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

Looks like an R2 prob come from Tenn so post are slow

 

OK. Here we go again. Haven't had much time with this laptop because of the 4th of July weekend and all. But just sat down and really started looking at it and using it. The screen has a small scratch on it-small but a scratch none the less. AND-why will it never wake after sleeping? The black screen issue. It shouldn't have to be configured if it is a new(Refurbished) computer. It should work out of the box, right? It's kind of a joke now. You tell people about this AWESOME computer and try to show it off and it makes you look dumb. Getting frustrating. Is this all specific to the R1 or is the R2 that problematic?

 

It is an R1 kind of thing, call tech and they will live link to your R1 and fix the sleep prob. And order a new screen thru him while on phone and they can send a tech to replace it.

 

R2 has the problem.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/488669-m17x-r2-black-screen.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/481081-m17x-r2-wakes-up-black-screen.html

 

Ouch not good, still call tech and get her fixed good luck

 

Think three might be the charm had 3 service calls in a week .2 mother board replacements and still had issue. Tryed to run sytem check and kept getting error message was happy when rep remote axcessed the system he got the same error . Internet keep going in and out and every time attempted to get my 280 sli cards going either got blue screen of death or screen went black .
Was on remote axcess so rep was watching Last straw was when opened system to check memory the hard drive was jamed in and I freaked in a nice way. Be patient go trhough all the steps they ask you to take be polite yet firm try to get them on your side. Good luck .

 

Pfffft! I love it! Just got off of the phone with Tech support and he told me to try to install the W7 service pack. What??????? Of course that was after the BIOS update that we all KNOW ain't gonna fix the problem. But I was nice and cooperative. Then I told him about the scratch and he wants me to take a picture of it. Freakin' how? You can't see a scratch with a camera that you can barely see with your eyes. I mean, it's noticeable and a nuisance, but it ain't gonna show good on a camera. Well, gotta try to please them as best I can so a picture takin' I go. Thoughts????

 

OK. So I ul'ed some pics. See what y'all think.





You can sort of tell. Am I nit picking? Or is it valid?

 

Great job of showing it.. are you picky? Not if it bothers you, only you know that. Ask for a tech to replace it or if you don't want the hassle ask for a SSD to comp you
Or something else like 100.00 off account. Just an idea.

 

If it were me, I would make them replace the screen.

 

I took care of it. Don't want to say too much, but I still have my 'old' unit with a 1920X1200 that I haven't sent back to Dell yet. :wink:
So, if the BIOS update or something else can handle the black screen, I'll be plenty happy. Might still try for an SSD, LOL.

 

And yes, I am kinda picky. Just aggravated. Pay good money and keep finding problems. Think I might have it now.

 

Just want to confirm that if your laptop fails 3 times (i.e. 3 engineer visits) you can then ask for a replacement?

 

And now, I have a piece of dust under the E2E on this one. Craaaaaaaaap! It's pretty annoying. Only on a white screen though, like EVERY WEB PAGE!!!!!!! Advice? Or advise?

 

Not happy got spec on replacement. Had 280sli they are looking to give me 4870 sli, had 9800 processor they are looking to give me 720 , had 1900 resolution screen they are looking to give me the lower resolution screen ,
They did upgrade memory from 4 to 6 and upgrade harddrive from 360 to 500.Can I offer to have them down grade memory from 6 to 4 and down grade the harddrive. Or sould I not offer to do that

 

You shouldn't have to down grade at all. But, they are giving you some upgrades so is it worth it for you to worry bout it too much?

 

First, if you want to be extremely picky then yes technically the 280's perform better(when they work right that is) but the 4870's are ridiculously close in performance. Now your two options are stay with the 4870's and be happy that you have good driver support, or pester them for the dual 5870's and wait for a good driver and until one is released really only have the performance of one card. The 4870's in dual config are a lot more stable and usable right now, but it's up to you. The 720 is a great cpu, chances of you getting a 920 out of a 9800 are slim to say the least and the 820 really isn't much different. Definitely fight them on the screen! And no don't offer to downgrade the HDD or ram keep it if they offer it.

 

Ok they uped the screen to the 1900 still fighting on the cards .But may give in with that and be happy

 

Either way you go you have a great set of cards! If you really want to fight just reference the benchmark numbers on the two sets(280's vs 4870's) and state that the 4870's perform lower than the 280's so you need 5870's. But again you have better support for the 4870's righ now.

 

Can a r-1 have 1 i7 720 processor .They are telling me I am geting a r-1 but is this possible

 

no r1 can not use the I7 processors

 

They say that but you cannt have an R1 with the i7 series or the LED screen so it is an R2 for sure. I agree with Dane take the upgrades the i720 and the screen and run.. I like the 4870's right now, no driver problems.

 

yep think am going to do that rep spoke with said it a refurb but dont see how it can be .As does not mention refurb in specs

 

The thing I would say is if they said new it has to be new, and no matter what equal or better specs always! I would say you got a pretty sweet setup there, you got same specs on the screen, an upgrade on the ram and HDD, an i7 and dual 4870's I would have killed for that setup especially the RGBLED. But you have to do what you feel is right/best for you.

 

Well Dell giveth and taketh away lol.
Orginal specs 4 gb mem ,280 sli and t9800 processor.

was given 6gb mem 500 hd 4870 in crossfire and i7 720 with 1440 900 screen .

I now have 4gb mem, 320 with 4870 in crossfire with i7 820 and 1900 1220
rgb led screen

Is the new system better than the first one should i have keep quite or was it a good thing to complain and should I now take what I was given and run.
Funny thing is Dell upgraded cpu and I did not ask them to do that.

 

I'd take the second one, the way I look at it is even though the ram and hdd are downgraded on the second one they are cheap to upgrade. The cpu, and screen aren't. Throw another 320 gig drive in there for $60 fo 640 raid, and throw in 8 gig of 1333 for $150 and you have a blitzkrieg capable system. Even if you don't you have one heck of a system, and honestly one I'm slightly jealous of(especially the screen )

 

Dane what specs did you have on your the original system?
I am now pretty happy .From what I see 4870 is about 8 percent slower than the 5870 but not worth enough to keep fighting. I am puzzled as to why they upgraded cpu or 300 when I wanted to get gpu upgraded that would have cost them 100.

Also will r-2 with 4870 x-fire be any faster than my r-1 with t9800 and 80 sli

 

My original systems specs were: T9600, single gtx 260m, single 500 gb hdd, 4 gb 1066 ram, 900p ccfl screen. And honestly you won't notice any difference real life in performance other than dx11 between 4870's and 5870's. If you had problematic throttling/power cutting 280's you should notice quite a bit of difference, if they ran fine then they should be as good maybe a bit better. Either way that's an awesome setup! Congrats!

 

Take the second system, dont get to hung up on a little ram. Everyone says 4 is plenty plus the GPU's are fine. Look at it this way your getting an upgrade in hardware and model. The R2 is worth more than R1 and next to the best CPU

 

Dane I dont want to play poker with you they doubled your hard drive and upped you from a 260 to a 5870 . SO think I do ok but you did better
In effort to get the 5870 said would be willing to give up mb for the gpu upgrade . Cant help thinking I blinked.

 

Take the second one no doubt! I just got an awesome upgrade for my replacement. It's still an R1, but my orig was Q9000, 4Gb 1066, dual 260m's, 500Gb HDD, 1440X900, DVD RW. They sent me a QX9300, 6Gb 1333, dual 280m's, 2X500Gb HDD's, 1920X1200 and Blue Ray ROM. Not complaining at all!!!!

 

Well considering My first system was a xps1730 with 8700 in sli 2 gb mem and and a t7500 processor I can not complain to much he he
Although I did hear on thish sight that 260's normally got upgraded to 4870 and 280 got upgraded to 5870

 

If you think about it though Hamilcar the single config I had before meant they had no choice but a single 5870, they don't offer ANY other single cards in brand new systems anymore, you get single 5870 or crossfire 4870/5870 so they didn't have a choice there. The double hard drives is because my rep lied to me, avoided me, and a tech manager finally stepped up and upgraded the only thing he could the HDD. I did play my cards well but it was a long very layed out process, took me over 2 months to finally get it after my last machine was deemed bad/replacement status. Realistically what I would say to them is listen you offered me this on the hdd and ram now you can't downgrade it it's same or better and I want same or better, and they can't downgrade the rest(gpu's, screen, cpu) as it's same or better on what they have offered/given to you. The reason I ended up with the 820 was the first refurb they gave me was a q9000 so I demanded a quad core of that ability or better, and I got it. Try it if you're not content with what they're offering you, they can't downgrade you.

 

Ok so they cant not say your being a pain and tell you go away. If they had not down graded ram ahd hdd would be ok .But not sure why they did that and upgraded the cpu.Afraid they will say will we will give you the ram and hdd back and take away the cpu upgrade. I did say that would be willing to take a down grade in memory to get gpu I wanted.Maybe the manager gt confused.

 

Hello

Dell Wont budge on Video card. But they did offer to look into having me pay for the upgrade. If they give it to me for the 100 dollor upgrade cost .Would it be worth it for me to do it ?

 

Sometimes it has to do with what they have in influx of stock of. If they're out of or low on stock of a lower part but have a lot of extra of an upgraded parts they will sometimes use the upgraded part. I got 4870s as an upgrade from my 280s and to be honest, I'm totally happy with them. They chew through everything I can throw at them, and with the problems some people are still having with the 5870s I'm not the slightest upset.

 

I reallly have to agree with Elkay, the 4870's are amazing cards that will chew through it all right now. I absolutely love my single 5870 but if I was looking at a dual gpu situation don't know if I could say I would stay with 5870's right now. It's a bit of a russian roulette situation where they may never get the 5870's working right/to their full potential, it does have DX11 support but honestly that's far from a requirement right now. On the other hand the 4870's haven't had any major issues and other than ocassional throttling there aren't any real problems with them. I would say the 4870's are amazing and keep you from shelling out more money, but it's up to you!

 

They cannt down grade you for being a pain, But, they can drag it all out so you'll wish you had not been one!

 

You're right Alienwolf! And Hamilcar, one suggestion I'm seeing you post multiple new threads about your situation, the mods may get irritated if you post multiple threads all relating to a replacement. They may involve different steps of your replacement process, but they all involve replacement, just a friendly suggestion.

 

Still here, still waiting, and sorry that I really can't contribute to the discussion since my process is totally different from those on here now. However I just got some news a little while ago.
They are finally crediting me back for the parts I sent back in April '10
and:
" a credit should be posting to your bank within the next 24 hours, after which it can take up to 5 business days for it to reflect on their end. In regards to the credit for your system, that is still pending due to the long holiday, but I expect to see it posted within the next 48 hours allowing for the holiday backlog."

Yay! It's moving along and if he's right, faster than I expected. Well not for the first bit of credit, that should have happened months ago, but the system was just received by them June 28th.

 

Dane

Thanks For the warning and that last one was the last of the multiple posts.
Yep in the end happy with what i got and do not want them to put me at the back of the line for being a pain.Will also stop with the multiple topics.
You and ALien have been very helpfull .Have not gotten 100 percent of what wanted but have a great system as is so in the end very happy .Just puzzled why they upgraded cpu that cost more money . Does not make sense but .Bet you are right it has to do what they have in stock .I will stop being a baby and take 95 pecent of what i wanted

 

Congrats Infernia, can't wait to see you get it after the long road you've been on with this! You need to get a smiley face back in your sig!
Hamilcar, no problem I know I've just seen it too often(a little myself) that getting OT too much or posting multiple threads that could go in another thread sometimes gets red flagged. Glad we could be of some help we both went through it too, and it's no fun especially without people at your back! Glad to hear you're happy with the system and now comes the waiting game of getting it. The upgrade on cpu seems pretty common lately that 820 is coming in a lot of replacements, don't know why.

 

Would say this is the last question but know thats not true.
Do you think me offering to downgrade my memory and harddrive had any effect on me getting the I-7 820 . Cant help but feel that I blinked and if had not would have had i-7 820 with the 500 hdd and the 6mb ram, . Like I said happy with what I got but am curious about process .When they canceled first replacement .Are they in effect starting with a total new system or are they changing components on the old one. Are they picking orders that were canceled and using those .It is really kind of interesting to try to figure them out .

 

From what I have gathered reading this forum and talking to techs... sometimes they use a cancelled order for a replacement system.
They always cannibalize the returned laptops to use in one way or another. My case was different since it was legacy, but I know they used parts that were from returns to 'try' to fix the laptop. It just was not a successful endeavor in my case. I don't know how they classify a cancelled order versus a returned computer. Is one still technically new and the other refurbished? Etc. Would be a good thing to know what exactly one could expect on a return or replacement system.
DaneGRClose did you have your HDD clunking issue fixed? I have been trying to keep up with the thread over the holidays but did not see you post the resolution on it, the screen or the possible cpu issues.
Can't wait to turn my sig to a smiley

 

If a system is built but the order is cancelled before it's shipped they can use the parts as new on new systems as it was never used by an end user/consumer. If it's shipped out then returned they have to use them on refurbs only as there was an end user involved.
The HDD is bad it was getting ridiculously slow speeds and making the clunk noise, the screen is getting replaced as well it's just a minor misallignment issue where I can't see about 1/8" on the right side of the screeen they'll both be getting replaced today. And the cpu may be bad if the HDD doesn't fix the speeds I'm getting, but it could very well be a HDD issue it just seems laggy. As far as the system goes it's awesome overall.

 

OK. My new screen is on the way. Another issue I have-I called Dell to see if I could buy the old system that was replaced b4 I sent it back. Sure they said-for 713.72. I ws elated and about to finalize when I spoke to another customer rep that told me that was just the pricefor the hard drive!!!!! The whole system would be $3299.78!!!!!!!!! What???!!! Check my sig. For $3299.78. What's wrong with this picture? Well, I didn't buy it. Shipping it out tomorrow....Crazy!!!!!

 

Well their way of saying no your not going to strip it and sell the parts, or fix it and have one for cheap. Just their way thats all.

 

So yeah. I'm kind of getting the runaround myself. Sent a message off to certain people describing my issue; gonna copy-paste it here so I don't have to type it out again.

I purchased an Alienware m11x computer less than three months ago, and at this moment in time, I am having a number of problems with it and customer support has been a nightmare.

About three weeks ago, the left hinge of my computer started creaking when I opened the computer, and popped out of place by about half an inch when closing the screen. This did not bother me.

One week ago, however, the hinge that was creaking snapped. Now there is a gap in the hinge, and it looks like it can break at any moment. This was not due to anything I had done; it was caused primarily due to a structural fault in this make and model of laptop.

I contacted customer support to report that my hinge was broken and sent them a picture of what had happened. They sent out a replacement LCD display. When the technician went to install it on my computer, the screen looked like someone had rubbed steel wool over a good portion of it - there were gouges, and portions of the screen seemed so bad that they would be un-seeable should the screen be installed.

I had that screen sent back - it is unacceptable for a computer that was purchased in late April. Upon receiving the other screen, the technician came to install it - and found that he could not. He mentioned that something along the lines of the keyboard ribbon connector - something like that - was faulty. It had looked like it was forced in there, and if he were to try and move it - a necessary step to fix the screen - that the motherboard would need to be replaced.

I called in, and come to find out I need four parts replaced due to this faulty laptop. The bottom chassis has become damaged due to the faulty hinge, and the indicator bar cover is faulty as well. Also I would need a new motherboard due to the very strong likelihood of this one breaking when my hinge is to be repaired.

My palm rest is also damaged, yet due to me not knowing that until later, I have not re-ordered that yet.

The parts they are sending me are all going to be refurbished parts. For a machine that is less than three months old, this is completely unacceptable. I paid close to one and a half thousand dollars for what I hope is a good name. Many people I know have heard well of both Dell and Alienware, and I do not wish to be let down.

There is no reason for it to be so faulty through no fault of my own. As well, the support center seems to view turning my computer into a Frankenstein's Monster-esque conglomeration of new and refurbished parts as acceptable - everyone I have spoken to of this does not.

I purchased this less than three months ago. I feel dissatisfied that within this time, I am essentially going to have a used machine. This is unacceptable so far. I spent extra for the name. And yet I'm getting a cobbled together monstrosity less than three months in.

If this is how Alienware treats its customers, I think I might not get another one. Or Dell for that matter. This is ludicrous.

 

From what I read just before they separated the forum into AW models, you are not alone with the M11X hinge issues.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/493140-m11x-hinge-discussion-r1-r2.html
I am sure this is a very common complaint/issue and they are dealing with it like most of their known issues. Try to fix it as cheaply as possible as many times as possible before considering a replacement. It makes good business sense but leaves the customer feeling cheated. I would simply continue to contact technical support with the problems that have manifested due to the hinge issue.
I understand your pain about the refurbished parts being put into a new machine and can not fault your disappointment. It is my understanding that you should get new parts for a new laptop, however the warranty wording is a bit slippery once a certain amount of time has passed. I had to pick through my warranty with Alienware recently and it reads a bit differently than the newer Dell warranty. (I had less time to return my system once repaired if there was a problem than Dell, otherwise they were almost identical)
I don't advocate being the squeaky wheel all the time, but it sounds as though you have legitimate concerns that are not being addressed. My advice would be to express those concerns while speaking with tech support, each and every time you speak with tech support. You are entitled to a functioning system and if parts must be replaced they are to be of equal or greater value. This I know for sure.
I included a link to AW warranty as I have it in my favorites sadly
Alienware: Learn More About Our Warranty
Don't let up until your system looks and functions the way it was out of the box. Remember not all refurbished parts are damaged in some way, many times they come from laptops that have been returned and never used or cancelled orders. However in my experience, it is best to scrutinize them completely. Hope this helped.

 

Xalgon if your problems are not addressed in a short time I would send a copy of what you just posted to [email protected] you will have someone at Corp look at your case and believe me you will get a special Rep on it. Thats what I would do
Trust me on this one.