Kaby Lake 13 r3 - orders keep getting cancelled!

So I ordered a skylake 13 with OLED a couple weeks back. When I saw the Kaby lake models released I cancelled that order and ordered the Kaby Lake model with 7700. I received an email saying order was received but never received confirmation. I called in and had to speak to order modifications. They said there was a problem with my order and it would have to be re-ordered. They already had a hold on the funds on my mastercard so I told them I would wait for the pre authorization to fall off and I would re-order the laptop. I went ahead and re-ordered the machine yesterday and once again only received order acknowledgement. Also, once again a pre authorization was put on my card.
I just called in AGAIN to figure out exactly what was going on. I called order modifications who promptly sent me to another department. I was switched around between 4 different departments before finally being transferred BACK to order modifications.
I finally got someone who could explain what was going on. Apparently Dell is cancelling all Alienware 13 Kaby Lake orders because they are still testing the compatibility with the i7-7700. Why on earth do they even offer it for purchase on their site if it isn't available???
Furthermore he said my order is cancelled but if I call back in February when they do release them they will give me priority in the queue. To say i'm frustrated is an understatement....

 

I am having the same issue except I started my purchase adventure two weeks before Kaby Lake was even announced.

 

You can try ordering from Best Buy if OLED isn't a deal breaker

 

A response from Dell's Sales Rep

"We are very sorry for the inconvenience that you have been through.
We have already escalated the issue and the backend team is working on the same. We got an update today stating that the order will be released automatically by tomorrow and we have been asked not to cancel the order.
Just in case if it doesn’t go through by tomorrow, I will reinstate the order."


The order's been in "processing" status for the past two days ...

 

My Dell ordering adventure began Black Friday...it has never been cancelled, but it is still not shipped yet. Disappointment would be an understatement at this point.

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Every phone call they insist on cancelling my order even though they don't know what the issue is but they are certain that will solve everything.

I probably wasted 3 hours over 3 weeks talking to their reps. Last phone call I begged them not to cancel my order and let it be pending/on hold/status alpha/wherever else they describe it.

 

Woke up this morning to see that the configuration I ordered went up $200. I really hope they honor the price of one of the three orders I had placed when they will finally let me order.... Sigh, come on Dell this is ridiculous....

 

When you log into your dell account online do the orders show up and what "status" are they in. Are they in a "confirmed" status or some other status?


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The status has always been in production, which is confirmed by and rebutted against by the customer service many times...

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Sorry didn't see you're reply to another person, Tapatalk had some mistakes.

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It says processing...

 

Save yourself the nightmare and run away from alienware NOW, as fast as you can. If i could get Michael dell's personal address, I would snail mail him letters telling him how much I hate him and his awful company every day, disguised as bills and stuff so he couldn't just throw them away.

I'll never get that 7 months of my life back, or that $200 arbitration fee

Edit: just saying, if you have this hard a time trying to buy one, imagine what it will be like when it breaks and you are trying to get it repaired. Or worse, when it's been broken for months, going back and forth between dell's depot and your house, and you get fed up and want a refund.

 

Have had nothing but solid machines from Alienware in the 8+ years I have been ordering them. All vendors have problems, there are no exceptions....

 

I'm not quick to judge. I've given them a chance twice and both times have been nightmares that consumed nearly a year of my life, spending 8+ hours a week in the phone with customer support. thank God I purchased the extended warranty, though it didn't do me much good, as they kept sending me broken replacements and performing repairs that fixed nothing. In the 7 months of ownership in the last round, not once did I have a properly working laptop.

 

Same here and I've been using Alienware since before they were bought by Dell.

This is odd as, based on my experience, Dell/Alienware has been nothing but helpful in resolving the few issues I've had and normally are good about fixing problem machines, their usual practice as I understand it is total replacement of a machine that cannot be fixed after two attempts for the same issue, although I suppose I might have just gotten lucky. What models did you have and what were your issues?

 

The first was an alienware 13 somewhere around 8 years ago, the left hinge kept on cracking, and I was very careful with it. It cracked like four times. In that scenario they fixed it within two weeks each time, but it KEPT ON CRACKING. It was like they had glued it back each time or something.

This latest time, alienware 15 r2 with everything but the storage at max spec, the touchpad and usb ports were malfunctioning, the touchpad caused the cursor to jump around the screen randomly and register clicks randomly (not a driver issue, I replaced and reinstalled myself, as did they), while the usb ports would cut in and out on battery. I just lived with these issues for a while until the unit started bluescreening immediately after boot with whea uncorrectable error, which you may recognize as a hardware failure error. Of course, they didn't and insisted on me reinstalling Windows despite the culprit clearly not being the os. After removing the hard drive to backup in my desktop,I reinstalled, and the error persisted as I predicted. Then they insisted in sending a replacement hard drive for repair, which I predicted correctly was not the cause of the issue, but played along. After that proved ineffective, I sent the laptop to the depot, where they were to do a main logic board replacement, and diagnose and repair the usb and mouse.

Upon receiving the unit back, the bluescreens were fixed but the mouse and usb was still broken, and the unit was suddenly hitting 99*c at 2.7ghz where it never had passed 85*C at 4.2ghz before repair. So, they sent a guy with a heatsink and a touchpad replacement. The heatsink didn't fix the overheating, despite burning in, and the touchpad malfunctioned in a different way. The repair tech failed to remove the protective plastic from the touchpad and lost a couple screws in the process - told me that he didn't realize he'd have to fully disassemble the thing to replace the heatsink.

After that,I did get a (refurbished) replacement, and guess what? It had the SAME TOUCHPAD ISSUE as the first unit, and when I tried to make it sleep, it didn't sleep, stayed on and became completely unresponsive, forcing me to hard power cycle. At that point I began arbitration, because it's unacceptable that the replacement be broken In the same way, plus a new way. Note: I did try reinstalling drivers and even reinstalling Windows to see if a piece of software was responsible for sleep issues(it still happened on fresh install)

Edit: most of the support I dealt with was courteous, and professional (other than one guy who was very aggressive and gave me 6 different names in a 1 and a half hour conversation, forcing me to call in on my other phone to speak to his supervisor), but that didn't mean much when all it resulted in was pointless repairs and broken replacements

 

It was an Alienware 11 inch with hinge problem. They recalled and fixed them.

 

Guys you need to switch your lappie vendor to one that cares about customers.

 

I suspect you mean the m11x R1 since there wasn't a 13" model eight years ago and those had a well known hinge issue that would cause them to crack after a period of use (the good news in that Dell eventually fixed the issue in the m11x R3 and they offered free repair/replacements for those affected although it sounds like you gave up before that came into effect).

 

You're probably right then
Doesn't matter that they fixed it TWO GENERATIONS LATER. They shouldn't have sold such garbage on the first place. Furthermore, it doesn't excuse the second nightmare. Three repairs that broke it more and a replacement with the same problems as the original? The replacement was an r3, so once again, what is apparently a common problem spanning more than two generations.

If you want to buy a laptop from a company that makes things difficult before you even buy the device, just be prepared for the waking nightmare I experienced. Even if I'm the exception rather than the norm, how is it even possible a company with such blatant quality control problems is still in business? They DIDN'T EVEN TEST THE REPAIRS OR REPLACEMENT. You know how I know? Because I saw that the problems persisted the second the mouse cursor appeared during the setup process. In literally less than one minute, it was clear that the unit was not fixed, and in less than one minute, it was clear the replacement was defective.

Edit: the nightmare isn't over either. I got then to agree to a refund but they've already claimed I never returned the initial laptop, so I've sent them proof of it having arrived, which they, of course, are unable to review until next week. As we speak, I'm packing this $3400 hunk of garbage into one of the boxes from the return depot, though I'm sure they'll insist it's inadequate, despite it being good enough for them to send the laptop to me in it, and force me to wait for them to send a return box. Then, I'm sure they'll claim they never received it when I do finally get the go ahead to send it, which will add another week with no laptop, then after they finally acknowledge receiving it, I'm sure it will still take three months to get my money back. It's disgusting.

 

I've been using Alienware and Dell for years and have never had any major issues or had bad service, maybe I've gotten lucky but I suspect that those who are happy with their laptops and service aren't as vocal as those who have had problems (and you can find horror stories with every manufacturer).

 

I disagree. The design was solid, in fact it was almost universally praised as being one of the best built 11-inch laptops on the market, until an extended period of use or extreme abuse and they offered free replacements and repair. Would it have been better for it not to ship with issue, yes. Do mistakes happen, yes. Did Dell go out of their way to fix the problem in the majority of cases, yes.

Personally I don't regret having an m11x even with the hinge issue.

 

Again, disregarding the current nightmare - always another step always another delay between me and the refund for the money I paid them for what amounts to nothing, as a broken laptop provides no utility.

And sure, maybe they would have made it right had I not gotten so frustrated I decided to cut my losses and throw the laptop away. It's unreasonable - I would even argue that were it fixed with the m11x r2 that would have been an acceptable compromise, but instead it took two generations to fix what was a significant enough problem that it was worthy of recall during the first generation.

Sure. I'm in the minority, and everyone else likes this garbage. I don't know what to else to say. They didn't even test my repairs or replacements, and even the highest level of conflict resolution they have takes at least two days to complete the smallest step. You might think "he didn't send the laptop" would be resolved by checking the tracking number, seeing they they've already received it and moving to the next step, but of course, it will be resolved in two to three business days, as though it's my fault they've lost the laptop I sent them. I've fulfilled my end of this contract, and seen nothing but delays and broken hardware on their end

May you all continue having excellent experiences with this nightmare of a company, and never go through what I have. We can disagree, that's fine. I'm not saying all this out of spite, I'm just trying to prevent others from having to go through the same customer experience nightmare I'm going through.

 

This is going to drive me to drink... I have seen others saying they received tracking for their Kaby Lake 13 systems this week. I called in to check on my order and they are still saying there are problems with the kaby lake systems and none are shipping yet. The part that really irritates me aside from others supposedly getting tracking is that if you configure the identical system on Alienware today it shows a delivery date of January 27-30 while my on hold order still says February 1-9. Can anyone who has stated that they have tracking for kaby lake systems please confirm? I have also read that they had to escalate their issue to get the order going, how did you go about that?

 

If you contact a sales support agent and explain the situation they should be able to escalate the issue.

 

EDIT: Double post.

 

Can confirm on Kaby 13 R3 shipping. Mine has been in transit since the 19th and will be with me within a day or two.

Ordered the 15th.

Did have trouble when I first ordered on the 5th. Was stuck in preproduction until the 15th. Cancelled and reordered, went into production the next day.

-KJ


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Have you received it? if you have do you the oled or ips? and are you able to turn off the gpu with FN + F7?

 

I ordered my R3 with OLED on the 19th of January. It was a nightmare. Two PayPal transactions cancelled. One credit card cancelled order. All 3 were done via Dell's website. After 2 hours on the phone to straighten out and inquire about the 3 orders that were cancelled for no apparent reason, I had to speak to a Alienware sales department to place the order over the phone. After it finally processed I get shipping estimate of January 25 to February 1st. After reading this thread couple of days ago I called the customer support and spoke to rep. They said my order was enroute and there is no delay with the time frame. It will he definitely in your hands by January 30- feb 1

I asked about any issues with the New Kaby Lakes and rep said she never heard any issues about this.

 

Yep. Oled. Nope. Get a popup saying "Not supported with OLED LCD panel".

-KJ

 

Lol. I called the 800 number to check my order this morning. The order was received January 19. The order has been shipped January 29th it says!! Lol. Isn't today the 25th! Then it proceeds to say it will be delivered on or before January 25th!!!! You would think such a large company like Dell would at least get their automated message system correct.

 

They load them all up on a plane and fly them into the US.. Tennessee use to be the collection point and then would ship out from there. So they have a broad delivery time until they hit the ground in the US and then sent out.

 

True, you can find horror stories with every manufacturer, but the number and type of horror stories for each manufacturer tells us when there's a problem. For the Alienware laptops, I'd roughly estimate that about 80% of posts on NBR and reddit are complaints, and 20% are compliments. For the Gigabyte Aero 14, the proportion is more like 90% compliments and 10% complaints. Even then, those complaints aren't even really "complaints," just normal reports saying that they received a defective laptop and are doing an RMA. The worst "horror stories" are one person getting a defective flickering screen and another person getting a defective spacebar. No one with the Aero 14 has had temperature issues, and no one has had customer service issues.

Proportions are too out of wack for the "vocal minority" idea to excuse what Alienware customers are going through right now as normal.

 

3 out of 10 of my cancelled orders got resurrected and Dell shipped 3 laptops. They also charged me for all 3. So now I have 3 Alienware 13r3 OELD coming today.

I didn't do anything.. they just send an email about each being shipped...

 

OMG. I had 3 orders cancelled also and called to make sure it wasn't in the system. My last order went through. I would be pissed if they sent me multiple laptops. Their ordering systems is flawed and it's quite laughable.

 

The ordering system is one issue, but what about their webpages? I had so many issues with the pages and stuff crashing when I was ordering mine. Also "My Account" never worked once. Always threw the "Server too busy" whenever I tried to log in.

That said; their personal service has been very good so far. Helpful and understanding. Used to have Dell at work before we switched to Apple, and Dell sure was a lot more willing to sort things than Apple was. I hope they are the same in their private segment.

-KJ

 

I just received notification that my 13 R3 will be delivered on this Friday the 27th! I can't believe it. I guess they have caught up with their parts.

 

You have no base to build those statements on. Also alienware sells a **** ton more laptops than gigabyte does.

You have to know the sales numbers, demographics, problems itself etc to base a statement on.

But its true that the orders that are handled by Dell can be a miss sometimes.