M18x R1 - Repeated failues, looking for insight.

Hey everyone. I am looking for a bit of advice here to help point me in the right direction for a issue I am having.

Hardware: Alienware m18x, I7-2760QM processor, 8gb ram, Dual nvidia 580m Sli, 2 500gb hard drives.

I have not done any overclocking, or anything to modify the hardware aside from keepinng the drivers and firmware up to date from the alienware site, as well as installing the nvidia 306.23 - WHQL drivers.

Here is what started about 2 weeks ago. I was not doing anything too taxing, playing world of warcraft and minimized to to open chrome to check email and the screen went black. Holding down the power button would not reset it, and I had to remove the AC and battery to get it to power off. Putting everything back in It would not post unless the AC was plugged in (battery was at ~95-100%) and pressing the power button would cause the lights to come on for a few moments before going black and going back to the same state where I had to remove the AC power and battery to get it to do anything again.

It was sent to the depot and had the motherboard replaced, came back and still dead within 20 minutes.

An onsite tech came out replaced the motherboard, and both video cards and within 1 hour it was dead again with the same symptoms as above.

Anyone have some insight to this? Or heard of anything similar?

Thanks in advance!

jalteirxnar

 

Possibly something to do with the battery..
Have you tried using it with only the AC adaptor and no battery?

As a general rule, if Dell fails to repair your laptop after three attempts they replace it, which is nice.

Hope you get it fixed

 

Yes I did. It will not power on with the battery removed.

 

Odd...

As I type this post from my M18xR1, it is plugged into the AC without a battery.
Strange yours doesn't power on.

 

My friend, you should do what I did, after 3 or so attempted repairs Dell will offer a system replacement, ask them to credit the initial purchase price of your unit and put that towards the purchase of a new M18x R2. Otherwise you will receive another refurbished unit, similarly configured, that may or may not be prone to failure.

I got really lucky and received a full refund, and the upgrade from M18x R1 - 2960xm - 580SLI to my current system only ran me about ~$1k, including two years Advanced Care. For me this was worth it as I was already contemplating upgrading to 680 SLI, cards that run about $1k by themselves.

But yeah at this point system replacement for sure, be persuasive with the techs, if all goes well you should be sitting with an M18x R2 with 680 SLI for a song.

 

As post #5 says, I would start considering a replacement, or refund to be put towards a higher specification unit.

Call Dell, tell them after a depot and technician visit the problem is not getting fixed and rather than faffing about with tech appointment dates and such you would rather pursue a replacement/refund/credit note.
If they insist on another technician visit, then accept. If the problem is still not fixed then they will have failed at fixing your problem three times and would most likely offer you the replacement.

The GTX 680m in SLI is the way to go if you go down that route

 

Thanks for the advice. I thought that would be the case but I wanted to see if anyone else had something I could pass onto the techs for a possible round three. I am going to see if my L1 tech can bump up some escalation especially after the onsite debacle from this week as well. (Took two days off work and the tech didn't show up twice even after confirming the appointment).

 

I wonder, did they replace the power button board too when they did the mobo? - also, I would have thought they would have changed the PSU and battery too....they are all linked to powering your machine and as such, should be something they looked at replacing for you. However, if you are looking into the "three strikes" option...as others have said, you could potentially get a replacement machine with equivalent/better specs.

 

Well they have replaced the motherboard twice, and the video cards once.

Does anyone have a contact at dell that could help me get this expedited or something kicked into motion? Over 3 plus weeks, it's been repaired twice and even after getting confirmation of the onsite service, The techs have not shown up 4 times now for the onsite service. It's almost getting comical if it wasn't so frustrating....

Any anyone knows who I can get in touch with to get this thing handled I'd be massively grateful!

 

I feel your pain and know exactly what youre going through, I was there myself recently. Just call Dell technical support, tell them you are interested in a system replacement and ask for a refund of your existing unit to go towards a new model. Be nice, that goes a bit of a way with people.

 

Thanks for all the support/ Insight folks. I was able to get through to one of the Alienware Tech managers, who apologized profusely for all the missed appointments, repairs, and being left hanging after the third repair. Looks like they are going to replace it with a M18x R2, with a new 3rd gen i7 and dual 680s. I have to give up the wiHD, but he doubled the ram as sort of a trade off. I can live with that!

 

That's great news. Congratulations.