*Dell-Alienware & AW Legacy Replacement Systems-Warranty Repair Issues*

the 5850's are not all that much better, than the 4870's with the Dell drivers. I have read alot on the forum about it. Until they allow better drivers which Iam sure they will not a hole lot of differance

 

Question

Tech support is putting in a request for a new system .It has been aproved by manager but they say another department need to give final say so. Is this just a formality or do they reject reqeusts all the time.I am dealing with Aliensupport In Costa Rica. They say it show go though but thoufght was definite .Now I have a Quesy feeling am i being paraniod

 

Yeah I know, I'm guessing you meant 5870's right? The one thing I do like about getting the 5870 vs 4870(s) though is the tesselation/DX11 ability the 4870's lack. With the amount of cards and games coming out relying on DX11 and/or tesselation I like the fact that I don't have to change cards from what I have to run games in a year. Now I just need to add a second card! LOL

 

hamilcar don't worry it now has to go thru a build group they give final word on the specs. Takes a few days then your Rep can email you them. All part of the deal.. Oh and Costa Rica nice guys helped me alot got a guy there from N.C. we email now..your in good hands.

 

Well can hold off on getting specs , but when this the teck support guy said the tech manager approved the new system but another area gives final say so on weather a new system was being issued did stress a bit. After spoke with teck manager felt one hundred percent sure as he said I would get a new system. Now think he does not have enough pull to get me system .That little kernal of dought has hit me.This being my second replacement I start to think .Will the replacement area say nope we gave him one already so no system for you .hat part was in the voice of the soupnazi from Sienfeld

 

Hamilcar I wouldn't worry about it too much, if you've already had one replacement the next will be a brand new one. Same thing happened to me first replacment was a refurb it had problems as almost all R1's do, the next one was an upgraded R2 that you can see in my specs now. Biggest word of advice from me in what I learned(and a lot of what a few people including Alienwolf taught me) is this: it'll happen, it's not if but when just be patient.

 

latest update tech and his manager pushing for replacement.The area manager has to aprove. Hope he just rumber stamps t

 

Hamilcar you really shouldn't have to worry, they've sunk money into repairs that failed, they sunk money into a replacement that didn't work for whatever reason, and you have both a tech rep and manager on your side you're good at that point. That's almost exactly what I went through and look what I have now. ;-)

 

I have my R2 finally, but noticed it being slow. Theyre sending a tech out to swap my 720 for an 820. (-:
For some odd reason the r2 is slower than my r1

 

Stealth mode perhaps. Push the button to see whether it is in stealth or not.

 

Also check to see if turbo mode is disabled in the bios. Something doesn't sound right because the 820 honestly isn't much faster than the 720 at stock. You had the T9600 just like my system was and my 820 literally blows my T9600 out of the water, especially on apps that utilize more than 2 cores.

 

Could be GPU throttling depending on what you're doing. My GPUs throttled to 300/400 depending on what I was doing until I flashed my BIOS to disable the throttling. I have to be careful with my CPU multiplier now, though, and set it to 19x max otherwise I blue screen where it would instead throttle.

Note - temps are fine. Dragon Age just pushes the system hardcore, far more so than even Crysis. Dragon Age will put all cores at 90%+ usage. Now that's optimization.

 

Been away again. Getting home-stuff done instead of worrying about the AW. Still waiting for the refund and my rep is on vacation. At least they have the computer in their hands now. CONGRATS DaneGRClose!!!! You have a smiley in your sig... finally. Can't wait til I can re-order.

Is that the original Dragon Age or the Awakening? I was going to order the original b/c mixed reviews on Awakening. Just curious before I hit the order button.

Will update when I have news. Back to cleaning the garage.

I noticed you guys were listing your test scores and apps. If anyone has pull with the mod's in this forum maybe we could get them to put something together for people just receiving their new and/or repaired systems. A sort of howto on testing their new/repaired computers to make sure it is running as it should. Help to ferret out any problems that might be lurking or a rest easy to know it is running great. Just a thought.

 

Awakening is an expansion. You can't play that without the original. I liked both a lot. If you like the original you'll like Awakening.

You won't notice this problem normally.. I'm talking end game characters with uber buffs on all 4 toons (they're all translucent and have weapons with particle effects and different glowing clouds around them). I can post a screenshot of the scene I use to test this with.

Side view of the scene I can make it throttle/crash at will with:



The view of this scene that I can consistently reproduce the throttle or crash (depending on whether throttling is disabled in the VBIOS):



Having all of those characters partially translucent with all of those translucent particle effects really, really taxes the system. The game engine is so optimized though that I get consistent 60FPS even with all of this going on. Not many games will use every bit of system resources available like Dragon Age does. My system will hover in the 240-250W+ range until the throttling or BSOD occurs if I leave this camera angle.

 

Infernia-Yup finally got a smiley, just have a few twitches to work out like a misaligned or problematic screen, and a hard drive that makes a thunk noise on boot and I'll be happy! I may have to look into doing a thread on testing new/refurb replacement systems since with Dellienware's track record the stream of replacements since the xps m17xx series shows a steady stream of em! Have you decided what you're going to order yet? Just excited to hear what you go to now. Keep us updated!

 

Guys - please move the OT items to their appropriate threads (benchmarks go in the benchmark thread, questions can go in the OL threads, problem reports/questions can go in the relevant model thread - we have a problems thread for each model, etc.). Only posts relating to warranty repair/replacement movement belong here...

Thanks.

 

Happy happy joy joy. Got my call and e-mail conirming replacement o m17x, Now just wondering what specs on replacement. I have t9800 processor and 280 in sli.

 

My money is on i7 920 xm amd 5870 CF good chance of it..

 

Yup, mine too. I had T9600 and one 260 and got i7 820 and a single 5870. So my journey apparantly isn't over yet. Called tech support last night to ask a few questions about a couple of small things I noticed as possible problems, and they're sending another tech out again already. The whole lcd assembly needs to be replaced(gonna try for RGBLED), and the hard drive is bad, possibly the CPU too if the hard drive doesn't fix it! Oh and I found out there are two locations for the reps we've all been dealing with, the tech rep I talked to verified it. There is one location in the united states that's run by mainly employees from pre-Dell Alienware then there is India, he told me India is unwilling to do anything for anybody where the USA does a lot more.
So future reference when you get a rep ask where they are located, if it's in India like my rep was ask for a different rep immediately.

 

DanGRClose - I knew about the US and the India location for sales reps, but are you refering to Tech Reps on the AW tech support line?
I have dealt a LOT with Costa Rican tech reps and they were great, as well as the US reps. The others (location unknown, possibly India) were a bit nasty and some down-right uneducated about the product they were advising on.
Still no word on the refund for the Area 51 m17X R1.
Congrats hamilcar.

 

Not tech reps and not sales reps, the Global Consumer Resolution Department(aka [email protected]), they are located in one of two offices India and the US. My tech rep last night was US based and was an actual Alienware employee pre Dellienware, he checked with a few of his colleagues to see what the chances of me getting the RGBLED approved by my rep(who apparantly is in India) were as she was in the India location and everyone of them said the India based reps are by the book and do not care one bit about customer satisfaction. This is why some of us are getting a hard time, and others are getting upgraded machines quickly with little effort. So anyone who gets an India based rep needs to try to request a US based rep as it will most likely make things easier and quicker.
But yes my new replacement, which I thought was amazing, now has to have the screen replaced has a bunk'd HDD and depending on what happens after the HDD replacement may have a problematic CPU as well. And it starts again.

 

Ok three things in my replacement system would make me happy .Color Red as my system is already Rred I assume they will replace with the same color. Processor at least I-7 820 and 5870 GPU. Should I advise Dell this is what I must have or do you let them come to you with the replacement specs and then reject it I assume when it comes to memory ,screen resolution and DVD drive they give you what they already have. Any chance of them upgrading dvd drive to blue ray .Does being proactive with a list of demands help, or let them advise you what they will give you

 

Requests beforehand do very little. My rep even asked me if I wanted to change my system color and that didn't even make the cut. Unfortunately, they have a checklist that they go through to build the new system based on old system specs. Most reps won't come back to you with system specs or an order number, a few will. I've just had to watch my order status for the order to pop up, which one time did not work because they assigned me a new customer number for some odd reason. Calling eventually turned up that customer number that I was able to add to my profile to see the order. If the system specs are "mostly" right, most people recommend calling and asking the rep to order a replacement part for the piece of hardware that is not correct (i.e. you had SLI but only got a single card, or you had an extreme processor but only got a non-extreme). That will also get the system into your hands *much* sooner than having to start a whole new order over, which is sometimes possible too depending on your rep.

Really it all comes down to the rep you're dealing with as far as correcting the system configuration. The rep themselves have nothing to do with actually specing the system out.

 

I think it's all going to depend on what your individual rep has done to this point, if they seem combatative or are in India you probably just have to wait and most likely take what they give you. If they seem cooperative and ask questions like "are there any specific things you'd like in the new system?" and/or are located in the US it may not hurt to make what I call "humble requests" for the new system. Honestly with your old system I'd just wait to see the specs and if you don't like them, make requests at that point. With your old system you're more than likely going to get dual 5870's in crossfire and either a i7-820qm or 920xm. I had lower specs on my original by quite a bit and I ended up with the specs you're saying you have to have at a minimum. If you make a request now for 820 and a 5870 you may get just that instead of dual cards and a 920xm. Just be patient, let them make the first move and react. It's kind of like in sales, I learned that the first person to talk or make a important act of any kind is usually the person that loses. ;-)

 

I wasn't able to upgrade to a blu-ray drive they wouldn't let me pay the difference to upgrade it either.

I also had dual video cards original was Nvidia 260's which were upgraded to the Ati 4870 in my R1 but when they configured my R2 they only had a single video card which I tried unsucessfully to get them to change it to the dual cards which is what I had, so I waited until I received my new system called tech support explained that my original system had dual cards but my replacement system came with a single card, after checking with his supervisor they put in an order for the second card with crossfire cable and the fan.

So I guess it depends on your rep and how willing they are to work with you.

 

well i have an update. seems that when the dell onsite tech installed the blueray drive he broke the end of the crossfire cable, and also the blueray drive was doa. so called dell they shipped me out the secondary video card and another burner. now a different tech came to install it. first off the tech looked at the laptop like he didnt know what to do with it. i had to show him how to open it up. grrr... now comes the funny part. the dude broke the power button cable that runs to the mainboard. he broke the hinge off the main board. now i took apart my other m17x and salvaged the parts needed, but even then the computer would not power on. so i called the guy thats helping me from corp and he is going to send me another replacement with the parts already upgraded. wow this will be my 3rd replacement in the last 60 days.

 

btw the consumer resolution expert assigned to me is in india, but he is a super cool guy. my origina CRE was based out of coasta rica, and of course all the upgrades i got were given to me by the guy in coasta rica. seem that when you tell them that another tech promised you something they will end up giving it to you.

 

Sorry to hear it DirtyDan, welcome to the 3 strikes in 2 months club lol! And when I referenced the reps I wasn't speaking negatively, the reps in India are nice but they are by the book and don't care about satisfaction as long as they follow Dell's rules.

 

Well my rep is in Costa Rico .I would call him today but he seemed very firm on the fact that he would contact me when had order number .I did jump gun a call a couple of time when he said he would call the next day . I will be paitent but killing me lol

 

wow this is like living thru it again hang in there

 

Wow that's pretty crazy, Dan. I noticed my touch panel lighting was really dim compared to my R1, so I took the liberty of just swapping them myself rather than deal with Dell.

 

the more you bug the reps the faster they want to get rid of you. trust me i was a case manager for gateway corp back in the day. but anyways i got my order put into production like an hour ago. seems he upgraded the wireless card for me. either way im not gonna mess with this one lol. also if you guys have comcast you can get 105mb cable internet. i just ordered it so ill let you know when how it is when i get it installed.. i should see a big difference since im upgrading for 6mb dsl.

 

So a call a day is not out of line .

 

Yes and no, a call a day to check the status or to request things at a certain point isn't out of line at all. If you call and start barking demands too soon it may hurt your case. I'd say call to check the status if you want to once a day, but wait for the specs before you make any demands. One thing you could do first thing in the morning is call for a status update, and make sure you very nicely stress that you would like to know/approve the specs BEFORE it is even sent to the production team and before it is started in the build process.

 

yea you can call once aday , but dont call him/her to and complain. be polite and ask for an update. also i noticed that it makes a difference to them if your system is still usable , and if its dead. they seem to work faster if the customers unit is not operatable. take me for instance i had to purchase another laptop in the meantime to continue doing my work. and thats why they compensated me with upgrades. also the tech gives me a huge apology speach everytime he calls , which is very unexpected from such a large company.

 

Well called today but rep was not in so will give it till Monday before call.Also is the support history usefull.Where do you check online to see if they have your specs.Will your account info show you any info .Case number or service call any use . I have a question I have been dealing with a Costa Rican rep but the name at the bottome of my e-mail from dell is

Jason
then 7 digit number that starts with 0
US Consumer Technical Support

Is this the person that is coming up with the specs on my system is there anyway to contact him

 

Generally, the rep you talk to has nothing to do with approved replacement system specs. You can request corrections once a system is approved, but that doesn't always end up happening.

 

Holy crap!!! Just got my replacement. Keep in mind I had a Q9000, 1440x900, dual 260s, 1 500Gb HD, DVD RW, and 4Gb RAM 1066.

They sent me a QX9300, 1920x1200, dual 280s, 2 500Gb HDs, BD ROM, and 6Gb RAAMM 1333.I would consider that an upgrade, especially since I paid only $1465 on eBay for my first. What do y'all think? Good deal?

 

That'll be great until you play a game that shows the CPU throttling problem. That's the setup that will really hit it pretty easy in some games (Crysis, Dragon Age, Just Cause 2 etc.) If you notice the FPS dropping to 3-5FPS at random points that it shouldn't, you know you've found the design flaw.

Otherwise, nice upgrade.

 

I thought they were only giving out ATI cards as replacements

 

For their first attempt at fixing the stutter issue with mine, they only sent me one 280 card. So they clearly still have them laying around. And it was a faulty card to boot that caused major tearing/flickering in anything that used SLI and has caused major issues now to where I can't enable SLI at all and can only run either the 9400 or the main 280. If I enable Hybrid in the BIOS my system BSODs as soon as I get to the windows login screen.

 

Hamilcar they're only giving out ati cards in replacements that are brand new which are all R2's. Any refurb'd replacement(R1) can have nvidia or ati's in them. Core I processors=R2=ATi only, Core 2 Duo/Quad=R1/refurb=ATi or nvidia.

 

OK I was promised a new one so should be good to go lol

 

Boooo! Like sqaush all my dreams and hopes. Well, maybe it'll work out. What recourse do I have if I start to notice issues with throttle?

 

You get to have fun and do what I am trying to do now. Get them to start replacing parts that they think may fix the issue because they avoid acknowledging the true issue we all have pointed out to them, and then demand an R2 replacement.

 

Honestly Hamilcar if you know what to look for and what to say they'll just give you an R2 without having to go through the repairs crap again. If you give them too long your next replacement after repairs will be another R1 and they'll just say you got a "fault unit". You have to literally nitpick the computer and test the ever living heck out of it. When you find problems, which there always will be, make them sound a little bigger than what they are. Rather than attempting another repair set they'll do a replacement most likely an R2. If you want specific help on it from me just shoot me a PM

 

So what should I do? And when will I see this throttling issue? Just in games?

 

PM me or someone else to ask for the steps, they don't directly relate to the thread and a mod may give a warning if we go into that much detail in here.

 

Checking my status on my service call number and got the below status .
PArts ordered
then it give me the below parts numbers
N8GY4 BASE (ASSEMBLY OR GROUP)..., NOTEBOOK..., RED..., CTO, ANW, M17X10 2835C MODULE..., DOCUMENTATION..., AIRBORNE..., 2-DAY, DELL DRCT

Am I getting closer they could still not give me the specs

 

Well, I know the base Part# on my R1 P303J. Not sure if that changes anything. Red- Looks like an R2 for you.