*** Official Alienware Notebook System Replacement Thread ***

Make sure to verify your shipping address by checking your order under your account. They just cancelled my old order and plan to replace it with the same specs to correct the address. Nice upgrade to 32gb of RAM. Did you always have 32gb of RAM or did they just upgrade you?

 

I am not sure if they can build a unit with only a single card since all Alienware 18 come with dual card. I would push for dual cards and SSD and see what specs they provide you. You will probably have to accept dual 970m if they offer you that with 500GB SSD.

 

I don't have an account, where can I check the shipping address?

It actually had 8GB RAM to begin with, gave it an extra 8 to get 16GB, but they threw in the 32GB as a nice gesture I guess? I didn't ask for any of the specs, I was just given this. It said 16GB in the original email config, but shows 32GB in the order itself. No clue as to what is going on.

 

I just logged into Dell.com using my email and password. Try to login and see if you see any order under your name. Nice of them to bump you up to 32gb of RAM. My old order is cancelled and waiting on new order. Hoping they bump it up to 32gb but they said they plan to leave all the specs as is.

 

Well I made an account and said I am not authorized to view shipping information, so I emailed my rep to figure out the details on shipping. What a bloody mess this is.

 

I see the new order and specs have remained the same. I did not get a bump to 32gb but I am thankful for all the other specs they bumped up. I will wait for the external bluray drive or backpack as promised. Address is correct on the new order and I have asked the supervisor to try and expedite it.

 

Glad you guys have specs of the replacement laptops which should be with you soon. I on the other hand still waiting for Unisys to get their S**t together and send a bloody qualified tech to fix my laptop which was damaged by their other tech. I've been waiting weeks now and this is what I found out on my ticket:

"We have been unable to contact you on the provided phone number. We will try again during the next business day. If you wish to provide an alternative contact number or arrange engineer appointment before tomorrow please contact Dell Technical Support."

They have my bloody contact details because they called me about 2 weeks ago with no problems. They have lied to me and never bothered to try to call me. I'm now fed up of Dell and Unisys. I am going to call my rep tomorrow and give them hell, also my dad knows the law so they better watch out I'm pissed off.

 

Update: I called Dell technical support UK today. I told the rep that I received that online support ticket message. He confirmed to me the phone number that Unisys tried to contact me on and what do you know its the same as my home number. I told them the last time that If I have anymore problems then heads will roll. I asked to speak to his supervisor and he denied saying "I can't, but you can email the supervisor". Well I emailed their management weeks ago and I'm still waiting for a reply so what's the point emailing the supervisor if I get treated like this?. He said " If you wait for the tech to call you to arrange a repair" he also wanted to give me options when all I want is some decent service. I told him that I will take my laptop to be repaired at a professional repair company that will handle my laptop with care and no damage would be caused by their technicians. I then said the ball is in your court and I then ended the call.

 

I sent the rep an email asking if the address was right (my address), and he said it was, so I will take him at his word. How long does the production process take? My currently says "In production" and started production in December 6, 2015

 

I've been in production since the first week of October I believe. Others have had better luck. Let's hope these ship out soon.

 

You're bloody joking right? You haven't received your computer yet?

 

Looks like i have been treated differently from yours...My old specs are 3840qm and 7970m cf, and they are now offering me 4910mq and 970m single card.



Hello Sir



After escalating the case, this will be the configuration approved:



Alienware 18 VIKCTO

Operating System

Windows 8.1 64‐Bit English 8HE6E
Memory

16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at
Keyboard English Keyboard KBDENG

Video Card

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970M
with 6GB GDDR5 970GTXS



Driver Wireless Driver 7260DR
Hard Drive

1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 1TB7200
CD ROM/DVD ROM

Slot‐Loading Dual Layer DVD
Burner (DVDR/RW) DVDRW9 [429‐

Wireless

802.11ac Dual Band 2x2 AC
WiFi + Bluetooth 4.0 7260BT [555‐

Cable

US 125V Power Cord USPWR [470‐
Documentation/Disks

Documentation, English DOCE
Alienware Command Center

3.0 5049754 [640‐

Resource DVD

Resource DVD windows 8.1 RDVD81
Placemat

Setup Instructions English PCMENG
Primary Battery

8‐cell Lithium Ion (86 wHr) 8CBSIM
Intel® Core™ i7‐4910MQ

processor, 4‐cores, 8MB

Cache, Overclocked up to

4.1GHz w/ Intel Tur





The video card we are providing is a 6GB card which is actually way better than the two cards that you have.

You can check the performance accessing this link:



http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-HD-7970M-vs-GeForce-GTX-970M

 

That's...definitely untrue. I can't beleive an alienware rep is quoting "GPUBoss" You should give them the link to notebookcheck:

 

You had a dual GPU set up before and that's what should be expected now. That's not unreasonable at all. Gtx 970m sli is appropriate.

About the ssd, 64 gb is small but is a valid argument. But if you get the dual gpus approved I wouldn't push it too much with the ssd issue.

 

Nope. My rep's last response was over a week ago where he simply informed me "estimated ship date is 12/10/2015." That went just about as well as the other half dozen or so estimates I've been given. He still hasn't responded to my inquiries on what has happened and why the system has not shipped.

 

Oh crap, someone at Dell accidentally decided to ship me my machine. I'm "not authorized" to see the destination address, so I can only hope they have that right. If it does somehow arrive to me, I'm just assuming (hope I'm not jinxing) a dead pixel or two or wrong parts or a nice big scratch or something. I don't think they've harvested enough pain and frustration from me yet.



...jk, actually pretty excited
...jk, actually really nervous
we'll see

 

Best of luck mate. I'm still waiting on mine to exit the production stage -_-

 

The package has arrived at my house, but unfortunately I won't get to open it until Thursday night so I'll have to wait until then to make sure everything is OK. There's hope man.

 

Today, Dell told me that the computer is shipped, however, the specs is a downgrade and i never approved it. So dell just shipped a downgrade machine to me without my permission. I am done with dell.

 

You can only blame yourself, you were warned and a decent knowledgeable person would have dealt with it immediately when you first found out the specs.

You should have said something the second you found out that you wernt getting dual cards. You should have pointed out that one gtx 970m does not equal two radeon whatevers.

Cant sit on your hands man.... sorry.

 

I dealt with it immediately dude, and i point it out last week, but dell played dumb, said they will consider it. And today they told me it was shipped.

 

Hello Sir


I already consulted with our L3 department, the 970 actually provides better performance than the 7970's, If you want I will be able to send you a 128SSD hard drive in compensation for the missing Cashing device that you had.


Please let me know.



Regards

This is what they reply me for my rage today. Lol, what kind of dumb people could work for that L3 department?

 

Yes, they are at fault for not giving you an appropriate replacement. I still think that with enough willpower you could have resolved it in your favor.

Sucks, but really a single 970m overclocked will be slightly better than what you had. At least you wont have to deal with the sli/crossfire issues in some games.

The 64 gb ssd, thats really up for debate. I dont think I would justify a 512gb ssd replacement for something that small. But I do think that between that and the GPU issue you should have got something better.

 

Well, you didnt get a vanilla 970m, you got the 6gb version so theres that. If you overclock it 10% itll be equal and its Nvidia so its better than AMD garbage anyway.

I can almost guarantee itll be faster(at stock) in 90% of games and itll put out much less heat than two 7970ms.

Also, you got a CPU upgrade thats both newer and faster. And now they are sending you a 128 gb ssd so really, you didnt get screwed.

 

Overclock? I could overclock my 7970ms too! Also, how about all the missing ports in the new model, such as: esata, vga and s/p dif port. Also there is no blueray in my new machine. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html check this out.

 

My old machine scored p12000 in the 3dmark11, don't tell me that any one the 970m could score that.

 

The 970m is roughly 10% slower, but you dont have to deal with SLI/crossfire garbage. And it has far more VRAM.

Yes, I fully believe you should have got 2 cards but they didn't exactly screw you either.

I bet everyday of the week with one of those custom BIOS that 970m wipes the floor with those crossfire 7970ms (even OC'd).

 

Well, lucky for you most games are Nvidia optimized and a single card is inherently better than a crossfire/sli system in most cases.

You could probably get pretty close to that score with an overclocked 970m with prema VBIOS.

 

Yeah i know what you mean, but everyones' getting dual card for their old dual system, why should i be discriminated?

 

Yeah, but this goes back to dells incompetence with dual cards thing. I would have complained more or talked to different dell reps form ProSupport.

You are not being discriminated against , I think its more of a bad luck situation.

I am surprised they didnt give you a better system, it seems the policy is to bump everyone's specs up a bit.

Anyway id just make the best of it. Or maybe sell it on eBay and get something else.

 

Thanks man, you know what, i really fell relief. I would sell it immediately after i receive it and go for a clevo. Most of my friends have a alienware and i will be that bad words of mouth. I guess thats gonna be a great lost for dell.

 

Something similar happened to me a couple years ago (my luck man) and I called them immediately and they sent me a comparable system. Then I just shipped the lesser one back. Best part was that the second replacement was dealt with very quickly.

 

But my agent insist that 970m is way better than 7970mcf, what could i do? Should i call in and ask for another agent?

 

I'd try to speak to a manager or someone higher up. Have a lot of good technical stats and benchmark results ready to prove your point. Show them that you know what you are talking about and aren't just whining.

 

Mine finally shipped. I'm hoping for no screen bleed....

 

My order was canceled due to wrong address and then reordered with correct address. Someone went in and cancelled the 2nd order since they thought the address was incorrect. I have no order now and still following up with system exchange team. I have asked for a 32GB upgrade to ram and will see what they can do about that. Supervisor said he will try to get that approved but at this point I just want them to put an order in production and leave it that way. JEEEZ DELL.

 

I logged in and saw that a third order has been placed on my account and it is now in production. No bump in memory for the delays but at this point I just want them to ship the laptop. I might ask them to send me ram and bluray reader after the item ships out and the dust settles.

 

Well I got my Alienware 18 today and...screen bleed worse than the one it replaced. I'm done. So done. Fvck this computer, and fvck dell. They can't even build brand new computers properly.

 

What are you going to do? Have them replace screens till they get it right, damage it or replace the system.

 

I'm going to sell the damn thing because I don't want this garbage anymore. I'm convinced they are incapable of sending nonbleeding displays.

 

I've spent too much on my laptop so once the replacement parts are here I'll install them never allowing 3rd party techs touching my laptop ever again. Also once this laptop dies I won't be buying another expensive laptop again.

 

After having had two techs work on two different alienware computers I fully agree with you. I was able to do the second techs work in half the time because I had to go behind him and fix what he did wrong....

Now what I dont understand is why they are all 55+ year old men with white hair. Not sure, but one of them was borderline elderly.

Next time ill offer them a beer and the TV remote. I am far more capable than these techs.

 

Dell had to get a senior tech from down south to drive hours up to Nottingham just to repair my laptop as the other local tech's kept bodging the jobs. The last local tech was younger than me and I'm 34 he also snapped off the alienhead and something on the power button board. So the latest tech who traveled up to fix their problems could only fix part of the problem. So the Dell executive is not happy at Unisys. I managed to get Dell to send me the parts that need replacing and I'll do it myself because its obviously the techs round here are not up to the task. The way Dell and Unisys have treated me and my laptop is now under investigation with the executives.

 

I'm happy to say that the 2 Dell Techs I had in their 50s were pretty good and knew what they were doing and left my laptop in a good shape... I guess it's just bad luck in your case

 

Good to hear that your techs managed to leave your laptop fixed and knew what they were doing. Mine on the other hand well the last one was the best tech I've had but that was a one off from Dell but couldn't fix the whole problem due to the one who snapped off the alienhead which now even using a new center console cover still won't turn on due to damage to the power switch. So I've asked for:


Alienware M18x Palmrest & Touchpad Assembly

Dell P/N: F9F90 0F9F90

Alienware M18x Laptop Power Button Switch Board With Cable

Dell P/N: 67GPX, LS-6578P

 

Hopefully you can get it fixed, it seems these days the only way to get something done right is to do it yourself.

 

Thank you and yes you are right about doing it yourself luckily I have the experience and I'm very careful when it comes to components. Just a shame that some of these techs don't take heed.

 

Update: Parts arrived and found out that the part I ordered was already part of the palm rest cover lol. I got to the keyboard and low behold!! the screws were stripped so could only just get 3 screws out with one left that was so stripped from the tech no way that was being removed. So my plan to replace the palmrest cover was over luckily it was only the power switch board that I also ordered on its own hehe thank goodness only two screws. I also found that my subwoofer was loose and when removing the hdd cage ribbon the connector to the MB was broken one of the side prongs ( thanks techs ) so I used someones advice from here and stuck it down with black electrical tape so even if its covering the components it won't cause problems. Apart from slight raised center console cover at right bottom corner its fixed finally and the alienhead is back at its rightful place. Thanks to everyone for their help and advice x

Edit2: Got email from Dell executive saying as your laptop has now been repaired and you are satisfied we shall now close your ticket. So in the end I the consumer repaired own laptop with no damage under warranty which I paid £500 for and Dell says that's it. What about the damage they did to my poor laptop, the stress I went through, the wait. So I've sent him an email today saying:


"First of all thank you so much for sending me the parts that I needed to repair my own laptop. As my laptop has now been repaired under warranty I’d like a refund of what’s left of my warranty which should be: £330 from the list below 2 years left. Also as a gesture of good will what do you suggest?

The price for the warranty extension:

1 year: £165.00

2 year: 330.00 *

3 year: 500.00

4 year: 660.00


I look forward hearing back from you


Best regards,


Jayme"

Waiting back for reply and let you know what happens.

 

I have had two orders cancelled on the days where the price or configuration changed on the website. Both after waiting about 2 weeks and getting assurances that everything was going fine. That cannot be a coincidence.

After the second cancellation I am supposed to have an expedited and escalated case such that there just would not, dare I say...could not possibly ever happen again.

We shall see.

I am appreciative of the replacement rig's specs and all that but good will only goes so far. I have been without my laptop for a large chunk of this year and a lot of the time it was working was spent recovering from the previous disaster. The sooner I can put this experience behind me the better. I want to go back to being a happy customer with a nice rig.

I am definitely getting the extended warranty because reasons.

B

 

Update 3: Dell are reimbursing me the rest of my 2 year warranty due to my nightmare experiences so I'll be doing the work from now on and also buying parts when I need. Why have warranty when their techs damage my laptop? and they only send parts to the techs so you have to use their services under warranty. So that money is now going towards my budget to build my VR supported tower pc yay. Thanks to the Dell reps, executive that I cannot name for all of your help.