Smart Bay problems?

Anyone having problems with there smart bay going in and out. Mine will start making that disconnect connect noise and then disappear. It happened with my 320 hd and my Blue Ray Disk. Anyone else? To hot maybe? I dont feel like dealing with cust. support today. People on the forum are more helpful (Sorry alienware but Im not too happy with customer support lately.)

 

Hi maguai...
Unfortunately I don't have that much experience with the smartbays. It did work well for me, but then again I never changed it (as I didn't have any).

Just one question... You are an "old" owner. How is your M15x handling it? Any problems? Is it working fine? Complaints? Praises?

 

you might have a faulty motherboard if 2 smart bay items are failing. I would check with AW. if it does turn out you have a faulty mother board you will have to send it back for repairs.

if coincidently those 2 items are faulty which i think the chances of that happening are quite low, see if you have a spare laptop hard drive lying around. switch the hard drive in the smart bay with the spare and see if the issue still persist. if it does i think it should be a faulty motherboard.

 

Maybe it's just the contacts that are worn out.
Do you change them a lot?

 

Yes I am an owner and I am old... Just kidding, yes, I had one of the first m15x with the penryn. Ive had some problems, 1. My computer cannot go to sleep only hibernate. 2. Video card magically went out one day, alienware then sent out one that had lines and green static. When I put it back in the old one worked. Since I have to do 3dsmax and work on my laptop. I had to just let it go. No one ever followed up to the nasty email I sent out. 3. This smartbay thing. Im thinking its getting hot. It seems to happen when it gets hot.

Most of the time I am terrified to turn on the computer and see what will happen next. I cant afford to send it in and miss work. My back up computers are home, Im in the mountains for the summer... So this is it.

 

get rivatuner and tell us what the temps are with the gpu. Also get Notebook Hardware Control to see the temps of the HDD and CPU temps.

 

Sorry to hear about your experience. Unfortunately it's a feeling shared by many other M15x owners. Unfortunately many think that this is just random and normal.
If you would have the time to go and post on the M15x world survey regarding your experience, that would be very useful. I think your experience is of significant value as you have had the laptop for longer than 2 days.

Anyway...
Do as exiled says. Get Rivatuner and monitor the temperatures on your GPU. Get HWmonitor and RMclock for CPU and HDD (or NHC, as exiled suggests).

 

Sorry I dont have the same computer just a M17X I have pulled it out. If you touch the area of connection it could mean problems oil and such from the fingers or sweat. I am not saying it your falt but talk to Alienware.

I done a few thing so it better for my M17X I put the eject button on the taskbar. But If the cdrom or battery not all the way in there could be problems.