m15x Issues

I folks, i have had the Alienware m15x for over 6 months, its the old non i7 silver one. I have had nothing but trouble ever since i got it.

The main problem is that it crashes/freezes a lot if you put pressure on the CPU or GPU. The other thing when i got the laptop there was a file on the desktop boasting 3DMark06 Results at just over 10k. I decided to test this and only managed 8.5k myself (out of the box with no updated drivers and using default settings alienware had set). I am actually quite shocked they would lie over the benchmarks. No doubt i reckon it could hit over 10k but that would be with the most upto date drivers and a few performance tweaks. I do not see why Alienware were claiming 10K out of the box.

The specs of the laptop are not bad at all

I think its a

T9300 (2.5GHz)
8GB Ram
9800M GT
Dlu Ray Drive
1200p Screen

Recently i brought this to the attention of alienware, i specifically mentioned to them that it either overheats or there is a problem with the cpu/gpu which is what causes the freezing, also i mentioned that after it does this the volume slider, bluetooth, wireless, Command Centre and Stealth Mode buttons stop working. An alienware rep even took over my laptop when i rang them and he still could not fix it.

The funny thing is it is back from the Depot and not 1 single problem that i mentioned was fixed. So after another long call to them it is finally going back again. They mentioned that they replaced the CPU last time and found no fault with the graphics card also they mentioned the touch keys were working fine. Clearly there testing is not thorough, I managed to kill it just by running 3DMark 06 yet they could not find a fault. I am beginning to loose faith in the company. I am not happy about spending £3000 on a laptop that does not work as intended.

I have noticed threads flying about here stating issues with throttling with the new line of M15x. I was wondering if mine was having the same problem. Just before the laptop crashed/freezed up I would get the following messages in the logs:

Code:

Kernel-Processor-Power: The speed of processor 0 is being limited by system firmware. This processor has been in this reduced performance state for 71 seconds since the last report.

I also have recieved some messages in the logs about the processor entering a throttled state. No idea what is causing this

Whilst running 3Dmark06 i did have gpu-z open and it was logging if the gfx card would get throttled, i did not find any evidence of the grx card getting throttled.

I have a few questions to those who might have had issues with Alienware in the past or people who may know the answers.

1. If i get the laptop back from the depot and it has the same issues what is the next step to take(its already been to depot once previously)?
2. Will alienware just replace the whole laptop if they are unable to fix the issue?
3. If issue remains but my 1year warrenty expires what can i do? I have had the problem since day one, am i legally protected?

 

They will replace the whole laptop after 2 attempt and not being able to replace the issue. You should try to get a replacement as soon as the 2 attempt is known to be failed. Don't waste time.

 

Hi all,

Since my first post quite a few things have happened. First and foremost my laptop has been to the Depot 2 times now. Both times it has come back and they have not fixed the problems which i stated quite clearly over the phone. I also wrote on a piece of paper the problems and left the on top of the keyboard and closed the lid... I have lost all faith in the technicians at the depot.

The first time it came back from depot I basically turned it on, installed 3DMark06 and just did a benchmark because I did not have any games installed on it. It crashed almost immediately leading me to believe that heat could not have caused the crashed. The laptop was not overheating. I was told the CPU was replaced and they found nothing wrong with my Function/Media Keys (Volume Slider, Bluetooth ... even though they came back unresponsive) The Bluetooth had a mind of its own turning itself on and off randomly.

After a long discussion and even a technican remoting onto the laptop and trying to fix it he gave and said asked for it to be returned to the depot.

It came back today... exactly the same issues I was told that the GPU this time was replaced and they found nothing wrong with the Function/Media keys... They simply did not work out of the box. This leads me to believe that testing is not thorough enough. How can I replicate an issue time and time again but the Alienware technicians ignore/avoid it?

Not a happy bunny. Spoke to someone today and they are getting back to me tomorrow with a report of what actually happened at the depot (i dont really care what happened i just want it fixed). No doubt this will be the 3rd time back at depot they have not mentioned not once about a replacement unit or refund. (would prefer a replacement as i really need a powerful laptop)

 

Get a refund and get the New M15x.

 

Few problems i have if i return it and get M15x...

No Blu-Ray Drive
Not sure if the graphics card is better than my current.

Also i highly doubt they would replace like for like, so 8GB Ram and decent cpu with teh 1080p screen

I am awaiting a call from thier rep to discuss what further steps they can take.

The question remains, what if I am not offered a replacement or refund?

 

Ok now I am getting extremely annoyed and my patience is running thin, I am considering speaking to Trading Standards to see what else I can do as they have requested the laptop to be sent back to the depot for the 4th time.

They're technical support seem to think I am lying over the phone however when I said I can video the problems and upload them to youtube they started to laugh and play it off.

Any suggestions on the next step, it seems that their support for UK/EU customers is very very poor they did not even have a complaints department or a supervisor I could speak to, I work in a call centre and I know for a fact that there is always a "supervisor" or a team leader or someone who is superior who over sees things that one can speak to.

I do not think there is any chance of them giving me a refund its like talking some sense to a brick wall.

 

Just to let you folks know this issue is still ongoing... Here is a rundown of what has happening since I purchased the laptop, hopefully its getting serious enough now that they will have to do something about it...


So I purchased an Alienware Laptop on the 28/04/09, it was the m15x with half decent specs. I grew tired with my Dell XPS M1530 the performance just wasnt there and I needed something with a bit more kick. The specs I went for were:

C2D T9300 (2.5GHz)
8GB Ram
120GB SSD
512MB 9800M GT
Blu Ray Drive
1200p Screen

It cost in excess of £2500

The laptop arrived and it seemed to work fine for the first few days, I didnt really install anything or change any of the factory settings as I was unwell at the time, was in and out of hostpital constantly. Eventually when I did get a chance to have a bash on it I noticed a few strange things.

First problem I came accross was the keyboard. It was lagging so to speak, it could not keep up with the speed of my typing. For instance I would type google and on screen would sho gogle, apple would become aple and so on. I managed to get around this issue by following this guide so it was no biggie to be honest just a minor inconvinience.

The next issue was annoying, really annoying. I took the laptop to a friends house to show him it. When I got to his house he wanted to see the quality of the screen and so he played a HQ movie he when he tried to turn the volume up via the touch volume slider it did not work. The slider did not even light up to show that it senced the touch. I then noticed that the bluetooth light was switching on and off without me even touching it and to reflect that the screen would display the OSD showing bluetooth going on and off aswell. I found this bizzard and restarted the laptop. To much dismay I could not get those keys working again. My friend was laughing at me telling me that I had made a mistake going to Alienware I told him its probably just teething problems and I would eventually give Alienware a ring to sort it out. A few days passed and I thought why not test some games on the machine, the touch buttons eventually started to work again on thier own which I found strange, I tested Crysis, WoW and C&C RA3. I was shocked when i noticed that WoW was crashing and the laptop was freezing in the middle of raids/instances, to top that off RA3 would do the same thing. This was pretty much the last straw so I rang up Alienware and spoke to them about this. They arranged for the laptop to be sent back to the Depot however I was taken back into hostpital so I did not have the chance to get it sent back. When I eventually got out of hostpital I stopped using the Alienware and went back to Usnig the Dell. I just totally forgot about the Alienware laptop until Christmas when I had some time off work to have another mess about on it.

I did eventually get the laptop sent to the Depot stating the 2 issues with the crashing and wit the touch keys. 2 weeks later in January this year I got the laptop back and it had exactly the same issues. When I spoke to Alienware they advised that the CPU was replaced however thier service invoice numbers seems to contradict this as it only shows labour and not parts. Anyways I got it sent back again at the end of January because it had exactly the same issues and this time they replaced the GPU (this was shown on the invoice so it definitly was replaced) but found not fault with the touch keys, they were unable to replicate the issue in thier depot with the touch keys so therefore it was not an issue (I was apparently lying about it).

I have spoke to many different techinical support people since then (none of them who speak fluent Enlgish and none of them who can understand the issue) and have been passed from pillar to post. Alienware seem to think there is no issue what so ever. I have told them them I can record a video of the problem and send it to them on DVD or upload it on youtube for them to see howeve they laughed off this claim. In addition to that I have had the laptop checked from a local computer shop and the shop has confirmed there is an issue with the hardware, in specific the Touch Mechanism. Alienware now say its due to some software I installed thats why the toch stopped working but I beg to differ. Through the MSDNAA that I had with the university I have got copies of windows xp, vista and 7. I have installed all three of them to see if I could rule out the OS and everytime I was able to replicate the problem where the touch buttons stopped working. According to Alienware if I send them an independant engineers diagnostics report on the issue then its a waste as it means nothing to them.

I sent a complain email to [email protected] on the 13/03/2010 but I have yet to recieve a reply. I rang up today to ask what the complaints procedure was and I was told that there was non, however I was given a different email to voice my concerns to [email protected]. I grew tired of being passed from pillar to post so I though I would ring dell, I got the laptop from Alienware website when it was not integrated to the dell one, when I rang Dell, they simply said they could not help me ... even though Dell owns Alienware. I asked if there were any departments that dealt with complaints and I was advised there were none.

After frustration I went to visit my local trading standards shop thing and they have advised me to write a letter quoting the "Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended)" and see where that gets me, in addition to posting the letter I am going to email them it aswell, fingers crossed I should be able to get somewhere as I am sick and tired of this, I wish I had never bought an Alienware their service is pure **** its absolutly appauling. Dont get me wrong I cant fault the laptop for performance when it actually works but when it doesnt and you need to speak to someone then the level of service you will recieve is not exactly going to be A grade, also if you have a problem which they can not replicate at their depot then according to them there is not problem and you are classed as a liar.

Fingers crossed i should get a response within 7-14 days of sending the letter, if not then trading standards have said they will take over the case and deal with the directly. All I want is a repair/replacement, I am happy with the model etc and it thats not possible then a full refund!

 

Look at your sheet claiming the 10K 3DMark2006 score and tell us at what resolution did they did the test on. I m guessing it was done at 1280 x 800 and not the standard 1280 x 1024. God Bless

 

Hey there Noveed.

I too bought an m15x for my gf around the same time as you.

She had to go to Europe to work for the summer, and could not RMA the thing.

She experienced the same keyboard lag problem as you. She called Alienware from Hungary and they tried to solve the problem over the phone. They managed to resolve some of the lag, but not all of it.

Also, the laptop suffered from the infamous cracking hinge. Little bits of plastic would break off from the internal hinge and fall into the fans, only to be whipped around the inside of the laptop. I opened it up several times to remove loose pieces.

As my warranty was about to expire, I sent it in. In fact, I am expecting to get it back this week, or on Monday.

I too experienced some throttling problems. But they were intermittant. I couldn't properly reproduce the problem. Sometimes I would get a really good 3dmark06 score, sometimes i'd get a really bad one. So I did not ask them to look at that when it went in for repair.

When I get it back, I can run 3dmark06 and post my specs for yuo to compare to. But if I remember correctly, it was in the lower 9000s.

Based on this experience, I am not going to trust alienware again. I went with Alienware because I was not very satisfied with the previous Dell I had.

Currently have a new Clevo and am loving it, both in raw power and in the quality of the build. It is a solid machine that is as powerful as my 2 year old overclocked desktop running SLI and it doesn't feel like it will fall into pieces just by using it, unlike the alienware.

Also, I'd be curious as to what they claimed my alienware could achieve. Unfortunately, I clean installed Win 7 and couldn't get the respawn patch to work. So I couldn't respawn back to factory settings.

Good luck.

 

It's a shame you are having the problems, the current generation sounds like it is far superior. I have seen a non-responsive touch pad happen a few times, but the build quality appears to be quite good now. I'd press for an M15x, even with a 240m graphics card it will still be a great laptop.

 

Well I sent the letter off Yesterday, Sending laptop back this week in addition to that I am sending a copy of the letter back with the laptop and emailing the letter to them too so they can not say to trading standards that they did not recieve the letter.

I will be pressing hard for a repair, I would be over the moon if it just gets fixed as at the end of the day all I want is a working laptop. However if it does come back exactly in the same condition then I am going to press for a replacement/refund and if they can not comply then I guess I will have to leave it in the hands of the trading standards.

 

Good luck

My m15x came back. They appeared to have fixed the broken hinge issue for which I sent it in. In fact, the hinge seems to be working better than the first day it arrived.

And I did a 3dmark06 test and got between 9200-9300. Not bad for the system.

However, for what was supposed to be a highend gaming system (replaced with a Clevo), which is now my interweb surfing laptop, I'm still a little miffed by the quality.

 

Thanks mate, im waiting on a reply now from Alienware before I send the laptop back, to be honest I have gotten over the fact that the laptop will not get close to the 3DMark result they claim it can get (using the same resolutions) I am not much of a gamer anyways, tend to play a bit of wow here and there and its sufficient for that.

The 2 main issues for me at the moment are the intermittant functionality of the touch keys, whilst ingame I sometimes notice the bluetooth light turning off and on and as soon as that happens I know the buttons will now be unresponsive. The most annoying part is that the OSD notification kicks and and minimizes any fullscreen window. Really annoying in the middle of and instance/raid in wow.

The second thing is the keyboard lag, for those who play WoW they will know that if you are raiding and miss a key then your damage to a target can suffer. My damage is consisitantly lower on the Alienware than my Dell XPS M1530 even after I applied the fix mentioned in the previous posts. I would have thought the Dell would have been worse due to its lower FPS but suprisingly its not... External Keyboard works fine but I might aswell go back to my desktop if I am going to use an external keyboard.

 

i wouldn't press them on repairing it any more, it time to ask for a replacement or an upgrade to newer version, the older area 51 model have too many issues. since it already been depot a few times already and nothing is resolved time to ask for the newer M15x or a refund. don't lag and wait any longer.

 

I have already sent the letter asking for repair/replacement if that does not happen or they do not reply I will be pressing for replacement/refund then trading standards will take over the case. I need to report back to them within 14 days.

 

So it has been a while since I last updated this post, some things have moved on since then.

The laptop went back to the depot for "repair" for the 4th time came back yesterday and again as soon as I switched it on the problem with the touch mechanism was apparent. Volume slider not working, wifi, blue-tooth, stealth mode and command centre all not working. Great!

I sent off a nice email to Alienware again and I have had a reply this morning asking me how to proceed. I have requested that they either replace the laptop with a working one or provide me with a full refund. They have only got to this stage as I threatened legal action having already been in touch with trading standards who advised I had a really strong case.

I shall let you know of the outcome

Things are finally looking better, can put an end to this issue that has been ongoing since April last year.

 

5 months and no improvement that sucks. Hope it works out for you.

 

They agreed to replace the laptop with one of their new models instead of giving me a full refund (I had a feeling they would)

They said that it would be a like for like replacement so here was me getting happy, when I was sent the first quote of the "Baseline" system I was somewhat underwhelmed. I instantly replied back objecting to the specifications of this new system.

My current laptop although its faulty had 8GB Ram, it had a Blu-Ray copier(It had one, even though I have never used it and probably never will it still had one lol), I had a smart media bay with an extra 250GB smart media bay hdd. It also had things what you expect as standard like bluetooth etc.

The quote I was given was only 4GB ram, no Blu-Ray copier, no Bluetooth, No personal name plate engraving and only a 128GB solid state hard drive, they did not even compensate me for taking out the extra 250GB media bay Hard drive.

As anyone in the right mind would I objected and managed to get a revised quote, I demanded that it was a like for like or else I wanted a full refund. I was offered to upgrade the CPU from i5 to i7 so I chose the quad for an extra small amount.

The Specs I was finally quoted were

Alienware M15x MLK : Base Cosmic Black
Processor : Intel i7-840QM(1.86GHz,8MB) Mobile CPU
Display : 15.6in Wide Full HD (1920 x 1080) WLED
Resource DVD : Alienware M15x
Ship Accessory : English Docs
Memory : 8192MB (2x4096) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Hard Drive : 256GB Solid State Hard Drive
Optical Drive : Slot Load Blu-Ray RW (Blu-Ray, DVD and CD read & WRITE) Optical
Drive with Software
Power Supply : Alienware 150W AC Adapter
Power Cord : UK 220V
Battery : Primary 6-cell 56W/HR LI-ION
Graphics : 1GB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 5850
Wireless : ROW Intel WiFi Link 5300 (a/g/n) Wireless LAN Card
Wireless : Europe Dell Bluetooth 370 Card
Keyboard : Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Operating System : English Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate (64 BIT)
Software : Datasafe Local 2.0 Basic
Avatar : Alienhead 3D
AutoMatic Updates : AutoMatic updates - On
No Software Anti-Virus
Name Plate Engraving : Generic
Standard Service - 1 year of Next Business Day coverage included with your PC
No Warranty Upgrade
No Accidental Damage Support
Alienware M15x Order - UK


..... This bad boy should be arriving in the next few days/weeks. Will definitely be posting feedback on how this goes, I am really looking forward to it as from the reviews I have read most of the faults are ironed out in this new model.

 

WOW!!! You made out! Nice specs, have fun.