Did you receive your machine as it was ordered / expected?

that sucks, what are you going to do? buy another 18x with nvidia later on or go sager?

 

I got same great deal as you. $200 more for 6970m CF with 8GB ram+500GB hybrid HDD. Now Dell canada rises the price. I don't think they will have the same kind of deal again. I am questioning myself "Should I call back to stop refund for another replacement?"

 

Sorry for your troubles. You did the right thing. I have seen by myself a first hand machine just arrrived to office and that obviously was already used by someone... and well used to say the least... Even without any camouflage of "reburbishing" signs... besides scratches in the box and all over the laptop, there were fingertips all over and inside, good for a C.I.S. job... Someone put some thermal compound on the GPU doing a really very dirty job... My recomendation to the buyer was to return it inmediatedly. There is no other way...

Again, a "Total Quality Assurance Control" would avoid this things from happen... and reduce costs to the industry and to the buyers...

 

i ended up paying $3080 after taxes for mine, was an absolute amazing deal. ill never give it back to dell. for your case id keep it and find a way to get the screen replaced through tech support. depending on where the scratches are you can get the keyboard/palmrest/control buttons replaced individually as well.

 

Can Chinese production and quality control be used in the same sentence? You're a teacher, you tell me haha

 

I voted yes, but i did not get RAID 0 setup as i wanted. Everything else is in perfect working condition, and i even got it a week earlier than expected, which is more than enough to make me happy!

 

Well, besides the RAID issue, it seems that you recieve what you order so, congratulations. Hope that with the help of the kind people in this forum you will install your RAID in no time. Cheers!

As far as I have saw, many ahev the same issue with the ordered RAID...

 

yep, thats exactly what i am doing right now!
And yes my system was perfectly fine and i love it, so smooth and slick. Looks like a stealth bomber!

 

I was invited twice to teach in China (96 and 97), and I can assure you that they can make any thing you think about and with total quality too... of course at a price...

 

I'm agree with you , I guess dell doesn't pay China's workers enough , but I'm sure that dell's manager who works in China should double check all the system first before they ship out , I have no idea what they doing during the product in "production". For my m17x-R2 I have no problem with the system , its been so far so good but missed a window cd , they still ship it to me when i requested.

 

No reason to go for the refund when the original price was so good. I'd go for another replacement. No reason not to at this point!

 

A Total Quality Control and Total Quality Assurance systems never depends on one manager or 2 or 3 people... Is a whole conceptual systems that start at the very begining of the design of a product. The whole process involve 'checking' steps at the different production / assembling stations.

The fact is that all the researchs regarding TQM and TQA have supply enough evidence (worldwide) of the great saving (and other benefits) of a TQM / TQA in the productions / assembling / selling of products. Specially in complex products were the amount of potential failures of single parts can affect the whole product (and the product / returns / post sell services / brand image / net benefits / etc.).

 

I am extremely happy with my m18x, but I must say that right out of the box, I was very upset. I had to take apart the keyboard to fix a spacebar issue. A customer should never have to do anything like this especially when you first receive what you purchase.

I have to say no.

 

So far so good with mine. A very minor cosmetic blemish on the top but nothing that I'll be wringing my hands and gnashing my teeth over. Performance has been outstanding so far - this thing absolutely chews up games.

 

I finally fixed the RAID 0 issue, and now im lovin my beast. I just bought a notepal u3, and modified the the fans with more powerful ones, and this thing is so cool now...Battlefield 3 here i come!!

 

Pictures! pictures! pictures!... (wich fans did you use?)

Yeah, maybe it's off topic... shame on me! (but you can put them in the "*OFFICIAL* M18x Owner's Lounge Thread" or in the "M18x Makes Landfall! Pictures, Videos, Unboxing Thoughts, etc. Share away! thread" )

 

I want to know what screwdriver he used!! (not really)

Actually, I was wondering what cooling mat people used myself. Tell you what, I'll post that as a new topic

 

After I requested refund for one week, they sent me an email today to offer me $100 refund to my original payment if I accept one more replacement. M18X. I still like M18X.....so....M18X...I am back again~

 

Nooo...the m18x is not like the m17x's Black anymore...(Sad , but still acceptable)

 

Mike, do you mind me asking what spec you actually went for?

 

You all know what? I'm just happy, truly happy, that since the 06/27 (8 days) we do not have hear of anymore complains / disappointments "right-out-of-the-box"... Maybe (just maybe) at the D(h)ell's "area51" someone in control of production/boxing has started listening to the aliens here? ( it costs nothing to dream a bit...)

 

As with many other people, I ordered mine to come in Raid 0 which it did not come configured with.

Not too fussed, but it seems to be a common occurance.

Other than that, everything else seems great

 

First: Cheers on your new baby!. I'm sure you will find the way to set up the Raid...

Second: So, it comes or it comes not as you ordered?

 

Whoops, it's early, so I didn't finish my sentence

No, it did not technically come as ordered.

 

Wow!! The poll resullts are neck & neck. Somebody needs to get fired with these type of results.

 

...and... did you add your vote?

Even if the votes seems to be neck to neck... this is not a competition.

My hope is that at some moment, the satisfied people will be at least 99% and just only (no more, please) of 1% will be dissapointed with what they get just "out-of-the-box". I BELIEVE THAT DELL/AW CAN DO IT!!!

Then I will feel that this kind of polls (and other similars over the web) will have a positive-constructive influence in the quality control of the parts, the manufacturing processes, the boxing and all the etceteras we can imagine. We are talking here about the "Bentley" and "Bugatti" of the laptops.

 

I most certainly did

 

Because of a message board forum poll? Hah!

 

yup

 

I also received mine without the raid 0 configuration, which wasn't a big deal, except that I made it worse by calling customer service instead of fixing it then and there. I am not completely helpless when it comes to computer setup, but I thought that it would be better to involve a professional so I could get that nice safety net feeling. Instead I spent about a half an hour trying to convince the rep that my system was non-raid. He finally agreed though, and it is now zipping along in raid 0.

They totally redeemed themselves with my keyboard issue though. The W key did not function, which I found funny for a gaming laptop. They arranged for a local technician to come to my house and replace the keyboard two days later.

I voted no, but now that everything works properly I love the m18x.

 

Dear ShadyLady: No reason to not feel satisfied and happy (or "in love") with your rig.
The only thing that was asked in this poll is if "out-of-the-box" the machine comes as you ordered / expected. If you don't and you answer "no" then you're totally right.

 

i changed my mind , I got dead pixel , but they gave me replacement , we will see what happen with the new machine.

 

I voted no, I received the m18x as a replacement for the m17x R2 that they couldn't fix. The replacement didn't work right out of the box, some of the issues I fixed by doing a fresh install but the issue with freezing, hanging and not shutting down correctly so they said they would replace the video cards, mainboard, cpu, memory, fans and back cover (they would not do a replacement) after they replaced all the parts except for the mainboard and back cover the system was worse, the video cards were overheating and the system was shutting down, also when I ran the 3dmark tests the scores were 1/2 of what I was getting before so I called tech support again and was told to send it to their depot for repair. I got my system back today and guess what it still doesn't work, the only thing they fixed was one of the fans so at least it isn't shutting down but the video stutters, the tests still don't run properly, so now I am going into 4 months without a working computer.

I don't know what kind of testing that they do before they send the systems out but it isn't done properly.

 

Not gonna happen. Ever.

 

you're right. it's all good with me. i spent 1900.00USD for my config. at that price they can afford a few mistakes from the factory. it seems we have a very similar rig.
I'd hate to see what yours look like inside with all the fun happening over at the assembly plant, lol.

How much did you spend on your rig?

 

Happy customer here, I received mine yesterday and everything seems in perfect working order. I did some benchmarking and played a few hours of Crysis 2 on it without a problem.
The only thing missing is the RAID0, but I think I'll leave that as is.

 

Voted No.

Ordered with RAID0 config but received it as 2 seperate drives. Reinstalling OS and drivers now. No biggy imo, but they shouldn't advertise that option if they do not install it.

 

For the base config it was around $4500. But that was all spent via a credit from a refund on my dead M17x-R2. For the SSD, HDD, RAM & cooler upgrades it around another $800-$900.

Had I not had the refund credit I would probably gone with the 2720 processor but my original machine had the extreme so the money was already there.

 

Interesting. Not only do you have the same config, but also have gone through a malfunctioning R2.

Knowing up front how bad Alienware/Dell's QC is, has made this ordeal easier for me. I have also learned how to properly dismantle/re-assemble a R2/M18x in less then 30 minutes.

But for those who are less tech savy I shuder to think about all the hoops involved to get a replacement/POS(parts only service), on-site tech or RMA/Depot.

Regardless on how much a customer spends, as customers I think we are owed a good look over before our units leave the factory.


Congrats on the upgrade from R2 to M18x.

 

Well my laptop freezes and reboots after playing Rift or WoW (like these are killer 3D games) after 3 or so minutes of playing. Just updating RIFT causes one GPU to go to 100C. Something is not right. Good thing I was going to order the 580s. Now I might just get it in the 17xR3

 

Going from the awesomeness of the M18x to a R3 has got to be difficult.

 

I'm probably going to put in an order for a 18x with the 580s tomorrow.

 

You should wait an see price/specs of AMD's 6990M.

 

Should but I need to order like yesterday.

I've been down to an android phone and an Ipad since mid June.

Edit: and my first experience with AMD hasn't been all that great.

 

My M17x-R2 was actually working great. The Blu-ray drive crapped out after about 7 months which wasn't a big deal. The tech that came to my house to fix it fat-fingered the unit to death when he had it open. Ripped some wires and broke a few other things. Wouldn't even power up after he left the apartment. Took many months to actually get the refund but I'm ultimately quite pleased with Dell.

 

My 2nd & 3rd R2 were damaged by an on-site's lack of experience. Hardware wise, the R2 was perfect. I do miss my IR port and brightness of the RGB LED. The only hardware issue I've ever really had from an R2 was gpu/crossfire related. On the other hand, the M18x has been a "out of the box" nightmare. Luckly they sent me all new parts to address 3 stuck pixels and troubleshoot a damaged pin connector on one of the gpu's causing hanging in the bios. At times, I would have rather shoot myself in the face instead of doing the wok myself & dealing with AW/Dell tech for parts. The funny thing is once I got the hardware perfect they sent me a brand new unit out of nowhere. Go figure.

 

__________

 

"I installed my own memory, SSD and clean install. None of which I had ever done before. First, the SSD is a Crucial M4, which if you do not disable the LPM it crashes or locks about every 30 seconds or so, its pretty unbearable. "

Hey doc0075579,

How did you disable the LPM?

 

I voted NO. I received mine like 4 days ago. There was some bugs with windows and the IGP driver wasn't installed, so I reinstalled Windows 7. After that, I noticed that Dell's driver are almost all out dated... So I reinstalled windows again with up dated drivers. It was a pain in the *ss to get lastest ati driver, because it wasn't detecting my hardware.

But for now, I LOVE my m18x everything is working fine (excepting that when I just close my screen and reopen it, my macro keys just crash).

I got a great 3dmark 11 score ( Link) without any OC

I just hate to read people that get a free GPU replacement when I paid almost the same price for less performance.

But overall, I am satisfied!

Edit: Sorry for my bad english

 

Arrived as expected, yes. But just over a month into ownership I have a dud graphics card, Ethernet and wifi with possible motherboard issues.

I've opened a thread on it, having been through technical to understand the problem. I'm asking for a replacement due to multiple issues on a new pc, so far they want to offer an engineer to replace parts - well there is alot to replace in a new pc, so I am seeking a replacement. An interesting read - any advice appreciated.