Looking fo m9750 help and suggestions.

I have posted that I've been having problems with my new m9750 since I received it 8/17 in the ownership thread. Initially after an hour or two of use the screen would "scramble" the mouse freezes and then the screen would go black. If I tried to reboot immediately afterwards it would do the same thing right after it finishes the boot process. If I let it sit first it worked fine again for awhile. I tried to reinstall graphic drivers and then reseating the card with no success. I have been on the phone with Alienware Technical support for hours the last few days and we can't seem to find the cause since the crashes are so random. Although they are happening with increasing frequency and many times the only way I can get it to work again is through safe mode.

After running 3DMark successfully six times Alienware no longer thinks it is a graphic card problem. I was asked to format and do a clean install of Windows and drivers. The first two times it crashed immediately after installing the media card reader drivers. I was able to get everything installed the third attempt. The system was still crashing so I did it a forth time but skipped loading the media card drivers. When that didn't solve the problem AW had me run a memory test thinking the problem was there. Nope. It passed all memory tests fine. So I was then asked to do another clean install with the drivers being done in a certain order. It crashed hard immediately after installing the graphic card drivers. But this time the screen would go black during the boot process when the welcome screen should have been up. So I decided to start from scratch. I formatted the drive installed windows and then used the respawn to get the notebook back to original condition. After that everything seemed to be working fine again. I then noticed that it was running on battery, I plugged in the AC and it crashed and would not boot. I pulled the AC and it booted fine while running on battery. I recreated that scenario a couple times to see if it was consistent.

I thought I had finally found the problem. After that I would shut the computer down when the battery ran low, recharged and ran it just on the battery. I did this for a day with no crashes.

Well, earlier today it crashed with the exact same symptoms while just on battery. AW doesn't seem to know what to do next and I am out of ideas.

 

Do you have any peripheral device hooked on to your system? Wireless mouse, etc? If you do, shut off your system and unhook all peripheral devices and turn on your system again. If it works fine, then it's a hardware incompatiblity and probably a driver problem. I had a problem with a wireless mouse and keyboard and would get a BSOD crash. I downloaded the latest software update from the manufacturer and the problem was solved. I hope your problem is just as easy to solve as mine.

Good luck. If all else fails, RMA. Send it back and get a replacement.

 

At this point they should have it shipped back to them and fix it themselves. That's ridiculous! What if you weren't computer savvy enough to do all that? That is awful customer support. Have them either fix it themselves or ship a replacement. Honestly, they are a boutique brand, they are very expensive. Their quality should be controlled better, and so should their service.

 

I have not installed any peripheral devices yet.

Alienware doesn't seem to want to do any replacements until they are sure what the problem is.

 

That's bullcrap. You didn't spend that much money on a top of the line system to have it crash. Something I learn in life, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Go squeak loudly, Kav. Call them up every hour if you have to.

 

I Second that. I got my old Sony laptop burned up as in the whole machine baked. But I complained ALOT and they gave me another brand new one.

 

Well I have been on the phone with AW tech support again. This time with somebody who seems to know what they are doing and we where able to figure out rather quickly the problem is.

I am having a power problem with the graphics card. By changing the PowerMizer settings within the NVidia controls to AC outlet: Balanced and Battery: Balanced the system is booting and working correctly. If I change it back to original settings the system crashes and/or hangs up during the boot while on AC.

Instead of them just sending me a new card they want me to send the whole notebook to them so they can check to make sure the motherboard hasn't been damaged also from these power problems.

So - hopefully things will get corrected fairly quickly now. I was lucky to have noticed the AC/Battery issue because she was able to tell me what to try immediately. Otherwise I think we would still be going in circles....

 

Computers are complicated items and the fact that we all use them and configure them differently makes them even more complicated. It cant be easy for someone to troubleshoot over the phone. Esp a problem that is not one of the "top 10 issues" type of thing.
Also, enter in all the tons of users that screw up their system due to pilot error and hardly know how to use it at all much less explain a problem over the phone properly.

Price of laptop has nothing to do with it. I will keep saying this if need be.

A company like this cant just send a new laptop to everyone that has a problem.

I agree that an aggressive strategy to GET support is the best way to go. Call them a lot, talk to different people. And we all know the language barrier of the foreign support staff doesnt help us at ALL - but hey, thats what we get after voting in the leaders of the last 10 to 20 years who have pushed for world trade - now most things we deal with are created and now supported in foreign countries while our homeless rate is as high as ever.
but I digress......

Kavoth, Im glad you are getting somewhere, definately an unusual problem.

 

It is true that they can't be sending replacements on a whim, but they have a legal and moral obligation to sell a working product. You can't just take 3000 bucks for a laptop and when there is a problem just say, "oh well." They owe him. And if they can't solve it over the phone, they'd better get their hands on it and deal with it themselves. And if I bought from a boutique high-performance brand, I at least expect them to have very caring customer service. Twin 7950s aren't any good unless they work.

I am glad that they did the right thing here. They solved the problem, and are now taking a reasonable precautionary measure. Good for them, and good for you.

 

Good squeaking, Kav! The next step is to squeak some more to get them to fix/replace your notebook in a timely manner. You must stay vigilant. Call them to confirm if they've received your return package yet. Call them again the following day to ask if they've found out what's wrong and what can be done about it. Dude, you gotta call them everyday and be such a sore on their arse that they'll just have to get 'er done so you won't bother them again. Be firm, be vigilant, but above all be polite and civil. Being obnoxious just turn people off and gets you nowhere.

 

"And if I bought from a boutique high-performance brand, I at least expect them to have very caring customer service."

Everyone keeps saying this, but if you bought a 1000 dollar laptop from a major company, are you saying you wouldnt expect them to have "very caring customer service"? Cause you should.

The amount of money the laptop costs shouldnt matter (disregarding extra money given for a support or warranty package).

A company making 4000 dollar laptops and one making 1000 dollar laptops, runs the same. The money is a big difference to us, but not the way the company is run. Customer support should be the same amount of priority to any company making laptops. I think its foolish to think that a more expensive laptop company as a rule has a higher placement on the quality of their customer service. It all has to do with the mentality of the people in charge, not the amount of their product. There IS a general rule that smaller companies usually put more of quality on Customer Service just because with larger companies, things get decided more by numbers, rather than peoples personal opinions.
But would expect the same level of customer service for any laptop.

 

I gotta say that other then one technical support person they where all really good with me. I spent many hours every night on the phone with them and they all talked me through different troubleshooting steps and stayed on the phone with me the whole time. It just seemed that they where walking me thru the same thing over and over again because they just couldn't get past the fact that it was passing most diagnostic tests.

It was random crashes and as it turns out an unusual problem. It was frustrating as hell for me but with my continuous tinkering I was finally able to find a common crash occurance for them to figure out the next steps to a fix. The last technicial I talked to expecially. When I told her about the AC/Battery thing she knew exactly what to do next and walked me thru several scenarios to confirm it. She was surprised that the other technicians hadn't already tried it. So - I happened to finally get the right person for this problem.

Would I prefer a whole new laptop? Yes. But - hopefully it will just need a replacement graphics card and I can get on with it.

Thank you for hearing out my rant. And in a week or so, hopefully I will have good things to say again because even though all this crap happened...When it worked - I loved it.

 

Price does matter. As a small brand charging big bucks for a small quantity of orders, I expect them to be more concerned about each customer. People pay more to go to them because they expect 1) blistering performance 2)great quality and 3) a personable company. An Alienware owner is one of the few so to speak. They advertise that they have pride in their product, so surely it should be very worrisome to them if one of their products has issues. In the end, Alienware delivered. It could have been less painful, but it wasn't that bad. I've heard worse support stories.

 

Im trying to say as a customer, I expect Dells Customer Service to be no different than AW when my laptop breaks if its a 1000 dollar Dell, or a 4000 dollar Alienware.
Now I think you are saying that BRAND matters when considering quality of customer service. And it does. It is a general rule that you will get better more personal customer service with a very small "boutique" company than a large corporation. At least it more personal if nothing else. And I personally like supporting small companies and usually they do make better product.

But to say price matters implies that even within Dell, spending 1000 dollars or spending 2000 dollars changes the customer support quality, or even perhsaps what one expects CS to be. Unless Ive bought a specific "support package" with any laptop, I expect my support to be the same if I bought a 500 dollar laptop or a 2500 laptop from Dell.

I didnt pay more to go to Alienware for some kind of customer support experience, I paid more cause I like the machine they made.

I also as said before, think that AW cant just send out replacements as soon as something is hard to troubleshoot over the phone. I also dont know why people get so down on AW for their CS just cause a few people have a difficult experience. If you remember, I was the one sticking up for Alienware, not saying it was all so painful.


BTW, picked up my 9750 today and literally am cleaning my desk off to open it up.

so :tongue:

 

Well, I got my laptop back today. They replaced the Motherboard, Video Card and the Optical Drive.

When I returned it for repairs I was asked to include the AC Adaptor and of course I did not get that back. I made a quick call and hopefully I will receive that soon...not getting my hopes up because it seems that AW choses the cheapest/slowest shipping possible.

Since the battery is already drained, I guess I won't be testing the repairs in the near future.......this just keeps getting better and better.

 

Don't Let your experience discourage you the 9750 is definatly a machine worth a lil hassle over although no hassle is better but i think if it were me after using this thing i could wait for it

 

Sorry - one more rant and then hopefully I am done.

I was able to use my laptop for about half an hour before the battery completely drained. During that time I found that they had replaced the original DVD Lightscribe drive with a Non-Lightscribe drive.....They managed to send me a replacement in two days time. They made me buy the new one 'til they get the old one back.

As far as the AC adaptor goes? Yeah, still haven't received that yet. The technicians are still are looking for it. God knows they can't send me a different one. Today I had the happy experience of them blaming me for sending it in with the laptop in the first place even though THEY ASKED me too!

so...thats it. carry on