Hi All,
I'm pretty bummed that this has to be my first post on the forums here, but I've had nothing but problems with my new X51 that I ordered on 1/21/2013. After struggling just to get the thing to boot, I thought the problems were behind me. During the third week of use, while watching a blue-ray something went awry with the graphics card and the system just went to a black screen. I restarted the computer and when it came back up there were green dots all over the screen and the resolution was off. I figured a driver problem. I did a clean driver install per the support instructions, no luck same problem. I found other people with issues and the thought was maybe the graphics card wasn't seated properly, so I followed the dell instructions for opening the chassis and removing the graphics card, then followed in reverse to reinstall. It seemed to be seated just find, I also took an air can to the socket and card to make sure there wasn't a dust issue.
At this point, it still felt like a driver issue, I ran the Alienware diagnostics and everything came up fine. So I tried respawn. That didn't work either. Then I tried my own clean install, and after short period of upset that the driers disk that came with the computer had less than half of the necessary drivers and some that didn't even match my system, I got the rest from online support. No luck. Tried a driver straight from Nvidia, no luck green dots all over the screen, both graphics and text. I would try to check the Nvidia control panel, but it would say no Nvidia card installed.
Frustrated, I let the system sit for a few nights to approach with a clear head. I used to build my own systems for myself, friends, and family and didn't like being defeated. So I turn the system on a few days later and magically everything was fine. After reloading all my games on and playing for a few hours, in the middle of a DOTA match it crashed again. I rebooteed it and back to the same green dots, both in normal and safe mode. Unloaded the drivers and the problem persists.
For a 1500 dollar, brand new system, this just isn't acceptable in my eyes; am I missing something?
So then I go to support and it says I dont get to use any type of support except FEE-BASED phone support! I can't even email Dell! Why should I have to pay them more money at this point, for a less than three month old computer that is broken practically out of the box?
On the invoice, these are the fields related to warranty that are present.
1 | 994-1323 | Dell Hardware Warranty Plus On-Site Service, Initial Year |
1 | 994-1343 | Next Business Day Parts and Labor On-Site Response, Initial Year |
1 | 950-3337 | 1 Year Limited Warranty |
1 | 950-9797 | No Warranty, Year 2 and 3 |
1 | 421-1723 | Soft Contracts Dell In-Home Hardware Agreement for Alienware |
1 | 906-5260 | Warranty Support, Initial Year |
So what should I do? I'm pretty sure the card needs to be replaced. Based on these fields, does it need to be RMA'd or will Dell send someone to make things right (based on the second line). I was super excited to order my alienware but now I'm frustrated and need this made right, as it should be.
Thanks for reading,
Scott