*** Official Alienware Notebook System Replacement Thread ***

Haha. Are you still butt hurt by that?
That post is ancient.

Things do change Stevie.
Their service was exceptional back for myself back then and rightfully deserved the praise.

If I recall correctly your bad experience actually concluded with a full refund of several thousand pounds on a system you had owned for years.
That is VERY good in terms of outcome therefore the criticism you faced from several forum members over your whining that you didnt receive an exchange for a vastly superior and great deal more valuable system was rightly deserved.
You also purchased another Alienware afterwards if I followed right which means you clearly knew you get great service.
Unfortunately you attempted to take advantage of the situation in what could only be perceived as getting something extra for nothing extra....

As I mentioned before, the service WAS good and did keep me loyal.
However after seeing how other family members and colleagues were using great systems without any requirement for fixes I started to ask myself why I was tolerating fixes, albeit as good as they were, on a 'premium' brand.

Now with this latest fiasco I can say I've also experienced bad service.
Whether or not it will be concluded to my satisfaction has yet to play out.

 

Nah, I'm not hurt by it at all - I just spotted your posts on this thread and thought how uncanny it was that you were experiencing issues.

As for me, I bought a second hand £600 AW14 off Ebay - hardly an act of brand loyalty. I bought Alienware again more so because I needed something to at least game on to some degree and I liked the design, not because of 'great service'. The only reason I have an 18 now is down to a burglary and the 14 was stolen - insurance paid out enough to get a decent machine once more - again, used off Ebay.

I'm not going to get into the 'detail' of my experience as I have linked to it and if anyone wants to read about it, they can - no point in cluttering up this thread.

I like Alienware machines, but I certainly would not buy a brand new one from Dell ever again. I have 3 years warranty on this machine, and fortunately, I've not had to use it yet. I'm sure that when I do need to, I'll get the run around all over again.

Oh, and as for trying to take 'advantage' of the situation when one is in the unfortunate position of machine failure, what's this all about? - people in glass houses springs to mind....

 

Why are posts deleted?
Are my views that are shared with 33% of the voters thus far deemed not relevant?!

I specifically defended myself against his comment about glass houses as well as his post about a thread that is years old...

I've asked for public opinion on whether requesting an upgrade is reasonable. I haven't demanded yet.

I've already gone through the channel of in home repairs and now the same problem persists.
The depot staff are now going through the exact same procedure which means a further waiting period for myself.

I'm giving experience information which is what I thought the purpose of this thread was.....

 

Which is exactly what I was doing some time back, yet some people sought fit to disregard the facts of my case and cast aspersions on my reason for taking my issue public. The fact that a thread you started is several years old is irrelevant - I think we both know the reason you started that thread and it was off the back of you derailing my own documented experiences about warranty support. The fact that I dug your thread up was merely to point out that not everything is always peachy - it's easy to preach about great service when you haven't had bad service like I had received. I thought it somewhat ironic and that's why I posted. It IS relevant as it goes to show the good and bad, and just because someone perhaps has never had an issue in the past, it does not mean they won't in the present or future - kind of like what you are going through now..........

Now, I'm not going to make light of your issues - it's never nice to have a problem beyond your control. It's at times like these that people on the forum should come together to help each other - not malign a member because of the plight they are going through.

I wish you the best of luck getting a resolution you deem fit, just wished you could have done the same for me, but you didn't. End of.

 

It's not nice to go through bad service. No one attacked you on that.
People and myself included, criticised you over how you took a complete refund as a disappointment. You wanted the latest model at the time despite having only purchased an earlier edition. Like for like means performance wise NOT what is best put currently out on the market.
Granted Dell attempted to shaft you with some of their suggested exchanges but this aside you were pushing for a system replacement that vastly outclassed the model you had purchased. If I'm not mistaken it wasn't even the same revision.

I took it upon myself to review that thread and it's not the one that people challenged you on.

Having multiple folk criticise you over the same thing meant you were at fault in your endeavour to take advantage of an exchange.

On the contrary I have asked for opinion on what my next step should be and whether or not I should even request an upgrade.

 

Firstly, your understanding on how Alienware warranty works is completely wrong. Your comment below is completely incorrect - read my reasons why below. It does not matter if you have an older revision machine, nor does it matter if that machine is several years old - if it is no longer available, it is no longer available. That is not the customers fault, and a new revision from what is currently being offered from Dell is the next best thing. THEN, and only then, is performance of hardware assessed. Please try and understand how Dell warranty works before making comments that are incorrect and misleading to others.

To be fair, I can understand your perspective over a refund on a machine I had for some time - I can appreciate the usage that I had from it, however, that is NOT how warranty replacement works. Let me explain one or two things to you so that you understand how it does work (or at least should do going by the many replacement cases I have read and heard about over my 6 years here on the Alienware forums reading and assisting anyone in need of replacement advice.

Firstly, Dell can attempt to repair your machine by replacing faulty hardware - they generally have three attempts at resolving the issue within a reasonable time frame, and if that is exhausted and the machine is still faulty or in need of further repairs, then at their discretion, they can open up the avenue to replace the entire machine.

If your machine is beyond economical repair, or at Dell's discretion even if if an economic repair was viable, Dell can choose to offer a new replacement which should be (i) as close as equal to the machine specification that is being replaced. (ii) if the outgoing specification is no longer available, the replacement should be as close to equivalent from what is currently available, regardless of revision.

Let me give you the scenario of someone owning an M17x R2 that had five years complete care.......what do they expect to get if their machine fails? - another M17x R2 five years after the've stopped being produced? - nope. They get what is currently the closest to what they had - regardless of revision and/or if the base model of said revision blows their old machine out of the water.

Basically, it does not matter if one purchased a machine 5 years ago and their machine fails right at the end of their warranty, they have the right - under warranty - to have their machine replaced with whatever is closest to their original specification from what is currently available from Dell. If that means a new iteration of machine, then so be it. That machine may very well be a base model of what is currently available, and that base model performance may seriously outstrip the old configuration, but that's just how it works. Trust me, I've seen enough cases to know what I'm talking about here. People having 4-5 year old machines getting a replacement from Today's lineup that is far superior to what they originally purchased.

What I wanted was a like for like replacement. Exact like for like was no longer available as the M18x R1 had been E.O.L'd and the R2 was its successor. Not my fault an R1 was not available. Warranty states that if like for like is no longer available, better will be offered as the only viable option.

Dell did NOT offer me 'better', they skirted around things and elected to offer me a refund instead. What Dell offered me, machine wise, was a serious downgrade in ALL performance respects - GPU, CPU, WiFi etc. I was not about to accept a base Ivy CPU coming from an Extreme Sandy, nor was I going to bend over and take a single 675m (rebranded 580m) when I already had DUAL 580m's.

Sure, a refund could be seen as a good outcome, but when it comes to buying what a true like for like replacement would cost ME, the refund did NOT cover the cost of a true like for like machine - this difference should have been catered for under my warranty regardless - as that is what warranty is there for, but Dell cheaped out on me and offered a refund meaning I could not even afford to buy myself a like for like machine from Dell - this was the main cause of my anger.

When you've seen people being offered the 'latest and greatest' replacement machines coming from machines that are several years old, and in some cases, a good few revisions old, was simply unacceptable behaviour from Dell toward myself - refund or not. A refund was not going to put me in the position that warranty should have done as it had done for many more people before me.

I was NOT pushing for a free upgrade, nor was I chasing the next revision to get better hardware - what I was seeking and expecting was the same treatment as others had been afforded, however Dell chose not to do so.

It seems I can try and explain to you how warranty works until I am blue in the face, but your own perspective on it is coloured by what you THINK warranty covers. May I kindly suggest that you ask Mr. Fox or any other long time member on the Alienware forums about how Alienware warranty actually works before deciding to tear someone else down with your lack of knowledge on the subject. Mr. Fox will probably tell you that even if you had an old Extreme CPU from years ago, and top level dual GPU's - regarding a replacement, you should get the top CPU and GPU from a replacement, regardless of how outdated or old your original machine was. Ask him yourself. I was not seeking this kind of resolution, just what was equivalent from what WAS available - not an R2 with the very best hardware, just what was closest to my R1.

I don't mean to be aggressive, but you simply do not comprehend the workings of warranty, and on that basis, you chose to call me out as trying to get something over and above what I was entitled to - something which I was not doing. I was merely seeking warranty treatment that is afforded to most everyone else.

 

No one wanted you to get a "lesser system" and you were absolutely correct in chasing up Dell to gain a system that surpassed or as a minimum matched the spec of your laptop.

This was quite a while ago, and if memory serves, you were offered several systems prior to the refund. All of which you were unhappy with.
Did they not also offer depot repair?!

I'm not going over the same ground, you were rightly criticized for the way you demanded Dell despite their offerings (Some of which were exceptional, hence the full refund for a several year old machine).

Dells service at the time was also exceptional for myself and I created that thread to obtain views from a much larger audience.

However things do change, and Dell, whilst lowering the overall cost of machines (Not by a justifiable amount to reflect the lower quality) have released systems that are now soldered (Major Problem for some).

Regarding my own case, Dells service has also been riddled with delays and chase ups. Despite this I've taken what they have offered in terms of depot repair and are now awaiting my laptop to be returned....after the same repair....which was previously already attempted by an in home technician...

One point I've observed is whenever there is progress on the repair procedure, you are unable to view the status online for at least a day.

 

My cousin is still waiting for my aw18 replacement.

Order was created on the 25th of August. It is now october 3rd the laptop is still in pre production.. What gives??

 

What config? There have been a few reports of lower configs being delayed until November because they "aren't released yet". I still don't have an EDD, but I went into production a few days ago

 

m18, 4910MQ and Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970M graphics with 12 GB total (2x 6GB) GDDR5 - NVIDIA SLI® Enabled