Dell M18x R1 warranty after you upgrade the GPUs. What I was told.

One of my GPU fans have been clicking lately so I called Alienware tech support to get a replacement. I have a 3 year accidental plan. Not so fast. They told me since I upgraded to dual 780Ms they will not replace parts that are related to the GPUs which includes the fans. I was under the impression warranty was unchanged by me upgrading the GPUs. Not so according to the tech I talked to. Obviously the GPUs are not covered since I bought them from another vendor, but the fans? Really?

 

Sounds like a noob answer from someone that cannot think clearly. The fans have nothing to do with it. These are chassis fans, not GPU fans. They do not touch the GPUs and do not connect to them physically, and are not controlled by the GPUs. Don't take that excuse for an answer... escalate to someone with more technical knowledge of the product that can think outside of the box.

 

I had that crap too iqm make sure you get someone in Costa Rica however i never tell them about the upgrades XD i use the ram being under the palmrest as an excuse XD....they transferred me 10000x till i accepted it and they transfered me to the sales department manager and he said ir doesn't void the warrenty then send me to costa rica they cleared the note on the account and sent the part

 

Yeah. On with Costa Rica. They are the ones giving me trouble. Leaves a bad taste in your mouth I must say. Should have never mentioned the GPU upgrade, but I was under the impression that would not affect my warranty in any way. Frustrating.

 

Hope you get it sorted out cause everyone knows the fans are under the backplate i can touch them all i want without HAVING to upgrade the gpu and thats considered accidential damage cause i accidentally broke the wire ._. So weather or not i touched the GPUs wouldnt matter i could have touched nothing but the fans and still broke them

 

WOW!!! So, because they originally were not going to honor the warranty I went ahead and put in an order for two heatsinks and three fans. One of the fans I was trying to get under warranty. The other parts I just needed. They put in the order for each part to ship separately with separate shipping costs even though they are coming from the same place. So each part had a $7.00 shipping fee attached to it. 7x5 = $35.00 just in shipping. I obviously call back and tell them that is insanity to charge me 5 times for shipping 5 parts. They are sending separately anyway because that is the way they have to do it, so I am told, and will refund me for 4 of the parts shipping cost later. ??? LOL!!! The poor guy that helped me straighten this out agreed it made no sense. I could not help but laugh at this nonsense. Then they screwed up my delivery address after I typed it out for them via chat and now they can't change the address on the order so I have to cancel the entire order and reorder. Hours of chat and phone calls to get some parts. Awesome Dell. You're a winner!

So Alienware tech support gets back in touch and says they are going to honor sending me a replacement fan and so of course I have already ordered the parts.

I tell you, it's times like these you realize when a company has become too big.

 

Please send me a PM if you have any problems with this, I´ll be happy to help you get the in-warranty service you need.

 

I just gets better and better. So after hours of chat and phone calls and confirming the parts order and then cancelling it it comes down to this. I get transferred to put the order in again and the new agent informs me 4 of the 5 parts are actually not in stock after all and no ETA on when they might have them again. I give up guys. I'll PM you Natalia, but I am throwing in the towel tonight. Had enough for a day.

 

Hey iqm i was in the same situation....there out of stock in almost all the R1 stuff HOWEVER they ask the factory to make you new ones it takes 2 weeks but you get brand new as in was born a day ago parts

At least they sent the parts xD i don't wanna loose the last few of the R1s like me or else i'd have no one to go to for advice or even to give advice too

 

Thanks Natalia. I also mentioned to Alienware tech support Luis Porras's name. They misunderstood me and told Luis I had already talked to him, which I had not. I just mentioned he might be able to help in getting this part ordered for me under warranty. So it is being sent to me, but I am still on the hunt for the other 4 parts.

 

That was never conveyed to me about being able to get factory new parts. They just said I am out of luck (I am paraphrasing) basically.

 

Well thats what they did to my keyboard they put it on backorder ._. came 2 weeks later.....hope you get it fixed though....otherwise if you have 60$ around ebay has some gpu fans lying around you can use any of the fans the R1, R2 and Even R3 fans are interchangeable

 

The same parts on Ebay are MUCH higher in cost and why I am really trying to get them from Dell parts. Also, from what Alienware tech support just told me (I confirmed with a second tech as well) that if you upgrade a part with a non-Dell part and there are other parts that relate to it (in my case the heatsinks and they were trying to push the fans as well) those parts become void of warranty. Considering Dell wanted almost $1300 for one 780M and I got one brand new on Ebay for under $800 it was a no brainer. Funny thing is the 780Ms work fantastic and the fan is just crapping out due to time and use. I travel constantly so a laptop is what I need, but man, I just may go back to a self-build gaming rig next round and lug it around. I was hesitant getting involved with a prefab company with proprietary designs like Dell because of these type of headaches.

 

or next time don't say you upgraded it anyways Iqm i hope to see this all cleared up

 

Yes, but I read somewhere on this forum that even though we upgrade our GPUs we are still covered. I have 3 year accidental. Regardless, they are sending it after a little struggle, but the out of stock parts sucks. Funny thing is they would magically appear at my front door if I needed them replaced under warranty. So they have the parts, but they wont cough them up unless they are warranty replacement parts from what I am hearing.

 

Upgrading components shouldn't void your warranty, despite what that agent may have told you. The aftermarket components won't be covered, nor any damage incurred if you break something in there. I've also ran into several agents that don't know what they are talking about. It can be pretty frustrating.

The Alienware reps include this in their signature: "Opening your case and/or replacing parts yourself does not void your warranty, check our disassemble videos on YouTube"

Hopefully Natalia_J can straighten this out for you.

 

I might be a noob , but wouldn't GPU fans kick into high gears to cool down the GPU if the GPU is getting hot while gaming? I would think so. Its a chassis fan , but it work for the GPU. Op mentioned it was the GPU fan.

@ IQM , sometimes you have to act like a noob , and don't tell them the info that is not relevant(upgrade parts not by them). I learnt this from my own mistake.

 

That is mostly true. The fans are controlled by the motherboard / BIOS based on what the GPU is reporting to it. The fan speeds are determined by the fan tables in the BIOS. As Mr. Fox mentioned, they are not physically linked to the GPU. Therefore, swapping GPUs wouldn't do any harm to the fans.

 

Bingo. Well said.

 

silly dell techs, i contacted them about warranty info and they kept on redirecting me to 4 different departments. which were completely unrelated.