What Will Not VOID Your Warranty

There is the information about upgradeing your Alienware laptop so that people will stop saying what will and will not void your warranty. I am going to inquire about GPU's to see what the stipulations are with those

Things that will NOT VOID your warranty

1. upgradeing your CPU
2. upgradeing your GPU
3. upgradeing your Hard Drive
4. upgradeing your RAM
5. applying new thermal paste
6. changeing the lid

What will void it is

painting it and thats it lol

you have to change it back to how you recieved it for them to honor the warranty though

On thing I forgot to mention, warranty applies to original components only which is the reason to have any components you have changed installed prior troubleshooting or sending the system to us.

are they any more thing i should ask ?


original idea by MisterE

i just pushed it and organized it

 

Good post Moo!

Im sure this will clearify some things with some peoples questions about warranty void or not.

+rep

Crap, says spread the wealth..ugh

 

Thanks Moo. I always thought that self upgrading the CPU voids the warranty...I guess not.

 

Thanks dude, good post.

 

Good Job Moo!

 

So whats the point in buying Alienwares high end gear, if you can just upgrade the parts yourself and save some bucks...

 

Oh how I wish that was true of other manufacturers.

K-TRON

 

Great idea Moo!

You'll get that sticky yet.

here's a little more rep your way...

 

thanks guys every thing is able to be upgraded they just wont cover you if you screw up or the part you bought since it would be stupid to do so

 

Nice thread Mr. Moo; I added it as a link in the m15x general info thread. We already have four stickies otherwise I would stick this thread by itself. Thanks for the effort!

 

yea i knew we couldn't sticky it, really its not worth a sticky just inform people about it.

imma ask julian to put it in there as well

 

Um, so... how exactly does this get a sticky being labeled as "official" when the post references are to a thread I created? In the end, it is the information that is important, so that people looking for this info can find it, not who came up with it.

Moo, you've been a great reference on these forums, and your OC and info skills are very appreciated, but mate, why steal thread info for post reps and glory? You are popular enough already. Believe it.

 

I think it's more about how the info is organized. Some threads get too long and info gets lost.

 

Your summary is a little misleading... most of that stuff WILL void your warranty if something goes wrong, but won't if nothing goes wrong. Basically, if no damage was done, you can just put in old components and no company would be able to tell the difference.

If you put in a new GPU and cause damage to your system, regardless if you put in your old GPU, if AW finds out it was because of the new GPU, you're no longer under warranty.

 

i didnt try to steal it i tried to organize it and put it together

well orginally it was gonna be what will void your warranty but the only thing i have found you can do to void it is paint it so i guess ill get a rep to steal it


i do not want rep i dont want a sticky i want people to know what they can do with there computer and to make it better and faster.

by no means do i take credit from you. you started the thread and you are the one i got the idea from. I just asked Armando some extra questions

 

Not really. Again, think about what Armando wrote.

If you don't break anything, warranty is not voided. Which makes sense, since you wouldn't need a warranty if nothing is broken.

If you do break something because of the new things, then warranty IS voided, just when you need it.

 

well why would a company give you a warrenty when you put in say a qx9300 and then you overclock it and fry the CPU and you only paid them for a p8400....they are going to loose alot of money if they have to replace the quad you bought

is there any company that let you put in a cpu that was hundreds of dollar more expensive then what you got from them and then when it breaks they buy you a new one? free?

 

Correcto.

Not only frying your cpu, but also your other hardware like ram, mobo? Then ur screwed. And youll prolly never OC againz.

Or you could sell it to a blind kid?

 

o yea i changed the thread name

Gave some credit

 

I guess I should add it in the Offical M17 Thread as well?

Moooooo would you mind?

Greetings
Julian

 

You're missing the point.

Say you have a m15x with a 9700m from AW, but you upgrade it to a 9800m GTX, but doing so not only breaks the 9800m GTX that you bought, but fries your motherboard as well.

Your AW warranty will of course not cover the 9800m GTX that you bought separately, but it will also not cover your motherboard, because an unauthorized component broke it and voided your warranty.

If your stock 9700 died and fried your mobo without any modifications by you, both the mobo and gfx card would be covered under warranty. See the difference?

Now if the 9800m GTX worked perfectly and, say, in an unrelated incident, your network card stopped working, you could replace the 9800 with the stock 9700 and send it in for repairs completely under warranty because, frankly, AW would never know the difference. And because they can't possibly know until something breaks, they "allow" it in their warranty policy.



Basically, AW likes people who know what they're doing with hardware and gives them leeway in modifying their computers, but if you mess up, AW will void your warranty.

So I still think your first post is misleading in that you're misinterpreting what Armando has written. You're saying that installing a new GFX card, etc, won't void your warranty. It WILL void your warranty if, for example, by installing that gfx card, you damage another component in your computer. If you don't mention that in your summary, people may just go crazy without much knowledge of how to work on computer hardware and mess up, then blame you for telling them that they could do things that aren't actually covered in their warranty.

And just for the record, out of:
1. upgrading your CPU
2. upgrading your GPU
3. upgrading your Hard Drive
4. upgrading your RAM
5. applying new thermal paste
6. changing the lid

I've done 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 to either my current m15x or my previous m5550. I've also replaced the network card and flashed the bios more times than I care to remember. Again, as long as nothing went wrong in the process, AW doesn't care.

 

i understand what your saying but if you put in the card and it fried your mobo its your fault .... well maybe not your fault but it was your choice to put the part in there computers is all a game of chance

you hope that new part doesnt kill the computer....

 

Mooooo pls tell me

Greetings
Julian

 

tell you what/? you can put it in the sticky ? yea go ahead its important

 

Bumped as questions are once again arising.

 

I have a question, is it ok to solder stuff to the motherboard?

For example if you move one resistor, then move it back to it's original place before sending it on warranty?

 

Hey thanks for this info Mr Moo™!

 

as long as no damage is done ....i doubt they would check for it.

But it would REALLY be pushing the bar

 

Hi Moo,
Although this thread is somewhat useful for those that aren't sure what can and can't be replaced, I'd have to agree with Koshinn in that it is a little misleading to those who might be itching to put in that new CPU (that may or may not work). Also, keep in mind that replacing the thermal paste will void your warranty if it is either the wrong type, or it causes a short in the circuitry. In the past, Alienware has stated that replacing your thermal paste with artic silver will void the warranty (do to it's conductive nature and assuming you didn't use the ceramic version). Another point to take into consideration is that you always want to have Alienware/Dell on the phone when you do such replacements. Replacing components at your leasure, without the aid of Alienware/Dell will always put you at risk of voiding the warranty. Doing so will will make you 100% responsible for the end result of that upgrade, and or modification.
In summary, use your best judgement, keep it in specs, and know the risks that could be involved.

Thanks,
Gabe

 

i buy my m17x with the lowest specs and upgrade cpu,memory,hard drive,screen,optical drive, and there is only two stock parts left motherboard and gpu's but i am waiting for best gpu's to come out. so after upgrade everything i am not expecting warranty from dell because this is like a total different computer

 

In other words

Like I said it won't void your warranty if u know what you are doing and don't screw it up

 

One thing was not mentioned though. I you OC your stock CPU to the point where you it gets destroyed. Does that void the warranty?

Considering that's possible of course as these days CPU's have so many fail safe features I am not sure it is possible to fry it.

 

It is very possible.

You can modify your dsdt table in the registry to change the critical threshold so that your notebook will not shut down to protect itself.

Also if you have thermal throttling, you can dissable it in the registry too.

Basically you can remove the fail safe protection, then dissable the fan and remove the heatsink.
Volt mod the CPU and overclock it like crazy. I'm sure it will be burnt out soon after that.

 

Hi I need some help quick!

Let's say I bought an Alienware M17x, then I buy an SSD and Intel 6300, put them in my laptop. Then I THROW AWAY the factory HDD and wireless card.

Now if I need to send my laptop to Dell for warranty service. Am I still under warranty?

Thanks!

 

Yes, however the aftermarket upgrades will not be covered by the system warranty.

Also, please note, this thread is a bit dated and was started prior to Dell. There are certain parts which Dell considers as customer replaceable and some which are not and require a tech. In these cases, Dell will make it very clear that if the customer opts to replace the part and damage is caused by the customer then all bets are off.

when in doubt - call support and ask what is covered.

BTW, *OFFICIAL* removed from thread title. For 'Official', consult tech support. Closing thread due to thread age and changes between Dell and AW policy.

 

Thanks Moo + Rep