AlienWare - Good Or Bad

[darasen 0]

Try google "alienware problems / alienware review / alienware suck"
They are all filled up with negative feedback !
The only positive feedback I can find are those who got pay to do so! "comp magazine"

I just wanted to point out that I thought this was funny. You mean to tell me if I google alienware sucks I just may find something negative? Shocking. Of course you'd also be likely to come up with some odd sort of x-files porn.

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

Ya, that's a weak argument. You must specifically point to us somewhere credible because Google isn't since it's a search engine. It just gives out search queries, even the bogus ones. Google is great, but not as proof.xboxrulz

[iGuest 3]

Last spring (2008) I purchased a top-of-the-line ALX from Alienware; the purchase price was more than $7000.00. The whole experience was a nightmare. Right out of the box the computer failed to boot. Alienware technical support had me go through a couple of hours of detailed troubleshooting, all of which involved removing and reseating parts to include the video cards. Troubleshooting became more and more complex at which point I demanded that they dispatch a technician to my home. After an arguement this was done. 4 days later a technician spent about 1 hour trying to get the machine to boot. It was returned to Alienware. Alienware told me the motherboard was replaced and 2 weeks later the computer was returned to me. Again the computer failed to boot. Another hour or more on the phone with technical support failed to fix the situation. I demanded a full refund. At first I was told that there would be a restocking fee but they backed off that position after some arguement. I did receive a full refund. This was my second Alienware. In 2004 I purchased a high-end machine and it performed flawlessly. I'll never buy another and recommend others look elsewhere.

-reply by Jerry Land

[iGuest 3]

ALIENWARE is a NIGHTMARE.Right out of the box I set up a AREA 51 750I $1700 desktop. It came with a Blue Ray Drive.After a hour of frustration I realized the computer had no operating system installed.Technical suport is a joke if you can understand them. Their return policy requires you to pay the fright plus 15% of the purchase price. So I installed the operating system and all the drivers with the drivers from the discs provided. I got the computer to work but I could not get the Blue Ray to play. After 2 hours on the phone, tech support told me I had to wait until they recieved "Power DVD 8" software because they built the computer without having the software to support the drive. I had to obtain other drivers and software to make it play. Also, they do not support DVI out to HDMI to your TV because they don't give you the SPDIF pass thru cable to connect your motherboard to the video card pass through connection to make the sound work.This is the worst company I have ever done business with. They tell you how they test their system before shipment- how can they? there was no operating system. They lie, when they royaly screw up - you pay. DON'T BUY ALIENWARE OR YOU WILL BE SORRY.-reply by pfinne

 

[iGuest 3]

Alienware SUXAlienWare - Good Or Bad

I had always heard that Alienware made the best gaming computers, I hadNever bought one but for my new machine I decided to take a shot.Just short of $5000 bought me an M17 with all the bells and whistles,Quad-core 4GB ram, Crossfire video, RAID0 hard drives and Blue-RayDrive. Right off the bat I found that the finger print reader and the VisualLogin software were not compatible with each other and the AW supportTeam was worthless to figure out why. Since this was not really a bigDeal I didnt worry to much.A month in upon boot one of the HD would not show up in the RAID thusThe machine would not boot. After one reboot it would show up but stillNo boot. Upon the third reboot, it would now boot to OS. This wouldHappen anytime the computer was off for anything over an hour, sleep orPowered off. I called AW and was told that I needed to back up the machine to testIt. A month later I was able to do so and called back. After an hourWith another brain child of a tech, they sent me a new HD that I had toPay for in advance to get a cross ship (money well spent on the 3 yearOn site warranty...NOT) Drive arrived and it is a refurb OMG. Put it inAnd reinstalled the OS left the office and came back the next day toFind upon reboot, HD not found in RAID...Gr. Called back got a third genius who told me that the drive not showingUp in the RAID upon POST was due to a corrupt OS image on theAlienrestore disk :confused: I guess they don't teach them that the OSIs loaded after the POST.This time they want me to ship the laptop back to them since theyBelieve it is a motherboard issue. I asked to have a box shipped to meTo send it in and asked for the box to come to my office (hard thingRight?) now they want to ask me some questions to verify that it is me,So they ask me questions about my ex wife whom I have not seen norTalked to in over 10 years. :confused: Since I could not answer theQuestions they said they could not send A BOX to my office for securityReasons.Well finally I got a supervisor to approve sending a box to me, but lowAnd behold it is now two weeks later and no box. Called back in and wasTold that there is delay and it would be best for me to pay for a boxAnd ship the machine back and call in for reimbursement...Are theyKidding me????While I understand that computers have issues just as anythingElectromechanical can, one would think that when you pay so freakingMuch for a computer and its warranty that one would get some sort ofService along with it.1 to 10 rating of Alienware? -5 OMG you guys ****! Never again will I buy a machine from you.Especially since I have found that the case, MB, and display can bePurchased from Newegg for a fraction of what I spent on my machine andI would build my own laptop that looks the same without the AW back ofThe case (big deal) for about 2k less.Dell better figure something out of their high end computer line will **** their support rating out the window.

--This is a post I made a month back and I just got my laptop back from Alienware and wanted to post an update.. Well guess what they still ****, got it back after two weeks and it does the same thing I sent it in for and the hard drives which they were supposed to replace are the same that were in it before. I marked them before I sent it off and they didnt even replace them as the "Special rep" told me they were. Now they are sending me two more supposedly new drives which they will not send over night. 

OMG what a total waste of money.

DO NOT BUY ALIENWARE!

-reply by Chris

[iGuest 3]

Proud owner of an AlienWare 7500/Area 51 Desktop PCAlienWare - Good Or Bad

From ordering it on tiger direct.Com to the short wait time to get it to the exquisite boxing it came in to its looks, quality, value vs quality and performance, Iam here to say I love my AlienWare 7500...! And I am surely not going to take Your bad experience for my view of AlienWare's (DELL owns alienware now btw...) ...WORTH, the only bad thing with my system was a western digital SATA drive that went bad, so I had to send it back got new seagate and no problems since. As stated above my experience, the look of my system, the flawless amazing architecture in side my system, the performance is very good and I have nothing bad to say... I understand we cannot please everyone, and the poor souls that do have a bad experience of a company such as Alienware/DELL Iam very sorry. Well that's my bit, have a great PC experience!

StanDP.

[iGuest 3]

Alienware Area-51 750i DesktopAlienWare - Good Or Bad

I just bought an Alienware Area-51 750i Desktop. It's on it's way and I'm tbh, when your looking at reviews for Computers, or anything else, you always look at the bad ones more than the good one's. The good reviews just impress you, then you forget it. Bad reviews stick in your head and you worry that your computer will have problems, and tbh, considering I'm paying £2,000 plus, I'm expecting it to be worth it.So basically, what I'm wondering is Does anybody have any experience of a desktop? If so, can you please write a review of an Alienware Area-51 750i?

Thanks in advance.

Lewis

-reply by Lewis

[iGuest 3]

Alienware IssuesAlienWare - Good Or Bad

May-2008

I bought an Alienware Area51 Desktop about 14 months ago.  It's suffered "hard lockups" since the day it arrived.  Basically, your video will freeze, your keyboard and mouse will not work and if you were listening to anything you will hear a rapidly repeated sound.  The only way to get the PC working again is to physically power it down by holding in the power button on the front of the case.

Initially, the lockups only happened every few days, but the frequency quickly grew.  As the frequency grew, the system began to lockup during the BIOS/POST screens or never initialize the video at all.  In order to get past this issue, I had to open the case and remove/reseat the graphics card.

June-2008

I spent several hours on the phone with Alienware support.  The support rep at one point had me insert the recovery CD and choose to reinstall the OS.  He did this without warning me my data would be destroyed.  I pointed this fact out to him and he "allowed" me time to back up my stuff to an external drive. Heh

Eventually, he determined the problem was with the HDD...  He charged me a deposit and sent out a replacement.  This obviously did not resolve my issue.

August-2008

The lockups continued, so I again contacted support.  This time, they decided it was the motherboard at fault.  They asked me to box up my system and send it to their offices in Miami, FL via FedEx Ground.  I pointed out that I had an on-site warranty, but they said that only includes minor parts like HDDs and that my PC's water cooling system needed a specific environment.  I relented and made the painful effort to box up and ship the 70lb monster back to them.  The entire ship-repair-ship process took 16 days.  The issue was still unresolved.

October-2008

The lockups continued, so I again contacted support.  This time, they decided it was the RAM at fault.  "The Elpida RAM in your system isn't compatible with your motherboard".  They charged me another deposit and sent me replacement RAM.  Again, this obviously did not resolve my issue.

November-2008

The lockups continued, so I again contacted support.  This time, they decided it was the graphics card at fault.  They charged me another deposit and sent me an nVidia GTX 280 to replace my GeForce 9800 GX2 dual GPU card...  The GTX 280 was $300 less at the time, but was the best card on the market since the GX2 had been phased out by that time.  I had no recourse and was denied a partial refund to cover the difference.  The system was stable for about 4 months with the GTX 280, but then the same painful issue began again.  The system would lock up hard just booting into Windows.

By this time, I just wanted to be able to use my PC.  I went to Best Buy and bought a 9800GT.  The system was stable, but it wasn't performing very well.

June-2009

I finally gave in and contacted support again about my unusable video card.  They decided it was a video card issue again and asked me to send the card back so that they could replace it.  I shipped the card back to them and they sent me an nVidia GTX295 as a replacement.  I installed the card and booted the PC.  About 10 seconds into my Windows session, before I had even clicked anything, the PC locked up.  I shut it down and opened the case to take the card out and it was so hot it burned my finger.  I put the low end card back into the PC and put the GTX 295 back in the static bag and put it in the closet.  I didn't care to deal with support again, so I left it at that for then.

July-2009

I emailed support this time and included the long list of repairs that have made my PC unusable for 4+ months of the 14 I have owned it.  Six more of those months have been with a low-end graphics card.  They decided to replace the power supply and to upgrade it from a 750watt to 1000watt size to better support the high power requirements of the dual GPU video card.  I had to provide a deposit, but they agreed to send a tech out to do the replacement on-site.

Present

I'm waiting on delivery of the power supply so that I can schedule the tech to come out.  I'm not overly optomistic that this will resolve my on-going issue, but there's nothing left to swap out. 

Conclusion 

I will never buy from Alienware again, or advise anyone to do so.  It's quite sad that Dell has decided to phase out thier gaming lines in favor of Alienware systems.  I will post again with the update once this next repair is completed.

[iGuest 3]

Alienware seems worth it ...... is it AlienWare - Good Or Bad

I heard alienware is good, it looks good, dual core, two graphic cards, you know all that good stuff, heard though that customer service is a joke, just wanting to know if its good for GAMING, nothing else ok? 

-reply by Greg Bond

[iGuest 3]

Wow, these things blowAlienWare - Good Or Bad

Guys, I sunk 3k into an alienware for college. It was kind of my goof off computer. I used to play wow on it. I had to run wow at the lowest settings for it to not be laggy. For a gaming computer my 4 year old desktop ran games about 50985098 times better, no joke. Then within the first month the monitor goes out on me, the graphics card fries, and I've been playing games on a minimal graphic setting on only  few occasions.

 What I've learned if you want to play games get a desktop. If you actually want to be a good student just get one of those mini new computers, theyre amazing! And if you want the best of both, it really can't happen

 Very disappointed in my investment in this machine. Now its going to cost me 450 dollars to return a product that royally sucks.

-reply by Nate Slemp

[iGuest 3]

I've been looking at building a desktop for nearly 3 weeks now, and I've acquired a lot of knowledge, when I stumbled upon a sale alienware was having.  It was 300 dollars off plus free shipping, and it had all the parts I wanted.  After assembly a computer and spending about 3 hours making decisions, I had the final product in my cart.  I clicked check out, and it cleared my cart.  When I went to remake the computer (as I had done at least 10 times) the sale option was no longer there.

 I called their "customer service" and when I mentioned the sale, he told me how it was a great offer and lots of people were doing.  I spent an hour setting it up with him, down to the last notch, and at the end he says "Oh, I'm having some trouble putting it through, 1 second, I need to talk to marketing."

I sat on hold for 10 minutes, and when I got back, they had pulled the sale, and then he went on trying to sell me more ****.

 All I can say is the short experience I had with them was a ****ty one.- Jeff

-reply by Jeff H

[iGuest 3]

Angry Owner of an Area 51 laptopAlienWare - Good Or BadI purchased a M15X laptop about one year ago. The performance was excellent and the laptop was beautiful. I noticed from the start that the display lid seemed very delicate and loose. Well, this past week the lid hinge disintegrated with plastic pieces falling out the bottom and the display frame bulging.I called Alienware who instructed me to send it back to the factory (I have paid on-site service, joke). They stated that shipping will be 4 days ground in and out with 10 days repair. So, I’m looking at several weeks for them to fix a defect in a laptop that they had to have known about in advance. It was also utilized very little. I called Alienware and attempted unsuccessfully to appeal to their better judgment and to expedite the repair.Alienware's lack deference has resulted in my decision to never do business with them again! 

[iGuest 3]

They replaced everything inside the box and it still doesnAlienWare - Good Or Bad

Sorry to hear about your troubles with Alienware. Their support procedures sound suspiciously like Dell's but then Dell owns them. You know you're in trouble when the company that built your PC has replaced every component inside the case the the PC still isn't operating properly. Worse, they charge you a "deposit" for replacement of parts covered under a warranty (and to make matters even worse, you paid for an on site repair warranty that they only honored on one of the replacement parts?) The first time Alienware asked me for a deposit to cover replacement of a warranty covered part, I'd have demanded a full refund. 

-reply by Dennis

[HannahI 0]

Now you tell me that AlienWare is bad, I thought I should get one, i think I changed my mind now.

[iGuest 3]

Never going through Alienware Again!AlienWare - Good Or Bad

Wow, I just noticed the date on this was from 2005. . . However,Being that this was one of the first google results to come back, I'llLeave my opinion / response here.

Approx 4 months ago,Two of my coworkers had bought Alienware PC's and couldn't talk enoughGood about them.  I've built a number of pc's over the years,  andWhere some of the fun might be in not having them work initially, andThen hammering out the bugs. . . I'm at a point that I don't mindThrowing a bit of change for a higher range PC.

I found a smokingDeal on their website and after researching the parts through variousComparison sites / tomshardware-esque stuff, I made my decision andSigned up for the platinum card.  (HUGE MISTAKE)

I've handled aFew purchases over the years with the "no interest for 12 months" andFigured this would be no different.  Also, as all of my banking is doneOnline, I was assured this too would be no different and I could setupAn account with them.

Well, qualifying me for the card was aBreeze, system shipped and arrived in what can only be described as aWonderous marvel of packaging.

First mark, they didn't includeThe mouse / keyboard that was listed to come with the unit.  Not aBiggie, as I have a few lying around.  Well, first month goes by andThe payment comes due, I'm unable to create an online account withThem.  After calling the company (being handed from one call center toAnother approx 5 times, each one telling me "oh no, you need to callTHIS number")  I finally get someone that tells me "Alienware customersCan't pay their bills online"  If I want to make a payment over thePhone, I'm looking at somewhere around a 30$ "service" charge.

SoNow, I have to Snail Mail my payments to them.  I know this may soundLike a silly complaint, but I have but virtually eliminated the need toMail anything.  So going to get stamps, place a check in the envelopeAnd drop it in the mailbox is a bit of a pain. (also having to makeSure it goes out in enough time to make it by the due date, or elseThere's a late charge along with all of my back interest beingCharged)  The interest part is the big kicker for me. . . Because if myMail happens to get stalled somewhere, I'll be on the line for quite aBit more than I bargained for.

 I sent them an email throughTheir "contact us" form online (no email address for them, just aForm).   Turns out, their "problem form" only has a few characterSpaces, leaving you having to type something like "pc broke, pleaseHelp"   or "having problem with bill".   Any attempt at explaining theFull story gets cut short.  I get a form letter reply basically saying"yup, no online bill pay for alienware customers".   I generally don'tEnjoy being lied to by sales people trying to push computers out theDoor.

So here I am, 4 months later, my PC has startedFreezing up (completely, not even ctrl alt del responds)  I have toHard-power down the system and get a message saying "New CPU InstalledPress F1 to enter setup or F2 to load defaults"   The lockups areStarting to happen about once a day for the past week.  I'm not lookingForward to having to deal with this tonight, but I'll try and updateAgain with the results of the troubleshooting.-reply by Jason