What is going on with Malibal?? :( WARNING LONG!

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Scroll down, there is a reply post UPDATE!

Updated again, conclusion. Reply post on page 2
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Greets everyone!

Before ordering my computer I called a few times with plenty of questions and everyone I talked to was super awesome and helpful, I ordered myself a p180 and the wife a p150, we both get them and start playing around with them and all is okay... she is super happy, I'm a bit wary, more on that in a minute.

Her p150 seems to be in very good shape, the DVD/CD drive is a bit loose and wiggles around a bit, but I open it up and tighten the screw and we both couldn't be happier with her machine.

I turn my p180 and after installing everything I run 3d mark vantage and notice my scores are crap (about 1/8th of what they should be)... It was pretty late at night so I just file it away to mess with another day. The next day I pick up my laptop and notice it doesn't feel super solid, so I go at it with a screw driver and tighten up the DVD/CD and all of the plastic on the outside and it feels right as rain, no biggy. I start installing games and enjoying not thinking about the benchmark scores anymore b/c DAMN this thing is fast compared to my 2010 MacBook Pro.

I called Malibal asking if there was anything I could do about modifying the lighting on the p180 since they sold a change of LED colors for a small price, but the *only* answer I got was "we don't support that model anymore"... No explanation at all, I joked around and tried to lighten the mood a bit, but whoever I was talking to wasn't going to have any of it... He even tossed in a "Anything else I can help you with?" in the middle of me talking... I took the hint and figured they must be busy, so I nicely left him alone and got off the phone.

That was a bit out of time-line, so lets go back... I notice that temps are a bit high, and a lot higher than I thought they would be since I paid Malibal to apply the Icy Diamond compound. The hot CPU of the 4 would get to 87-88c and the GPUs would get to 92c before I stopped what I was doing and turned the computer off for a few minutes. I bought a really nice cooler and that helped a bit... so long as I was playing something not demanding (starcraft 2) I wouldn't get over 80c... I mentioned this on the forums and called Malibal on it, and both came back telling me that SLI'ed laptops do run a little hotter than normal... so I accepted this... Until I spoke with a fellow NBR member with the same laptop, who was playing the exact same game as me and he told me his computer was running at a cool mid to high 70c at the hottest... Hmmmm

That same night I start getting artifacts mid game, look over to my temps, right under 90 so I'm not stressing, but then I get a "NVIDIA Driver Kernel Crash" right after both screens (built in and external) go black for 2 seconds then turn back on... Anything full screen caused this to happen, I turned SLI off and it still happened... sad face.

The next day I call Malibal and I'm told to turn SLI on and off to figure out which card is toast... I go to do this... and guess what... both are working just fine... sigh... After a while with SLI on the same will happen, but it takes an hour or so for the crashing to start. So I turn SLI off as directed by Malibal Support and continue using my computer. I put the ticket in to have the second graphics card RMA'ed and mailed to my house so I can replace it.

All is good right... no... With only a single 560m running I'm still pretty happy with all that is going on, but the temps are getting out of control... I was playing Starcraft 2 last night and was getting close to 90c... So I turned the computer off and decided I just won't use it until I get the new card and I repaste both cards... (Yes I've checked for/cleaned dust... there was pretty much none, but I blew on everything directing the air from the inside out, not outside in).

I call Malibal today to ask the status of the RMA since it's been exactly a week since I submitted it... The support tech tells me that it will get mailed out today or tomorrow, I ask him why has it taken so long to mail it??? He tells me again in a firm tone that it will be mailed out today or tomorrow offering no explanation at all...

Now I've been trying to call and talk to the sales department to speak with management about this, but after 3 tries, I've had 2 go to voice mail and 1 pick-up immediate hang-up...

I might be being a bit sensitive but I'm feeling a bit screwed in this purchase... I've had the computer for maybe 3 months now, and I've worried and fussed about it more than I've enjoyed it, and after making the purchase, I don't have the friendly reseller I was able to talk to before the purchase... Hopefully all will turn out okay, but I guess time will tell.

I've been debating selling it and picking up a p170em from elsewhere, but currently wife.org and funds won't allow that to happen.

 

oh man, that sounds terrible! i hope you get taken care of!

 

I bet it will all work out, just WAY more frustrating then I thought it would be... As much as I love the P180, it has me thinking that once I get it 100% right, I'll just sell it and be computerless until I scrap up enough to just get something else...

 

Unfortunately you are not the first that I have heard with issues on how they treat customers. Seems like the put out good stuff, but the support side is lacking.

Hope things work out!!

 

Typical Malibal behaviour when something goes wrong.

Hey be happy they're not threatening to sue you like they've done to someone else on this forum for asking whether they were resellers or "tinkerers" or whatever, some semantic argument that took place a few months ago.

 

I was part of that, and I honestly I will personally never do business with them again. I don't wish to continue to spread hearsay or slander, but the incident in question can be accessed through my profile history if you were up for the read.

Best Wishes

-Mav

 

Going forward, make sure you get things in writing. I would recommend documenting everything on paper with time stamps. Also document temps, what you were doing when the temps reached high levels. Do this so that it can be replicated by their service dept. Include a copy of that journal in the RMA box for the tech to read.

The thing is, Malibal has been known to drop a customer if they feel the customer is going to be too much trouble to deal with (there's posts in the forum which support this). So whatever you do, be courteous but consistent. Patience and perhaps a disposition to be negotiable should see you through this.

It could be that all it is, is a poor thermal paste job. Or perhaps one of the fans are not connected to the mobo. I don't recommend you touching it or opening it to check. Best to go through the process with Malibal and likely they will do what needs to be done.

I wish you the best and hope everything works out.

 

Hey everyone! Thanks for the well wishes, and now it's time for an update!

Please remember I'm not bashing anyone, I'm only going to be stating facts and my feelings about facts and conversations I've had thus far.

So the RMA has been processed and I've been contacted by Malibal stating that I should get the RMA'ed card around tomorrow (roughly 2 weeks after contacting them and putting in the RMA ticket). I was a little upset about how long it felt for the RMA happening, but reflecting on this I'm not so upset... I currently work in the Corporate IT world, and when any hardware fails here it's over-nighted to us and is normally resolved within a day or two... this blurred how the personal world works...
- So that being said... From the short phone call and limited troubleshooting we did, it was decided that a graphics card needed to be RMA'ed. After that, they processed it w/o any other info from me other than me opening an RMA ticket and it's being shipped to me. The tech believed that I would be able to continue using my system with SLI turned off and thought this would be the best course of action...
- Sadly with SLI off the single card would heat up to 90+c in a hurry playing a really non-taxing game like SC2... (settings on low............)

So moving on; Mythlogic posted in the p180 thread about how they wanted to borrow a system to test putting the new series of graphics cards in the p180... I figured it was a perfect fit as I couldn't use my computer right now anyways! So I contacted them and they sent me a shipping label and my beast was off on it's journey of sweet sweet SLI'ed 680ms of goodness.
- A few notes worth mentioning... they paid for the shipping and insured it. thumbs up

My P180 got to Mythlogic a couple of days later and they sent me an email letting me know it had arrived and they would begin playing with it by the end of the day! Sweet! About 3-4 hours later I got another email from them saying that they saw I was having some issues and wanted to know if I could run them down on what was going on so they could see if they could fix it for me. I gave Josh a call (the primary person playing with the p180 I believe) and gave him the run-down of the issues I'd been having. He said that it sounded interesting and he would take a look at it and let me know.

Upon first taking the computer apart he noticed that the thermal compound for the GPU was stock... This is pretty upsetting as I paid for the ICY diamond upgrade... but mistakes happen. I don't believe that this was purposely forgotten about, most likely a simple mistake... No big deal... But this might explain my extreme temps... Here is a picture showing the foil hadn't been removed... http://i.imgur.com/ppt5a.jpg

Like I said before, no big deal...

After getting this info I give Malibal a call and want to see if I can get a refund for the ICY Diamond that didn't get installed. There was a little push back and subject changing (I have pretty bad A.D.D. so this isn't fully the tech's fault) (Also, this is the same/only person I've spoken to since the issue began @ Malibal). The end results and my opinions are as follows:
- Rather unprofessional attitude (not a big deal, I enjoy mellow chats and it made it feel like more of a conversation between peers, but when complaining, I'm looking for more of a professional attitude).
- He told me numerous times telling me that 90c was fine for the P180s, and it was good for up to 95c... "the cards just run hot"... (Cool I guess, I'm not a super pro on these cards of machines, but I told him a handful of times about the people I know with the same system, and the same cards running at much cooler temps... This didn't seem to phase him and his attitude that 90-95c was acceptable as far as he was concerned).
- In the end I believe we came to an agreement as to my money being refunded since I didn't get what I paid for... I'm not sure how this is going to work out, I'll make sure to keep everyone up-to-date on how that goes...

Over at Mythlogic, Josh repasted my GPUs and slapped the heatsink back on and fired up BF3. He told me he never got hotter than 85main gpu/75slave gpu which is exactly what is expected of the cards under a load... YAY! He reported no issues at all while playing... Now he did say that there was some core shedding on the top because the GPU got so hot (eek) but he doesn't believe there is any fatal damage... He did all of his testing/checking of the temps and gaming on a bench with no notebook cooler... I have a pretty nice one, so I'm expecting my temps to be amazing low once I get it back... Hopefully I'll be able to get to gaming without the worry of heat/damage/performance issues right out of the box from Mythlogic!

I should have the RMA card in hand when I get my computer back, so I'll stress it out with a good 5-6 hours of gaming and if all is good I'll contact Malibal and send the RMA card back to them... if not, it'll be REALLY nice to have it in hand to replace right then and there.

Oh, and a note for those wondering... Yes Josh at Mythlogic got a single GTX680m working, and about an hour or two later, he had 2x GTX680m's in SLI working. See http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo-reviews-owners-lounges/611401-official-sager-np8180-clevo-p180hm-owners-lounge-122.html

Sadly I don't have the cash to ask them to just leave them in... but it's awesome news for the p180 community!

So while I haven't been 100% happy with what's been going on with my P180 from Malibal, they are doing a nice job trying to think of ways to keep me behind my computer while they send me the RMA card to install... My worries at the moment are 1) getting the money back for the ICY Diamond that wasn't installed, and 2) the fact that I'm being told that 90-94c is fine for a GPU temp... /shutters

 

Good luck getting this all resolved. The guys over at Myth are good peeps, so no surprise there.

 

Wish you the best of luck! Myth is good indeed

 

Wife just IMed me saying that I have a package from Malibal, so the turn around on that wasn't so slow... I put the RMA in on Monday, I get the card on Thursday of the following week.

 

To cut a long story short, Malibal sent you a defective laptop missing an item you ordered and paid a premium for (that you would have never discovered if it weren't for the heat issues), and Mythlogic fixed Malibal's mistake while the Malibal rep was jerking you around to cost his company the least money even if it meant the customer wasn't satisfied.

I suggest Mythlogic actually invest in this lol ... an item on Malibal's cutomization menu that includes "30 USD = guarantee by Mythlogic to fix our stuff that we sell you while our reps try the hardest to patronize you" lol...

I don't mean to be overly argumentative, but the notion that we -the customers- have to somehow be sensitive to the reps about our problem (costing thousands of dollars) when it's their job to tend to our problems, which include frustrated customers, is a new paradigm in customer service .

Also, this is the same pool of customers that other companies fish in, and we don't see consistent complaints about any other company's reps' arrogance and indifference. A company with a successful customer service and after-sale capabilities shines precisely when helping a customer might be expensive or tedious, how else do they expect to "Service" a customer? Telling him/her to unplug/plug their router or press power button to get the computer started?

Like I said, I don't want to start a slander campaign but the whole point behind a resellers' feedback forum is for businesses to pay for the mistakes and either adapt or fail and so far all the reviews I've seen of Malibal where an actual issue was involved (and not "yey I just got my laptop and it works! Awesome service!" type reviews), the customer had not been satisfied.

 

Sort-of, but it's also a good place to share great experiences... While the bad helps, the good also are very helpful... people normally only post if they feel very strongly... and in my opinion it's a lot easier/faster to go on ranting about a bad experience vs someone to be so wow'ed with happiness that they want to come on to the message board just to love and cuddle people who have done them right.

 

Yes, those with no issues at all won't come cuddle, but those with serious after-sale issues that get resolved will be impressed enough to perhaps drop a word of recommendation.

What's the point of any complaints/review forum if the answer to any consistent bad record is: "Well only the angry/unreasonable ones will rant about it". Yes those are the ones that you should look after That's kind of your job as a sales after-market/tech help desk. You know kinda like when freedom of speech really shines when it's someone whose speech you dislike instead of like but have to tolerate? Dropping customers that are dissatisfied is a very .... well ... interesting policy haha.

 

Agreed 100%.

 

After getting my computer back from Mythlogic, the temps are more than acceptable and I've had no more issues at all... So I'm pretty comfortable saying that the issue was heat related. Yay!

I spoke with a rep from Malibal and I received a refund for the Icy Diamond and they have sent me a shipping label to send the RMA 560m back to them.

I delt with the rep via email only this time, and it was rather... yeah... Cliff notes go something like this... I get an email asking if I received the 560m and if I've replaced it yet. I respond saying that I did receive the card but hadn't yet been able to replace it. He emails me back with "We'ren't you so eager to get your laptop working again that you complained about how long it was taking to get the GPU, now you will wait a week after receiving the GPU to install it?" (at this point I had the card in hand for less than 4 days)... I explain that I sent it to Mythlogic to have them test putting the 680m cards in and try to get it working but as soon as I get it back I'll test it and make sure to get them a card ASAP, I also ask for a refund on the Icy Diamond and for a manager's/owners name. He replies explaining that he will refund the icy diamond and "we need the other GPU back and not in a year's time." He did not include his name or the name of a manager/owner. I get back to him stating that I will get it out ASAP (again), and I ask for the name of a manager/owner... I never received another email from them.

I did have the money very promptly put into my account, it was 35$ which is the current price they charge for the upgrade... I paid 40... so I emailed them again explaining that then forwarded them my email receipt of the purchase. Within minutes I had the additional 5$ deposited into my account.

So my conclusion goes something like this... : The customer service as far as getting stuff done is rather quick and probably effective. The attitude you will get talking to the tech makes the should be good experience no fun at all and very disappointing.

Cheers everyone.

 

Those email responses are atrocious.

 

Did someone at Malibal put their 14-year-old kid in charge of customer service? Or did they contract out Paul Christoforo?