Alienware M14x R2 - Bios Revision A13 = No Keyboard

Long story short...

Last Sunday, my due diligence in keeping up with the latest drivers for my laptop, I went to Dell and found a few, including a new bios revision. I was using Bios A10, and they had A13. Anywho, I downloaded that and flashed my laptop. While it was successful in flashing, I went back into Windows and I could not use my keyboard. After several attempts I wound up calling support. In short, they read me the riot act for doing something stupid like that and they remoted in to see the problem. They, in turn, downloaded and installed the old bios and tried to re-flash it, which worked but I still had no keyboard in Windows. The weird part is that the keyboard worked fine in the BIOS settings, but not Windows. They then proceeded with placing a service call for an in-home tech to come and replace the motherboard and the keyboard.

More hell insued when the tech showed up and replaced the mobo and keyboard. He worked way too fast and even connected some devices incorrectly, like the CMOS battery and the DVD drive...felt like he was purposely sabotaging my machine! After all of the was done, he booted back into Windows and guess what, no keyboard. He calls Dell and they say I need to reinstall Windows. I didn't want to, but if it was going to fix the issue, I relented. Needless to say the tech gave me some statement to the effect that he was not authorized to install software so he packed up and left faster than you can boo. So there I was, stranded with a laptop that was half broken (the tech still had the dvd drive hooked up wrong with the ribbon cable half in the connection), not to mention that Windows was already in process for reinstall. I reinstalled Windows, go to use the keyboard and yep, no keyboard again.

After cursing this tech, which I believe screwed something up somewhere, I shut everything down and called Dell again. Now, they said the only recourse is to ship the laptop back to them for repair. On Wednesday night, I thought I would try running the laptop again to see if there was anythign else I could do. Oddly enough, the keyboard worked in Windows now. I started to install drivers, thinking the machine was ok, but after the first reboot and then logging in to Windows...NO KEYBOARD!

I shut everything down, disconnected everything and waited for the box to arrive from Dell. Last night the box came, got it packaged and now it has been sent.

What really burns me up, apart from possibly being stupid for flashing the BIOS in the first place, is that all this work the tech did may have made things worse. Now, I have to wait a long while for it's return because of the upcoming holiday. I'm not a happy camper.

SO, has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone know if perhaps it is just a BIOS issue or something more? Anyone have this same keyboard issue? i am open to any suggestions or thoughts anyone may have.

All i have now is hope and faith that Dell can fix my laptop, or perhaps they'll send me a brand new one? Haha, one can dream I guess.

 

Wait a minute... so, someone in Tech Support gives you a hard time and says it is your fault for flashing a BIOS specifically designed for your system and available for download from their web site? Did I understand this correctly? If so, that's simply nonsense... and I would not call yourself dumb on account of this. It would be completely normal for the average customer to see a new BIOS or driver update for their system and decide to install it. If they did not want people to use it they would not make it available for download.

If this is exactly what happened, I think you simply ended up being assisted by the wrong person because that is out of character for Alienware North American Tech Support... they are normally very good and do not treat customers that way.

I hope your machine comes back in perfect working order so you can get back to having fun again.

 

The support tech basically said that what i did was not necessary and could have caused the problem. After remoting in to my machine, they did see that I had flashed the BIOS they provided on the support site and then subsequently tried to re-flash the BIOS to an older version i had. This did not solve the problem so they wound up opening a ticket with the local repair folks as I have the in-home repair warranty. The tech who was sent to my house definitely did something wrong, as I saw connections not hooked up right, not to mention the mess he made with the thermal paste which was all over my keyboard.

Fortunately, as of now, my laptop is with Dell and they are repairing it. I do hope I can get it back before the holiday, so I can get my system all set up and back to normal. I have a thorn in my side for that tech company and will be lodging a formal complaint with Dell about them. Very unprofessional and they don't know what they are doing!

As a word of warning to all, be very careful flashing the A13 BIOS. I really think there is something wrong with it or it shouldn't be recommended by Dell to flash on this model laptop. When I was given the replacement mobo, I did notice that the BIOS it had was A13, so again, I believe there is something with that version that isn't compatible.

 

Can I get involved?
Please email me directly, [email protected]. I'll pull your email from that inbox, just mention me.
Attach your service tag on the subject. Thank you

 

Thank you Frank, I will dispatch an email shortly.

 

Well, an update to my issue:

I got my Alienware M14X R2 back yesterday evening. Started it up (checked the bios and I saw that they stuck with the A13), got into Windows, finished the installation and found that the keyboard now works. I have no idea how the heck they fixed it, as they only specified that the OS was reinstalled at the repair facility. Now, this is where things get strange and bad. After Windows was doing being installed, I went ahead downloaded about 50 or so Windows updates and then started to reinstall my programs. As I was conducting these installs, every so often, the fan would speed up pretty fast and then my mouse and keyboard would not respond. After a few seconds pass, the system goes back to being really quiet and my mouse and keyboard would respond. This happened about 3 times so then I sided with caution and ran the diagnostics tests that Dell has set up through Alien Autopsy. All of the tests came back positive, with no visible errors. I ran tests on the cpu, motherboard, USB, anything I figured may cause this "pause" in the system and make the mouse and keyboard stop responding. Well, while running a memory test, the diagnostics outlined what module were installed and this is where I noticed the bad...my system showed two modules, an 8gb and a 4gb which of course totalled 12gb. This is WRONG! I re-checked my system specs at Dell, through my account which displayed what I purchased last year. The specs showed 2 modules at 8gb a piece, totalling 16gb! Someone at repair swapped modules on me and sent back my system with LESS memory!

It doesn't stop there. I mentioned that a form was sent with my laptop that outline what was done, and all they had checked off was an OS reinstall, but I can prove that they made other hardware changes, as my original palmrest had stickers on it (one for the intel processor and the other being the Win7 logo). My laptop, after repair, came back with a new palmrest with no stickers and it looked awfully new to me. What would be the reason to replace that as this was not causing any problems before?

At this point, I am seriously concerned that they may have swtiched out other hardware, my DVD being another as that registered as a Matsua drive and I originally had a Panasonic.

I dispatched an email to the "executive" support team but have yet to hear back from them.

Sorry folks, this is seriously unacceptable to me, especially with them sending my machine back with less memory than I had, without any explanation as to why they did it.

 

Did you get to send the e-mail to Frank?

 

Yes I did email Frank, who indicated that the issue was escalated to the executive level and I should expect a call from somone on December 1st. I did however hear from another person on this case today, to which she indicated that I could call back and try to reach the person who called last night. So far, I think I have about four people on this, and do hope I can hear something soon. It is rather disappointing that I have a laptop right now, that I don't even know is the original one I sent. I suspect someone at repair decided to switch out my old machine for a refurb, which in my opinion is bad business. I did pay $2000 for a machine, and then have issues to the point where it's being replaced with a refurb.

 

Wowza. I hope it all works out for you. Crazy.

 

I finally received a call, last Thursday night from a representative of the executive support team at Dell. The conversation was rather brief, but the determination of the staff concluded that a replacement laptop would be forthcoming. I am supposed to hear back from yet another rep within 1 to 2 days...this is day two. We shall see how long it really takes them to get back to me. A replacement is fine, as long as it isn't a refurb.

 

Since they don't produce the M14x R2 any longer I'm sure any replacement would be a refurb unfortunately. I guess I would be most concerned with what kind of guarantee is going to come along with it.

 

Yeah, I know it isn't made anymore, and that concerns me because the likelihood of a refurb is more and more of a possibility. i will scrutinize this system, if i ever get it and yes, the guarantee is very important as well.