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Dont get mad get even


m15chief

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Sick and tired of Alienwares terrinble customer services I decided to create a weblog of every interaction while trying to get my 1 month odl m14xr2 fixed/repaired/refunded. The whole story available at www.falienware.com for anyone who is interested..Hopefully if I can drum up enough interest they will kickstart some action and get my laptop sorted.

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I'm with you bro, Dell should have better support for their "high end" product line. I had a small crack/manufacturing defect when i got my r2 and called day 1 about it. They gave me grief about getting it repaired saying they dont cover cracks/cosmetic blemishes. I told them it is 1 day old and the damage was obviously a misaligned plastic rivet from they factory that was responsible. they eventually agreed to send someone out. well the guy that came took my machine apart at least 5 times breaking something else each attempt. he broke keys off the keyboard, the dvd retention clip, and something on the board that caused a flashing screen, then BSOD. He called in to his office and tried to tell them I gave it to him broken right in front of me! I told them I had zero mechanical problems before he touched it and had been using it for the past few hrs at my office until he called to meet me at my house. they then wanted me to send the bunch of broken parts out to the repair depot for an undetermined amount of time to be cobbled back together by them and sent back to me. I told them there was no way I was going to send it out for repair and at this point all I would accept was a new machine. After talking to a bunch of people I finally got someone who said they could get me a new one built.

I made sure to verify that it would be new and not built using refurbished parts as I know they pull that crap from past experience. they said brand new not refurb so I accepted. well I get the replacement machine and it looks worse than my r1 which I bought on its release day! no plastic like the first r2, a discolored spot on the lid, and a obvious thumb print on the palm rest area that wont wipe off and is obviously under the soft touch coating. I sent a email to the alienware resolution experts and didnt even get a response. I got ended up accepting that dell screwed me till I had to get my MB replaced a few weeks ago. the rep I talked to tried to tell me it was a brand new build and not refurb again! LOOK, THERE ARE YELLOW PART STICKERS ON TOP OF OTHER WHITE PART STICKERS! If thats not proof of a part being used in 2 builds I dont know what is.

my apologies on the length of my rant, I just feel compelled to share when I see crap like this or when someone asks me if they should get a dell. I have since turned countless potential buyers somewhere else, yet I feel like in the end I feel like I have accomplished nothing. If only the people I have sent somewhere else had each sent a email explaining why they are choosing a different manufacturer, maybe something would be done. I think Im going to start finding perspective buyers a good deal elsewhere in exchange for sending a email stating why. probably still wont do anything, but its a start.

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Cheers for the support mate, its very much appreciated.. the site traffic stats are showing a lot of hits from Dell in texas & one of their supervisors let it slip that the senior execs are working with their legal dept on what to do about it. so if you wanted to copy/paste this into a comment on my site it should be seen by someone senior in Dell :)

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You'd have more success if you just contacted an Alienware rep, e.g. [MENTION=4186]Alienware-Frank_L[/MENTION] or [MENTION=4614]Alienware-Luis_Pardo[/MENTION] or any of the AW reps here. I assume they could help you sorting things out. Just saying.

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Tried all that Svl, most of the time the response is that im UK based and they dont support my geography, same with @Dellcares and @alienware on twitter.

As per the blog i've tried multiple calls emails and even a letter. And had only one call from a supervisor who basically told me there was nothing they could do.

[email protected] is supposedly the latest escalation path but ive had zero response from that & the [email protected] which promises a response within 24 hours still hasnt responded to any of the 3 emails sent 2-3 & 4 weeks ago.

So its not for lack of trying.. i've even worked up a £30 phone bill on the 0844 number on my order summary until i got the 0800 number.

Have a read on my blog titled Engineering Malfunction about how engineer used a flathead screwdriver to scrape paste off the old GPU then onto the new GPU when the mobo was last swapped out.. how much confidence would that give you when their engineers are a liability??

www.falienware.com/timeline for the entire story

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Have a read on my blog titled Engineering Malfunction about how engineer used a flathead screwdriver to scrape paste off the old GPU then onto the new GPU when the mobo was last swapped out.. how much confidence would that give you when their engineers are a liability??

That's why I never let a tech touch my system. They can watch me do their work :P The first time a technician came to my place to replace the GPU he started removing the screws which were holding the screen... that's where I had to step in, lol, those guys are just on contract with Dell, and most of them have never ever seen an AW system, so I decided it's better to do it myself.

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That's why I never let a tech touch my system. They can watch me do their work :P The first time a technician came to my place to replace the GPU he started removing the screws which were holding the screen... that's where I had to step in, lol, those guys are just on contract with Dell, and most of them have never ever seen an AW system, so I decided it's better to do it myself.

By screws holding the screen, do you mean the screws that go through the laptop body to the screen hinges, or did he actually think the graphics card was in the screen, so he was taking the screen bezel off? The former isn't really so bad since you could think you were taking the back plate off but just picked the wrong screw, but the latter... that's bad.

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The plot thickens... My brand new replacement came, and the first thing I did was to install my SSD.

First thing I noticed was that the battery wasn't screwed in.. rather shoddy I thought, Then after taking the DVD drive off I found an extra screw, just sitting there under the DVD drive??? Those of you with the m14x will know that all of the screws needed to get to the HDD have retaining washers so this is a case screw, something you dont need to open to get at the HDD!!

Anyway, after cleaning out the leftover screw, and installing my SSD I find that the power off issue remains, even with all new hardware,,

I decide to do a clean install of windows and also a clean install of the games i'm using to test, and I also re-install the shipped hardware (HDD and mSata)

Double FAIL... Windows isn't even activated on the shipped hardware !!

Timeline | FalienwareFalienware

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Did you test your system before you installed the SSD? The automatic activation of the OEM key can be bound to the HDD. If you install your own drive you might need to activate it manually.

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No i didnt, i swapped out the HDD without even turning it on. So technically, when i took the SSD out and reinstalled the HDD it should have been as if it was the first time it was booted.

Its not a major deal as ive got cd keys from the multiple board replacements, if i really need to i'll just use one of those.

Just shoddy from Dell/Alienware, and the loose screw rattling around the case is unforgivable.. i wanted the replacement quickly to minimise my inconvenience bur not at the cost of a proper build :-S

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Well, I just think it's not justified to complain if you haven't even the system before starting to mess with it and putting in your own parts...

Every AW should come with a Win key, so the activation definitely is the least of all possible issues.

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Really?? From the Bios modder??

I think there is every right to complain. The random screw lying under the DVD drive is justification enough to complain, & the fact that a replacement system still has the issue with completely stock settings and hardware suggests that its a manufacturing issue.

The unactivated os is just a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things, not major although the dvd media does not come with an activation key, so i've used one from the numerous board replacements.

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I'm not taking about the screw, only about the windows stuff. The screw is a different story. Aynway, I think it's just common-sense to first take a proper look at a system before starting to make changes to it.

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OK, for those following the saga on here instead of Timeline | FalienwareFalienware I now believe this to be a design flaw, either with the GT650m itself, or the surrounding hardware and its configuration. I've isolated and tested every possible component and OS that I can, and i'm still able to recreate the fault. Also some googling has found various polls where up to 70% of respondents encountered the same issue. I also found scores of forum posts littered around the web where people have the same problem.

Heres how I have successfully recreated the issue every time.

Charge the laptop fully, then unplug the AC before you boot (also happens if you unplug while windows is booted, but in order to get a clean test do it before boot)

Boot into windows and fire up steam

Load up a graphically intensive game (I use Hitman Absolution on ultra or high in the native resolution) Other ganes the mileage varies

play

Within minutes the laptop will power off and refuse to restart despite the battery indicator showing as full or near full.

Ok to get your laptop working properly again, plug in the AC, boot, then do a proper shutdown then boot again on AC. All should then be back to normal and you can use the battery again.

I've repeated the fault with a couple of different games, with various detail settings so I know its not the game, or that the card can't handle the settings. Some take longer than others before it happens, but in around 80% of games i've tried so far the issue occurs, i assume its based on how graphically intense the game is.

I've repeated this fault successfully across 4 different GPU's boards and batteries. 2 different processors, various drive configurations, SSD, HDD, RAID and AHCI across multiple OS's Win7 pro, Win8 and Win8 pro. I've also repeated the fault across various BIOS version A08, A09 and A10 and various nvidia card driver version 307 thru 310.9. Finally although some games the fault manifests itself faster than others i've also been able to replicate across various games, as well as using some popular benchmarking tools.

My config

m14xr2

Core i7 3740 ivybridge

16GB Ram

2GB nVidia GT650M

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I have almost the same configuration that you have, but with the i7-3610QM instead of the i7-3740. Windows 7 x64, stock A10 firmware, 310.90 nVidia drivers, default overclock/overvolt settings on CPU and GPU.

Five minutes of Assassin's Creed from Steam does not reproduce the problem you describe. Currently waiting for it to recharge. Will try again with Guild Wars 2 once the battery is topped off.

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Thanks for testing ratinox, very much appreciated.

My latest discovery, if i reduce the processor power in the power plans to below 75% on battery im seeing a lot less failures, so it might not actually be the GPU after all, but the CPU thats drawing too much power leaving less for the GPU essentially causing a phantom overheat condition. Hence the error message about the battery being disconnected.

Could be that the slightly lower clock on your CPU is why you aren't seeing the issue, when i underclock mine using power plans it happens far less.

Let me know how it goes with Guild Wars, also make sure the graphics settings are high or ultra. To speed the process up a little.

I have also been using the standard 720p test in furmark as a way to replicate the fault without a game.

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The original AC. Which is notorious for being a GPU pig due to poor optimizations.

As a note: this is the 1600x900 screen with AC running at native resolution. Performance profile set to "high".

Guild Wars 2, full screen, highest graphics settings, frame rate limiter off. Going on 8 minutes without a hitch. It's consumed about 20% of my battery capacity.

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Ok, Thanks again for testing. Ive only been able to test using the i7 3740, so an alternative hardware config is a massive help.

So far it looks like you dont have the same problem then.. perhaps it is a CPU issue rather than GPU

Some quick searching via google shows a lot of affected users, i assumed it was the GPU and therefore all users. One forum runnng a poll where almost 70% of users reported as having the issue out of about 95 respondents.

Ive also seen users with the r1 with the issue, but i'd never even considered the CPU as the culprit, i always assumed the GPU until my recent tests with the CPu power plans.

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It's not the CPU or GPU, and it isn't cooling. If it were any of these then you'd see problems on mains power.

No, my suspicion is the battery power system. It's not designed to handle intensive gaming sessions. I mean, a battery pack rated at 4-5 hours of run time being drained by 20% in 10 minutes? That's Full to Zero in 30-40 minutes, roughly 1/8 of its intended run time. With the X-Stand I'm not running the cooling system at full. And I don't have the super-fast WiFi chipset. The faster i7 does draw more power, and your cooling fan is going to be running at higher RPMs without a riser. I can see this causing power load spikes that overwhelm the power system, especially if you have beefy peripherals like active cooling mats and programmable keyboards and mice sucking power from the USB ports.

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I do have a coolermaster U3 but for testung i leave it unplugged, i do also use a rat gaming mouse, but again for testing i leave it unplugged. My config also has the killer-n wifi and a mSATA ssd as well as a SATA SSD.

The battery does indeed drain at an alarming rate when gaming but 1-2 hours shouldnt be impossible to ahieve.

I think you are correct that a surge of requirement causes the shutdown. The power system is being overwhelmed by the demand and tripping some sort of protection switch.

I originally suspected the GPU as testing using the intel 4000 didnt cause a shutdown. Then with your results along with being able to delay the shutdown or even prevent it by reducing the available power to the CPU in the power management made me think it was the CPU

However, it has to be a combination of all of these, as well as the additional peripherals thats causing the power demand to outstrip the available power while on battery.

Im going to do some more testing maybe adding peripherals, usb3 disks and other stuff to see if the shutdown happens faster.

IMHO i still think thats a manufacturing flaw, if you can configure such a system it should still operate as advertised.

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