*OFFICIAL* M18x R1/R2 Owner's Lounge Thread

It's ok, that is the first thing I looked for. I can't find where it says the type but I wouldn't buy a scratch and dent, and I'm almost 100% positive I bought a refurbished unit.

Finally got to someone in dell, couldn't help me, and the refurb support is closed already. Hopefully they will call me in the morning. I am planning on getting them to give me a replacement palmrest and lower chassis. But it concerns me, that dent is pretty serious, it makes me nervous that the motherboard got jostled hard. I have don't have time as it is, and now I will need to rebuild the laptop. My newborn son keeps me busy. LOL

Does dell take forever to issue a refund?

 

I do quite a volume with Dell Outlet...I don't usually have problems getting things taken care of. Sorry you're having issues. But, in the past, when a "certified refurbished" showed up scratched and dented, returning it (or getting an exchange unit) is a definite option. If you like the deal you got, push for an exchange.
They will send you AT LEAST what you have now, and many times you'll wind up with something nicer. Let them know what aspects are important (RED color, for instance) so they have some criteria to help pick a unit you will be happy with.

Refunds generally happen quickly, once Dell receives back the defective unit. They quote "up to 30 days" but they send me follow up emails and phone calls letting me know the credit has been applied shortly after the unit is received.

My M18xR2 I have now I got from the Outlet 3 weeks ago (or so), and initially it looked practically perfect. Now, I am noticing the red paint has been worn off on the front edges. Paint issues are not acceptable in Certified Refurbished, but too late now!

Good luck.

 

They tell you it may take up to 30 days after they receive the return, but it usually takes 7 - 10 business days (assuming all is well). I've returned a couple laptops and they've all had issues with the refund. The longest I've had to wait was three weeks. You will be assigned a case specialist and he will say he'll email you with updates, but they rarely do. I'm sure they're handling dozens of cases similar to yours and they won't remember to email you back. You have to be proactive with Dell. I'm hoping this changes, now that Michael Dell bought it back.

 

what numbers do you call? I keep getting the wrong people.

Ideally I want the parts to replace it and maybe a bit of a refund for the inconvenience of having to repair it myself, or a replacement with similar spec. Lots of what is on the outlet now is mostly lower end cpus and gpus for the same or more money. I liked that mine had a 3820QM and 8gb of ram (I have 4 left from an older m18x I had so I will have 12 total).

Problem is I don't use this rig like its meant, I just really like the screen size. A single GPU config that would save me a few hundred more dollars would be great. But those configs aren't really on the outlet right now. I got the laptop in my sig for less than $1500, and most of the lower end single gpu configs come down to the same dollar amount so I don't want to give this one up. Though I would take a cpu downgrade for a pair of 680ms. LOL

All I really want is a non dented laptop!

So far the people I have spoken to have been nice, but they don't seem to be able to help me!

Edit*** you know this laptop isn't nearly in as good a shape as my other refurbished ones... this is really disappointing. It just doesn't feel as clean as my old ones, and both were used refurbs when I got them!

The finish around the ports are faded. There are finger prints on it. White spots. And dust on the bottom cover. Not to mention scratches on the top lid... ughh

 

So, they have offered me an identical specification laptop but will take 10-15 days to arrive, until then I keep this one and return it when I get the new one. Does this seem reasonable to you guys?

 

Seems reasonable. However, did you try to get any *free* upgrades?

 

It took so long on hold I ran out of time as I am at work. The rep initially offered me $75 then $100 off to keep it. But didn't offer the replacement parts as well. No other form of compensation was offered. I just hope the next one arrives operational and not damaged.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

 

Yeah, sounds fantastic to me... what's not to love about that deal? It would have been better to not send out a severely damaged system in the first place, but hey... stuff happens sometimes. You get to keep using what you have until the replacement arrives. No need for freebies... you won't get that level of service or support from Dell's competitors so this is a gift in and of itself.

 

Thats what I figured, I got what I paid for, even if its going to take a few weeks. it would have been nice if they offered me the $75 off or something in addition to the replacement unit. But i'll take it. I hope it comes in and works properly!

 

Ok Update with a bit more information.

The game intially worked and I was 13.11s beta 9.5s
Then we had the first update and I kept losing sound but it would be like the sound had half gone and what was left sounded like a very old 78 record, very crackly
Then I changed drivers and it worked again and then we had another update and I got a lot of flickering in game on objects that were in the distance and after being in game for about 1 minute sound would go totally
Tonight I am trying 13.9s out of desperation.
I have now lost count of how many times I have been through safe mode with driver cleaner.net and CC lol

Has anyone got a decent driver for my rig based on my sig please for BF4 as I really would like to play this game a lot

 

Can someone explain to me why cat control centre is missing from lots of drivers i download?

 

Well I have tried no less than ten different drivers to play Bf4. I have unparked my cores, set affinity. Done the user.cfg trick and I still get flickering in game and terrain in the distance is a muddy brown with no textures on it.

Last night I came across a thread where people were having issues with Sli on Nvidia cards and I thought what the hell so I disabled crossfire and went onto one card an et voila all works fine ROFL. Even with all my in game video settings on ultra I can play on one card so although not ideal I can at least play BF4 this way. I am surprised I can play on ultra on only one 7970 mind you.

 

HAVE SOMEWHAT FIXED THE PROBLEM, BUT DONT KNOW WHAT CAUSED IT... PLEASE SEE MY NEXT POST..

Hey guys,

Ok so I have a big problem now. I wanted to restore my m18x from the backup I created from alienrespawn..I've created 4 backups over some time just to be safe.... Ok so I deleted all partitions from both ssds and restored to factory default, but it kept installing Windows on the ssd I wanted to keep for storage, so I repeated about 5 or 6 times trying something different and so now when I restore it shows bootmgr is missing...I can't go to f8 menu cuz don't have win7 CD as travelling... Also doesn't the restore to factory default formats the drive before restoring if u choose the right option so why is it now showing bootmgr missing? Cuz I think if it formats the ssd before restoring then I don't need to go to f8 to format? Maybe I'm wrong please help.. Anyway just ordered another ssd... Will try to take out one ssd nd try reinstalling tomorrow.. Thanks

Btw just an idea I ran the diagnostic and it showed an error for the ssd where its installing win7... maybe the partition is corrupted and I need to delete it to fix at its not fixing if RECOVERY is formatting it..

Can it be something other than the ssd, cuz if it is then I'm in trouble

Lesson to be learnt here.... so stupid of me to play with the ssd

 

Further to my last post have managed to fix the problem. Took out the drive (OCZ Vertex 4) which was causing the problem, installed the factory win 7 on the other drive (Samsung PM810) and then installed the faulty drive back.... Ran DiskPart used the CLEAN command, created partition and formatted the drive.... Ran alien autopsy short hdd scan and the results were 'SMART Short Self Test' timed out And 'SMART wear level test' could not be run..... From what I recall im pretty sure I had the same results before aswell but not 100% sure....

ANY IDEAS WHY ALIEN RESPWAN COULDNT RESTORE ON MY OCZ??????

 

If the OCZ SSD is a smaller capacity than the original drive that Windows 7 and AlienRespawn was installed to from the factory it will never work correctly. Respawn will only restore an OS to a drive of equal or greater capacity as the original. It is not designed to resize down to a smaller drive. It is really only intended to be a factory restore option and not a disk imaging program. As such, it's not well suited for migrating an existing Windows installation to a different drive configuration.

 

Thanks Mr. Fox,,,,

I think Dell should fix this problem if your correct and have checked thoroughly and it is something to do with OCZ and Alien Respawn although the size is the same 256gb. Anyway just installed 2x Samsung 840 pro... (ITS A BEAST)

Going to sell the old ssd...

But respawn did correctly install windows on the OCZ drive, but I was experimenting with OCZ in disk part as I didn't want to install Win7 on that drive, so I think after I messed up its partition or something respawn just couldn't install it on the OCZ. After that I havnt had the chance to reset the drive's partition etc as just installed the new ones...

 

Merry Christmas everyone!!

 

Has anyone tried 4 x 8GB (32GB total) of 2133Mhz Corsair RAM? I think these might be new as I don't recall 8GB 2133Mhz modules before.

Amazon.com: Corsair Vengeance Performance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3L 2133MHz CL11 Laptop Memory Kit (CMSX16GX3M2B2133C11): Computers & Accessories

A little pricey, but not much more than 1866Mhz 8GB modules.

These look to be 1.35V modules. Wasn't sure if the system could handle 4 modules of this speed or not.

Thanks!

 

Hi all, sorry to post on this thread but i am a new member and don't know anything about Alienware laptops, i did want to open my own new thread but couldn't for some reason? could someone please help me i brought a Alienware M18x R2 laptop from a so called friend, when i got it home i noticed it only had a 32gb hard drive and was almost full, having looked inside the hard drives where gone along with the caddy and HDD connector cable and most of the Ram. i have brought a Caddy and ram and new 750gb HD, but cant find the HDD connector cable,i did buy one from ebay but after waiting 4 weeks its just gone missing can anybody please help me out? Thank-you sorry to post on here

 

Hi tonyboy60. Welcome to NBR. We're glad to have you here. I moved your post to the Owner's Lounge because it is more fitting in this thread.

The part you need is called the SATA interposer. The part number is M9T51. You can order this from Dell Spare parts or from other vendors on the internet. They are expensive and generally overpriced from most aftermarket suppliers and I recommend ordering it from Dell if stock is available.

You can get it from PCHub.com for less than most. This vendor is reliable, but slow. Expect 2 to 3 weeks from order to delivery.

Dell Alienware M18x R2 HDD Caddy / Adapter | PCHub.com - $41.82

 

Thankyou for your help i have seen PCHud they are out of stock i could not find the spare part details with DELL, could you please send me the link? sorry to be a pain. Thankyou

 

Also the connector on the mother board that the Hard drive cable plugs into doesn't have the white clip on it, he must have taken that aswell? can i buy one of them or could i get around that using something else please/ Thankyou

 

That is bad, you need that cable to keep the ribbon in place, if it is not floating around inside the laptop you're in trouble. I think people have tried to find that part in the past with no luck. You might need to get creative in finding something that fits and hold the ribbon in place. Or just use the msata drive instead. Personally, I would try to get my money back. That seems like a bum deal.


On another note, I got confirmation that dell has a new laptop in process for me...

3840qm
16gb ram
3x256gb ssds
Killer nic
7970s in crossfire.
And I couldn't tell, but I think it might be red. Big upgrade from my 3820qm with 8gb ram, 7970ms and 500gb HDD with 30gb cache drive. I'll take it!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

ok Thanks the so called friend has just disappeared now,so money back is not a option, the laptop is in A1 condition and has a Intel R (TM) i7-3630QM [email protected] 2.40GHz and GPU is a NVIDIA GeForce GTX660M, 12gb of Ram, 750gb H-drive,Warranty runs out on the 28/04/2015 killer network card might just sell it on for someone else to fix? any ideas where and how much to ask please?

 

There is a Market place thread you can ask this question and get the best response. Your post count needs to be 50 and have a NBR membership start date of at least 3 months I believe. You should be able to ask how much you can get I would think.

 

Thankyou so much for your help, you are right i can not post anything? would you know anybody that may be interested please? it works 100% just needs the HD connector cable which still may turn up yet?

 

For the right price I'm sure most of us would be interested. Why don't you stick around and we'll help you get up and running.
In the mean time, you should think of a way to let your friend have it ( as in kick his ..)

 

i cant find him his just disappeared i would otherwise, i would like £700 for this is that to much?

 

In the condition you are describing. Yes. Probably. Too much.

But again there is an appraisals section. You need to meet the post and member requirements before posting in there I believe.

Have you tried giving the laptop a shake to see if maybe the plastic retainer clip is inside? If not maybe you could cut an old gift card abd try to get it to hold the ribbon in place? One of my m18xs was like that the clip was broken but as long as I put it in place with the ribbon for the hard drive caddy it held together properly.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

 

The laptop has no marks on it and the only thing missing is the cable connector how about £650?

 

Just a thought, but have you checked if the machine is under warranty? - I know it may not be, but if it is, you might be able to get service on it. You can enter your service tag here Product Selection | Dell UK and go to the warranty tab on the top of the page. If by chance you have warranty, Dell should replace the motherboard for you because they cannot replace the retaining clip as it is not a 'spare' that they keep in stock - period.

If you aren't in warranty, you could always call and see if you could renew for 12mths - it's not unheard of for Dell to do this - if you are lucky, you could then get the repair done for the cost of the new warranty. I've seen that done plenty of times, so it is worth a shot if you did plan on keeping the machine.

 

The OP did say it was under warranty until 2015. Not sure if it is a Dell warranty or not, but since it is under warranty, maybe those parts could be replaced. Not sure if missing parts are considered a warranty repair or not.

BUT, I recently sent in a M18xR1 to Dell for an OUT OF WARRANTY repair. Had a bad 6990M (among other problems). It was a fantastic deal from Dell. They replaced the system board, one 6990M, a couple of cables, and a plastic part for $179 flat fee, and that included shipping both ways. A fantastic deal in my book!

I sent it in with a low-end SSD drive, and they wound up taking out my SSD (they did package it and put it in the box) and put in a HDD for me (for free!). Pretty good service. Whole thing took about 10 days due to a temporary parts stock issue.

 

Of course the missing parts (ram / hdd / caddy) won't be covered, but the MAJOR thing - even thought it's a tiny bit of plastic - is the interposer retainer clip on the motherboard. The only way to get that fixed (without doing a DIY fix) is to replace the Mainboard, which ain't cheap. Hopefully his warranty will be Dell warranty and that should be covered.....

As for the other stuff, grab some new ram, caddy etc and he should be good to go.

 

Would a missing clip be considered a warranty reason to replace the system board? The clip didn't disappear into thin air on it's own, so I would guess Dell would invalidate an in-warranty system board replacement because of negligence.

 

Well, it's broken off and that's why it's missing I imagine. They are extremely flimsy and break very easily. I hear ya regarding negligence, but I've seen boards replaced by Dell before for pretty much the exact same thing - user induced or otherwise. I guess Dell are good like that, eh?

 

Pretty much Dell's call on this one.

The OP can check the status of the Dell warranty by entering the SVC TAG number (on the label on the bottom) into the Dell support site here. That will tell whether it really is under Dell warranty and if so, for how long.

 

Thanks for all your help gents, checked and the ,Warranty runs out on the 28/04/2015, also replaced the Ram, and caddy already.

 

Anyone have an idea about using four 8GB 2133 memory modules?

 

If it does not give problems on the basis of being Corsair Vengeance memory I think it will probably work OK. The track record is a little bit spotty for Vengeance memory. Some have good luck with it and others have not. I'm not sure what Corsair is doing (or not doing) to their memory modules to cause them to be so inconsistent. I don't know of anyone that has ordered 4 sticks of it yet. For most users spending $400 or more on memory is not going to be good bang for the buck, but it might be useful for someone that needs massive amounts of memory. As far as I know, the only person that has ordered this new memory is dandan and I think he only ordered two sticks. I am curious if 2x8 versus 4x4 will yield any kind of performance advantage, and if so, whether or not it is an appreciable difference that you can actually feel. Going from 1866 CAS 11 to 2133 CAS 11 the difference was clearly measurable, but it provided no discernible performance benefits in normal system use or gameplay scenarios.

 

well, as I'm stuck with 4 x 2GB 1866 right now (that came with my R2), that new 16GB 2133 kit looked sweet. Thanks for the link/reference to the thread by dandan...i'll follow it for the next couple of days to see if he gets his and how it works.
As far as "bang for the buck", the R2 itself is, in my opinion, pretty low on that scale given the cost many people pay for a fully loaded system, so spending a bit more to have the most and the fastest seems worth it.

I agree with what you also said in the other thread...Haswell seems like a real bummer on the Alienware systems. I'm sticking with the R2 for a while. I don't even spend much time anymore tinkering with mine (repasting or doing extreme OC'ing "just for fun") and i'm liking the 4.5Ghz (stable) I easily get from mine. If I actually devoted time to making it go faster, I can't imagine how fast that would be!

Thanks.

 

Quick question regarding the control power button cover on the R1/R2. I sent in to Dell for repair a R1. When I got it back, I noticed the entire rear edge of the rear cover is loose. It lifts easily all the way across the back.
My R2 does not seem to be like that, yet I don't see any screw holes for screws to hold down the back edge of the control cover.

Does it use plastic clips to secure the back edge, or how is it held in place? If Dell broke the plastic clips, I want to contact them to replace it, since I have 90 day warranty on the repair. If nothing holds it in place, then I assume
this one just lifts easier for some reason?

Thanks.

 

If I'm understanding you correctly you're referring to the media key panel, yes it's held on by clips.

 

Everyone selling them on ebay call them "Center Control Power Button Cover", but yes, the panel that is "north" of the keyboard.

I'll have to call Dell to complain, then. Thanks.

 

Yup, they busted it by not being careful with it. I just want to puke every time I think about a machine having to go to the depot. Probably 9 out of 10 depot repairs that we don't hear about turn out really well. The failure rate is probably very small in the grand scheme of things. Those clips are easy to break if you don't know how to take it apart, or if you just don't care about the machine (or customer) you are working on. It never should have been sent back to you that way. The person that worked on it is obviously incompetent, doesn't care about you or your machine, or both. The really sweet part is they should send you a replacement part NBD and you can finish the job right. Hopefully, the person responsible for this will either receive proper training or be fired before it happens again.

 

So I received my Replacement laptop!

Got quite a bit of an upgrade too

original config was:

3820QM
8gb DDR3 1600mhz
30gb mSATA
500gb HDD
Intel 2230
Xfire 7970m
DVD/RW

What I received as a replacement:

3840QM
16gb DDR3 1600mhz
3 x 256gb SSDs
Xfire 7970s
DVD/RW/Blu-Ray
Killer Nic 1103
it also came in Red with no cosmetic damage at all.

Only Problem is, the keyboard doesn't light up... Ugh

 

It's like winning the lottery, isn't it? That is a SUH-SWEET upgrade, man... Congrats! The keyboard lighting very well could be the cable under keyboard was left disconnected.
Or, have you checked the Command Center app to be sure the keyboard "zone" is assigned a color?

 

Was it worth all your troubles to get triple SSD, CPU bump, BLURAY as well, Double Ram and Killer wireless? Would you rather have your original computer working 100% when you originally got it or would you go through all the hassle again?

 

It actually wasn't all that much hassle, It was just a lot of looping in the dell support phone system at 2-3 different times. All the people I spoke with were helpful and friendly (though some contradicted what others said). I definitely did win the lottery though. Only thing left I would like to have in this beast is 680s, but I bought 7970s so I can't complain. I am psyched I got a red one too!

Hopefully the keyboard issue is a faulty keyboard or a loose ribbon though, I don't want to give this one up. I would hate for the motherboard port to be bad.

 

Hi, i have received the new HD connector cable, fitted the hard drive and connected the cable into the plug on the mother board and done a DIY job with a plastic wedge, turned the laptop back on and nothing?? how do i make the laptop recognise the new hard drive have i done something wrong? please help guys.

 

Is it showing as connected during post or in the Bios ?
Take a look. Otherwise the ribbon may not be correctly inserted. It should slide in reasonably firmly and go in about* 5mm (1/6 inch..?) deep.