Jeremy’s 3D Alienware gaming laptop from Dell hasn’t worked right from its first bootup. It had blue screens of death and the video card needed swapping out. Then when he sent it in for repairs, he got it back with food crumbs between the keys. The side panel was also cracked, and someone had tried to hide the crack by coloring it in with black marker.

Jeremy writes:

I recently purchased an Alienware laptop (M17X R3) in April. From the very first moment I pushed the power button on this laptop I have had issues with it. Right off it booted up with the famous BSOD. At this point a red flag should have gone up. I called tech support and after several hours on the phone with them they had me update a few drivers.

This appeared to fix the issue for about a week or two. I got everything installed and played a game until it started to crash again. I called tech support again and this time after several more hours they had me update even more drivers, and flash my BIOS to a newer version. After three weeks the problems started again. After another day of troubleshooting they decided to send it in for warranty work and replace the video card.
Two weeks later the computer came back. I noticed the upper plastic icon bar on the keyboard was broken and sticking up and the side panel was also cracked in two places. You could even see where someone had colored the crack with a black marker in an attempt to hide it. The screen had greasy finger prints all over it and what appeared to be food crumbs stuck on it and the keys. They had even reformatted the HDD and none of the programs were installed, luckily I had them backed up.

After several more errors upon boot; and many hours trying to get it to work. I called support again they set to trying to install drivers. They had a tech help, I was supposed to receive a call at 6, but it wasn’t until 10 PM that he called. After two hours and finally getting done at midnight the machine seems to be working for the moment.

Long story short, I would like any advice I can get to help me get this machine returned. It has never worked as promised and has been only a problem from the very first time I’ve turned it on. Every time I mention returning it I was quickly shoved off to Technical Support, or worse, if I call after work they’ve put me on hold until they close. My previous experiences with Dell and their products were excellent; however, this has been a nightmare. Tech support was friendly and helpful, but nothing seems to get fixed, every time it goes in for repair it comes back looking worse. I need something that works, and this run-around I’m getting makes it all the more difficult.

Side note, when I looked up Jeremy’s system on the Dell site, soon a floating popup box asked me, “Questions? Call or Chat with an all-powerful agent.” Ha, not likely. However, in the past, readers have had success by emailing Michael Dell directly at Michael@dell.com.

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