Help buying from alienware (ATi Mobility Radeon HD 3870 )

Hi all I am new to the forum and hope i can get some help.....

I own an alienware m9750 installed with dual 8700m gt's , I want to install an ATi Mobility Radeon HD 3870 or maybe even 2 of them. But the problem is getting my hands on one.

I have read that some people can buy them from alienware if they bought a system that allows an upgrade.

about 7 months ago i bought an M17x with dual GTX 260m from alienware. I have no desire to change the cards in the M17x but can i buy them from alienware and say they are for my M17x and then put them in my m9750 ? and if so who do i call and what do i tell them ?

thanks in advance for your help.

 

They'll tell you the 3870 is not compatible with the M17x.

 

figured i wouldn't get that lucky. thanks for the info , back to ebay i guess

 

From what I know, the M17x uses MXM 3.0B while the M9750 uses MXM III 2.1.

Any card that fits the M17x won't fit the M9750.

 

Hi,

Are you a US customer? I just recently got my 3870 for my m15x first generation, by ordering from Alienware. They will sell it to you if you ask them about it. The Master gpu cost me about 175 bucks. Tell them that it's for the m9750. They will still sell it to you if you are out of warranty because I was out of warranty.

 

yes i am a us customer and its out of warranty . thanks for the info i will try.

 

So I called Alienware and wanted to share my experienced with everyone....

First i was transferred maybe 10 times before i finally got to someone who knew what the heck i was talking about and was willing to help me, here is the direct line to his department (I asked him for this ) 1-866-287-6727 option #4 . He gave me his name also but i do not want to post it here for fear he might get in some trouble for going out of his way to help me.

I explained to him that i had an old alienware m9750 that was out of warranty and the graphics cards had gone bad and i wanted to purchase some new ones, specifically the ATI Mobility HD 3870's . He was happy to help but we ran into 2 problems ... 1st he explained that the ATI 3870's were not reccomended for the m9750 and they did not have driver support. I explained to him that i understood and i was willing to assume all responsiblity since it was out of warranty and attempt to make the cards work on my own. 2nd... he had to place the order using some type of old alienware ording system that required account information from someone who had purchased an alienware computer directly from alienware and the computer had to be recommended for upgrade to the ATI 3870's . this was a problem since i bought this computer from ebay and had no such info, i was honest with him and told him this, he said "ok let me see if i can create a fake account to make the order from" (YES he actually used the words FAKE ACCOUNT) . after being on hold for some time it seems he was able to do this.

The technical description of the cards were ... ATI Radeon M88 XT HD 3870 master, and ATI Radeon M88 XT HD 3870 slave. this concerned me since the decription did not include the word mobility and i had no idea what M88 XT meant. but a quick google search brought me to this page ....

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-3870.9597.0.html

it shows the card i want with a codename M88-XT.

he took my payment info and explained to me how he made the order just in case i needed to call back reguarding this order. he explained that the order was made under someone elses name (he did not give me this name) but my address and billing information was used. (i suspect he found an account that had a computer on it eligable for upgrade to these cards)

The total cost for the ATI Radeon mobility 3870 master card, slave card, and crossfire cable was 351.62 us dollars. It should arrive in 5-7 days.


I want to thank everyone for you help .

 

You'll probably want to get some very good high performance thermal paste and a nice notebook cooler too. The 3870s will run hotter than those 8700s did, and you obviously don't want them burning out

 

Not a bad price.

 

I have an awesome homemade cooler, and bought some arctic silver 5 . what temperatures do you expect these to run at ?

 

re: Viper's earlier post (now removed of course) - he will need to post this in the NBR MarketPlace - sorry folks.

 

Tim, any luck contacting AW again for the 3870s?

 

Now they seems to stop buying those cards now because I called them recently and one of the tech supports direct me to another website to try my luck there to order a 3870....