Boot problem

So, this morning, I go to boot my Sentia, I get nothing. So, I remove the battery, let it sit, and try again. What happens now is that I the power button LED comes on, the hard drive starts to spin up for approximately 1.5 seconds, and then it shuts right down. This will happen continuously.

I did go to Alienware Support Chat, but Ignacio said my warranty had expired, I whipped out my order form to ask when, and he replied: "it expired today." Today ferchrissakes. Needless to say, I was furious. How helpful.

I was going to get into that, but it wasn't worth it, I need the computer back yesterday.

I have reseated the memory, and the wireless card, and still the same problem. Anyone have any ideas what to try next? Can I create a bootable USB drive?

Thanks in advance!

OK, you can create a bootable USB, but it's a pain. I pulled out the hard drive, and the wireless card, and tried booting it with the USB, nothing.

Crap.

Hey All, thanks for the replies, any further suggestions would be appreciated.

A) Yes, I tried booting with no battery, just the AC adapter. I did it w/o the hard drive, w/o the wireless card and all different combinations thereof.

B) Thanks for the links, I'm going to have to wade through them.

C) I don't know about the extended warranty thing, I'll have to check.

D) A close friend and I tried to get it to work, he thinks the motherboard is dead. So, on that note, does anyone have any ideas on where to get a new motherboard? Does uniwill sell them? Any thoughts?

Thanks again, all!

So, new developments...

So, I took it into the local computer guy (two of them, actually) and they took it apart. Both of them said the motherboard was dead. One of them offered to replace it, but said the motherboard alone would be $495.00. Plus $45.00 per hour to replace. Nearly $600.00. I almost died.

Then it dawned on me. The expired warranty date I and AW used was the shipping date; not the delivery date. When I reported the problem it should have been covered. I know full well that thing wasn't shipped overnight, heh heh. So I called AW right up, and unfortunately, I had to spend an hour on the phone with them. The guy I talked to was very helpful, but a little clueless:

• First, he said the warranty was expired...
• Then, he said the warranty was as of the shipping date, to cover it in transit...
• I replied, that I did not buy the computer "as-is, where-is;" I should not be using MY warranty to insure it from AW to my house. I'm starting to get really angry hyah.
• He replied that I needed to read the guarantee on the website, that I agreed to that warranty, as of shipping date.
• I did read the warranty, and it said warranty as of date of delivery. I had to point him to the website himself.

Each of these times he put me on hold and went to check it out. This time he came back and fell all over himself apologizing. I hate to think AW was just jerking my chain to get out of repairing it, I think this guy was just new, and wasn't quite sure.

So either way, it wen't back today. I didn't even crab about the 24/7 on-site service that I paid for, I just want the little guy back in working order, and if I had to send it back, c'est la vie. I'm glad that AW is standing behind it, so we shall see.

So, off it goes to the Depot. All is well. Except, when it gets there, it boots fine.
Yes, folks, it boots fine. So they run it through whatever benchmarking software they have for two days. All is well.

Needless to say, I'm not thrilled. In fact, I'm pretty annoyed. So I asked to buy an extended warranty. The repair tech says that I could only do that before the warranty expired. I replied that I've just had the computer sit dead, and when I sent it back to AW, all is fine--OF COURSE I would want to buy an extended warranty! And I would have done so, when the warranty was still in effect, but AW had miscalculated the date. He said he would check, and that he would call me back, ASAP.

Well, what actually happened was that he never bothered to call me back, and sure enough, the computer showed back up at my house.

Anyone want to guess whether it worked or not? It didn't. Wouldn't boot at all.

So, I did the only thing I could. I called American Express. I paid for the computer that way, and they offer double the manufacturer's warranty. They'll either repair it, or if it isn't repairable, they'll just refund the price I paid for it. Thank Geebus.

The sad part is that 80% of all this horseshit could have been avoided if AW had just done what it said it would do: get their dates right, return phone calls, let me buy an extended warranty, et cetera. I mean, they had tested the computer, said it was fine and I was STILL offering to give them money.

Stay tuned, we'll see what AmEx says... 8^]

Thanks, I'll let you know.

I haven't made up my mind yet. With the internet being so new, and companies just now starting to figure out that not only can their customers bitch, they can bitch to millions of people, this can only raise the bar on quality and on customer service. The problem is that we're not there yet.

You can google "[any company here] sucks" and get plenty of responses. But the dilemma remains, so what? Those that feel skrewed are far more likely to bitch in public, and rest assured, they are only telling their side of the story, et cetera.

Alienware, like all computer companies are simply going to have to keep raising their standards, and weed out flawed machines before they are shipped.

Oh, and this is funny, when the shipping box came from American Express, the UPS gal tossed it down on the concrete porch. Not hard, she just sort lightly threw it towards the door where it landed. I was out the door like a shot. Scared her a bit. I smiled politely and said, "had that been a laptop instead of an empty box, UPS would be out 2K." She fell all over herself apologizing, but geebus, it said "NOTEBOOK COMPUTER" all over it.

This can't help any of the makers either. Shipping is dicey...