Dell Repair Terror: My M18X Story.

I received my Alienware M18x in March.

Here are the specs:
2630 i7
12gb ram
1tb hdd
Killerwireless N
2x 6990m in crossfire

My B button had stuck to the pressed position, and when I plugged in the adapter for spdif my sound would not come back on through speakers. Called Dell, and they sent out a box and I sent my AC Adapter and M18X

I get it today, to see they replaced the mother board and keyboard on paper.

Unwrap the plastic, there is dents in my nebula red and chips in it all over now, 6.26 inch scrape on the side, glass in front is separating from the frame of the screen. I turned it on to see the keyboard does not light up all the way, it boots up and says HDD error, so I am like "ok reboot again" it rebooted and worked this time. After it booted, there was no wifi and Ethernet activity, checked to see the drivers, and behold, no adapters detected, I re spawned and still the same. So as I checked for any conflicts in device manager, I expanded all devices to see "Radeon HD 6900 series" only one tho, after having two when I bought it. After being on tech support and doing diagnostics come to find out, they swapped my TB for a 750gb hdd, my pc only has a radeon 6990 x 1 instead of 2, no wifi and motherboard is shot, keyboard is scratched up and loose.

This is the first alienware and last I shall buy. The individual manager I spoke with was also extremely rude, they lost half my ac adapter as well..

I do not know what has happened but the technical support rep said It seems as if the individual that repaired my laptop did not install all the parts back in, but did not log in any other parts but the old motherboard and keyboard.

I am done with Alienware, not once but 3rd time i have had to call them about issues with the laptop since March. I seriously thought that my system was just a bad unit, but to steal parts that I PAID for, that's just wrong. I am just in shock that a company that does this type of work is this unprofessional. I loved the first few weeks of this system, but as problems arose they tried to deny there was problems, until a tech came out and said I needed to call and send it in.


I planned on purchasing more for my company, but looks as if I may have to go some where else.

 

Hey sorry to hear about your bad experience, your not the first to have a damage laptop come back but missing parts is 100% not on
Kick up a stink (just don't get angry at the rep) tell them the problems, and demand them to be rectified, don't forget to remind them how extremely dissatisfied you are and how inadequate/unprofesional the support has been, and they should come through.
What ever you do don't send the laptop back to them unless your getting a refund for reasons you have already experienced

 

Contact dell and tell them its not acceptable.

Exactly why I only go for at home service though. If a field tech breaks somethimg durimg repair I point it out and make them call dell.

 

The nice thing about Alienware, complain enough and they usually make things right.

 

Since I wrote this, I have been on the phone with Dell. They are sending a technician out ASAP - The Rep said I might be out on my 6990m since the technician did not log the parts back into the system via dells repair depot, i even said I have original receipt. He got rude with me and i have recorded the conversation and let him know i was recording the conversation. Still no ETA on when they will be able to help me. This is outrageous.

 

I would strongly suggest you get in touch with Dell-Bill_B in this forum. He is a Dell employee who has bent over backwards for the folks on this site for a multitude of issues. I am confident he can get your situation squared away ASAP.

 

Yeah, lately i have started to get very bad support from dell, and helpless and rude reps. What is happening with DELL. Major cut-backs?

And your story makes me more angry .

 

They owe you a brand new machine asap. Then they need to have a chat with the tech who repaired it, perhaps he should now own it and make the payments. I have heard of people getting fired at auto service centers for stealing small change from peoples cars.

 

I for one am a person of the forgive but not forget, times are tough, they need to issue him a warning. Yes my machine got parts jacked but in my mind as a completely disabled marine veteran I have learned and seen the economy today. I am thoroughly beyond mad but he should not lose his job as there are not many jobs out there, they need to Issue a warning and let him know that they know what he's doing. Times are tough, I can't and unable to work but I don't want someone losing their job over this, we all have to survive. Just want the parts either re-issued to me or somehow fixed. I run my own technology blog with over 3200 unique users daily and I have missed being able to keep them updated on computex 2012 and e3.

 

The best way, from what I've seen, to get in touch with someone at Dell that does not eat paste is to use the @DellCares twitter solution ( https://twitter.com/#!/DellCares ). You should also contact Dell-Bill_B ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/member.php?u=148622 ) as he'll surely assist in making sure that you are taken care of entirely. While you may not want someone to lose their job over this, that does not mean that they should not lose their job over this. If someone is going to screw up that majorly, they should not be working as a line technician. I doubt they'll fire them over this, though, unless they have already screwed up majorly a few times before. Don't worry about what happens to that person, as they made the choice to screw up, and have gotten caught. Your mission is to make sure that you are properly taken care of per the contractual agreement you made with Dell.

 

Get2Gunnin, Mark here. I lead the AW team out here on NBR. Going to have one of my guys PM you for some info asap. Want to make sure you get the Alienware experience you deserve.

Guswut, The paste comment had me rolling in my chair... Bill is the man!

 

Thanks for the assistance, Mark. We are super-glad that you and your team are part of the Community. +1 Rep.

 

@Get2Gunnin

I apologize for the poor experience. Mark is on the case, and I'll keep tabs. I replied to your PM. Please keep my contact info that I provided handy. Use it anytime for any reason.

I can't thank you enough for your service and sacrifice as a Marine vet. I'm a former Marine myself.

 

CHEERS! That's the kind of (human, social, bussiness) behaviour / answers / support we expect from Dellienware people! (all of my hybrid alien-human tumbs up! )

Bill_B shows the path and we hope many will follow it!

 

I want to just say thanks to all that have so far helped me, and I do want to say, that maybe I just got a bad batch of dell support employees by calling, but what I can say is, here, has got me some of the best contacts. Thanks everyone, hopefully I/We can get this resolved ASAP!

I have replied to all contacts that had PM'ed me!

This place is absolutely amazing! Thanks to everyone! Made my day brighter!

 

It's important to remember that getting one or more bad support people on the phone can make a problem worse, but that doesn't necessarily mean the entire company is to blame. There are bad apples in every company. The best way to weed them out is to keep trying other avenues and inform the right people of your problems. While there are people who have some horrible experiences with Dell/Alienware, I think the majority of them don't take the proper recourse in handling the problem. +1 for riding this issue out. Hopefully it gets resolved to your satisfaction.

Thankfully we have Dell reps here now who monitor these threads and do the cleanup when customers receive below average support. +1 to both of you.

And Get2GunninPunk, thank you for your service and sacrifice. Our country is a better place because of it!

 

Stories like these are what made me decide to come back to Dell again. I had a very bad experience with my XPS 15 L501x (partly due to it being crappily designed and partly due to bad experience with tech support) and had sworn them off and gone to ASUS land. When my wife started sounding open to the idea of me getting a new laptop, I started reading the Alienware forums here and liked the fact that I could come here for help if I get stuck with crappy service. Having reps from Dell/Alienware as members on the forum is simply awesome!

 

Sounds frighteningly similar to the problems I had with customer service. As well as the fact that I also a disabled Marine Vet (Semper Fi brother). You are in good hands with Mark and Bill. Both of them helped me get the level of service one would expect from shelling out that much dough on a laptop. Best of luck to you.

 

how do you get in touch with them?
My M18X needs service because a tech came last weekend to replace my speakers and he ended up stripping my screws......when he noticed he had messed up he quickly left my house saying he cannot open the laptop.

Now dell is telling me I need to send the laptop to DEPOT but I am terrified of sending it in for repairs.... is there anything I can do to avoid sending it in?

 

Hi folks - I thought you might want to know about a customer service nightmare I'm having with the Alienware Solution Station. My son is 13 and saved up to buy his Alienware M18x. He had a problem and tried to resent to factory settings and made a mistake. His bad...should have looked on line for instructions first. Still, we called Alienware and asked for help. For a fee, they said they would take care of it.

That was five weeks ago. Fourteen phone calls later. Four technician appointments - three of which had NO technician show up. First, they did the basic re-install. However, they couldn't get the wireless card to work and came to the obviously incorrect conclusion there was something wrong with the wireless card (it was working fine before we called them). I waited for a technician a few days later. He showed up, replaced the wireless card and it still didn't work. I called back. They worked on the software some more (remotely) and still couldn't fix the wireless. So, they decided that the replacement wireless card was bad and needed to be replaced again.

I received two confirmation calls from Dell but the technician never showed. When I called, I was told it was because the part was backordered. Nobody ever called to tell me (these are three hour time windows I'm waiting).

Then, two more confirmation calls for a couple days later. The technician never showed and lied about calling me and waiting 20 minutes. At that point I said that I wasn't going to wait again for a wireless card that was unnecessary in the first place. The Alienware support person asked what I wanted him to do - so I said I wanted him to fix the software. After about an hour, he did. He discovered that the technician who did the initial work (a month had passed at this point - and about 10 calls) did it incorrectly and nobody ever went back to check it. Then, however, it turns out we had a problem with graphics that we didn't have before.

He couldn't solve it and instead said that we needed a new graphics card. So, today, I waited again. I got two confirmation calls from Dell and the technician didn't show up. Again, because the part is on backorder, but nobody told me. So now, I've spent countless hours working with my son at times (of course, he has to go to school at some point), taking up time in my working day, and most of it wasted because the support people did the job incorrectly the first time, told me I needed parts I didn't need, and have on-site technicians who lie and don't call customers to tell them they aren't coming.

Today, I asked to talk to someone who might be interested in hearing about this. Tech support transferred me to customer service. They wanted to transfer me to tech support. Finally, I got the woman to understand that I thought they might want to know that their tech support has been terrible and their on-site technicians don't show up. She told me her manager would call me. Who is good for a bet that I don't hear a word?

So...I wait...with my frustrated kid...for the part that is on backorder and the technician who doesn't call and there's nothing I can do, except let other Alienware users know, just as a heads up and just in case someone who cares is looking.

 

There is a thread similar to yours, brother. Message Bill at this site and he will help you.

 

This is going to turn out OK. Don't let a couple of incompetent employees tarnish what should be an awesome experience for you and your son.

 

had a horrible experience like this as well. I am still waiting on getting it fully resolved.

But to anyone reading, never send your laptop to the depot. I too received my laptop back with scratches on the lid, dead pixels and pressure marks all of my LCD. Not to mention they sent me a bum 6990m card in my laptop, and didn't even bother to fix the switchable graphics. One of the techs came by to replace my mono a time before the depot, and stripped 2 of the screw slots for my HDD slot 1.

Enough rant. OP let us how how you got your case resolved. In my case, they agreed to send me a refurb m17xR3 with a GTX 580m instead of the 6990m. No matter how hard I pushed, apparently a base config new m17xR4 was out of the question.

 

is stripped screws something that can be fixed at home? i dont wanna send mine to the depot........

 

I'm ready to make my first alienware purchase, so I'm watching this thread closely.

 

regardless of which brand you chose, should anything went wrong and you need services, there're bound to be problems with online reps.
you see these support ppl are mostly outsourced, no allegiance or loyalty whatsoever to the hiring company.
i've used sony, asus, toshiba, compaq brand computers, and all of them give me issues when it comes to support.
so in the end its knowing who to contact and who to trust, and not losing your cool would be the best solution. thank god we have dell reps here, so that really covers the "who to know and who to trust" part.

oh and i doubt DELL can even give warning to the service rep, if that person is in fact outsourced. the most DELL could do is warn and threat the outsourcing companies, and those companies, i believe, mostly already signed years of outsourcing contracts with DELL, and hiding behind DELL as their meat shield.

 

Nope, because the screw SLOTS were stripped, not the actual screws. New bottom casing is needed to fix that

 

i'm not going to say that those technicians are actually very competent and not doing anything wrong, chances are they didn't.
but problem solving a hardware problem comprised of many different parts are tough, i experienced first hand with most of my desktops that i built.
i understand your frustration and i would be very frustrated too, but if you need help its best to describe what was the original problem first (what's not working, and what did your son do in details), a lot of ppl here are tech savvy (not me), and could actually give you better solutions, without calling out tech support first.

 

Its the actual top of the screw that got stripped.... not the casing. they want me to send it in!!! im sso mad!!

 

Sorry to hijack the thread but is there any chance that us UK and Europe owners can get some legit Alienware reps on here, as I've had some problems but could only deal with call centres in India should I have complaints to make. After all, all us Alienware owners should have the Alienware care we deserve, right?

BTW, OP you're an honourable man. + rep

 

Send me a pm and I'll give you a contact in the escalation team and how to approach. I had quite an ordeal with one replacement and then later a refund - the escalation team is the way to go otherwise you go around in circles.


---
I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?vh21qe

 

Hello Virtua,

I saw this post by luck. I am having serious problem with my M15x and have been sorting out with Dell via phone for the past 3 months and it is still not resolved yet. I am in the UK.

Dell sent technicians 4 times to my place and my laptop still having problem. Nearly all parts has been replaced at least 1-2 times. They said they cannot find what is causing the problem. so they want to take it back to the repair depot for further testing and find out problem but they said it will take up to 4 weeks maximum. I am fine with this. But this computer is my only laptop and I use it for work. They cannot do anything to help me out at this point, can't give me replacement nor a temporary computer and throwing ball to its retailer and distributor. Probably been talking to them on the phone more than 20-25 hours now.

I am very upset paying this price and getting this sort of service and treated like this.

So do you mind I pm you regarding how to move/push this matter forward?

Steven

 

Glad to see there are reps taking care of you.

 

Swap your machine with dell if you're really upset

 

Try to contact Allan
Maybe he'll help

 

Idz....they don't even let me swap/replace right now. They insist that my machine need to send to repair depot first. When I ask them "what should I use for work for the next 2-4 weeks then?" All they can do is apologies or silence... I asked them, can they pass onto someone that can give me a solution or make the decision. They just say no...

 

It's REALLY REALLY hard to do dude. I had to purchase a new one in order to get a new machine to replace one that was faulty out of the box, as they weren't prepared to give me a replacement. I sent the faulty one in for a refund afterwards.

 

Jrose2, Shoot me a PM and I will have one of my guys look into your case. There are people who care. You found them!

Devildoc, Sorry, but stripped screws cannot be handled onsite. They don't have the equipment for that. Make sure when you set up the depot order to mention the tech who stripped them so they can report that. If you want shoot me a PM and I will request an expedited depot to make sure they take good care of you.

 

PM sent thank you so much!

 

Of course these are all true stories. Poor AW service has been standard faire for the last 4 years. Since Dell sent north american support to India in an effort to squeeze a few more $$ for the shareholders/execs. You were sold NA support on their last xps systems back in 08 only to have it switched to India/latin america/Philipines support months later and its been the same ever since.

Ive been lied to outright so many times I don't feel obligated to be truthful at all with dell reps. I tell them the issue and wait for the lies to start rolling out from them. usually its too complicated and the line goes dead. Next call back i slowly lead them into the issue to avoid the same. Then i get transferred to the guy next to the idiot who cant do the job and he believes that i believe that he's really the idiots supervisor instead of an attempt to deflect/misdirect my growing frustration at not doing anything about an issue.

And so why should they care, they have no stake in it. They have a system worked out where they are not accountable for their actions or inactions. You can ask for a supervisor and get thier buddy next to them who will bs you and still nothing will happen.

Ive been a pc guy for 25 years, dell since 98, AW since my XPS with dual 8800's died in like 2008. What started off strong is now just a joke. No real support for your premium price. I may just go apple soon as the games i play will probably work on integrated video. SWTOR and such mmo's.

AW is a fail for TS these days, Build quality is ok usually.

Why do i say all this: My 18x purchased in sept 11, was replaced twice. Not because it needed to but because TS and the local support tech were ....INCOMPETENT. period. What qualifies me to say that. I'm a 20 year pc/server tech/manager/MCSE. I watched the tech tear into my m18x and end the job with 4 screws left over. Surprise when the 560gtx that replaced teh 460gtx burned out 3 days later. Of course if AW QC had been anything they would have checked and found that the dual 460gtx's were fried before shipping them to me inthe first place. Then of course they tried to replace dual 460's with a single 560. and then after repeated backorders they sent a new m18x. thanks.

but was wrong color and only 1 video card. Points out lackluster attention to detail in the exchange department. way to suck india employees.

So I accept the offer to exchange the shell and add a video card to make the system whole. yup you guessed it. Same left over screws tech came out. did the job. 2 days later back to 1 gtx560 cause one fried. Oh sorry...here's some 6970's, cause 560's are backordered, weeks later...sweet 6970's work, bummer though, tech shorted motherboard and system spontaneously shuts itself off randomly. wow, can it get better. Of course it can.

Send to depot is now only option, sent, back in 4 days. and....MB replaced. CF NOT WORKING.., grease of some type all over system. top plate plastic catches busted so gaps in plastic at rear. They sent some 580's the next week and one was bad. They sent 2 more the following week 1 of those was bad too. But between the 4 i finally got sli 580's. Umm yeah, i did it myself. I kicked the extra screws tech out of my house. I was also assured that he wouldn't be my tech after the first botch up so yeah, dell has no control over the field techs.

epic fail, yes i was talking to @dellcares during most of this experience and they didnt actually care, just kept saying umm....let us know how it goes. and i did and they didnt do anything.

What did? I contacted the Better Business Brueau. Funny the next day i got a call from a person identifying himself as an executive resolution specialist. He arranged for a new build of my system with gtx580's and its worked ever since.

happy ending? depends hardware works but I sure am bitter at AW.

 

I "was" looking into getting an Alienware but seriously all these repeated stories over and over puts me off, sounds like a lot of hassle.
they're are losing customers shouldn't they be working on resolving these issues and raise their quality control standards.

I seriously can't justify paying that much for a system with that kind of service specially that i'm an international customer.

Respect to the Dell reps here but they can only do so much.

 

@Alienware-Mark_O
@Dell-Bill_B

I'm glad to see AW reps looking at these threads and added you 2 to my buddy lists.

I had a the some of the same issues. I had my XPS 1730 for 4 years before I started having power problems. So they replaced my MB and the power brick. The MB worked for 2-3 days and failed. They sent another it was DOA. Th 3rd one they sent out worked but then I started having video problems, they sent out 2 times new video cards both times they where DOA. they died right infront of the tech. and now the half the keyboard stopped lighting up. So I call and said just get me a new system you guys will never fix it. They wanted m to depot it and I refused (I was not letting the system out of my hands, no way I paid for next day repair for a reason) They first wanted to replace it with a base line XPS17 and I refused I told them this is a gaming laptop the XPS 17 is not a good enough then thy said they would replace it with a m17X but it did not come with an extreme cpu this went on for 3-5 weeks calling every other day but once I get past the retards in India things whet mor smoothy. I just kept telling them "Look at what I paid for the system and tell me how the m17x is a suitable replacment" when I finally got someone on th US side they where quick to replace it and just blew me away.

Just hang in there and keep pushing them they will fix or replace it.

 

I can't violate the OP's privacy by sharing a lot of detail about the case beyond what he's posted, but I will go ahead and point out one thing, as it applies to your (perfectly valid, though not that bad) comment on quality control. The original system was purchased from an eBay reseller, so we cannot be held responsible for anything the reseller may have done or neglected to do. We have, however bungled the attempts have been to date, tried to rectify the situation as best we could.

Now, how the case was handled on all contacts prior to posting here is definitely fair game in my mind, and you are absolutely right. We have a long way to go with respect to getting it right every time, and frankly, I am not at all satisfied with how things were handled prior to Mark jumping in.

Also, the Alienware presence on NBR has grown about 20 fold over the past 6 months. As long as you stick with us here for your support, sales and tech needs, you will no doubt get a higher level of service than you could by picking up the phone.

 

Better quality control is a DEFINITE need... My first R4 had faulty workmanship right out of the box, and all I was offered is a repair (relatively speaking I would have a refurbished model).
I had to purchase another brand new system and am still waiting to be credited for the old defective R4 I sent back. Good job I had the capital to do so. The Indian outsourcing of customer relations doesn't help either because the language barrier definitely plays a role in the (I'm based in the UK) frustration - I'm an English Language graduate, so my credentials here serve some validity on the matter.

More UK reps on here would be great though - we feel somewhat isolated Bill! Save.Us.AWUK

 

This!

We actually have the UK covered pretty well on the tech support and customer care side. All of the Alienware badged reps here either have direct access to UK agents, or they have a clear path to forward case and customer information to UK teams. The sales side will hopefully come later. The current sales engagement is in pilot stage now, but honestly, the pilot is moving at a very rapid pace. Once they exit pilot, their leadership will probably be taking key learnings along with a recommendation to engage in an EMEA specific sales program here as well to the EMEA executives.

 

Same thing here, i was thinking about purchasing a M18X R2 for my stepdaughter, , but after reading these stories, and unfortunately having suffered through the same thing with my M18X R1 (everything is fixed now, thank goodness), i think i will get her a Asus or something like that.

Alienware creates a mean piece of hardware, but we do not need these hassles with customer support or repairs...

 

Hence, why we have over a dozen reps here on NBR to help. Sorry about your troubles with your M18x.

 

Is the best person to pm is you bill or someone else? I don't want to pm the wrong person with my problem.

 

If you want to post a description of the problem here, I'll make sure someone sees and responds.

 

So this is going to be a long post and sorry but to tell the problem I am having now there is a back story. I purchased a m17x about 2 years ago. And for the first 6 months or so I guess everything ran fine. There would be little problems here and there but I would pretty much ignore them because they wasn't that big of a deal.

Then all the problems started, since I had the system the wireless would not connect. I ignored it since I was hard wired all the time. This lead me to calling for support to have this fixed with a problem with the video cards also. Over the course of many techs coming and changing parts never could seem to get it to work. Pretty much everything was changed. new wireless card, motherboard, ram, video cards, heat sinks, and hard drive(I think). Then my laptop started overheating after the tech changed the motherboard. And by overheating I mean it was sitting at 102c when windows first loaded. So I depoted it because I needed a computer for school. I was at the time taking 7 classes at a time. I ended up paying to extend the warranty because I didn't want to chance something not being covered because the warranty was about to expire. The person who sold it to me was hinting at the fact it might not be covered without a valid warranty. So I depoted it because I needed a computer for school. I was at the time taking 7 classes at a time. So I sent it off. And it came back to me a couple days later. Turn it on and it instantly overheated again, the keyboard didn't work, the mouse pad didn't work, and I was getting video card blue screens.

So I call and complained that the system was still broken. So after going back and forth over the course of a week.with people I got a replacement system. It is a great system. The people who replace it was nice for the one time I talked to them. They did give me upgrades which I was very happy since I had not had a working computer for almost 6 months.

So I got my new computer and everything was great for the four months. Then around around month 5 of having the computer I started getting blue screens and heat issues again. I thought maybe it was dusty so I cleaned it out and tried again. Reload windows from a image I made so I didn't have to re install everything and the blue screens went away for a while. The heat issue was there but I had the semi under control with some high cfm fans that is pushing air thru the computer, but that is not the solution I wanted. So I called and asked for help. Hold for 2 hrs off and on and was told a tech would be coming out. So I waited a couple days and never got a scheduling call for the tech. So I called back support, which I was told there was no record of me calling or anything about a tech coming out to try to fix the problem.

Another problem is that I have 2 monitors hooked up to it. They keep losing the imagine on the screen. I have tried using different wires, different connections, even different power sources. Every so often it loses the picture and about 30 seconds later it will come back. There is no rhyme or reason for it do it or when it does it. Hdmi, mini display port, and vga and it does it on all 3 monitors(the laptops and both displays).

I purchased another laptop because for the 6 months I didn't have a working computer I had to do something while still in classes. Problem is now I can't use my mac for everything because I am into the programming part of my classes and the programs they want me to use is windows only. I can't handle blue screens every hour or so.

The other problem was I was suppose to get 2 or 3 months extended onto my warranty by the person who sold me the extension but it is still the old date not the extended one. I don't want to have to spend another 300 bucks to extend the warranty again because of problems I am having unless I really have to this time.

All I want is a working computer so I can use it and not have to worry about issues. I really don't want to have to call support back even with the issues I am having because I don't want to have to deal with them. The last time I called I was basically told I was lieing and that the last would thermal shut down after being that high. I didn't even try sending picture because I didn't want to be accused of photo shopping them.

If something can be done so I have a system that I don't have to worry about then I would be happy. But at this point it is hard to tell my friends that they should by one. As much trouble as I have had I am not going to bad mouth Alienware or Dell because I have done retail and computer work. I know what 1 person telling a bad experience can turn into.

I like dell and I like alienware, I wouldn't have spent so much money on my first system. When I upgraded my servers at the last place I worked we went all Dell because of my experience with dell/alienware for the first 6 months. But it is hard to look any of my friends in the eye and say yes you should spend 3-4 thousand on an alienware laptop because they have no problems.