m15x Alienware woes <sigh>

So I ordered a m15x back in November and it took 2 and a half weeks for it to get built because they were missing a part. When it got it I noticed something funny with the onboard intel graphics but didn't think much of it because I needed to do high end 3d anyway. Eventually I ordered the smartbay battery and wanted to get things straightened out with the intel GFX for longer battery life and... Well that was along and painful process.

Everything was fine with the Nvidia Quadro, but when I changed to Intel GFX the screen had lines down it and the pixles were all fuzzy rainbow colors. I tried everything under the sun to find out what was wrong and eventually noticed that there were graphic glitches during the alienware head at startup and even in bios random pixles in the white text were also shifting colors. Then I started having no video when I restarted, would have to restart a few times before I had any. Waited on hold for over an hour to talk to a tech that assured me drivers could indeed cause graphical errors before the operating system loaded. Argued a little but jumped through the hoops because I wanted help- the only problem being everytime I restarted there was a 90% chance I'd have no video, and the time it took to get video again kept getting longer and I think I eventually got hung up on. Same error in Safe Mode and with no video for times reaching close to half an hour I was worried I"d never be able to get into Windows just so I could change it back to Nvidia to use the thing.

Reinstalled windows, reset some ram, replace some ram. Called tech support again- finally got some help, I felt confident it was bad onboard video and the tech agreed. 3 and a half weeks later I got it back and the paper said that the issue was recreated and the motherboard and LCD bracket had been replaced. Turned it on, it was Nvidia mode- everything perfect. Swapped to Intel and I couldn't believe it. Same issue, but the scale was even worse than before.

A) This was visible right out of the box and should have been seen before it was shipped? B) They saw the problem, replace some parts and didn't check to see if they even fixed it!? Another hour on hold, 3 hours on tech support to jump through all the hoops again... Even had to flash the bios because the motherboard they replace it with hadn't been updated. The tech and his supervisor decided that my motherboard with faulty onboard graphics must have been replaced with another motherboard that also had faulty onboard graphcis- while every other part of the system worked 100%. Now its been another 3 and a half weeks and its simply in the shop somewhere... they should be working on it when they get to it. 2/3rds of the time I"ve owned my system I haven't had it...

Here is a pic of what it was like before I sent it the first time, the second is similar but I can't find a pic- it was just twice as many blurry/fuzzy areas of pixels. Has anybody else had/seen a similar issue?

 

You're the first person I've come accross on this board with a Quadro in the m15x.

 

looks to me that your screen resolution is set at 800x600. Try changing it to the native resolution.

 

Yea, the tech had changed it because 1920x1200 was too large to navigate around with the resolution on his end when he was remotely connected. Its the same for all resolutions and number of colors. Its not quite the same as if you apply pressure to the LCD, its actually pixles of a certain color value that are all affected, if the background is changed to all black or all white, then only the highlights on the taskbar and off tones in all the icons or docked panels are all messed up. Though when I was updating the bios all of the white text in the dos environment had blue and gray pixels streaked through all of it as well. The lines down the side of the screen are also visible as dark blue pixels when the Alienhead logo appears during boot up.

 

can you still see the errors if you take a screenshot?

 

that's unusual, I don't have this problem before.
send it back or reinstall the driver? (sorry didn't read through the thread.)

 

Actually if you take a screenshot it comes out perfectly clear (when viewed on another computer), and with the tech remoted in there are no visual defects on his monitor. Which makes the LCD suspect (even though with the Quadro everything is 100% Fine) and most likely why the LCD Bracket was replaced along with the motherboard the last time I sent it back.

Its been with them twice as long (so far) as it was last time when they replaced the motherboard and bracket so either they are weeks behind on machines already in their possession or maybe having a tough time getting it to operate properly.

The problem is very peculiar.

 

Heh, after an additional 4 weeks from when I got the repaired laptop back that was still broken Alienware called to let me know that they had fixed the problem and the laptop was now working, they double checked this time. Also they wanted to let me know that they had busted up the casing for the laptop and wanted to know if it was Okay for them to replace it with a Ripley design instead of the Skullcap I had chosen because they didn't have any of those available... With this kind of quality hardware and service I can't justify the expense for more than a 1 year warranty and feel like I may have purchased an expensive paperweight that isn't really meant to last long anyway.

 

lol. i'd make them FIND you a skullcap. The ripley has historically had way more issues with the hinges, and not to bash or anything, but i would wonder if they will send you a ripley with "possible" issues from the "return bin".

 

that would really suck ...

 

i've seen it happen (or something similar) - replacement vid cards for my friends 7700. i got a screen with "splotches" to replace a screen that was jacked from a 766. that laptop was donated to goodwill when i was doing some work for them after owning it less than a year due to issues. I think they were going to use it for an ongoing education class (repairing hardware).

 

Aw man, wish I knew Ripley had more issues with the hinges before I gave them the go ahead =/