Two weeks ago the power supply in my Alienware notebook was pouring out smoke, making cool fireworks and funky smells. I did a quick analysis of it and seemed fine apart from it wasn't charging. I've had the notebook for over 11 months and I only had 2 weeks warranty left (thank-goodness, it is a $4k machine).

The closest Alienware repair center is over 2,000 kilometers away so they sent a courier to pick it up. What should have been a 1 day delivery took 5 working days. The tracking number reported on the website said that it had been signed for on the Monday, I call them on the Friday and they claim that it was just dropped off, they couldn't explain why it was singed for 5 days ago.

It took them another week to get off their ass and look at the laptop (or so they say). When I called back it was allegedly undergoing a diagnostic scan which had been "running" all night... Now I'm not the sharpest tool in the box, but what can they scan on a laptop that won't switch on. The RAM? That only takes 30 minutes max... Although I was full aware that it only fancy speak for "we haven't looked at it yet".

A few more days later (yesterday), I was informed that the entire notebook will have to be replaced (including the case), everything except the hard drive.

Today, for some reason they decide the hard drives were intermittent.


Now I can tolerate being lied to, having a 1 in 10 chance of my call getting through, being delayed unnecessarily for half a month. However, I will not stand the following.

Alienware: "Would you like us to back up any data?"

Me: "Sure."

Alienware: "Ok. What would you like us to back up?"

Me: "Uhh, all the data off them."

Alienware: "Which folder?"

Me: "Sorry?"

Alienware: "Which folder would you like us to back up?"

Me: "The C drive"

Alienware: "That's a drive not a folder."


Now I'm only a simple Network Administrator. But I know you can back up the whole data off the entire hard drive (except program which you must reinstall, JIC you didn't know). They are adamant that you cannot back up all the data on a hard drive. I know you can because I've done it a million times when I used to work in I.T repairs...

So what do you think of the above?

Sounds like a pretty shitty situation you're having, I've heard they're meant to be pretty good with their support but apparently not.

Reminds me of something that happened to me with a Dell I spoke to some person who spoke no English, then when I did speak to someone who could sort of spoke English he had no idea what the problem was, so they send me out a package (Which took a week despite them promising it would take 2 working days) Then I sent it, didn't hear anything from them for another week and then they said they'd call me when they fixed it.

Well they did call me saying it had been fixed and promised on a pile of bibles that it'd be there overnight. I waited 3 days for it.

All in all it took just over a month for them to replace the PCU.

Tech support sucks these days, sorry to hear you're having/had problems.

alienware, 'nuff said? I've actually never had to deal with them, but have heard horror stories.

Pathetic. I would hate to have my data in their hands right now. I suppose the lesson to learn is to image your drive if you have to send it in for repairs.

Did you make it absolutely clear to them that your entire partition's contents were not to be deleted?

I would have created a symbolic link to my c drive before I gave it to them. When the idiot asks for a "folder" send him to your link.

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No chance of them letting you keep the harddrive so you can just copy it yourself?

That's just not acceptable. Alienware always promise the best products, best support and so on so it's rather disconcerting to see them do something like this.

It's crazy that the tech would claim something like this - could you ask to be put through to a different person next time? I definetly wouldn't sleep at night knowing those fools have your data.

I would have taken the drive, copied it and erased it before even sending it out.

Thats what one does when he has half done patentables all over one's drive and is paranoid.

Call back and see if you can get someone that knows what they are talking about. If the peon doesnt know, ask to speak to their manager about that. If he doesnt know, ask for his supervisor, all up the chain until you get to Mikey Dell.

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alienware are renowned for their crap customer service