Did you receive your machine as it was ordered / expected?

Well, as suggested by amosingh (in a PM to me), whom I thank for the idea and, under the opportunity given generously by NBR and the participants in this forum, I would like to post my first "poll" (not a "research" by any means):

Did you actually receive out-of-the-box a perfectly working machine as it was ordered / expected?


Well, personally questions of black and white, yes or no... definitely are not “my cup of tea”; but, in this particular occasion, the proposal of amosingh seems needed.

Hope the participants in the forum will find this poll interesting an give their votes to one of the options.

Thanks for your participation in this poll.

 

My first replacement showed up with only a single 5870 GPU when it was supposed to have the dual Xfire setup.

The second replacement showed without the proper RAID setting and I had to blow it out and lose the factory image setup. They said they were sorry and did nothing about it.

Less than a month into this latest replacement and it has a defective keyboard and it will not play bluray movies without overheating and crashing and smelling like smoke.

 

Yeah nice to see this up. it will stop all the useless comenting in other posts. now there is one place to discuss quality control issues, and perfect vs non machines. Thanks

 

Thanks to you my friend! It was your original thought and idea. I just put it on...

 

Your likely to see a higher percentage of people with issues on most forums due to the fact that aside from regulars, the folks who find forums tend to be people who have issues and are looking for solutions.

As shipped the machine was very good, got what I ordered. I have made a few improvements (second HD and bumped the ram up). Really love my new baby

 

sure did, still enjoying my m18x to this day. im not even using an external monitor. the screen is a perfect size. i found the m17x r1 1200P to be difficult when playing RTS. the mini map was very difficult to see. i had to use an external monitor, and with this m18x its been great.

 

On first paragraph: Not quite you can see that there are here many people full of satisfasction with what the receive and the visit this magnificent forum to learn how to improve and modd even further their systems.

On the second paragraph: Happy for your lucky. My sincere congratulations! I do 'love' the Dells/AW machine. I have been using them (until now in 32 countries) since M. Dell started to sell them... My beloved children love them too.

This, of course, does not detract from the weight of the legitime arguments against what appears to be a lack of a reliable system of total quality control and total quality assurance for the manufacturing and delivery of 'lucky' machines (aka: "as we ordered, payed and expected to receive right out-of-the-box") to every customer.

 

I must also add that i am a very fond and happy dell costumer.I just feel that there is an issue with the m18x quality control, and that it should be highlighted.

Yeah, when you lay down serious cash for something, it should be 1000000% perfect out the box, as is 99.99% of the time when you buy something.

 

Yes, I received what I ordered. In addition, it arrived a week earlier than scheduled, and everything was as I expected it: a very powerful, fast and beautiful notebook. Alienware rocks if you ask me.

 

I received my unit on the expected time only thing wrong is they gave a French keyboard. They said I ordered in French so they can't send a English keyboard silly dell so I need to send it back and order again

 

I voted no because the beast came with French keyboard while I never ordered one. That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy the purchase as Dell was quick to fix the issue.
If I had to choose a new system today, I'd go for the M18x hands down.

No, don't send it back, you'll lose time. Just call and send them a screenshot of your order and also there's no way to order a French KB on Dell.ca. That's what I told them and they sent me the English KB immediately

 

All hardware was as ordered but for some reason the SSDs were not in a RAID configuration. So my first 3 hours were spent reinstalling windows and drivers. I've been very pleased with the machine since then.

 

Ok I read your post above thanks for the tip

 

This is new, even for me. So, you're to blame? And, it is cheaper to send back and forward a new whole machine then to NBD service to change just a keyboard?

Sorry but I don't get it...

edit: listen to Aiki. he knows what he's talking about.

 

Very simple. First, make a screenie of the order details where it lists the components, you won't see a French KB anywhere. Call Dell and tell them you never ordered a French KB, there was no such option on Dell.ca. They may put you on hold and then tell you that it shows in their system with the French KB. Tell them to try and configure a system with a F KB on the website - they will fail (this will take an hour , call from Skype to minimize your phone bills) and also tell them that you are ready to email them the details of your order with no mention of F KB. They can also access your order details page using you customer number/order number. They will then issue a replacement.

 

Maybe those "manufacturers" (wherever they are) can't read the order...?

 

Thanks for the tips Aikimox

 

You are welcome neighbor I see we both got the same deal from dell.ca (2199? )

 

Definitely to good of a deal to pass up

 

No. I'm jaded by the computer shopping experience. I invariably have to fix something in the first few moments of ownership. In my case a complete teardown was necessary to correct speaker rattle.

Its not that I don't love the computer...its just disheartening that many of us expect things to go wrong.

 

With all the best intentions, I would like to make a call: Is there, anywhere in this forum, any Dell representative who can tell us and clarify if there is any system of " Quality Control" in the manufacturing of these special machines, in the functioning of the machines according to the particular orders configuration, and in the after sales services and how they work? Or are we condemned without hope to a misty and murky "via dolorosa " full of pitfalls ...?

I will not give up my hopes that someone inside Dell is listening ... Dell just need to react, to take charge and respond ...

 

i am currently raising this issue with my rep and also dell customer service. I will not stop badgering about quality control until i get a sufficient response.

 

That's the way! I like it! [*]

I do believe that consumers must elevate their complains if we all want to be heard and answers...
...



[*] A song written by H.W. (KC) Casey and Richard Finch, recorded and released in 1975 by KC and the Sunshine Band

 

I would have to vote "yes" even though I have had a lot of issues.... most of them are due to myself!


I installed my own memory, SSD and clean install. None of which I had ever done before. First, the SSD is a Crucial M4, which if you do not disable the LPM it crashes or locks about every 30 seconds or so, its pretty unbearable. Then I had issues with the LAN, after two clean installs I traced it to my Avast, which I thought I had already ruled out...guess not. Yesterday, I tried to update to the latest ATI driver, that crashed my system.... I thought I had uninstalled all of the other drivers, guess not... took me another hour to even get the system back up and running without BSOD. I ended up just going back to 11.5b with Cap2 as it works fine. Basically, I am a novice which has caused most of my problems.

The only odd thing, the fans kinda have a mind of their own and the temps in both the CPU/GPU jump up and down even on idle. However, even with stock paste they only get up to around the low 80's even while gaming. I guess its not that big of a deal.

I guess if I have paind about 1200 more dollars I could have had the memory/SSD preinstalled and every thing would have worked correctly out of the box, but was WAY cheaper to do it myself. Just a lot of headaches!

Sorry for the rant.

 

If the machine comes out-of-the-box as you ordered it, it's the right thing to do in this thread/poll is to vote yes as you did.

I hope that with the help of the experienced (and sometimes really bright!)people here in this forum, you will find the way optimize your system, forgot the headaches and enjoy your rig.

 

Lot's of comments to comments here, sorry!

I agree, except one word "useless". Nothing "useless" about posting your story online for all to see and read. I really wish that someone would have written their story out in detail like I did mine before I made my purchase. It would have saved me 7+ months of headaches and bickering.

It is nice to know that some people are taken care of with their customer care issues. This tells us that it's not Dell's policy to treat people disrepectfully. It just means that they need to do some house cleaning and maybe train their people a bit more before sending them out into the world to make our lives miserable, lol! No matter how much money you spend - your machine should be be in perfect working order. Have any of you taken any business classes? Do you know that statistically, the goal of a company is to have only 3-4 defects in every 1,000,000 products? It's true. For anyone that wants schooled on it - I can dig out some text books and give you the exact quote. Do you think Dell only has 3-4 defects in every million? I highly doubt it. I doubt they even sell that many Alienware machines in a week. Sure, it's a big company - but how many people do you actually know that owns a Dell? Globaly, I'm sure there are a million+ Alienware owners but with all of us having problems on these forums... lets say 50 of us here (probably more), that would put their ratio at like 12.5million. Do you think there are that many Alienware owners out there? I honestly don't know but I highly doubt it.

Agreed to an extent. I would agree with most items, but I think that most people who own Alienware machines look them up before they dump all that money into one. The NBR forums come up at the top of every search. Alot of people come here to find out about them before they buy, others come here for mods or to buy/sell their own machine. I just think that MOST people that buy the AW machines are really tech savvy people so I wouldn't be suprised if a good portion of them come through here at least once whether they have problems or not. But yeah, for the most part I agree with you. People usually only make a big deal about mistakes. On the other hand, they probably wouldn't make such a big deal if they were treated failry and Dell didn't dink them around for months at a time.

Yeah that's wierd. I'm glad the other guy posted to help you with this. Either way, there is no reason why they can't swap that keyboard out for you. I'll almost guarantee that if you go to return it and tell the "returns" dept why - they will get it fixed. They don't want to lose out on that sale and end up with another "used" machine.

And this plagues almost everyone with the m18x. It's like they just decided to ignore people. You shouldn't have to do that. I've been speaking with a corporate big-wig because I've escalated my BBB claim to a lawsuit. Anyways, he tries telling me that I should be thankful because RAID 0 is so unreliable and that no one should use RAID 0. Umm, why is it offered on the website if they refuse to set it up and it's so "bad"? Ridiculous.

Agreed. Whole heartedly. That's just what happens when you hear so many horror stories or worse - you end up BEING on of the horror stories. It's very frustrating indeed and I really hope that someone steps up to compete with dellienware someday soon with a good looking machine and better quality builds.

 

I must add... that I totally agree! very well said indeed!

 

yeah i mostly agree also. i have owned alot of dell stuff. m18x is only one with problems. Again, i am only trying to highlight what i feel is a quality control issue on the m18x. dell reps etc are good to deal with and try to help.

 

On that note, I respectfully disagree. We all know the m17x-R1 had issues and I personally know the R2 was problematic (I had two of them, lol) and I had a first gen m15x that had alot of issues for the first 6mo and then ran great for a couple years before it was brutally smashed. I'd still have it if not for that.

Also, I could honestly deal with the quality control issues no problem as long as they're fixing the problem. They must be able to permanently fix the problem - if they do not have a solution then I want to know that they are working on it and in the mean time don't fill my ears with crap crap and more crap.

As for the reps... that all depends. I have had two sales reps flat out lie to me about the product. I have had about 8 Cost Rica reps that have lied to me and literally got attitudes with me and hung up on me because I had to school them on their machine. And in 7+ months of dealing with reps in India 99.9% of them could not/would not help me and kept repeating the same stuff as if reading from a teleprompter. Any sort of questions that dealt with specific numbers - they had no idea. For instance, they would tell me that the m17x-R3 was "better" but could not tell me "how" it was better. That was a very long a frustrating phone call.

Even in the corporate office I was told that I should be glad that my system wasn't shipped with the RAID 0 setting because RAID 1 is better. I was like... uh, ok it's not in RAID 1 either. The point being they didn't care about what i wanted or how I had been mistreated - they just wanted to end the call and end the complaint. I never got real results until I filed with the Better Business Bureau.

I really wish that I could say that they do want to help but their policy is whack and it does not allow them to... but that's just not true. I think that I've had enough experience and spoken with enough reps in both India and Costa Rica that I know most of them by name as well as the managers and I can say that MOST of them do not give a flying squirt about you or your problem. Sure, if it can be handled via their teleprompter then they are super nice... but veer from there and it's like hitting a brick wall with a broke record saying "sorry sir, I can understand your concern but at this time... bla bla bla".

I can name off about 10 people on these forums alone off the top of my head that know EXACTKY what I'm talking about. And hey, I'm not trying to be combative here.... just point out my personal experience that of countless others that I have encountered along the way.

With all the being said... there are some out there that REALLY genuinely care and want to help and they really do try and that's when policy comes in the way. "Sorry sir, I know you got a bad deal on this machine and that you have been dealing with this for months but I've spoken to my manager and the system will not allow me send out another replacement because you've already had THREE."

I have had much better experience with the guys in Costa Rica. You don't always have to speak to a Supervisor there, but at least ask to speak with a senior rep. Most of those guys have been there since before Dell bought out Alienware. They know the machines in and out and they tend to be much more helpful. And again, I'm not saying ALL Indian reps are bad... just saying most of them have been absolutely NO help at all.

Sorry for the long response. I've been fighting them for 7+ months and I'm just really frustrated with them.

 

Still do not know... is someone there (here, @ Dell, @ AW) listening to the voices that rise from this forum and its threads ... or are we calling in the desert... from a lost galaxy?

I dare, with all due respect, someone with authority from Dell / AW to respond to us... Too many issues, too much ominous silence from their side... Do we, all the affected, need to enter into legal actions?

Will it be more cost/effective for Dell/AW then to listening the voices regarding the needed Transparent Quality Controls Systems?

( and yes, I agree, the guys from Costa Rica showed more knowledge of the machines in question and their issues than those of India).

 

Its fine, we can all only comment on our own personal experience so different view are always expressed.

 

In this thread we are 'throwing a glove'... and waiting to see if anyone @ Dell/AW have the guts to pick it up...

 

I absolutely agree. 100%. I mean, people expect to see the good and bad and Id much rather see more good than bad!

Not sure :/

 

Oh man! Hope is the last thing we'll renounce on it... ( else I wouldn't dedicate my whole life to education: my passion and my hobby!)

 

I said no, because my RAID wasn't done, and the wrong FX colour was defaulted (minor, but still wasn't pleasant)

 

yeah, I gotta LOL at the FX color... but the RAID setting is just infuriating!

 

I hate with a passion the colour blue

Yea it really is. Whatever, took no time at all with the built in Intel software

 

Voted yes, because it works perfectly. However, I am still trying to get a replacement nameplate as they mispelled my name.

 

Took me HOURS to get everything set back up to the AW settings after setting up RAID-0. Had to download everything and sit on the phone when those downloads didn't work. And their website was having issues as well. I just have knack for finding trouble at the right time. :/

Oh that sucks... they are usually pretty bad about giving replacement nameplates - but I've never heard of them mispelling one before. Crazy. Good luck man! Let us know how that works out!

 

This is absolutely not the right place for that to happen. A public forum? No way.

Not to mention bad business.

 

Well, maybe you can tell us what "good business" is. :/ I mean no disrespect, but if they can't take care of their customers and send out quality products - then the least they can do is talk to us about them. I'm telling that if they don't get this stuff worked out soon it's going to blow up in their faces when the wrong person is rubbed the wrong way and they have the means and energy to file a class action lawsuit. These forums are among the many that are ripe for the picking to rally enough people together. It's only going to take one person. They could really help avoid this if they'd just talk to us and try to fix these problems without treating us as an inconveinience. Tis sad but true. I've been fighting on the front lines for months and I've met dozens of others with very similar stories.

 

Are you sure you didn't misspell the name when ordering? It's highly unlikely there is any human involvement in the process until after the name plates are made. There is no need to inject human error, and the related expense, into the process so it will most likely be automated.

 

As a last ressource you can design and order a new plate. I have seen a second hand M17xR2 wich is new owner change the plate with the name of the first owner installing a laser engraved one made under a special order (not from Dell). He told me that it wasn't too expensive.

 

I kind of assume the same thing, but I didn't want to accuse the poster because there is no way to tell. I think that you can look at your billing receipt... the packing slip that came with your machine... I THINK it has the nameplate details on it exactly as you typed them. I'm not sure if it's on this slip of paper, but I do know it can be found somewhere... might be in the dell.com "my account" page when you open up your order - I really can't remember where I saw it. But look around.

Yes, if it's that important - you can custom order one elsewhere. Alot of engraving places can make one with just the measurements. If you find a local shop as opposed to one online... you can take in the misspelled plate and I'll bet they can duplicate it almost identically. If that fails, you can use the original plate and have the back of it engraved and just put it on backwards.

Alternatively, if you have a lightscribe burner... you can burn the image onto a CD. You will have to play with it to get it set on the part of the CD where there is the most space and nothing is cut off. Then take and ezacto knife and cut out the square. Then very carefully drill your holes with a tiny drill bit. Once it's on the machine - it'll look just like the original plates except gold colored instead! Looks kinda cool! I found this out by burning that same image onto my backup CD and thought "hey this would look cool as a name plate if I ever lost mine somehow". For added coolness factor, you could cut it down smaller than the original and then place it over a piece of stainless steel sheet metal and drill your holes into it. Just glue the cut out lightscribed Cd piece over the top of it. Then you end up with a gold nameplate with stainless trim.

Man, I should make a bunch of them and sell them on eBay, lol!

 

I didn't mispell it, I ordered it from a epp sales rep and he typed it in wrong. I do have an odd last name though so I've been dealing with this for a long time.

 

Ahh, I see. I hope they issue you a replacement since it was their fault.

 

When I first received mine, I had some paint missing on the top lid of the laptop. You can see it in my unboxing video:

YouTube - ‪M18x Unboxing‬‏

So a exchange was to be issued. Then I found out how much a warranty would cost ofter you buy the laptop and was told to send it back to get a refund if I wanted a better warranty price.

Well, I sent it back on the 7th, and still no refund yet....

 

Hi, sorry for your troubles. Please, can you be a little more specific regarding the " multiple issues" mentioned in your signature?

 

If you paid with a CC or debti card (which I'm sure you did) it could take up to 30 days for a refund. It's crap - I know, but it's just how it is. I really frustrates me because when it comes to getting equipment shipped to you and and getting replacements sent - they take forever. When they want thier old equipment back, they give you strict deadlines and rush you around. Yet when the tables are turned - they take their sweet time. Verry irritating - I know. I've been there man.

The good news is that you did good by returning it. The warranty afterwards is SUPER expensive and not worth it. My sales rep told me it would only be a few bucks more if I purchased it later... I got hosed and stuck with a one year warranty because just over a month later when I had the money to buy the warranty... it quadrupled in price. 7+ into that warranty and I've had several replacements and even more service calls. These machines are great when they run properly... but not worth it unless you buy the 4yr advanced warranty. And one more thing bub, make sure you get N. American support. Out of the dozens of people I've talked to with issues... the guys with N. American support are the ones that walk away with a big smile on their faces if you catch my drift. The rest of us are still fighting. :/

 

I just received my replacement yesterday. There are some scratches on it and one dead pixel on screen. I called customer service to complain the replacement i received and tried to ask something for compensation by threaten refund my order.....and they didn't buy it....either another replacement or refund is only option they can provide. I like m18x but at this point...I gave up and requested refund.