M15X Cracks!!!

My laptop has just started to show signs of stress cracking or seperation of the top layer. I have attached pictures showing the area in question. This baby has been handled like a new born, so I just don't understand why it is already doing this. Does anyone else have problems with cracks in this area as shown on the pictures?

 

that looks really bad. alienware claims there cases are very strong. did you drop it or somthing?

 

Owww...that hurts...

 

Looks like someone stuck a screwdriver in there and twisted it to the right...

 

I would begin raising Hell at AW if I were you. Do it!

 

that is pressure from opening and closing the lid, similar problems to the Rock Quaddra TI case that my eldest son has

basically the metal springloaded hinges beneath the plastic exterior assert pressure on the thinnest parts of the plastic, in your case where the lan ports are

 

I dunno, that is a wierd crack.. To me it looks like the aluminium was bent with a screwdriver. Alum wouldent just do that on its own..

 

thats not aluminium its plastic

 

You sure? If you look closely you can see a thin layer of something. I assume its alum, and look even closer.. It is not cracked. If it was plastic it would have cracked just as much as the rest. Just like the crack above the lan port. There is plastic and then alum or whatever it is.

 

magnesium alloy maybe?
could it be related to heat problems?

 

This is one of the reasons I didnt buy the m15x

 

The top piece is plastic. not sure whats its covering though. I have not had any instrument near it at all. I have put an ethernet cable into it twice, but not yanked it or anything. I'm at a loss as I dont remember seeing it happen , I just looked at it one time and said wow its cracking.

 

Did you check it when you got it, maybe it was cracked while in production.

 

Hey Westcoast,
Just looked at my M15X which i have had a little over a month and it is doing the same thing in the same place as yours. Mine has not been dropped or mishandled either. The crack on mine is not as bad as yours but i am worried it will get worse. Intend to contact Alienware and send a pic. Has anybody else noticed cracks?

 

Wow, sorry to hear about this new issue. Looks like the rigidity of the case on the left side is weak due to the ethernet port. I just checked mine and it doesn't have it yet....

I figure those cracks should be warranty-able. You might be able to kill two birds with one stone (crack + GPU)?

 

That wouldnt be metal. The "CASE" of the computer may be metal but the exterior finish is plastic. And if he had a screwdriver in there, youd see little blemishes in the plastic cause its soft.

There may be a number of things that cause this. Only time tested computers show when this type of stuff happens. It will be interesting if others have these problems.

The 9750 was that rubbery coating that began peeling on corners and stuff showing the silver metal beneath.

Ill tell ya, my Dell has sure stood the test of time. Its a 9100 big desktop replacement (15") and Ive carried it almost daily from spring 2004 and its only cracked by one of the hinges and super glue did the trick. the hinges also held their tension unlike my gateway before this.

 

Does anybody know what is under that plastic in that part, if it is the GPU or CPU it may be caused by continuous change of temperature from very high to very low, this causes material stress which produces cracks if it is the GPU (under that part) - the 880GTX I wouldn't be very surprise with the temp and overheating issues.

 

its not sudden enough to do that

 

True, but i think the overheating of the GeForce 8800GTX has to do something with these cracks. Please check if you hvae cracks and post it on this thread and right beside it post your Card Type (8800,8700 or 8600).

 

I have opened and closed the lid many times setting power settings for lid closure, testing it with an external monitor etc so it has been opened many times. I have a call into AW and a senior tech person is supposed to be calling me regarding this issue. I can apply light pessure to the area with my thumb and it all goes back to normal. There is definately a small amount of flexing going on when you open and close the case lid on my system. That may be the cause. I'll wait and see what alienware has to say about this.

 

Dam ....heat , downclocking, touch buttons stop responding, and now CRACKS.

WTF AW is doing.

Anyone is living near them that i can pay him for shooting them down.

 

that is really messed up man...sorry to hear about this....at first i was really looking forward to gettin the m17x when it would be launched but now after all this i dont think i would. Probably would end up like the 15x (a whole lot o issues).

 

this is really bad!

and this is even worse!

at this moment I really would not know what to do.. too many issues! I thougth with alienware I would have had a rock solid system.. it doesn't seem to be

 

This really sucks. First overheating, then downclocking, next keyboard flex, then touch controls, and now cracks! now im 10% chance i get m15x

 

Westcoastgeek,

i have the 8800m GTX gpu but lappy does not get hot on the left side where the separation (crack) has appeared. It gets hot in the right hand side palm rest area when playing games. Use a cooler which helps but still down clocks sometimes. Please post the response you get from Alienware.

 

well it will get hot on the right side because that is where the gpu is located.

 

i think this crack is a rare issue and is not caused by heat as the gpu is located on the other side. it is cleary a stress fracture from chasis twist or flex of some sort.

 

Is it rare? Or is it a design flaw that will show itself after a certain amount of open/close actions?

 

sigh.. i wanted to love the m15x so much its battery life is insain.. but its other issues are beyond retarded..

AW .. W T F

 

AW is probably going to lose some business if this is a widespread problem. I hope it isn't though...good luck you guys.

 

All this and for a hefty premium!

 

OT: What's with the car in the Avatar? That's not a 135!

 

No..That's my current 2004 Subaru WRX STi...I have an Alpine white BMW135i on order.

 

i had a 2003 wrx 5 speed and it was a great little car with good gas mileage. i traded that in for a 2005 baja turbo 5 speed. the baja has been the best car i ever owned. versatile with a good punch to it

 

Let's hope it's not delayed, and that when you get it, it doesn't overheat and retard the ignition to save the engine, and then develop a crack in the bodywork from opening and closing the doors

 

^^^^^ Lmao

 

I would need to see more pictures, but it looks like it could be caused by differential thermal expansion between the top-surface and chassis of the laptop.

The heat generated by the laptop causes the components to expand. Plastic has a much higher coefficient of linear expansion than alloy chassis, so it wants to expand more. If this isn't allowed for (by a sliding/flexible joint) it will buckle upwards and crack as shown.

 

MADE IN CHINA, thats what it written under it ..eheheheh ..

 

i received my M15X in Feb. so maybe the cracking issue was fixed for you guys who were shipped later on. Still like the overall design and performance but disappointed that a 4 grand laptop has overheating, downclocking, and cracking issues. Can live with the funky touch controls. My 30 day period has come and gone otherwise i would return it. Hoping Alienware will do the right thing and at least address the overheating/downclocking issue.

 

To me this cracking issue is bigger than the overheating GPU, as I'm confident AW will address the GPU somehow (be it bios fan control or otherwise). The case integrity is something that can't be addressed easily, and I feel that they can't/won't. Eventually, I think most if not all m15x's will have this problem as you open/close the lid more and more. Warranty returns will go through the roof with this particular issue IMO.

 

Shima is right - the cracking is more serious. There's no fix for it short of having a completely new chassis and that will be expensive and time consuming to provide for all customers - so it's unlikely to happen. I'd like a chassis that protects my investment ...

 

the fact is that even if they replace your chassis, maybe few weeks later you will have the problem again

other users with the same problem?? now we have 2... let us know

 

Here are my defects:

1) CD-ROM uneven. I did not change smartbay at all. It came NIB like this.
http://img246.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc00436resizeresizeny4.jpg

2) Hairline cracked at left LCD panel base. I did open twice- and thats because I wanna solved the cracking sound (due to screws not tight) but ended up having another crack
http://img222.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc00438resizeresizesr0.jpg

3) Mouse left/right click uneven (hell even the painting have some dust t****d inside paint)
http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc00439resizeresizesw2.jpg

4) Dent from shipping. (from day 1 & I swear I did not do this)
http://img246.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc00432resizeresizept2.jpg

Anyway they have ask me to return but I need my lappy now for work. I am still negotiating with them to send me just the plastics.
NOte: When I open, I open with utmost care, very gentle, but still ended with cracked. Plastic is damn thin.

 

Shima,
On second thought would have agree with you. If it cracks a little after 40 days of careful use what will happen in the future as it gets more use.

 

I have a single spec like the ones you have on my touchpad on the m9750. That was the only blemish it had out of the box and wasn't worth the hassle of returning the system to get it fixed. Hopefully AW addresses their m15x QC issues before shipping any more out.

From what I'm seeing people are complaining so much about how long their systems are taking to build that AW is rushing to get them out when they get the parts in. Personally, I'd rather let AW take their time with my system rather than rush to get it out to me. How many people that have issues with their systems were the guys calling every day harassing AW about production time? If it were my m15x on order I'd call CS and tell them to take all the time they need to get it right. Instead all I hear is people calling and threatening to cancel orders if their computers don't ship faster.

 

Wow, a lot of issues. Kinda makes me feel better about not getting the m15x. Maybe they'll rework the chassis and put out a "revised" version without all the issues.

 

The only major flaw with the system at this point that is for sure is that the fans do not throttle up when the need arises. To me the bigest flaw is the gpu downclocking.

 

You misunderstood, that's only in europe and thus far no m15x shipped here so we got no complains on quality. And we're not pushing them to build faster we ordered 6 weeks ago and they still have no parts to build it so we are in pre-production. Personally every time I call them and/or write to them I mention that I would completly agree to have a system built and tested in 2 month but waiting for parts for 2 months is unacceptable. Actually today I called again and I finally got one of the CS guys to tell me that the manager will call me later today. Since is Already 9.40pm I'm guessing he meant later this week. .

 

I am on the road now for the next 3 days, and ALienware support and I keep missing each other, so unfortunately I have nothing to report regarding the crack issue. As soon as I get a hold of one of the senior tech support guys - who only seem to work 9-5 I will post what they have to say about this issue and the soft keys not working after coming out of standby.

 

Ioaniro, So the m15x in America doesn't have the cracks and overheating? its the European models that have the problems?