Alienware 15 R2 repair experience needed

I got my Alienware 15 R2 (I7,980,8g) on March 2016, and suddenly the laptop completely dead (cannot turn on with power) at last night. I have been called the on site service and one Tech will come tomorrow and replace my motherboard. So here I have some questions regarding the motherboard replacement (better some Alienware company representative could give some advice/experience/suggestion),

1, Is really matter if the motherboard is refurbished or from original new (the quality) ? and the replacement for motherboard in Alienware is always refurbished I guess ?
2, I think the Tech will not bring any thermal paste when he replace the broken motherboard, so I have to buy the thermal paste to prepare for him to replace the motherboard ? so next time if is possible Dell mention this to us before ?


I pray to God and hope this Tech will not broken anything else when he open up the machine ...

I am new in this forum, all kinds of advice is welcomed !!!

 

I don't work for Alienware but I have enterprise support experience. Refurb parts are not all that uncommon, IME. I've even seen manufacturers regularly sending refurbished enterprise storage components as RMA's for mission critical RAID arrays. As long as it's been tested I personally wouldn't worry too much. They probably just have a central pool of RMA parts and whilst some new stock will be allocated some will be refurbished (stripped from systems that may have had some other fault but returned instead of repaired so working parts were harvested, for example).

Usually the tech will bring everything they need with them. In fact, most RMA components like motherboards and processors will include a kit with ISO cleaning wipes, thermal paste, etc. I wouldn't worry about the tech damaging the system, most of them open up and replace components in various systems all day every day and these systems aren't particularly difficult to service from what I gather.

 

deeply appreciated this valuable input

Deeply appreciated this valuable input, now I can have a good sleep ..

 

Also it should be noted that when dealing with spare parts since these parts are never sold in the market place as "new" that often times they are new and labeled refurbished.
For example I have had parts I bought from the spare parts department and they said "refurbished". I also have bought parts for systems that just came out and still labeled "refurbished".
In both of these examples the boards have not had a single scratch or scuff mark. I was told that they have to label spare parts like that for legal reasons.

The bottom line is that if the system is fixed by said spare part I would not worry about it. If something happens then they will just replace the part again.

Truth be told... go to both newegg and amazon and look up any desktop graphics card, any desktop motherboard, or RAM etc. Then go to the reviews and choose sort by 1 star.
You will see tons of high quality, popular products that were "NEW" have arrived to people DOA or have failed fast Does that mean the product is bad? No!
It is just the nature of mass producing electronics. Stuff happens.
Thats what warranties are for and no matter what anyone else says that is where Dell shines. Just be thankful you dont have to ship your MSI, ASUS, or Clevo somewhere for several weeks.

 

Ive had my board replaced twice now on my 17 R3. The first tech did a bad job with the repasting and I was hitting over 100c after a few seconds of load. He also left something loose inside the unit, You could hear rattling when I moved the laptop. Anyway, That first board died within a few hours of use so I had to call Dell back.

The second tech (different guy) was much more experienced and corrected the mistakes of the first and did a better job on the repaste.

Both times I had updated the BIOS to 1.2.12 before they died. (coincidence?)

By any chance did you update to the latest BIOS 1.2.12 before yours stopped working?

 

My motherboard died because bios 1.2.12. I received a new motherboard after and a rechnician fixed it. The only problem was that he didnt connect my lcd cable correctly so another technician rectified that a day after. The technician before that thought that the motherboard was a dead on arrival.

 

Service manual: http://content.etilize.com/User-Manual/1029523633.pdf

or

https://mega.nz/#!zgwVDYgI!6r94Z2Juu8yppvtgOyTakflbAx7lJFxfnVNdCiRDjJA

For 17 R2 and R3

 

Its because of BIOS 1.2.12, you gotta use warranty they will replace your motherboard

 

I want to believe this but my son also has a 17r3 that was upgraded to 1.2.12 when it was released. His is still going well and not a single issue.

Is his simply a ticking time bomb waiting to go off?

 

Maybe, mine was fine for a week after i upgraded bios. Then i turned it off , and next day the laptop was unresponsive, no light, not turning on or anything.

So i suggest you downgrade the 17r3 to 1.2.8 asap. Thats what they installed on mine when they changed the motherboard and installed a fresh OS.

 

The tech came today and did pretty good,very professional, replaced the motherboard and Alienware 15 is fully back to work now ...

Maybe there is a correlation between BIOS 1.2.12 and high failure rate of motherboard, since my motherboard broken also after I update the BIOS ...

maybe Dell Alienware company representative can reflect this message to the Tech lab ?

 

We already know for sure it is a problematic bios. almost every bricked laptop out here happened after installing bios 1.2.12. Another users analyzed the bios file and noticed problem settings that shouldnt be there. Wrong IRQ's for the power and shutdown sequence.

 

Do you think that whatever it is in 1.2.12 that is killing the boards would still persist even after downgrading the bios to a lower one?

So basically if you have been on 1.2.12 at all you will be screwed at some point regardless if you downgrade?

 

I have no clue about that. But I think @ sirleeofroy went back from 1.2.12 to 1.2.2 and his laptop is still running?

 

No, I've not installed a BIOS later than 1.2.7 as I had reboot issues. I rolled back to 1.2.2 and not upgraded since. My system runs perfectly.