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

Yup, I suspect it is the 970M that is holding these models back from production. I guess it makes more sense why they gave me such a high config. It's be kind of ridiculous if this repair/replacement debacle went into a 4th month.

 

Aaaaannnd we're back to diagnostics for the past several days......

 

I was just given an estimated shipping date of 10/8/2015 for my replacement (980m SLI + 4940MX). Now I just have to hope my university processes it before the weekend or I'll be waiting until next Monday. It'd be nice to see how it handles the upcoming Battlefront beta this weekend.

 

I'm informed that my system has in fact now been repaired and is on it's way back to me.

It's due for delivery tomorrow. Will update on my experience and the results soon.

 

how long did you wait for this?

 

I initially contacted support back in June. After waiting around for non-existant 780m's for a while, and having a few botched repairs with 880m's, my case was escalated August 25. The escalation was approved August 27. I received the first offer (a downgraded system) on September 1. The next offer was September 17. I approved this and it was changed to Windows 8.1 Pro and the order made on September 21. As of yet, I am still listed as in production, but I was told it would ship today. I'll update here and on the order thread when it ships.

I should note that it was like pulling teeth to get even a diagnosis in the beginning, Nevermind a dispatch out. The first couple months of this process were slow hell. Eventually I got a very good and patient escalation specialist (our email chain is 30 deep right now) and after the initial downgraded offer, Dell pulled a total 180 on me. In my experience, this is a pattern with them. First, you get a ton of reps who treat you like crap or lie to you and nothing gets done, you get botched repairs and go through hell. Eventually you have a long enough horror story that you get an escalation or a better rep or somehow someone does something to try to retain any ounce of customer loyalty and then suddenly they offer you everything and are super helpful. It's really strange, because nobody really wins. If they just repaired my machine correctly in a timely manner, it wouldn't have cost them much money or me much pain. Instead, they put you through hell and then compensate heavily for it. At the end of the day, you can't complain about an upgrade like I got, but that doesn't erase the lies and horrible service nor the massive downtime of your machine. They just kind of cover your misery in absolute bliss.

 

I was reading this thread ot of curiosity and what a load of bullcrap in one post.

But Saying that a 680m is more powerful than a 980m is just a straight out lie. Even a Geforce 970M is surpassing a desktop 680GTX which is 30~40% faster than the mobile version.

Also with a faster CPU with the 680M combnation is not even near as fast. Stop spreading straight out lies. The soldered on GPU's finally makes it possible though to buy high performance laptops that are at least fairly portable.

 

And here we go. My first time on this thread. I spilled a drink on my Alienware 18 and got it back within a couple of days. Problem is, it could not provide SLI (I have 2 X 880M). I do have the 4 years warranty accidental replacement plan. They are supposed to call me tomorrow or on Wednesday to have a tech come check (I'm in Toronto if anybody can comment on the service) to replace the bridge cable. Crossing my fingers. With the amount spent, there is no reason for me not to push for dual 980m if they can not fix it. I'm fine so far with the 880m though

 

I can almost guarantee you that Dell still has 880m's in stock, so if the cards are in some way faulty, they will be replaced with 880m's first. More than likely it is the bridge or motherboard than a faulty second card (can you dedicate it to PhysX?). However, if this goes far enough and eventually you need a replacement system, they most likely do not have a dual 880m system refurbished lying around (or at least they didn't throughout the end of August and first half of September while I was waiting for one). If they do, you'll get that. If they don't, it is pretty valid to argue the 980m as "like-for-like" since the 970m only has 6GB of VRAM (although, it still outperforms the 880m everywhere as far as I know).

Hopefully you don't get dragged into a long process of repairs and replacement and it is simply a loose bridge or something. But if you do, you aren't instantly privileged to 980m's in some magical way.

 

Just don't entertain the idea of allowing them downgrade you to a BGA turdbook, even with the highest specs available. That is a massive downgrade in every way. Also, beware of offers of the eGPU with a desktop 980M. That would still be a performance downgrade, and to make matters worse I know of at least one person (@Daniel1983) that was promised this as a replacement for his AW18 with 880M SLI and never received what he was promised. He even has it from them in writing, but they refuse to honor their word. They said the eGPU had to ship separately, but as soon as he took delivery of the crippled 17 R2 they changed their mind and insist they cannot and will not do what they already promised, in writing, they would do.