Replacement motherboard.

In anticipation of my Crossfire finally working properly (after the tech replaces the motherboard tomorrow) I have been pondering a few things about the M17x R2 flickering issue's history with other Alienware owners.

For example: I wonder if there ever was a forum post/thread that shows members posting their individual stories about the flickering issue and what they went through to finally fix it.

I also wonder how many people required replacement GPU's (1 or both), motherboard, or entire M17x before their issue was resolved. Lets not forget the people that went through the whole process and ended up just getting a refund because the issue never was resolved.

......All of this due to the flickering issue. Just curious really. I did some searches and even google just points back to the recent threads that I am already currently subscribed to on notebookreview.

This just seems to be such a huge issue to me that I am surprised there isn't a sticky or something here with members posting their story.

 

Off the top of my head I can recall about 6 cases where the flickering was due to a faulty GPU. I'll e-mail a Dell/Quality rep about it to express my concerns. Hopefully the 5870m release that's due out any day now will take care of those problems (though they may come with a set of their own). The problem is with the manufacturing of the cards by TSMC/ATi. Dell is partially at fault for not rigorously testing these machines before shipping them out but since their testing is likely automated like all other Dell products, I doubt flickering is something their machines are designed to catch. As long as it passes Dell's basic tests, it's good to go.

P.S. My recommendation is for you to return the machine for a full refund at this point. The 5870m release is very close, sit it out a week or two and grab that.

 

Well, they are going to offer me a replacement laptop next, but I don't know if I want to get a 5870m card just for the DirectX compatibility. We will see. From what it sounds like, you believe that the motherboard won't fix anything and I will be getting a replacement anyway....so I may as well just go with a whole replacement system instead (either by replacement or refund/purchase a newer model)

 

I don't think the motherboard replacement will fix your issues. Even if it does, your brand new machine has been opened up and replaced with refurb parts. I wouldn't accept that and neither should you.