissed off words fail me

 

why don't you use an extra mouse pad to cover it up when it isn't blistering? might not sound like fun but still,it's what I do on my m17x (since it gets sweaty fast).

 

Not sure I understand you 100% there durpflip when not in use the laptop is covered with a large microfiber cloth - I think once the replacement replacement palmrest (two 'replacement' as it will be the second one) I'll not be using the thing without surgical gloves, and probably a mask too........

 

Even more worrying is that since the guy threw the system back together I have had two critical error reboots; with no bugcheck info; guess I should do the preboot check and see if it highlights anything.

Getting really angry about this whole thing now

 

Hmm, yet another case in which I strongly urge people to do the repair themselves! Hopefully you get this sorted out.

Ask them to send you a replacement palm rest next time. :thumbsup: The replacement process isn't that difficult.

 

Wish I had done that initially J.Dre, I've just run the ePSA check and nothing showing up there so I think I will get onto Dell and escalate this - as you say it is not a complex process and I did all my own surgery on the Precisions I owned previously - there was very little of the original hardware by the time I passed it on, CPU, GPU, drives memory all changed with no drama!

I'll know next time!

Just going to drop Support a quick mail, a heads-up on todays debacle.

 

yeah sorry I didn't explain that properly. what I meant was taking a mouse pad and putting it where you'd normally put your wrist on when you use it.

 

gotcha! I use an external mouse anyway; I think I have only used the touchpad once on the day I got it, just to see the pretty colours - the novelty wore off quicker that the rubber coating!

The coating degradation appeared to be like a burst blister rather than wear - and my hands are quite dry - unlike my wifes, who uses all sorts of potions and unguents on her claws, her keyboard on the little netbook she has for work stuff looks like it has suffered a chemical attack, and she washes her hand thoroughly before opening her precious MacBook Air!

I've not had a response from Dell Support yet - I have suggested that they consider the two wasted mornings I have had, and as I have now had three unexplained restarts I will see what they say.

If they ask me what I want, how about a shiny new GTX980M and a free extended warranty? Yeah I know, keep taking the medication......... I think the least they should do is extend the warranty for a year as there's been no similar issues until their semi-trained butcher touched it.

I've no confidence in the support system after this and should have any further grief I will get them to send components for me to fit myself if Dell UK do that

 

I hear you, I'm sorry you went through that issue with one of our field techs. Send me your Service Tag on a PM and I'll escalate the case internally. I would like to send another tech (they are a 3rd party but we can choose to send a different one) so he can fix that issue with the palmrest. What's the other issue you mention? A BSOD¿?

 

@ Alienware-L_Porras, thanks for responding; the crash was a spontaneous reboot, Event ID41, Kernel-Power, bugcheck code info below:

- System

- Provider

[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
[ Guid] {331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}

EventID 41

Version 2

Level 1

Task 63

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x8000000000000002

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2014-09-25T12:06:58.481203500Z

EventRecordID 4927263

Correlation

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 4
[ ThreadID] 8

Channel System

Computer Stasi-Central

- Security

[ UserID] S-1-5-18


- EventData

BugcheckCode 0
BugcheckParameter1 0x0
BugcheckParameter2 0x0
BugcheckParameter3 0x0
BugcheckParameter4 0x0
SleepInProgress false
PowerButtonTimestamp 0

and

+ System

- Provider

[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
[ Guid] {331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}

EventID 41

Version 2

Level 1

Task 63

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x8000000000000002

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2014-09-25T13:44:45.008408000Z

EventRecordID 4927514

Correlation

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 4
[ ThreadID] 8

Channel System

Computer Stasi-Central

- Security

[ UserID] S-1-5-18


- EventData

BugcheckCode 0
BugcheckParameter1 0x0
BugcheckParameter2 0x0
BugcheckParameter3 0x0
BugcheckParameter4 0x0
SleepInProgress false
PowerButtonTimestamp 0


I will PM you my Service Tag, but if it's not possible to redirect the call-out for tomorrow I'm not available until next week, and on that basis with some reluctance I will have the call back arranged for tomorrow.

Do you think you can sort anything at such short notice?

Thanks

Dave

 

Regardless of whether it affects performance or not, in some cases like mine where it is peeling in areas where the machine never even gets touched that is quite obviously a defect so it should be covered. Just my 2 cents.

 

Again i want to ask did they fix the issue or is it the same 1 year ago same material ?

 

Well mine was replaced; once on Thursday when the tech managed to use the wrong length screws, dropped one on the carpet (omitting to mention that, or replacing the dropped screw!) and stripped a brass insert from the old palmrest. Two critical error crashes later, and the following day, the second replacement palmrest was fitted. semi-successfully. Noticed that the sides were not properly clicked into place after the guy had left , so pushed in properly myself. Also had the flashing coloured screens thing twice since this sorry episode and have only 30 days warranty left - I think that as a recognition that the service was utterly below par and resulted in damage to my system and unexplained crashes and failures to boot that the LEAST they should do is expend the warranty FOC.

The replacement item looks and feels exactly as the original but hope that the quality of the coating has been improved.....

Still no response from you Alienware-L_Porras, I PM'd my service tag the other day.......

 

Just gets better and better; see my video - link below.....

DVD player has now packed up, cables attached on DVD drive and on Mobo, but who knows?

Coincidence or another legacy of the imbecile techs quality work...?

Getting REALLY upset about this whole thing!


View My Video

 

It is like something is in the way.....

Worst case scenario have Alienware ship you a new DVD drive, they are super easy to change on this model. But either way it shouldn't be happening. I know this will sound stupid but are you sure there isn't already something in there.

 

Sorry for taking that much, I was out through the weekend and just came back. I'll check it today and continue to work with you over the PM's.

 

I double-checked that there is no objects in the drive with a penlight when I reset the cables, nothing hiding in there!

 

Thanks Alienware-L_Porras, I've just PM'd you the Support Request Number so hopefully you will be able to do something

Regards

D.