The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
HWINFO or battinfoview from nirsoft is 100% correct. I got simplo battery whereas you and VICKY got Lg/panasonic. After replacing the battery, I got Sanyo battery which is having higher capacity 6300mAh.
Will share my experience. I purchased 17R3 Alienware in UK from Dell's website in January 2016. After owning Alienware for almost 1 year I had a similar issue develop when PSU would turn off whilst gaming (blue light on the tip of the charger would go dark) until I unplug it from the socket and plug it back in. It would then work for some time before disconnecting again. Video of how issue looks like attached which I did send to alienware representative to prove my case. I eventually found out that if I lower graphics settings then I could actually play for hours without this issue happening, on the other side, if I switch everything to Ultra settings, PSU would turn off within 1-2 minutes of game or laptop starting (when temperatures didn't yet reach high levels on either graphics card chip or cpu) Faulty PSU was ruled out straight away as I have two 17R3 laptops, hence have 2x240W PSU and both were disconnecting in the same manner.
I was worried that my warranty will expire as I think I only had 1 year Premium Warranty purchased. But Alienware tech support told me a little secret,
if you purchased Alienware laptop in EU country as an individual and not a business entity then you actually have 2 years warranty on it as that is EU law on electronics equipment sales. Alienware might refuse to send out an engineer to do repairs at your house, but they still must accept your laptop to be sent to their warranty centre for free of charge fix under warranty.
Below is message exactly as it was stated in email I received from Dell rep when dealing with my issue:
"But good message for you is that if you are an original owner of the PC, you still have statutory / legal warranty for 2 years since purchase of the PC. We can replace any components (except battery which have 1 yr warranty only ) for free, however if your premium support expires then we can either take the PC in to service center for free and get it repaired there...usually takes around 10-14 business days to complete. Or you can pay for engineer visit on site which costs at the moment 29GBP, parts are free. This also excludes physically damaged parts / liquid spillage..as this is out of warranty / paid repair."
In my case I still had Premium Warranty from Dell so they were more than happy to dispatch an engineer to my house to fix laptop without it having to be sent anywhere. Before engineer was dispatched I had to open bottom lid of laptop, take pictures of AC power cable which in my case wasn't that obviously burnt as I've seen in other peoples cases. I also had to flush BIOS, CLRP pin reset, full reinstall of windows, battery drain.
Only when all other options were exausted Dell reps agreed to send out an Engineer with a new Motherboard to be replaced.
I was also suffering from SSD drive developing some sort of bottleneck in processes, as sometimes computer would take over 5 minutes to boot and even in idle SSD was 100% busy all the time. Engineer eventually changed SSD drive as well, Replaced Motherboard, and after couple of painful hours of me trying to install Windows 10 on SSD from boot usb I had my laptop back working as new.
This issue with PSU disconnecting and burning motherboard is a manufacturing flaw and a huge fire risk hazard, so Dell must fix this one for you in any case. Excuse that this is wear and tear is not acceptable, this cable should never get burnt if everything works as intended. If you hit a brick wall with one Dell rep then just get in touch with another Rep and hopefully he will be of a greater help to you.
A year ago I was dealing with Dell representative called Radoslav Pavel, not sure if he still works for Dell but you can always try and write an email to him. His email address:
[email protected]
Hopefully you will find this info above helpful, and wish you to resolve this problem as smoothly as possible.
Thanks very much - that is very helpful! Dell have now (finally) agreed to fix it and I’ve sent it off to them. Fingers crossed this will also sort the stuttering I used to get in games.
Just thought I'd update the thread - my laptop is back!
I was offered to send it to the Dell repair centre or for them to just send me some cables to try...thankfully I opted for the repair centre. It needed replacement of the motherboard, PSU and some parts of the actual case (as well as that cable!).
I don't want to jinx it, but my games are certainly running a lot smoother already - let's hope it stays like this for a long time! Thank you to all who contributed!
Do check if service tag is same or different, if its different then mobo is changed, otherwise you can ask them. If you don't know earlier Service Tag then don't bother with it and enjoy ur PC., but keep a Close eye on temps.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
