LiquidNitrogen

Hey All, I bought a used Alienware M17X R2 in august of this year (2011) and I was told during the purchase that its warranty had run out. I called Dell/Alienware today as I had some free time and apparently its still in warranty AND I have the option of upgrading the warranty. This was a godsend because I live a very mobile lifestyle and have been in a couple "close call" situations with my Alienware already. However, as I have had some bad experiences with PC manufacturers and their warranties *coughHPcough* I am a bit hesitant about getting a warranty. Thus, I figured I'd consult you T|I'ers before I pulled the trigger on a new warranty. So, if you'd be so kind, a few questions/concerns: - Have you had any experience with the Accidental Warranty? If so, how'd your experience go? What happened? - If my system were to be dropped, etc, would repair be covered with little hassle? - If my system were wrecked to an extent where I needed a replacement, what system do y'all think I'll get? Another R2? An R3? An M18X? - How difficult is it to deal with Dell about warranties and services and such? Thanks for your time!! :) And happy holidays/new year! - Liquid

@Nospheratu : Thanks!! I've wanted one since I was a kid. I updated the bios and it did fix the mouse, which is awesome because it was very poor before but now its pretty good. Also, I believe I flashed the VBIOS correctly as I used the Dell tool to create a bootable ISO, burned it to disc using burniso, booted off it, ran the flasher which told me that the installation went fine, and it's working fine so far. Also, I agree - Lunar Silver is definately the best color. I'm surprised Dell took the option off for the new ones. It's part of the reason I got the R2 over an R3. The RGBLED screen is AMAZING! It's even better than the LED IPS screen I've got in my Lenovo x220 tablet - and I thought the tablet had the best screen ever. Man, I can't believe how rich the colors look on the RGBLED screen. Especially the the greens and reds. Anyways, I'm lovin' this thing. Hopefully now that I've got the drivers, BIOS, and VBIOS up to date it'll run fine. The only concern I have now is if the i7 is overclocking itself as it should and if I'm going to experience any throttling of the CPU while on battery. EDIT: Also, what I can't believe is that Windows is giving me a battery estimation of 2hr2min and that's without any battery optimization or power saving features turned on. Looks like I won't have to be fighting with the settings too much to get a decent battery life.

Thanks Nospheratu, StatmatisX! That's one less thing to worry about.

Well, I just got my Alienware m17x R2 and I proceeded to wipe the hard drive and reinstall windows with the Alienware disc. However, when it was wiping I noticed that the HDD had a recovery drive on it, and I'm now pissed at myself for erasing it without checking - because now I no longer have that recovery partition. So, question is, is there a real difference between a clean install and using AlienRespawn? Any special themes or wallpapers or whatever? I mean, what's so special about AlienRespawn? P.s. Anyone know where I can get an ISO of a disk image with the AlienRespawn recovery image on it? Y'know, the one that you get if you burn your recovery drive to disk.

OH YEAH GOT MY FIRST ALIENWARE TODAY!!! :D Frekin AMAZING laptop. I couldn't find anything wrong with it, its in mint condition. I didn't get a chance to check out the benchmarks yet but I'm sure they'll turn out fine. I opened up the lid in the bottom of the unit and couldn't find any evidence of overheating. Pretty much everything is perfect on this laptop. The only exception is that the mouse cursor is a bit weird - its not smooth when moving it but I think it might just be a software thing. I'm reinstalling the operating system right now so I'll soon find out about that. If anyone can recommend any useful threads to read in regards to the m17x R2 please post them, I'm interested in finding out what the optimal bios edition is specifically though I want to read up on what I can do with this baby. :D EDIT: Unfortunately, when I was booting it up I started to get BSODs around when the windows logo came up or the login screen, and could not get past it. I kept rebooting but it was no good. I am reinstalling the OS now, but I don't think that's the problem. Does anyone know what this issue could be? EDIT 2: After doing some research, I'm fairly certain its because the previous owner did not flash the gpu cards with the new vbios. I'm going to try to do that after I get win7 reinstalled. I'm gonna try to use Dell's official flashing tool, hopefully there'll be no issues.

Thanks for the replies! Some family stuff came up yesterday so I'm working on rescheduling the meet with the seller to early this week (monday/tuesday-ish). I'll definitely check for those issues. If there's anything else anyone can think of that I should check for please let me know. Also, what is the deal with the "plugged in not charging" problem? Is that only intermittent or would that ever become a serious problem? I'm intending on using this laptop for school and work (I love that the screen is 1200p because my work requires as big a vertical resolution as possible), so I'm not sure I would need the XM chip but I think I'd probably get it anyways sooner or later just to futureproof the laptop a bit. Though, I definately would like to get good battery life out of the system (~2hrs) so I'd be a bit hesitant to put more powerful components in it in case it degrades the battery life further. My first priority is to stick an SSD in it, though.

Hi all, I'm probably going to be getting the chance to buy a used Alienware M17X R2 today (EDIT: Family stuff came up, opportunity moved to this upcoming week), if all goes well. I'm going to get the chance to see the unit in person before I buy it, but I'm not sure what defects I should be looking for besides the typical dead pixels / dents / etc. So, is there anything in particular I should be looking for? Is there any common issue(s) that I should be looking out for? Also, here's the specs for the one I'm trying to buy: - Lunar Silver - 8x DVD DL Driver - Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6GHZ (2.8 GHZ Turbo 6MB Cache) - 8 GB Dual Channel Memory ( 2 x 4 GB DDR3) - 17" UXGA 1920x1200 RGB LED (1200P) - Crossfire 1GB ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5870 X2 - Alienware M17X 240W A/C Adapter - 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 2 HDD - Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR - Intel Ultimate N WIFI 6300 A/G/N 3x3 MIMO TECH

Hi there, While thinking about which would be better to get -the R2 or the R3 - I wondered if it were possible to take the epic RGBLED R2 screen and stick it in the R3 - so you'd have the better battery life of the R3 but with the good screen of the R2. So, does anyone think this would be possible? The main concerns that I thought of while thinking about it were: 1. a. If the R2 screen would fit into the R3 lid right. or, if the screen wouldn't fit in even with some custom work, 1. b. If the R2 lid hinge would fit into the R3 and if that hinge would support the additional weight 2. If the R3 motherboard had the right monitor connection for the R2 screen. 3. If the R3 motherboard had the right power for the R2 screen. 4. If there would be any driver issues for the R2 screen. (you'd think there wouldn't be, as you can hook up lots of different external monitors to the R3, so you'd think it would support whatever internal monitor you put in as long as the connections were correct) Also, the other idea to check out is if you could stick an R3 motherboard into the R2. I would bet not without a lot of work, and it probably wouldn't be worth the work to actually do it, but the idea itself is worth considering if only for curiosity's sake. The last idea I had to get a better screen on the R3 would be to check if there were any other laptop RGBLED screens that matched the same size, would fit in, and could be hooked up to the R3 motherboard. Unlikely, but perhaps possible. Anyways, what da ya think?