Alienware Advanced Warranty with Lo-Jack

Well today I was told the advanced warranty had a form of lo-jack that helped in laptop recovery. I don't know if it is true or not but I think alienware would advertise such a good thing. So if you can confirm that this is true or false that would be great.

Today i was told by a sales rep that the Advanced warranty came with a Lo-Jack of sorts. Is this true? if it is why dont that openly advertise this? If its not my first sales rep was an idiot.

 

You mean they install some sort of tracking device on advanced warranty models? Seems improbable, however I have the advanced warranty, if there is anything you want me to check I can do that.

 

There's a BIOS feature that has tracking but one has to pay intel for the service?

 

The BIOS feature is there, but you can't activate it or use without paying for the subscription. Sales rep is just saying what you want to hear to make the sale .

 

Sorry about the double post, i tried to post on my phone and it wouldnt do it. But apparently it had done it lol because here it is.

 

Your double post made me chuckle. Anyway, I hope it does because that's pretty neat. One would think they would advertise it if it were true.

 

I've never heard of such thing - would be interesting to have, though

 

This has actually been around for quite a while. The motherboard has support for this as a standard feature, (as do almost all laptops being manufactured at this time,) but the monitoring service generally comes at an extra cost. Dell/Alienware sometimes bundle it with the advanced warranty with accidental damage coverage. There is a "Computrace" setting in the BIOS that must not be disabled for it to work. LoJack for Laptops. You would likely see it noted as a value-added feature if it is being included in the bundle. (My "Dell Complete Care" warranty has is, but it was part of a limited time offer that was being promoted about 2.5 years ago.)

 

That said you could always just install a lo-jack device after you buy it

 

When I just got my M18x from the Outlet, I bought the CompleteCare (which is now called Advanced) and it DID reference Lo-Jack, but didn't specifically state that it was included (but didn't say it wasn't, either). I wondered, but not enough to delve deeper. I saw it here.

I don't think the sales person was making it up...

 

I used to have lojack. They told me it only works when you connect to the internet. I asked if they switched the hard drive will it still work? They said no! Is this true or I got a bad person?

 

You spoke to the wrong person. Once it's activated in the system BIOS and tied to your account it works with no software installed. It phones home every time the system is connected to the internet. Once activated, the software is only for the ease of use benefit for the computer owner to check status reporting.

There are other monitoring programs that rely on software and they are defeated by removing the software, but Lo-Jack is not one of them. Its presence is difficult to detect and not easy to defeat, especially considering the low level of intelligence possessed by an average laptop thief.

 

Actually, according to the Lo-Jack site, it's not platform independent, meaning it DOES require software. What it does do, should a thief wipe or replace the hard disk and reinstall a supported OS (Windows/OS X only) is the BIOS automatically reinstalls the software to the Hard drive.

The BIOS, itself, does not handle the "call home". Lo-Jack states that, for instance, Linux is not supported, hence it's not a BIOS-only solution.

 

I think you're reading more into the situation than what was intended by my comments. That's understandable because I did not provide an elaborate dissertation.

I have been a Lo-Jack user for almost 4 years. Lo-Jack for laptops with system replacement coverage was bundled with my Dell Complete Care 4 year warranty and it has been transferred from an XPS M1730, to a second M1730, to an M17x R2, and ultimately to my third M18x. Each time the machine with coverage is replaced, the Absolute software has to be installed once to activate the new machine and cancel the activation on the old machine. Once that is done, no user-installed software is necessary. The "Absolute Notifier" GUI software is not required and it can be removed after activation. I always remove it because it is a piece of nagware and if my machine is stolen, it seems idiotic to have something running that might be recognized by the perpetrator.

The software that is automatically installed by the BIOS without any user intervention cannot be seen or removed by the user (or thief). If it relied on post-activation user intervention and it could be manually removed by a thief it would not be effective. It is BIOS dependent once activated, otherwise the monitoring abilities would be defeated by reformatting the HDD or replacing it with another drive. Once it is activated, the installation and activation becomes persistent on that machine and it is not easily defeated. It will survive a HDD wipe or replacement after that point simply because the BIOS triggers it and you never know it is happening. The software the BIOS installs has no Windows GUI and cannot be removed in the Windows Control Panel. There is no visible evidence that Lo-Jack is working on my system because I remove the "Absolute Notifier" application, but Lo-Jack is still working. Functionality can be verified by logging in with user name and password at the Absolute web site. You will see information on when your PC last "phoned home" and you can remotely trigger a lock-down of the machine and report it stolen using the web site. Doing so starts the tracking and recovery process. Once recovered and returned to the rightful owner, the owner can "unlock" the machine on the web site using a PIN.

 

Didn't mean to, but my only point was that while there isn't any visible software that accounts for the monitoring, there must be some code (software) that handles it, since the BIOS does write something to the hard drive if it's activated or the hard drive replaced.

I was just trying to make the distinction between the BIOS purely handling the "call home" (no hard drive or OS required) and there needing to be something running on the OS to do it. In this case, it's the latter.

I think we both agree that the response to the original question is that a hard drive change does NOT disable the protection (unless the thief runs LINUX) since the BIOS sneaks it back on.

I guess the question as to whether Advanced Warranty includes it or not is still up in the air?

 

I agree with the point you were making, bro. I wasn't very clear in what I posted before and that left it open for clarification by someone else. Thanks for doing so.

I'm not sure about the answer to the question whether it is included or not. It was advertised clearly when I got the Dell Complete Care warranty, so I am leaning toward it not being included at no additional charge. It would surprise me for Dell/Alienware to provide it as a value-added option and make no mention of it.

I think the terms and conditions of the service have changed as well. My Lo-Jack subscription included coverage to replace the entire system if the laptop is stolen and not recovered. I don't think that Absolute offers that system replacement option any more. I was going to extend my subscription when it expires in August and I can no longer find that option anywhere on their web site. I'm assuming they had to replace too many systems and it became cost prohibitive for them to continue offering it.