Laptop returning after repair depot.

I have sent my laptop to the depot last week and I have just received it today. Dell has replaced the motherboard after a technician whom came to my door to replace the SLi cable last week fried my motherboard and broke my palm rest.
Problem now that I am observing after receiving the laptop today is the LED monitor slowly dims itself and then gets bright. I notice more of this on the initial boot up on the windows logo showing colors fading and the black background very flat black with low lighting, but when it kicks into the log on screen, the lighting on the LED is bright.

any ideas? Is this a power related problem with the dimming and brightness of the LED screen or a short? My LED screen isn't as bright after repairs and my brightness control is at 100%.

Thanks

 

you can open your system up and check everything is connected properly if your not comfortable opening it up then just call dell back and explain the situation its free if your under warrenty still. dell will send a tech out with a new lcd and if its just a loose connection they will put it back in if not they should replace the lcd and keep going until its resolved so it could be easy or could be a few tech visits.

im from australia and my field tech was really good but dell phone support was shocking dont be afraid to be firm with dell over the phone if the situation is not fixed in a reasonable amount of time i had 5 tech visits over 6 weeks for various issues from my first repair and ended up getting recommended for a replacement by my field tech when nothing improved.

 

Maybe you could try reseating the LCD cable. If that does not work try an external monitor. If it does not show the same issue let me know through a PM and I'll set up another tech visit for you.

 

Another problem I have discovered, my graphics in game are showing black lighting artifacts towards the top horizontal length of the screen, and the games crash where I can't even Ctrl,Alt,Delete to get to my desktop. I can hear the game in the background, but no controls for mouse or keyboard. I had to do a hard- reboot and restart the computer. The system was running for about 1 hour.
Game played was World of Warcraft MoP.
I ran FRAPS and noticed also the FPS were bottlenecked at 50fps, when I used to get 130fps...it sometimes will immediately jump to 99fps for a split second, then jumps down to a halt at 50fps. Something is not right after repairs from the depot.
I has used my HDMI cable to see whether the brightness (dimming, not white LED screen and found the brightness on my TV was the same as for the laptop.
Lifting up the keyboard on my rig, I noticed a small impact hole in the sli cable. The appearance of the SLi cable would appear to be a pitch point or as if someone applied pressure with a nail is the best to describe the anomaly.
The temps on the CPU and GPU are around 74c after 1hour of game play.

Once again, I have a demon in my laptop and feel this is going to be another nightmare after a full system replacement.

Please help.

 

Sucks. Was it new or refurbished. Replacement

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 2

 

Most of us went more or less through these kind of problems. Porras already replied to you and as you can see they are very devoted and willing to help you to solve your issue. I had 3 motherboards replaced, several cables etc. but in the end, once the machine was working as it should have from the beginning, never had any further issues.

This always happens with high end machines (notebooks or desktops), knowing that there are so many parts that have to function normal and also to be fixed the correct way. Sometimes things happen during the 'built' of the machine. For example, in my office when they have troubleshooting with the computers, the minute I reach to them to 'fix' the problem, everything works perfect. I know that my example does not make too much sense but, work towards fixing it and do not return / replace the system (replacing may not solve your problem and returning will make you regret in time and miss it most of all).

Best of luck and please do not give up!

 

I am loving this kind of blitz response. Not my problem, yet still this is appreciated.

 

I have sent a PM, but no response

 

Enough is enough with disregarding my concerns and problems after sending my laptop to the DELL repair depot. This is a system replacement that was ruined by a technician supplied by DELL which again fried my motherboard.
Upon receiving my rig, I am still with low power on brightness on LED screen with graphical issues.
I have plugged my laptop to my HDTV and the brightness image displays the same. Something terrible has gone wrong with benching my laptop at the DELL repair depot. How can this have past Q/C?
My suggestions is there is a voltage issue with the board which there isn't enough power going to the LED monitor and causing graphical issues and over-heating.
My SLi is disabled, but shows it isn't. I have changed drivers and the same problems are there.
My request for support by AW representatives have been ignored with no solutions or follow ups. This is not professional in anyway, especially after I went through 3 months of pain from the first laptop before replacement.

What does a person do? I am at my breaking point.

 

HA, don't get me started on the service depot and my m18...

started my service call for dvd drive replacement, on the 16th of january, tech refused to send parts only, later that day my gpu fried (red vertical stripes),
called back on the 17th to start a new service call and agreed to sent to depot, box arrived by 18th and i shipped it back out,
received it back on the 23rd, worked, re-installed the HD, installed and updated everything, 3 hours later it wont start and does 5 beep, and 8 beep with no bios options...
(this was a great service depot call very fast 5 work days).

called on the 24th, they want another service depot, i agree and send it with a new fresh HD... but no package arrives, i call them back on the 29th, and they got my postal code wrong (T2A NOT T28....) so they send another box that i received and send back out on the 30th.
according to dell my computer was done on the 1st, shipped on the 4th, and now i noticed today (7th) there needs to be a address correction made before the package can be delivered...
so i call alienware, and the postal code is WRONG AGAIN! ( T2A NOT T28!!!!), and now i get to wait till tomorrow to see if my m18 is still in mint working order...!

 

Why not push for in home repair?

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 2

 

aint much worse then mine i sent it in for a list of things and i check my status today on the depot tool and it says they will contact u dell tech is unable to gain acess to my computer im sitting here ummm i sent it with out the hard drive and my mother board was junk with no bios password. so if they replaced the mother board with a refurbed one hmmmm bios is on the motherboard maybe someone elses password im sitting here like umm if it dont have a hard drive and umm my motherboard was junk then what else could it be... such fun having my 1 month old replacement in for the second time in 2 weeks

 

Here lays the problem.

The whole reason I sent my laptop to the repair depot is because of DELL's subcontracting to UNIX to replace my GPU's, Heat Sink and SLi cable from last week. The technician from DELL who came to my house ruined my laptop by damaging the palm rest and motherboard. My problem before the at home repair with technician was having severe red flickering on my graphics while SLi was enabled.
I didn't have any issues besides the red flickering of gaming when SLi was enabled. If I disabled the SLi, my games work perfectly.
DELL tech support suggested to replace both the GPU's, Heat Sink and SLi cable.

The technician whom came to my house door told me he had never worked on Alienwares and he just started with UNIX that day. During the dissembling of the M18, the tech kept getting text messages from his IPhone and I asked him if that was DELL talking to him, and the tech said, no, it was his girlfriend and they were going through some problems in real life.
I am thinking to myself..great, I have a non-experience technician working on my laptop replacing parts on a system he has never worked on, and in the process of this, he is too busy text messaging his girlfriend and NOT FOCUSED on the job. Once the technician was finished installing the parts, he forgot to put in the SLi cable after I reminded him he had forgotten it. He laughed and said, he made a mistake and replaced the SLi cable.

finally, when the system was put together from the technician, he powered it up and 7 loud beeps were continuing over and over. He powerd it down and took everything apart and then broke the left hinge of my palm rest and broke a connector on the motherboard. The technician at this time was frustrated and called DELL support to help with the reoccurring 7 beeps and when DELL asked him for his contract number from UNIX, he said he didn't have one and that he just started.

My conclusion to this story is, I had a computer that ran perfectly except for the red flickering from the graphics and then a tech comes to replace parts that he can't install or even have experience where I had to ship it to DELL's repair depot.
I received the laptop yesterday from repairs to find the LED monitor power brightness is not bright, but a dull light off-white color and now find other problems with the system.

This is really frustrating to spend $3500.00 on a nice system and have 3 months of problems for a system replacement, and now dealing with this over and over. I am a supporter for DELL products ever since the year 2001.

Please help me resolve this.

Thank You

 

i pushed for it, but the call tech refused. i have 6 bad service tech's come to my place and fiddle around with my 17 r2 and my m18.

 

Glad I never had techs like the ones everyone else seems to get on here.

Op. It could be the gpus grounding out....speculation of course.

 

PM`ed OP ...good luck

For the record ...the DELL tech that came home , managed to break my system too but ever since it came back from the DEPOT .....with new SLI cards ..its been perfect.

 

well i got my m18 back today, everything is perfect other than they scratched my screen (have parts only service for this), i think i have to do a repaste because everything idles at 52-60, but i am happy! :thumbsup:

 

Good to hear minus the scratch, what was originally wrong with the system?

 

dvd drive did not work anymore, got the motherboard replaced for the sticky spdif port. and the lights and buttons on the keyboard surround were not working.

edit:
the rep that was helping me called me back tonight instead of tomorrow, and now i have a screen on the way by monday, another reason why Dell's warranty is so good:thumbsup: