okay, now i am real pissed

*UPDATE*
Received the master video card and opened up everything, took out old card, wiped thermal paste off clean, reinstalled, reapplied arctic silver, close up everything and BAM.

Ran left 4 dead for 1 hour and no problems at all. checked temps with GPU-Z and hwmonitor -- max temp I got for 74C for main gpu, 73 for slave after 1 hour of Left 4 Dead at full setting except AA @ 1920x1200.

No artifacting/shaking/jittering after replacing the gpu that had the tape originally. Like Kevin from Roswell said, that tape is some serious stuff lol
Heat must have damaged the gpu so badly that even after removing the tape, the card continued to have rendering issues.

Everything is fine so far, hope it stays that way.
*


*UPDATE*
I just spoke with Kevin from the Roswell team after I did alienware respawn to reinstall everything -- including Left 4 Dead. I had an issue with shearing/artifacting with the bottom half of my screen. This also was happening when before I opened up my notebook. I check the temperatures and the highest during full settings/resolution on Left 4 Dead was 76C for main GPU and 74C for slave. Since I was seeing only artifacting on the bottom half the screen -- I thought this was because crossfire splits the frame when rendering and the main GPU (which has tape on it and overheated) had been severely damaged.

Kevin read my story on the boards and was going to contact me personally. He is more than helpful and I can't believe I'm talking with an Alienware rep (compared to regular CS, this is great!). He quickly acknowledges my concerns and informs me that the GPU which had tape was the main GPU, which is why when running the ATItool in a window caused intense overheating up to 110C (since when not full screen, the main GPU is under 100% load and slave is almost 0%). Kevin quickly tells me that they are shipping me a brand new main GPU to me (4 business days from Flordia to California). Once I receive the package, I just put in my old GPU and ship it back to Alienware). He personally assures me that he's escalated the issue all the way up to manufacturing and informs me that SOMEONE is going to get in serious trouble for this. I was charge 198$ which will be reimbursed once Alienware receives my damaged card.

Roswell is where to go for serious customer service and I kick myself for not speaking with them when I had shipping delays earlier. It was literally 10 minutes and everything is dealt with -- I tell him that I can't believe it's this easy & he says, "it should always be this easy!"

My slave GPU never overheated, CPU was sitting happily at 57-58C max during Left 4 Dead and never overheated. I am almost 100% sure that once I install the new GPU that everything will be rendering properly and working 100%.

For those saying posting negative topics aren't as useful as writing an email, I would say posting on a well-known laptop forum about concerns/issues/problems is the best way to inform other buyers and hopefully attract the attention of service reps who really care about preventing these types of problems. I hope that quality control will be improved and I hope I'm the last M17 owner that receives this serious defect
*

ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, more BS from our great lords over at Alienware.

See my wonderful experience with Alienware customer service here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=354663

I'll make this short. I received my M17 today after a headache of phone calls with customer service.

I download left 4 dead on steam and play for 15 minutes. Crazy thing I notice RIGHT AWAY is that the gpu fans are spinning at 100% insane air flow. I'm thinking man this is insanely loud. I also have an antec notebok cooler 200 ( http://www.antec.com/usa/productDetails.php?lan=us&id=75019) running at high settings underneath this laptop.

My roommate thinks he heard the downstair neighbors vacuuming -- but no worries it's just my laptop while gaming Left 4 Dead.

Anyways, I go to class and come back. Use the laptop for writing up a brief paper probably 1 hour max. Everything is quiet. Decide to play Left 4 Dead one more time. IMMEDIATELY the fans go nuts and I turn it off after 2 minutes. I download GPU-Z and ATITOOLS so I can put my gpus under full load and watch the temps.

Strangely, one of my GPUS under full load sit at 69C, while my other one creeps up to 110C within 30 seconds of testing. You guys can already guess what's coming.



TADA! One of the GPUs have !@$#& TAPE COVERING THERMAL PASTE ON THE HEATSINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JESUS H. CHRIST what monkeys build these systems?! I am so glad that they ran the entire 3Dmark 06 and a bunch of other video tests with this !@$& practically FRYING my video card. THANKS ALIENWARE!

 

Well, that problem was already reported by many members on the forum, so that is normal from Alienware. Though that just shows how crappy Alienware Quality Control and 200 Point Test sucks.

 

omg.
even total noobs would know better.
i feel for you man.

 

I know this problem has been reported by several members. This is exactly the reason why I'm even more pissed off. After receiving complaints about this issue, alienware obviously has done nothing to improve their quality control.

You would think with all the reps lurking these boards, someone would get a clue and fire the jackasses leaving tape on the gpus by now.

Anyways, you guys think there is any permanent damage? the gpu was hitting 107C within 20-30 seconds of full load. 20 minutes of left 4 dead + all Alienware's graphically intense benchmarking. 2,500$ for a potentially damaged system right out the box WOOT.

 

I suggest you fix it an then see how it goes

Not sure how much damage was done, but you should test it properly

Can't believe Alienware hasn't done anything about this

 

Yeah, sheesh. I'm replacing cpu/gpu/gpu all with proper amounts of arctic silver 5 and will check gaming/benchmarking..

I still think they should give me a free 3 year warranty for this crap just incase my system fries a day after my 1 yr warranty.

 

C-R-A-P Quality Alienware

 

You can try, but I don't think they will extend your warranty

Csll em up and shout at them anyway and mention that temps went into 3 digits

 

AW needs to work on their m17 quality control... then again, probably just a single guy who effed up all the "taped" m17s we've been seeing here.

 

Ok, so tested GPU under 100% load for about 10 minutes straight and never heard the fan go 100% vacuum mode like I had before -- so quiet



temperature for main GPU never broke 70C.

Also, before with Alienware's thermal paste, my GPU that didn't have the tape sat at 50C during idle and now sits at 43-46C during idle with arctic silver 5 (removed all of original thermal paste and lightly wiped contact points with rubbing alcohol, let dry and apply 1 single stream of arctic silver equivalent to the length of the cpu/gpus accordingly)

*For future reference, please don't be like me and believe in Alienware to fix its past wrongs, when you buy your laptop carefully check your cpus and gpus for things like this. I was dumb to think that since so many people had the same issue, that quality control would prevent things like this from happening.

 

care to run furmark as well? the atitool thingy never really got my GPU to run full blast... furmark, on the other hand - from 44°C (idle) to 88°C (self-explanatory) in about 20s flat

 

Let me ask you something? Why should you, a customer paying so much, need to fix your own laptop? What if you had no idea what a cooling fan was? Honestly, the more time passes the more customer service goes down on most brands .

 

Wow. Just a highlight of the 1st page of the AW forum;

okay, now i am real pissed
Never dealing with Alienware again..
m15x Alienware woes <sigh>
Where in the world is my M17? Maybe I'll never know
m15x hinge drama

And then the other half of the threads are newbies asking if 3870s are better than a 1GB 9800M GTS and when 4870s will be available.

 

well plasma you may wanna take m15x off your considering list

 

Yeah

Wait and get one w/ the 4xxx series

 

good point. so let's check the Dell XPS section. Dell is one of the more known laptop brands, their laptops usually are well built and have good TS, and "XPS" of course denotes the performance line of their products. so, what have we got on the first page of the Dell XPS board?

- Static/white noise on earphones (Studio XPS 1640)
- XPS 1530 cooling
- Beware! Display Quality on SXPS16 not on par with reviews
- Blurry fonts fix (RGB LED panel) + audio fix
- Methods to lower temps on m1530?
- M1330 bsod
- XPS m1330, any HAPPY owners out there?
- Studio XPS 13, eSATA doesn't work
- Dell studio xps 13 freezes ?
- Studio XPS 1340: Hybrid SLI Disappeared

...and the rest are of the threads are various owner lounges. funny, i count more complaint threads than in the AW section...

not wanting to condone AW or diss Dell in any way, just pointing out that while it may seem that AW has lots of problems, other manufacturers apparently aren't much better.

 

I know, I know.

But Alienware issues have mostly been shipping or physical ones, issues I really can't handle.

 

it is always easier to point out the bad then to highlight the good.
some people are just prone to negative spidey senses and feel that by pointing out the bad, they have validated something within themselves and fill vindicated...

meh....what do i know anyway....

negative will always beget negative - surround yourself in negativity, that is all you will see....
positive will always beget positive - surround yourself in positivity (is that a word? ), and your eyes open wide....

 

My father bought a Dell about a year ago but had it's problems and we decided to exchange it for a Sony Vaio. We did experience poor and incompetent CS from Dell but you don't see me poking my nose around the DELL forums and everytime someone posts a negative thread in section me going in there and posting comments like OMG DELL SUX NEVER BUY ONE AND CS IS BAD FOR EVERYONE@!@!@! Fact is sometimes you get a raw deal, I'll express my dissatisfaction in an email written to their supervisors but I'm not going to go and troll the Dell forums and post negative things every chance I get.

 

I'd go with a brand that isn't made/sold/owned by dell for a comparison.

Dell XPS and Alienware are two sections of the same company filling almost the same market niche. I'd be surprised if one had lousy quality control and the other didn't.

 

actually, Dell is positioning AW to be the "gaming" brand and XPS to move over to the "general high-end" market.

 

good fix and yea AW has issues....we know and we just treat them like special people

 

LOL
nice

 

The difference in dell and AW, and which i WISH would go away and they'd be the same is the response time in fixing a problem. For instance. With my XPS 1710 and Gen 2, they came the VERY NEXT DAY. 2 times we didn't know what the problem was and they brought "motherboard, GPU (2x just in case) and LCD. This was for the Gen 2. the 1710 has been the best laptop i've owned period. AW? send it in usually for a month they have the laptop and then they return it. That's what i want to change in AW. do that and i dont give a rat's a$$ if there is a problem. JUST FIX IT FAST AND RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. or if it isn't fixed right the first time, at least i know dell will come out tomorrow... as opposed to sending it in again and being with out it.

Heck, of the 3 friends that had 7700s... 2 of them had "their" laptop in the shop more than at home the first year and so they sold em. My 766.. well. lets just say it went in twice. and then i decided i was done with it and donated it as i didn't feel like passing the problems on to anyone else since warranties don't transfer.

 

Having spent a timed 160 minutes on the phone to dell convincing them to let me send an incorrectly speced outlet 9400 back to them (they said 7900gs, it was a 7800), i can't say i'm real impressed with dells support.
About a third of that time was convincing them that despite the service tag being registered to someone else in a different country, i actually had the laptop here in the USA and bought it from dell.

 

wow because you flew to the us and learned english just to lie they shipped you the wrong computer

 

Man, they really need to maybe do some QC on their people and see if there is a pattern, as mentioned in an earlier post it may be one or two assemblers causing this problem.

As far as judging AW on the post’s in this forum, most come here for help when they are experiencing a problem be it with AW directly or just some friendly advise of how to handle a particular problem. The reason they do is the over the top members here that give good advice or suggestions concerning the dilemma.

Most don’t search out the www when everything is peachy and praise when all is well, only when your wits are at an end and find it necessary to lash out in some way. I have been there and yes it makes you feel better even if the problem still exists.

I have a Desktop and Laptop from Alienware and be it luck no problems with either system only some minor software issues which they handled quickly. I really do wish they would clean it up in a few areas but I bought an Alienware for performance, not a warranty.

Just food for thought…

 

well in my pc information is the builder and tester initals get the people who had tape on there gpu's and see if there the same gather documentation and send it to the president of AW

 

*UPDATED* spoke with Kevin from Roswell

 

great update....i always tell peeps to get with Roswell ASAP....
now you owe Kevin a Christmas Card....

 

lol, you play L2? What server?

 

i play on Devianne

 

lol wow that server still exists..I was on bartz until this past summer and sold my acct

+8 drac bow +28crit, 130 fire for 600$ lol

 

Glad see your bad experience with AW was resolved. Most things are when talking with roswell! Srsly I did have to send my system in dew to a blowen speaker and a dysfunctional fan BUT when I got my system back I fire it up test the sound. check. test fan. . . well no dice =( I call roswell and explain. I ask them to send me a GPU fan and since its roswell sure. no problem! I get it within the week a problem solved.

 

yoyo

I was the one of the first ones who received this notebook, I ordered it in the first few hrs of release, and I think I am the first one who reported about the tape.

Kevin is awesome at this because he has tons of experience of this issue from me, which I requested a replacement of the notebook, because I was asked by the normal rep asked me to continue testing and spent days (about 18 hrs a day) to troubleshoot for them. Both GPU was running at 100 degree constantly thru the testings, and other components might already be fried

So I guess they did change a thing after my incident, they probably contact the ATI manufacture to increase the heat cap before shutting down the GPU, from 100 to 110. lol

 

and untaped one of the gpus lol.

 

Its a step forward .

 

baby steps lol

 

They all count

 

They sure do

 

Updateeeeeee