The number of problems with 18 is unacceptable.

Hello fellow 18-ners and AWists alike.

You may have already passed by one of my numerous posts detailing problems with my machine. Here is another one.

Problem: Leave the laptop alone. Come back, screen is black, but with the backlight still on (I can clearly see the backlight bleed).

Has happened twice now. Happened about a week ago, I left it on to torrent 3DNPC for Skyrim (massive mod). However, 10 minutes after I was lying comfortably in bed, one of the fans (CPU) kicked up. I thought this was weird, as it went on for about 2 minutes. Got up, opened the lid (I set it so the machine doesn't sleep with the lid closed), found myself looking at a black screen. Pressed every key, did not work. Mouse didn't work. Had to hold down power function to restart machine.

Happened again a few minutes ago, except, this time, there was no rogue fan. Left to eat dinner, came back, found myself looking at a black screen. This time I held down random keys, particularly the Function keys (F1, F2). Maybe it was just a coincidence, but when I held down F2, the screen lit up just a bit brighter in its black glory and the CPU fan kicked in like last time, and I heard a very short-lived but very much there, *beep*.

Now my question is, what the bloody hell could be happening, and how do I fix this?

My computer was not left gaming or performing high-stress applications when I was not at the keyboard. Both times it was left either at desktop, or with Chrome open, with some auxillary programs like iTunes, HWNIFO64, Skype, McAfee, etc.

As the umpteenth problem with what is a re-refurbished machine, I can guarantee I am not going to buy anything Alienware again in this lifespan, but since it's what I have now, I have to fix it, and so any help is appreciated.

 

only time i had black screen problem... it was because of a loose connector on the motherboard going to the screen.... or the screen needed some sort of reset .. but my when my screen would go black even forced reboot it would stay black with backlight on ...

its worth a try ... remove battery open laptop remove the keyboard side ... unplug the monitor connector ... wait 2 min plug everything back on and try it...\

after i did that i never had the problem again...

 

So to add to the ridiculous number of problems I already am having with this machine, just today, my screen started flickering, for no apparent reason.

The flickering is difficult to put in words; it's not 'flashing' exactly, it's like certain colours on the screen are pulsing extremely quickly, Either way, it's extremely annoying and it makes the screen look like it was bought for 50 yuan (5 USD) at the junkyard. It happened after I started up The Forest (game) and as soon as I finished going through the loading screen, the crazy flickering started. I restarted the computer and still have this problem.

It's definitely the screen because the TV in my room connected via HDMI, the display is perfectly fine, as I'm typing this; my 18 screen is flickering intensely, and my TV screen is just fine.

Now what the hell gives?

 

Could be the display cable is loose.

 

Therefore yet another reason to open up the machine.

I don't have the time at the moment to sort all this nonsense out...moving to England for 4 years and there's too much paperwork already not related to anything Alienware to take care of. I'll report back when I've actually got the time to take heed the advice of all the helpful forum members here.

 

Could be the display cable or SLI bridge, too.

 

Quick update in case one may know of this issue happening before.

The colour flickering went away overnight and the screen is static now in terms of colour and focus (I'm no display expert so please bear with my attempts to describe the phenomenon).

However, something very very strange is happening.

The screen appears (keyword) to be fine when starting up and booting to normal usage such as web browsing, iTunes, playing movies, ladida.

But when playing The Forest, I can see very clear a crap ton of scan lines whenever I look up and down, or

I say The Forest particularly because that's the only game I can see it in clearly. In Metro 2033, Skyrim, and Mount & Blade: Warband, I can't differentiate it from normal screen tearing because I have adaptive v-sync on. I have it on (as well as Triple Buffering) for the The Forest but the scan lines/tearing lines are very clear, most especially when looking up and down, and in places where the game has to render a lot of lighting.

In Space Engineers, it is neigh imperceptible as well. However, whenever I weld something (for those unfamiliar with the game, the visual effect following is all I am placing emphasis on), the particle effects of the smoke and sparks cause the screen to become very bright, and I can very clearly see the scan lines through the white flashing and sparks of the welder. It's so bad I would say it's potentially epilepsy-inducing.

No idea what's going on here but as you fellows have said it may well be a cable issue, or an SLI cable issue, as Mr Fox has mentioned. The SLI bridge is new, and I watched the technician install it right in front of me, but I won't take for granted there's nothing wrong with a new cable. Along with my card problem I will call Dell UK as soon as I am settled there. Hopefully the customer service is better than here (China), and they won't steal a piece of my laptop when they fix it.

 

Great, just when I thought things couldn't screw up more.

New problem: For some reason, and just recently, I've been experiencing this strange audio phenomenon in which there's a static noise or a click sound that happens every 3 seconds when playing any kind of audio. Just sitting at desktop screen or when not playing any sound it's fine, but when playing any continuous sound, I get this problem.

I've reinstalled sound drivers from both NVIDIA and Dell's official website but the problem persists. At first I thought it was just my headphones being faulty but then on speaker mode you can clearly hear the static, and I think it sounds very much like it is coming from the left speaker facing you when you sit in front of the machine (and on my headphones it comes in from all sides).

The static isn't clear when playing any metal songs because of the sheer volume, but with classical and piano pieces it's very clear, and very, very annoying. The sound is also very pronounced when playing cutscenes such as in Mass Effect.

On an additional note I've started having entirely random but persistant system crashes about once or twice a week, each time when I left my computer to either eat or to go to sleep.

For those of you who've followed me through all my problems, do you think I can request an entirely new machine after telling Dell UK about this? I'm sick of something breaking every week, and of the unlimited problems I've had since, which I can count (in chronological order):

-Motherboard died and I was initially charged 8000 CNY to replace (1350 USD) when I still had warranty
-Some screws missing courtesy of Dell China
-SLI cable was missing courtesy of Dell China (not really a product issue but a service issue)
-Secondary GPU has heating problems, always 10-15c above the primary card.
-Strange non-Vysnc related, consistent screen tearing that makes games difficult to enjoy, if play at all
-Significant backlight bleed in two places
-Persistent static sounds during any audio playback
-Screen placement is not perpendicular to my keyboard, it is bent slightly to a side

And so these are the woes of a 3500 USD laptop.

 

Firstly, regarding the audio issue, can you try this and tell me if it helps.....



Secondly, regardling light bleeding, I initially was angry like you, DELL changed my screen 2 times with no help, then they changed the entire laptop. It`s better now, but there is a very little bleeding spot on the bottom right which I can live with....and the reason I say I can live with which wouldn't have been the case if I hadn't looked at other laptops such as the new ASUS G750JM and saw horrible bleeding everywhere so it seems like there is gonna be some bleeding with these LCD screens unfortunately Slight bleeding is fine but if something is very visible then definitely not)

Please read my thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-18-m18x/760529-what-light-my-lcd.html

Thirdly, regarding your random crashes or BSODs......out of curiousity, do you happen to have the WLAN Killer 1202 card? I've had many BSODs with that crappy card not due to the card itseld but due to the crappy drivers where the Network Bandwidth Control Filter is involved

 

Thanks for the reply Ferris.

I tried the audio tweaking you suggested, no difference in my problem.
That being said, it might be worth mentioning, when I was playing Dead Island Riptide earlier today, I heard some weird buzzing in-game.
Thought it was the zombies, but now I think that may have been something inside going wrong.

In regards to the screen bleeding, yes, it is significant. I read across all the forums I could find about this issue with the 18 and apparently Dell basically is saying, 'oh, that is the nature of IPS displays'. I find the bleed on my screen unacceptable now.

In skyrim, it is very annoying because it destroys the immersiveness of the load screen completely.
When watching movies fullscreen, it is annoying to an intolerable degree.

I don't mind slight bleeding, but I have a good massive white blotch in the lower-left corner and a nice big on in the top right-ish corner as well.


As for the third one:

Broadcom 802.11ac Network Adapter
Killer e2200 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.20)

This is what I have. But I don't think this is what's causing the issue, because my crashes have never been Bluescreens. Only black screens of death...and I hadn't changed anything critical in the computer before I had the crashes start happening on me.

My question remains though, do you think Dell will agree to send me an entirely new machine?

 

if you're demanding like I am, they would

I basically told them I have had 2 screens replaced and a motherboard and an LCD cable and a new bezel and the bleeding didn't go! what more can you do? I am not paying $3500 USD for a garbage screen so they agreed to take it back. In fact, the tech who arrived at my place after changing all these things twice mentioned in his report....DEFECTIVE UNIT that probably helped me

 

I am not sure how to deal with Dell UK as I am used to dealing with Dell China. I do not want to offend them but I do want to be very clear that I am utterly unhappy with this product thus far.
It is powerful but it does barely anything else correctly. I will ask them for a new replacement on the basis of multiple faults.

 

@Op, Is your PC in China or UK? We could try escalating he case internally for you.

 

I have been living in China for the past 7 years but I am now moving to the UK to live, and will be settled in by the end of this month. I have already sent in a request on the dell website for the transference of ownership to the UK.

Any kind of help would be much appreciated. I have spent the past 2 months slaving to get this thing to work before university begins, but things are breaking faster than they can be fixed.

 

I believe DELL UK should be able to fix that issue. I wish I could get involved on in but it's not possible for me and my team to get involved in issues outside the US and Canada.

 

I have heard vicious rumours that the service outside of the continental united states is a bit more...challenging.

I'll see how it goes in the UK first. If it turns out they're all jolly happy to replace my unit there's no cause for getting overly excited, but if not, I guess I'll keep you posted.

I say 'replace' unit and not fix the current problems because I believe my unit is supernaturally cursed to continually develop problems until the motherboard expires again!

 

Hey, I think I´ve gotten the exact same thing as you last night.

A few moths ago I got my SLI bridge replaced by a tec guy from Dell, it sorted my issue with SLI misbehaving.
But after that some time when I´ve opened up the computer from sleep mode I´ve gotten flickering and artifacts, this I solved with closing the lid again and let it go to sleep and then open it again an all have been fine.

But yesterday I got an issue that I feel sounds just like yours, some colours (redish) ficker and it is most notably in games/test where there is shadowy effects.
Same is if I open up Paint an fill a page with colour, som colours flicker and blinks as crazy (Most notably Dark red/burgundy and purple and som grey tones) whine some are just at the should be. (like yellow and blue)

I´m not sure if I shall take it apart myself and check cable connections or just call out a new tec guy?

 

just had my screen replace it would randomly bloom to white screen
u can hook up an external monitor and check
there is a alert at dell on the cable to the display
but that would show when opening or flexing the dispay

 

this is true ^^ Connecting the PC to an external monitor is the best way to troubleshoot your screen.

 

Does it do the same if you disable sli?

 

I've connected it to my TV screen via HDMI and the visual artifacts present in front of my eyes on the Alienware screen are not present on the TV screen.

 

Yes. Disabling sli seems to change nothing.

 

Same for me, SLI or single gfx do not change it. connecting through HDMI fixes is so my guess is still for me a defect screen or a loose/defective screen connector.

One thing tho that baffles me, is the internal Intel gfx connected to the screen differnet then the 2 other ? becouse if I´m not mistaken changing to the Intel one also fixes it.

 

just had my screen replace it would randomly bloom to white screen or come out of sleep with artifacts
u can hook up an external monitor and check
there is a alert at dell on the cable to the display
but that would show when opening or flexing the dispay