M11x-R2 to undergo multi-organ transplant ... :eek:

Well, unfortunately my name must be added to the list of owners that received sick lil m(11x)onsters...

The symptoms: After not using the lil guy for about 5 days, I tried to boot up and find the battery drained. So, I plug in and...hmmm... battery isn't charging. In fact, it seems I have to fiddle with the plug tip to get a 'connection' and have the charging indicator/head to light up. But it only lights up for a few minutes then goes off. At this point the lil guy won't boot up yet without shutting down (no message, just powers off) after 1-3 minutes, rarely making it out of POST- I'm guessing it's some battery safety feature.

Then, I get enough juice to that battery that I can get all the way into windows. But, up time after a complete boot only lasts 5-10 minutes. I can see I have about 35% charge- though strangely, at times says "plugged in, charging" or "plugged in, not charging". It's obvious something is wrong, but I'm either so pissed or frustrated at this point I just keep trying. After a few hours of this, I somehow get the battery fully charged, but the system still shuts down after 5-20 minutes (totally random) after hitting the power button. By now, I've disabled overclock and usb charging in bios and tryed several times to run the pre-boot diagnostics (F12 option) which never get far without the machine shutting off- 'til now, there have been no error messages, BSOD's, etc.

So I give up and plan to call Dell in the morning.

Two weeks go by. I make time to call tech support and figure I should try booting up to refresh my memory on the problems and maybe see if I can get an error message that could prove helpful....sigh... of course now it charges up just fine and boots up no problem I even play a couple rounds of CoD:BOPS... amazing.

I'm thinking the lil monster must be afraid of tech support, lol, so I vow to call at the next sign of trouble and get almost two more weeks of trouble free use.

Then I go away again and he sits for four days. I get back and in the mood for a little gaming, turn the M11 on and... poof... dead battery, won't charge. I get it to about 25% charge and again it's shutting down during boot.... lot's of swearing and promises to find the meanest overseas tech, but nothing... I leave it plugged in and try to boot every few minutes. Then one time I get all the way into Windows the battery is at 56% and again says "plugged in, not charging"... same issues. Out of time, I give up.

Yesterday, the battery is totally dead (I'm using the lights as a measure), like few weeks ago, it charges up and boot into windows just fine, ?! I test it by leaving it running for a couple hours. No problems... in fact, everything is good so I do the bios update. Time for work so I shut down, hoping that the update may have helped things, but today it's a big fat ZERO.

The diagnosis: So I finally get on with tech support. Following instructions, I sugically open up the lil monster, remove his battery, plug in the AC power and try running the diagnostics. By now, I have also gotten a hardrrive error code 0146, but this time the diagnostics are running along just fine, much longer than before- I'm hopeful it's just a bad battery. Alas, at ~25minutes- poof, spontaneous shut down.

With this info relayed to the very friendly Alienware tech, he orders up a new battery, HDD, motherboard and heatsink along with someone to put it all together.

So, that's my M11x sob story. They make a zillion of these things, so I know sh*t happens and figure this will get fixed just fine. I'm still happy to have my R2. For what my needs are (size, gaming, screen rez, battery, etc.) there isn't anything else I'd rather have at the moment. Though this does have me considering the extended warranty now, lol.

If anyone has any comments as how long it takes to get the home service guy to show, any tips on thing to make sure he takes care of aside from the job or any thoughts/experiences on the problems I had (i.e. if you suffered the same issues, but had a diiferent resolution/fix), I'd appreciate any info.

Thanks and please excuse the post length.

 

Wow sorry about the woe's.. I did put the extended 3 year on mine, glade I did. The only time I needed a home repair the guy took about a week to receive the parts and call me. You can check on the parts and when he receives them by going to your account page and scan down to service call. Input the info its like order# and zip I think and you can track it. Good Luck keep us posted.

 

Thanks for the info! And yeah, it's frustrating, but I'm still happy to have the Alienware, just glad it's getting fixed