On-site tech ranting

Alright, so an onsite tech finally showed up, first thing he said to me "Hi i'm derek, blah blah" 2nd thing, "Wow i've never worked on an alienware before." Had no idea what he was doing the whole time, my computer is scratched everywhere, clips are broken, and last but not least, when he got it put back together, it was assembled incorrectly and it didn't work, so he took a few pieces off, told me he was late for his next appointment, to call alienware tech support, and then left. Is this a common occurance or is everyone in florida just dumb.

 

Florida, I hated living there.

 

It's kind of ridiculous, i think he broke the replacement LCD panel anyways, since it's like warped now because of the way he put it together. He was asking me for help on how to do stuff the whole time and i was just like "um...seriously?" I just renewed my contract and this is the 5th call i've had to make and only the 2nd time someone actually showed up for one of those calls. It's all stuff i would be able to put back together myself but the LCD itself just doesn't work because i think he broke it. Alienware is "making it up to me" by extending my contract 2 months. lol

 

Ask for another tech and replace those broken parts. You will probably get the RGB display as replacement this time.

 

Well they want to send my computer to a depot which is just obnoxious because i need it for work and for school, and so they said they're going to see if they can get another tech to come here and put my computer back together correctly (since i wouldn't want to void my warranty, lulz). The thing that's ridiculous is they were replacing my LCD to fix the microphone (Which replacing the microphone didn't do), and old LCD worked fine before the stupid tech basically ripped it to shreds. I was hoping to get the RGB for this LCD replacement but i checked the part numbers and they were the same. If this LCD doesn't work and IS broken like i think it is when i call Dell i'm going to ask for the RGB. The stupid tech also took the webcam + mic array with him and didn't put it in the new panel cuz he's dumb. now i've just got a thousand screws sitting on my table. haha

 

IIRC, they both have same P/N so the best way to check is to post your screen info here and have someone check for you. They should send you the RGB automatically since your system is R2.

 

Well since my laptop is still not put together i can still see the sticker on the back of the panel..
-checks-

I took this picture since i'm a noob and don't know what any of this means.
http://i54.tinypic.com/2ylr5v7.jpg

Right now i'm running my epic 5+ year old Dimension 4600, with my cool pentium 4 @ 3.00GHz, haha. it's so slow

 

Resize that pic!

A quick search returned:

170CT 11 = CCFL
170CT 10 = LED

Do let us know which screen you get.
They might possibly send you the whole screen assembly. In that case, you should be able to tell if it's RGB or CCFL by directly comparing the two.

 

i got a CCFL, haha, which i had to begin with so it's NBD. lol

btw i took the liberty to do a quick re-assemble since the dell person never called me back and it seems like the LCD is broken. D: guess i get to wait another forever for someone to show up and fix it,.

 

Dude that sucks! I suggest you give them one more shot with a different tech then demand a replacement system. The majority of us paid for on site warranty, not ship to dept for a few weeks warranty! Make sure that you document all of your interactions with them aswell.

 

do not depot it... like craigscott0 said you paid for onsite warranty.. i wouldnt send them my system untill either they agree to refund or they provide me a new system. It clearly is stated on the website and ur invoice that it is "next business day on-site" warranty... so why would you depot it?? its like buying 8gb ram(thats there on your invoice) and they tell you they will give 4gb instead...

 

Speaking of which, what kind of warranty do you have? I remember you moved up from an Inspiron to the M17X so I'm not sure if AW warranty applies.
Still, make sure they send out a different tech this time with all the right parts.

 

@OP

Yup that sounds about as typical as Dell on-site tech can be.

 

well that's too bad for you two, because i live in north eastern florida and had two on site techs who had both worekd on many AW's and were quick and painless. an hour to replace the speakers and motherboard, the part they sent was bad, but that wasn't his fault. had to send it to depot, took about a week or so, can't remember, when i called them to see when i would get it, they said another 5 days, the next day it was back lol.

 

This still shows how clueless they are. They dont even know where it is. My coworker was suckered into sending his in and after they LOST IT, he had to wait for 4 1/2 months for them to admit they didnt know where it was but they had received it. Then they shipped him an M15x that belonged to someone else. He was able to log in and see that owners personal info in which he called them directly and shipped their system to them. My coworker never saw his system again. after 6 months they offered him a refund for his original m1730, which was worth way less than the m17x that was lost.
BOO for the depot!

 

I will never send my laptop to the depot....unless I receive my replacement laptop first

You just have to babysit the techs. They usually just skim through the service manual before coming to your place. If you know what needs to be done, they will always let you do the work yourself while you just chat with them (is what I did both times)

Keep in mind, the techs that come out are not dell employees but contracted through another company. They are not dell/alienware specialists like we all are so cut them some slack - that being said, it is not a license for them to ruin a good notebook.

 

i had the same thing happen to me, on my first ever service call. i demanded a replacement and after that, no tech has ever touched my laptop again.

 

I had 3 different techs come out to service my M17x this past week. No problems whatsoever, they were very professional and knew exactly what they were doing.

 

well i got my laptop functional, but the tech broke the clips on my palm rest/trackpad thing, he pulled all the mesh that covers the fan vents on the back off, and the keyboard doesn't work, so right now i'm on my functional alienware laptop with a wireless USB keyboard + mouse, haha. it's just sitting here completely opened, not sure how safe it is but whatever. Also, i'm new to the whole "top of the line" computer thing, but one of my 4870s has a silver aluminum foil-ish type pad over the copper tubing, and one doesn't, is that normal? and my crossfire cable is like...completely black and burned on one end, is that also normal? i trust you guys a lot more than i trust the dell people at this point so yeah.

 

Only the primary card has the foil sticker. I think it is used to indicate which is which. The cable is fine as long as your CF works, which means the internal wires are safe and functional.

 

If you can, take a picture of the questionable end of the cf cable and upload it here

 

Why on earth would you allow him to even touch your machine? The moment he said that, you should have immediately called in and demanded someone TRAINED to work on your hardware.

This is just basic common sense. Of course he damaged it. I bet I could cause some serious damage myself if I go take apart my dishwasher right now. Because I am not trained in the slightest bit on it.

 

Agreed. But someones in desperation for a resolution we do things we shouldn't.

 

i got alienware to pay for a part i was buying out of a 3rd party store to repair the usb port on my laptop since they didn,t even knew it was not part of the mobo i'm so happy i did the job my self if i would have sent it to them it would still be somewhere betwen them and me if not lost

 

No one from this on site company appears to have ever worked with an alienware laptop before. At least the person before this was nice enough to read instructions and not just slam into it though. New update for today, they send my parts to the wrong service tech, and my repair was delayed by another day, I was offered a replacement laptop but right now my main source of income is from ChaCha, and I can't afford to go 2 weeks without a computer. Thanks for all the info about the graphics cards. Btw, my charger also stopped working and I had to call for a new ac adapter today too, I'm just hoping it was the charger and that the guy didn't mess up my motherboard. Posting from my cell phone ftw!

 

You are going through what I exactly had to go through. It was for my M15x which had a dead pixel so I arranged for a technician to come by and replace the screen. He ended up breaking more parts than fixing it. This went on with 2 other technicians. The last technician was very professional and tried fixing it but he just couldn't make it like new with all the damages previous technician caused. So he kindly explained it to Dell and they gave me an option to have a replacement or send it to a depot. Now I was a college student and was in need of a computer that time. I kindly explained it to them, I couldn't afford to lose the computer for another 2 weeks. They kept saying they couldn't send a replacement out within 3 days so I demanded a refund. They told me they couldn't do that as well because I had the computer for 3-4 months. This is where I got a bit frustrated but kept my cool and said, "I didn't break this computer, you guys did. If you guys can't send a replacement out in 3 days, give me a refund." The guy on the phone had put his manager on the phone with me and I explained the situation. I kept pushing him and pushing him saying if I don't have the computer in 3 days, I'm going to fail my classes and blow my tuition fees. Then bam, he agreed to give me a full refund. So keep pushing them and they might give your money back! It's going to be a long pain in the process but good luck! Oh and I added a bit more money into the refund and bought the M17x in my signature

 

Getting a refund from any company is like pulling teeth, they will always prefer to give you a replacement so they can just resale the "broken" part as a refurb. Just look at all the return policies for stores like newegg, almost everything is exchange only. If possible, it also never hurts to get an adult on the phone talking to them. Adults are taken more seriously than kids (by kid I mean people under 30 - no offense intended)

 

I agree with you scook9. It's just that OP needs computer ASAP so i threw him a suggestion. Depot / Replacement will take weeks whereas refund takes 2-3 days. They say it takes weeks but the money came back into my account in 2 days.

 

Dell had no problem offering me a refund on my computer after four years. They simply said they couldn't refund the amount i paid for the 4 year warranty which is understandable since i used it more than probably anyone else with a dell computer ever had. After 4 replacements i didn't really expect my warranty refunded. The only thing was i couldn't afford to dish out the $$ to buy a new laptop and then wait for the money to be refunded to my bank account. Most of my replacements have arrived within a week but still right now i have only one source of income and i need my laptop for school and it would bee really difficult for me to go without it for even a week. Dell seems to give us pretty good care since we own something like 9 dell computers. Posting from a 6 year old inspiron e1505 ftw!

 

Yeah i live in Florida and have had to deal with these terrible techs.

I've bought 2 XPS m1530s and an inspiron and both have had no problems with techs replacing parts.

I get a tech to come replace a mobo for my M15x and all hell breaks loose and he tears apart my laptop. This goes on for another 3 times.

Just bad apples man =/

 

Alright, I got a great woman today who was able to put it all back together in like 5 minutes, correctly, howevershe told me that the last person did such a bad job, that it has to be sent away to a depot. She said i could keep ordering parts but everytime someone comes to fix it they're just going to find something else that is broken and it would just be easier to do the 3 day depot return. Should have just done the replacement, might've gotten an upgrade of some sort ;P like the RGB

 

So it's still not fixed?

 

It works now, i'm on it. My tech got all the parts working, it's just some of them won't stay on like the LCD back door, and the sensor bar, and the piece that surrounds the keyboard above the palm rest because the interior clips are broken.

 

You should definitely get it replaced. You can keep the current laptop until the replacement arrives.

 

My tech could take the motherboard out and replace it without a scratch in 25 minutes and I got my replacement from R1-->R2 too! Keep at it bud

 

Well I am going to have to give tech support another stab, just killed my secondary 4870 last night. Hopefully they will just send me the part and a return box though......

 

Describe your issues, ensure they understand you're not a computer-illiterate and understand computers (even if you don't) and let them do they're "diagnostic" steps. Than request they send the part to you and you do the work, they will refuse and give you the "it's not a user replaceable blah blah blah". From there just ask for supervisor permission and your set.

It'll show up two days later, slap it in, and than the courier come pick it up in the same box, just slap the shipping waybill label on the box.

 

If you are lucky maybe they won't be able to locate a slave 4870 and will just upgrade you to a pair of 5870's.

 

5870s wont work in the R1, no BIOS support.

And the new card is on its way, I got a great rep. I was not worried, just thought I could contribute here since it is a tech support incident.

They are shipping me the card personally so I do not have to deal with a rep (since I am at work all day). Was able to skip all the diagnostic crap because I had a rep that was competent and could understand what I was telling him

 

Ah yeah I misread your sig.

Well, here's to hoping they send you 5870's anyways so you can just send them to me!

 

So after quite some time, my replacement has been ordered. God only knows how long that will take, but I'm hoping it has some nice surprises. I'm also hoping none of the surprises are that they give me a downgraded machine and I need to wait for another replacement. That would just be the icing on the cake. Thanks for all your help everybody. Hopefully this won't happen again..until right before my warranty runs out. lol

 

I was worried about that as well when I had mine replaced but it turns out well in the end. They will never intentionally downgrade you, but they do accidentally miss-read things - ie 640 HDD and 640 HDD Raid 0 (happened to me). Same with CPU's. All you have to do is go ahead and let them ship the new laptop to you and then contact the helpdesk to have them send out the correct components. Whatever you do don't request them to fix it before shipping! It usually causes them to delay the order! They actually have to cancel the order and create a new one (did this to me as well) and it goes back in line to be built. If the tech comes out it's usually within a couple of days and that's way better than a couple of weeks the re-order takes.

 

Well most of my replacements haven't taken more than 3-4 days, this ones takin a little longer for some reason. I don't even have an "in production" listing on dell.com or anything. If there's no listing for the order at all by this weekend I'll shoot dell another call.

 

What specs this time around?

 

I hope i dont have that problem, i need my gpu(s) and cpu fans replaced. The last tech that worked on my alienware cracked the plastic surrounding my lcd display on my area51 m5790. I dont trust anyone but me to work on my alienware.

Im thinking about just opening up and taking apart my laptop myself ahead of time so they dont screw anything up. I think im going to go ahead and do that.

 

Ferrari: That's one wise decision. Let your tech stand there and watch how it's done!

 

No specs yet, my order hasn't been listed. It worries me because it wouldn't be the first time that a dell person resolved the issue over the phone but then never placed the order for anything.

 

A tech came today to replace ONLY the touch pad cable. For my luck he broke 2 keys off the keyboard, the cable port from the media panel and the crossfire cable. Afterward he calls dell asking for a new motherboard(i have no idea for what reason. Touch panel, media panel, and the keyboard. After he left i disconnected the crossfire cable because i have an exam on Monday and this is my only laptop. Now i have to wait until Monday for the parts
what a retard.

 

I honestly think i should have just gone with the depot plan at this point. It might take longer for it to go there and come back but honestly it's probably a shorter time than waiting when your tech breaks the whole thing. Haha. Called up dell today to make sure they actually put my order through, the tech support agent i got said an order went through for me to get a "Brand new" computer, god knows if that means new to me or new new. I hope new new. haha. Good luck blasterbeam.

 

Lucky you. Sounds like 840qm/5870cf on the way.