M5550 still doesn't work properly.

So as most of you know. I have been having problems with my M5550 for the past year. It just got back from service, and it still doesn't run CS:S with more then around 30FPS on low settings. I know the 7600GO isn't a powerful card, but it used to be able to run for like 30min with the settings on high.

I'm going to try a bunch of drivers.

What drivers would you guys reccommend for the 7600go? Don't say http://laptopvideo2go.com/ because I always go there, I just can't seem to find the right driver. I'm trying AW's older 7600Go driver now... Hopefully it will work better.

 

The 163.44 drivers are good, and you can also try the 169.04 if you want to play Crysis. The latter are not on LV2G's site though.

 

I'm using this laptop with Windows XP MCE. I've tried around 6 different drivers now, and ended up having to clear all my drivers once my screen was stuck at 4bits color. Wow... This really sucks...

Anyone else have any driver suggestions?

 

I'm running 3DMark06, and the FPS are at like 1-10. What could be going wrong do you guys think? I know it should be at like 20-30, since thats how my desktop (8500GT *slower*) runs it.

 

I'm on tech support and the guy thinks hes a hot shot. Telling me, this is how you do it. And I'm going to show you how its done. Like what the **** shutup I've done / could do all this ****.

If this doesn't work were going to test my memory (utter bull****). Hopefully something works.

 

Then I hear this ***** laughing on the phone with one of his friends. Like what the ****, not professional at all. Seriously... And for my CS:S FPS to go from 100 one second to 30 the next isn't cool at all...

Also: The 3dmark test runs like ****. And doesn't even have good enough FPS to run 3dmark properly...

And now hes trying to get out of this **** by making me do all this crazy ****... ****ing alienware... NO ONE HERE BUY FROM THEM

****ing POS tech support.

 

Yo what a ***** move on his part. He told me that the 3Dmark06 scores for this notebook were 1300 Umm the reviewer that did this notebook (almost exact specs -20GB of hard drive space) got 2100's. If this doesn't get fixed I'm going to be mad.

I DONT HAVE THE TIME TO SPEND 24/48 HOURS ON TECH SUPPORT TOTAL... WHAT THE ****

 

Sorry for being so outraged, I just hate dealing with all of this.

 

SpeedFan after running SP2004 for 10 min
HD0: 49C
Temp1: 63C
Core 0: 91C
Core 1: 91C
Core: 81C
Ambient: 67C

 

Also. I've been on the phone for 1H30M

 

Those are some insane temperatures. Have you looked at the heatsink yet? There's definitely something wrong with it. And are your fans on full?

 

Yea. He just said I'm going to have to send it back again to have the heatsink replaced. Now were checking the memory to see if there is a problem with that as well.

The fan doesn't appear to be running at full speed, its like maybe 70/80%. I've had the heatsink replaced already, video card 4-5 times and the BIOS updated. Lets see if sending it back again will fix it... I'm skeptical though.

 

Now I have to deal with installing a new heat sink, and sending back within 5 days or Alienware will capture the funds. **** no, if they try to ****ing rip me off and capture the funds I will defer the payments immediately. They tried to do the same **** with the 7600GO that they sent me.

 

2h15m on tech support total btw. And I'm just getting a new heatsink sent out to me.

 

Update:

The laptop is now getting a BSOD. I am pretty much sick of this laptop now. And my mom is on the phone with them demanding a new laptop sent out to us, or she will try get help from http://www.computerlemonlaw.com/ I'll let you know whats going to happen.

I just don't have like 2 hours to spend trying to fix a problem that they should be fixing. I did buy a warranty with inhome right?

 

Sorry to laugh but your CPU temps are getting to the limit where it could be damaged if you just leave it.

I have some question to ask you

1) where and how is your laptop placed when you're using it?
I'm asking because your ambient is pretty high too.

2) Have you every yourself cracked open your laptop and checked the Heatsink on your CPU/GPU?

It really sounds like your heatsink is seated improperly. Not only that even for lame heat pads it shouldn't even get up that high. If I where you I would open it up and take off the heatsink and if you see something improper send the pictures to alienware. And while you're at it get a can of air and blow out your vents and clean everything up, clean the GPU/CPU also the heatsink of the junk that they might have put on it and get yourself some AS5 on it.

If that all fails then..well good luck dealing with Alienware. I know for some people they have either given them credit, a new machine of the same model or even credit to the newer model like the 9750.

 

Rei86, the issue is the heatsink was not designed properly to handle the power being used.

This is a known issue with ALL M5 (Uniwill P71 and P72 chassis) series notebooks.

Nice to see your M5750 isnt having issues yet though, maybe Core Duo's are a bit cooler than Core 2 Duo.

 

Oh damn. I should probably change my avatar Its actually a Core Duo, not a Core 2 Duo

I've tried using compressed air to clean out the fans. They have replaced my heatsink once already, and have replaced my 7600go 4-5 times 0_0. I've reseated my graphics card and heatsink, so I'm sure that nothing is seated improperly. I've updated the BIOS to 2.07w, I've tried 6-8 different drivers for my 7600. I'm pretty much done with trying to get everything fixed. I must have been on the phone with them for at least 24-48 hours total, which is way to much.

When I use the laptop, it is on a fake wood desk, nothings wrong with the desk, as my friends use it when they come over to place their laptops on. The reason that the ambient temp is so high I think is that when the laptop warms up, the whole desk warms up, so it probably ends up taking hot air into the laptop. Room temp shouldn't be a problem because I have this room at 68-69F because I don't use heat in the winter since I like it cold.

And... I like the M5750, it looks pretty good since its like the 5550 except with a bigger chassis.

I'll update you guys with whats up.

 

Oh it had its issues. Like the random shut down issues that plagued it till I updated the BIOS. The Core 2 Duo do run a bit hotter I hear but nothing that extreme compared to the Core Duo models.

And Yes I know about the design of the system itself. I chimed in on your thread about it.

When you changed your video card did you clean the underside of the heatsink that touches the GPU/Proc and applied thermal grease properly?

The fake wood desk is made of grain/wood chips that was pressed together right? Thats a horrid place to put your laptop on top of. I have such a desk and its a heat soaker so you wanna raise it a bit like putting bottle caps under the rubber stoppers so you get more air flow under the machine.

At your temps right now it wont matter much but on your next laptop/fixed 5550 do so.

 

Sounds a lot like a lack of thermal grease on the CPU. And the guy telling you 1300 on 3D06 was normal should get his ass kicked

http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/benchmarks.xls

 

I know this is off topic but when I checked your website is there anyway I can upgrade my X1800 to a 7900GS Go?

If not The X1900 isnt that big of an upgrade and i'll be more willing to buy a 9750 in the coming months then.

 

The 7900 days are over, I'm afraid

 

hmm. I have m5550 too and playing cs:s on high settings i get around 70 fps for hours.

 

I don't think this matters, but you could try running everest and see what it tells you about the gpu. I have the same problem with ridiculously low scores on my x1700, and it turned out that it has a 64-bit bus, where it should've been 128-bit. I was tricked by packard bell. Maybe alienware did the same thing to you, altough i doubt it.

 

We talked to Alienware yesterday and they said that they will call in 24-48 hours. If they don't call by tommrow, I will be sending an email/calling that computer lemon help to get something about this laptop.

In most cases, I would be happy to get a new laptop, but in this case I would have to say that a refund would be much better. I have had a non-working laptop for 14 months. Most people would say "Oh, why don't you just send it back time after time". Well I have school, so when I sent it back I did it when I had breaks from school. Then over the summer my desktop (a compaq finally broke after 2.8 years and I ended up with a new desktop, and that process took all summer ). I can't send the laptop back again, I'm doing a video editing project and I need to try to just get by with this laptop, even though its not even working properly.

Hopefully something will get worked out.

 

They didn't call today, so I will wait until tomorrow.

 

Why wait? You should have just called them yourself.

 

We did call. And the guy said he is getting someone to call back that can make sales decisions (since the tech people can't) and we should wait 24/48 hours for the call.

 

Well, my heart goes out to you, dude. I hope this works out for you in the end and results in something that makes all the pain and frustration worth it (or at least tolerable).

 

Yea. They have till the end of the night now to call. If they don't call by then, I'm going to post a inquiry on the lemon law fourm, and see what they say. I've been as patient as possible for 14 months.

The thing that really threw me over the edge is when they wanted me to do all the tests for them, they started lying to me on the phone about results I should get, and them laughing on the phone when they are talking to me. Like seriously, I'm spending ****ing forever on the phone with you and your laughing at me while I'm talking to you.

This is it. I encourage all the people who have had over 3 replacements on a part to contact these people for the lemon law, since the lemon law is a part that doesn't work 3 times in a row.

I hope Alienware gets a message from this, because this type of tech support is very poor when I'm paying over 2500 for a laptop that doesn't work properly. I will let you know how it goes so others here can have advice as to what to do.

 

I've spent three hours on the phone with a tech once from AW. It was one of the most retarded moments of my life.

But then again almost every tech service you go to no matter who it is IMHO are all ****. I don't know ANYONE thats been happy with there PC tech service if they buy it from a manufacture like dell, AW, HP etc. I mean sure you get a few here and there but majority of the people in the world could give a flying f....k about any tech support since most of them are s.....t anyways and just make you feel like you're on a loop.

Your lemon law sorry to say is like a tiny pebble being thrown at a house. Just letting you know but pressure them to do something right about it. I mean I'm not the most satisfied AW customer since I have a buyers remorse after getting my system but know a good handful of customers at www.notebookforums.com have gotten them to do the right thing.

Hope it all works out for you.

 

I emailed alienware them and I asked them as to what options are available.

 

well about your fps in cs:s are your rates set properly? that can always be a problem try lowering your settings a tiny bit maybe smaller res or less quality shading and then kick up the rates
type these in console if you dont know how to fix your rates
rate 30000
cl_cmdrate 130
cl_updaterate 120

 

Its all in my other threads, but I'll explain it real quick. I've tried setting the Res down a lot, turn down the settings all the way, and throttling back the DirectX level to 8.1

Okay, heres what happened since I've sent this notebook in

Original: Overheated after playing games for an hour

Returned from service 2nd or 3rd time (friday): Doesn't play games without becoming choppy every few seconds

After I was on the phone with tech support and they did some remote stuff installing things and whatnot: Doesn't even work for more then 2 min without getting a BSOD.

I've gone from a mostly working computer, to a poorly working computer, to a computer that doesn't work at all. I'm pretty sure service is supposed to work the other way around, but you never know

I'll let you know what happens, I hope they will be helpful in settling this issue I am having. If they are, kudos to them.

 

Hey guess what? One of their "critical issues agents" emailed me and gave me utter bull****. I've been though the whole "we promise to repair it thing" and it didn't get repaired.

You know what I hate even more. THEY LIED TO ME AGAIN. They said that the system would be sent into depot with 2 day fedex air, which they said is a much faster shipping option. Thats a lie, since every time I've had it sent back it has been 2 day shipping.

Then as compensation they want to offer me a 6 month warrenty extention. So with this extra 6 months I can let them fix my laptop even more... horray... not

I am really against this, and am waiting for this other guy steve to email me back, since this is bull****.

Alienware lies to their customers, watch out for them when buying ANYTHING.

Oh and shipping it back again doesn't help since I have school and need a notebook...

 

dude... you have my sympathies... my reservations and unprofessional customer and tech support story is somewhere on this forum. I don't know that they'll ever fix it--it's the worst.

 

Thanks Nightrider, I'm sending it back again tomorrow, I'll let you guys know what happens.

 

Maybe it would be worthwhile to look into a basic ultraportable (Like an ASUS Eee PC) so you still have something basic to work with for productivity stuff until you sort it out with Alienware.

Good Luck.

 

ncix has a nice looking barebones system with 8600GT 256mb for $600 or so.

I'm tempted to get one of those and part off whats left working out of my 5750...

 

Link?

mjl2142

 

Dude I bought one about mid July. Then about the beginning of August I had started to Heavily work in some MODDING projects for TESIV: Oblivion. Then all of a sudden Crash. Black screen and what was this....NO POWER. My Laptop just shutdown automatically (thankfully). I was heated. It would not power back on or anything. I wait about 30 seconds and I can finally power it back up. The Next thing I do is UPDATE. Everything I had on this Laptop was Updated and still same problem. I call Alienware Tech support. They keep me on for about 30 minutes telling me I am not authorized because we purchased it with my moms Mastercard. It was rediculous I spent two weeks of my mom trying to get me approved through them to get support on my issue. Finally an E-mail with a number to use. I get a technician on the phone and he has me run tests for an hour then he tells me to take it apart. Ok so I rip it open unplug the heatsync and nothing. Same issue next day. I call again they put a 20$ hold on my moms account so they can ship me a new heatsync. I replaced it and a week later an extra tube of Thermal Jelly. I am a little satisfied but I have a problem. This should have never happened due to the fact of the Origional Heatsync being poorly inspected and installed. I have both heatsyncs one shiny as Silver the other dull as a piece of scrap metal. I hope u get some resolution because I did. And I hope they don't screw you over in this whole ordeal.

 

Yep. Basically I've been doing what you've been doing

They said they are going to get it right this time, so I can only hope.

 

Gave it to my mom to send it back via Fedex from her office today. Not sure if it was sent out today, but I'll update you guys on what happens.

 

I just got the laptop back from service. I haven't been able to test if it overheats or not, because the keyboard is broken now. Sometimes when I press a key it won't register the keystroke, which is VERY annoying when I'm trying to type.

Time to call alienware again, why can't they just get it right

 

rofl I dont get why they just cant ship you out for a new M5550.

 

How fun, in addition, I have no sound. I have tried installing multiple drivers, but nothing works. I'm calling the "critical issues agent" on Monday to get this **** worked out. I'm sure they are going to give me a new M5550, this one has actually gotten worse and worse from the repair attempts, go figure

 

One word: REFUND.

I think its time to call customer service seeking compensation (phone option 4, you have to be somewhat assertive and try to get a supervisor, the first person answering just reads what tech support wrote.

 

Alright thanks man, I'll let you know what happens. I'll call tomorrow, since I don't think that they are open today.

 

Sorry for late reply: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?minorcatid=1208

Compal FL90 $627 with 8600M GT. Only 256mb apparently though, not that it matters much.

 

You pritty much have to be a pissant agenst them. Take videos of the computer shutting down. Or not running right. Then save it on the Hard disk and better yet have it auto Boot up by sticking it in the startup menu. That what I did.