Alienware 18, now with Maxwell GPUs (Officially) and a new BIOS

Publicity stunt, to halts the progress of people buying during September which is BUYER CRAZE time for laptops really, its just DELLs way of hurting competition, without providing anything - new - themselves.
I can not help but throw up a bit when i think of the company DELL... and all the little tricks they play to screw with people.
I mean, you want a decent laptop these days - thats a Clevo. Personally, my choice of Clevo's is Eurocom, I have found that, being smaller - but in the business doing great quality for nearly 30 years makes them the most solid choice for gaming laptops today. They also offer things in their bios' and on their motherboards (like SMC's installed) that other Clevo's don't have as stock options.

 

That is correct ! DO NOT LET THEM DOWN SELL YOU. SERIOUSLY. Buy yourself time, say you need to think about it, keep the ticket open for a week or two or however long it takes for them to follow up. Ask to be escalated because you are unhappy. Infact they should compensate you for it, in the end, by upgrading your CPU as well to the one that would have the SLI 980M.

 

If you mean to compensate for trying to give him a lesser-performing laptop, I think that is a bit too extreme. For 7 months of a non-working laptop though, you have a lot of leverage. My old M18xR3 was out of commission (partially, basically no GPU's) for 4 months a couple years back and they compensated this with a 4 month extension of my warranty, to match the time it took them to reach a resolution. They had also offered bags/accessories and other stuff, but this seemed both the most fair and best value. Also, the only upgrade they could really give you besides the 980m's (which I think is reasonable, if not a stretch) is an MX CPU, which would be a little ridiculous even with all things considered.

@ Praetorian77

With my similar experiences with Alienware customer service, I think you should

1. Get a 4910MQ no questions asked because that is essentially a very slightly overclocked part of what you have now and for all intents and purposes, equivalent. Say you are unhappy (offended I guess is not the right word) that they tried to give you a downgrade, but you understand that it could very well have been an innocent mistake in any number of places down the line (honestly, someone could have just clicked the wrong option at some point...Dell has way too long of a service chain to do something like this and silly mistakes like that happen all the time.)
2. Bring up your concerns over the 970m: namely the bus width, but also texture rate, shading units, etc. While generally the 970m's Maxwell architecture will outperform the 780m's Kepler architecture in games despite these differences, you said you do a lot of VFX work, where this comes more into play than Nvidia's driver optimizations for newer architectures. Make sure to explain this to whomever you are speaking to, and if they do not understand, ask to be transferred to someone higher up who may understand the situation better.
3. Lastly, if your warranty is about up, mention that they've basically exhausted your warranty on this case and so your new machine will not be covered if issues develop with it in the first few months. In most cases, they will give you some months of warranty on the new machine.
4. Finally, be polite and not pushy. I've seen two different viewpoints/strategies with Dell's customer service on these forums (I've been a lurker for quite a bit, but just joined): either Dell owes you everything for your pain/suffering and you should get nothing but the best out of them, or Dell is a company that has to make money and they never will if they help poor souls like you who have ran into issues with their machine, so you should be glad they are offering you something that will in most cases outperform your old machine and just accept it/be thankful. Both of these seem absolutely ridiculous to me. You are entitled to what your warranty (which you pay quite a sum for in addition to their large margins and the returned parts to cover such replacements/repairs) states, which is an equivalent or better machine. When Dell is not able to hold their end of the warranty (they don't offer a replacement after 3 failed repairs/15 days, or more extreme cases such as yours), compensation can come into play. This is a grey area not really legally outlined under the warranty. Be firm, but polite and reasonable.

 

I don't care if anyone bought one at regular price but can people post up some of the deals they are able to get on the updated machines.

Any updates on slick deals?

 

If you read my earlier post post in this thread; I have no problems with my Aw17. But I wondered what Dell had done if something happened. As I live in Norway; I have not really needed for a Dell warranty which cost money. In Norway we have a national guarantee which is among the world's best. We have a 5 year warranty on a PC and other similar products without having to buy an pricey additional warranty from Dell or other brand(minimum same performance or better when I get a replacement). You can read my post and tell me what Dell is going to do if something happens...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-gpus-officially.780297/page-44#post-10077728

 

Ooops, I meant to address @ Praetorian77 , who was having the issue currently to give him some advice. I guess I got your names confused. And wow, that national guarantee sounds great. However, I have no idea what the legal details are of it. I'm no lawyer or anything, I just am one of the few people that actually knows the details of what Dell's warranties entail. Other warranties could mean they have to replace your machine with a Chromebook for all I know...

 

Any info about new AW18 bios with maxwell GPU and legacy/boot support for win7?

 

It probably won't be released until the refreshed 18's start shipping.

 

Read the OP about the BIOS's release date. Since it's the weekend, I won't be hearing from Alienware until Monday, so nothing on the latter.

 

There is one listed on eBay right now. 8K .. lol

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Alienw...de-Shipping-/281786088412?hash=item419bc27bdc

 

It's 2013 model, just upgraded to latest GPU's, imho.

 

It's the new one. listing says BNIB unopend and mfg seal. , Location is in Florida , where AW HQ is located. So it's the new new 18.

 

Just because the seller and the alienware HQ are in the same place doesn't mean anything, it's purely coincidental and doesn't prove anything about the system. Besides, all laptops that are sold in the Asia Pacific-Oceania area are all manufactured by their plants in China nor do I believe that many companies as big as alienware will have a warehouse next to them.

 

this guy does not even have the laptop on hand. It is a bid for him to order you one.

 

Going to have to say... That is the old one. The new one has a desktop cpu in it.

 

Actually, that was a typo. It's still the same mobile chipset and mobile processors: http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-18/pd.aspx?ndlvid=1e12-2f0b74

 

Typo where?

 

You were referring to the refreshed alienware 18 having a desktop cpu(4790k) right?

The refreshed models actually don't have a desktop chipset or cpu. They fixed the typo on their website(alienware site). Before it said 4790k but now it's back to 4940MX. The refreshed alienwares are identical to the old ones people bought in 2013, they just will release a bios update to support 970M/980M.

 

Oh. Never looked on their page. Just on their facebook page where they still never corrected it.

 

Dell wants sales. Then everything is allowed. LOL

 

Just a quick update in case people were interested-

The rep I dealt with was fantastic, took two emails (one asking, and the other confirming) for her to upgrade me to the 4910MQ and the 980m's in SLI. So that was easy. New system is being built and should be headed my way in the next week or two. Huzzah!

 

niice, mustve been a company newbie, not indoctrinated yet to screw over customers, haha

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

nice if you dont mind telling me how much did it cost you for the cards upgrade ?
and do you lose your 780's ? and get something for it ?
thanks

 

That is great to hear of - both for you, and for my possibilities of getting 980m's in a similar situation If you don't mind me asking, how long did it take the escalation team to get into contact with you and did they do it by email or phone? I still have yet to even hear from them to get their initial offer and I'm starting to wonder if they are waiting to see if I'll forget.

 

I'd like your rep's information if that's possible. My AW18 will be looking at its 3rd set of 780M SLIs and the rubber coating is peeling off the palmrest, something i've never seen before on the M17x R3, M17x R4, M18x R2, and AW17. That is in addition to the failed/damaged LCD I originally had and the 2 failed 780Ms I have had.

 

So did anyone get the new Dell 970M cards?

 

I'd be interested to know this as well, although I wouldn't be surprised in the least if they simply moved him up to 980M SLi at no cost since it is a system replacement and the replacement components seem logical enough.

 

@Praetorian77 Yup, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like the same information. I was just offered a refurbished "Dell Outlet Alienware 18 R1", with downgraded ram to 16GB (from 32), no Blue Ray drive, and 780m's while I currently have 880m's. That was a punch to the gut. Seems like they are trying to just offload somebody's returned system on me...wouldn't even be surprised if it was Praetorian's.

 

That might be the case, but they already did you a kind of inadvertent favour when it comes to providing you with the adequate bargaining cards with the matter by offering such a compromised system replacement. They gave you a blatant RAM, GPU and Blu-ray drive downgrade with respect to your current specification . The Blu-ray might be impossible to acquire as of the moment, and trivial as an after market part, but it gives you the means to just respectfully and firmly decline the replacement offer on these obvious fronts, which also gives you strong bargaining power going ahead. In a manner of speaking, the onus is now on them to make good on falling short with their replacement suggestion.

 

Yeah, that is the only "silver-lining" I can think of. However, since there is no phone number for the exchange team, I once again have to wait an undefined amount of time for a response (the 1-2 business days they quoted last time became a week). I guess patience is a virtue here... Sorry I've turned this thread into a replacement thread. Hopefully soon enough I can report on the new 18's instead of my pain with an old 18

 

I would, if it was at least PCIe 3.0 x8 (better x16) and it hat a beefier PSU. I could pop in an old desktop PCIe video card in the future for home use then.

 

Meh... 980M SLI owns a single Titan X and 780M SLI will give a single Titan X a really good run for the money. The desktop anchor eGPU would be fun to tinker around with, but it's really just a gimmick, especially if you already own an SLI monster laptop with dual 780M or 980M. Maybe that is why NVIDIA is trying so hard to kill them with screwed up drivers, LOL.

 

I agree. the AGA grfx amp, is, ummmm, well if it's true it used to be $299 & is now $199, there's one redeeming factor for its new owner anyways; imo the power supply inside it is utter junk; $199's the most you'd want to pay & I call it junk since the two side label photos I've seen reveal it isn't even 80Plus rated - which can only come about if it's innards are junk - plus take a gander at how they shrank the psu-fan on it to as whimpy as you'd want, nor is it allowed to have true 8wire pci-e cables; you get 6wires & resistive parasitic +2 jumpers, oh my. Sleeve? what is sleeve? Keep the lid shut's about all you can do. I can't figure out why on Earth someone would want to run a $500/$700/$1000 card off that junk; there are such things in life as clean filtered juice found in a top-tier psu (think of Britta filtered water) & noisy dirty junky juice that pours out of a low-quality psu like is in the AGA, H 20 that Bear Grylls would live off of in the wild ... ripple suppression? what's that? ... makes me shiver when I think about Dell shopping China for the lowest-cost psu they could get away with & then slapped the proud AW name on it (& unproud AW pricetag) for tidy profits; I doubt it's worth $200, but a person can always put an 80Gold or better 450w in there with a decent fan to help cool psu/card. I know I would. My cards wouldn't be allowed to run on that inefficient junk. No sir.

Aw18? SLI'd? The Titanic? She don't need no anchor ...

 

First off: I think I should really just create a separate thread and stop cluttering here, so could @Mr. Fox or someone let me know the appropriate place/way to do so? I have seen (actually read through a lot in the past) dedicated warranty questions and warranty issues threads, but these seem to be kinda dead lately. Should I just create an entirely new thread?

Anyway, I finally got a response offering to send the lesser machine along with a technician and the parts to upgrade it back to the machine I currently have. Now Dell is coming up with options I never even imagined. The exchange specialist also insisted that "systems offered for exchange are preconfigured and cannot be modified," which is a half-lie. I know they can't just open up the system and upgrade it, and then ship it, but I believe if they do not have an outlet PC that is equal to or better than my current configuration, they are supposed to configure a new system. Faulty parts and inexperienced technicians screwing up so many times is the whole reason I am doing a system exchange in the first place, so their solution gets me nowhere. I know system exchanges are on a case-by-case basis, but it seems others in this very thread are having a lot less difficulty than I am, so any tips/ideas are much appreciated.

 

No, I had some serious troubles with exchange services too in the past. All depends on who you get as your rep, as not all reps are made equally nor do all reps care the same about their cases.

 

There used to be a system replacement thread, but in the meantime, why don't you and I have a chat. I have some substantial experience in this area.

 

Here you go: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...re-notebook-system-replacement-thread.781015/

I made it a sticky and included a poll.

 

Thanks Mr. Fox! I voted based on a previous experience a couple years ago. I guess I'll update it if necessary when this whole debacle is over. If my next response from Dell is another dead end, I'll ask for advice, but either way I'll be sure to document my experience there after this is all over and anything I did to help get to a resolution for those in similar situations.

 

It's been a week and my system has been sitting in pre-production the entire time. Oh well.

 

So...where is this elusive "unlocked bios" for the Alienware 18?

 

Another week and a half away unless it gets leaked or put online by dell early. I am keen to try it as I would love to see the end of the crappy fan tables and throttling problems. Hopefully it will address these two issues to some degree.

 

So does anyone know if the new 18 will support GSYNC on external monitors? I'm assuming it does since there is no optimus but I can't be sure.

 

Just found out the Alienware 18 Maxwell is available in Greece. Most likely only through a reseller.
It's also available through China, Hong Kong, and South Africa.
I'm going to keep looking. If I don't list a country, that may be because it won't be sold there.

 

Japan?

The Alienware 15 R2 and 17 R3 are out here now, but no sign of the 18 Maxwell yet.

 

I don't think Dell/Alienware Japan will sell the Maxwell 18. You might want to check some resellers, but that's all I can say.

 

That's a real shame because the UK site hasn't listed these either. I'd be surprised if these weren't being distributed more globally. Perhaps they're taking their time in releasing the unit in various countries.

 

Is that confirmed?
We don't have resellers here.

The 15 R2 and 17 R3 seems to be selling well, according to the jp twitter account anyway. It might have exceeded their initial expectations.

Here's hoping that'll convince them to release the 18 Maxwell here.

 

Can't confirm anything, sorry. The answer I'll get is what is said in the opening post, "When/if the country offers it, it will be posted on their website."
It could be a lack of confidence that the 18 won't do well there, or that they are not interested in selling the 18. That's all I can guess, nothing official other than that quote. Each region seems to make their own approval as to what gets sold or not.

 

I have just checked the UK alienware site and I do not see any alienware 18 except for 17, Will this be released for UK?