(regarding upgradeable graphics on the Area51m) - Page 16

I beg to differ, first off you will have to file that with the BBB in Florida, which no one purchasing an AW on-line will ever check, ever. Post a poll and find out.

I agree with you that you should tell other people, and then they will ten other people what you told them. But remember an "upgrade" was never "promised" to you, nor where were you guaranteed an upgrade from AW. The lappy was marketed as having "upgradeable" graphics, it never said upgrade to "XXX" specifically. That's an issue of "buyer-be-ware,” before purchasing you should have obtained a written guarantee for a "98xx" upgrade if you expected to get one, something along the lines of what the XPS owners received. Other wise your just preaching to the choir per say.

I'm sorry to say that weather you feel their "obligation to you" was satisfied or not, I am sure that they feel the opposite. I suggest you guys move on and get a new lappy from a different vendor. And by all means do more research on the issue.

When my 9700 no longer performs to my standards, I will more than likely purchase a new laptop, will it be AW? Possibly.

Exactly Turmoil. To be honest, I don't understand why more people aren't upset about this. Certainly, the transition to pci-e has complicated the issue. But we know there is an option: the mr9800. Obviously we were all thinking about the mr9800 when Alienware made their promise of an upgradable GPU -- afterall (at least when I purchased) Dell had already released a notebook with the 9800. And to make matters worse, half the folks at Alienware are telling people that the upgrade is being worked on, and the other half either haven't heard about it, or say that its a dead project. I just wish the company would make a definitive statement one way or the other.

Time-pilot, I agree with some of your points. Fair enough. However, I think Alienware does realize that we got the shaft -- otherwise why would there have been a 'sticky' from David(?) saying that Alienware had already fulfilled their obligations to 5500 customers? I think the company is taking that stance, rather than implying that there was never a commitment to the GPU upgrade. Which supports our argument.

Obviously the mr9700 is still a fine piece of hardware. However, this notebook was an investment and I would have spent my money elsewhere if I knew there would be no more upgrades. We all can't afford to drop another $4000 on a new notebook!

I agree with you Tipsy! Of course that Time-Pilot has some good points but the truth is who bought the A51m already with the 9700 GPU is expecting an upgrade!

The point here is if you buy an upgradable GPU laptop it's because you are expecting to be able to upgrade it!

No doubts about the AW quality here! It's by all means a great machine and I love it but YES i am VERY UPSET about the GPU story

I still think that AW should clarify us about this...

I feel your pain, we 7700 owners are starting to feel this and were pissed...

Well, i posted a reply to this, but it got deleted by the mods... Whatever the case, AW knows what they need to do, its up to them whether they will do the right thing or not.

AW is a company, nothing more. They aren't a bunch of people who are going to feel for us and feel they did a bad thing. I've had apologies out the ying for my computer issues, but it took a total of five tries before they could even get their tech dept to replicate the error and figure it out. They replaced my motherboard, ram and processor to finally get it to work. All I get is an apology, no hey we'll upgrade your hard drive for free for the 3 months of hassle, no we'll knock a couple hundred dollars off the next computer purchase sinc ei paid 3 months for a computer I didn't have, not even a free t-shirt of something. I got great customer service through almost the same thing, and the 2 guys that finally took this to the next level were excellent, but that doesn't excuse the performance. When it comes to being screwed out of an upgradeable GPU, I'm no longer surprised. They actually got my hopes up once about a possible upgrade, they told me one will be released soon. next day the guy said the previous rep lied. Great.

Well we are halfway through May. Is the 9800 out?

Not that i know of. Anyone want to call them and see if you can get some info?

From what I read on the official Alienware forums (http://support.alienware.com/Forum_P...?PostID=196917) ... and yes, you have to login to see it, support for the 766 / 5500 has ended. As of 4/27. I'm not sure why you are still hoping for this. In fact, there's a poster in the community Alienware forums who can't even get a replacement module for his hosed system because it's out of warranty.

AREA 51M 766 (5500)
Posted: 04-27-2005 01:16 PM
Dear Alienware customers;

Due to a constrained supply of internal components and the on-going PCI-Express transition, Alienware has chosen to discontinue the Area-51m 5500 mobile system. All current orders and active warranties, will be honored.

Should you have any further questions or comments, feel free to contact us.

Thank you.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Warner Johnson
Forums Techsupport

AW5500 graphics cards replacements

okay i have been trying to get a straight answer from AW about this for a while. its been hard to do but today i got my first actual response from AW. i talked to a sale rep (i know they are notoriously wrong in these matters) but it is my first actual repsonse from AW and so i thought i would post some of the conversation to show what they told me (names changed so no one gets in trouble)

AW.: Hi, my name is _________.. How may I help you?

fidget: hi im just here to ask a question about the former area 51m 5500 system

fidget: a good friend of mines system just died and so i am forced to ask

fidget: is a replacement graphics card available for his under warranty system?

fidget: he has the ati 9700 card currently but he said he just wants to have a card, and that it didnt matter what type

AW.: if the system is under warranty then yes we can replace the card

fidget: im glad to hear that

AW.: he would need to call in to our Tech support department and speak with a live agent they can be reached at 1-866-287-6727, option 2.

fidget: my other question was what happens when his warranty ran out, he bought it early and it is almost up, would he still be able to have it replaced if he was willing to pay the costs associated with it? like what would have happened if that was the situation

AW.: he would need to go to a third party vendor for upgrades and repairs



so this leaves a bit of a quandry for those who have lappies that are just coming off warranty, as there is nowhere to get a replacement part other than through AW. but for those who still have warranty left on their systems they are safe for the time being, at least according to this customer service guy. lets see what answers everyone else can get so we know the full situation with the cards from the 5500. i think that someone with a 5500 still under warranty should give aw an e-mail or a call to see what their tech support people say, and i think it would be of great benifit to know if this is true or not....

Fidget:

What the agent informed you is correct. Customers who are under warranty will be serviced under the terms of the warranty.

If the system needs a part replaced or a repair performed, it will be done.

Thats a bummer... I really hope to see some sort of upgrade... wishful thinking.

My new laptop has arrived.. Now reading the last few replys about upgradeablitly the PCIe will be alot easier to upgrade, because you can buy the Graphics cards seperatly.

Warranty: 3-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2
AlienRespawn: Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit
Case: Area-51m 7700 Case with 17" WideSXGA+ 1680 x 1050 LCD Display with Built-in Camera - Xeno Grey
Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 560J w/ HT Technology 3.6GHz 800MHz FSB 1MB Cache
Motherboard: Intel® 915P Chipset Supporting PCI-Express
Memory: 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 533MHz - 2 x 512MB
Video Card: Area-51m 7700 ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON X800 with 256MB of DDR 3 memory
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy® 2 ZS PCMCIA - OEM
Hard Drive: Extreme Performance - RAID 0 - 120GB (60GB x 2) 7200 RPM ATA100 - Hitachi
Optical Drive One: 8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24X CD-RW Combo w/Software
Floppy Drive: USB Floppy Drive
Ethernet NIC: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet NIC
Wireless Network: External Wireless 802.11a/b/g PCMCIA Card
Modem: 56K Modem with V.92 Technology

I second that motion! Exactly what I did, AW never fulfilled my expectations as far as customer service went and I voted with my wallet. Of course, I will tell of my horrible experiences with them far and wide, but to hit em where it hurts, buy another brand.

Yea, tell me about it...

I own an Alienware Area-51m 766 laptop with an nVidia go5600 video card in it...

I have spent countless hours on the phone with Alienware tech agents to diagnose a problem I have... turns out I need to replace my video card, which is dead, so they send me over to Customer Service... well, what do you know???!! My warentee is expired, and they are offering me no help whatsoever! They basically told me that there is nothing I can do and to sit back and let this happen [one such representative was Maria Valchez]. Alienware has kicked me to the curb with my $3800 laptop... it is absolutely useless with a broken video card... the moniter wont work and an external monitor cannot be plugged in.

Customer service at Alienware has even gone to the extreme of offering me links to websites surely without the part just to get me off the phone so they will not have to deal with me... and mind you, not on just one occasion, because after I fell for it the first time and went to the sites, they then persisted to offer them at least once in every follwing phone call, not knowing that I know they were false... Now, to me, that is simply unacceptable for a well-known company with self-proclaimed "Grade A Cusomter Support"... the customer service agent even admitted that she knew the sites were false

To tell you the truth, I am so shocked by this whole matter that I can hardly put it into words... I have praised Alienware ever since I had my laptop, even to the point that I have recommended my friends to buy systems from them, which they have... well, if this is how Alienware is going to treat me, a loyal customer, then I cannot help but feel guilty for having my friends buy systems from Alienware... what if they get a similar problem as simple as this? IS THIS how Alienware will treat them?

So here I am... writing this on a non-Alienware laptop... needing only a video card to give my laptop purpose again...

...un-believable

-Josh

Wow, that really sucks, and really worries me as well considering I have a 5500 and my warantee just ran out. That is just rediculous that they can't sell you a new graphics card.

Most companys do that. They plan say a 3 year warrently plan. Alienware doesnt want to have overhead of old parts if they are on another model. So if your warrenty is up. Youll have to go to a 3rd party. That is just bussiness. 90% of companys are like that. They save what they have for warrented ppl. Just get a list of componants in your lappy. Try pricewatch look up the part you need. I know it sucks but thats how most companys do it.

thank you for not mentioning actual legal action (please dont) because i want to keep this thread alive. i understand how frustating it is, and i dont think it is important to keep AW doing something for us they need to treat the customers fairly and reasonably.

i remember when my 5500 had a tiny stress crack that slowly got bigger. It was about 2 inches long when i called alienware to ask them if i could get a replacment case. They told me that I was out of warranty, and that technically they Technical Support wasn't even alowed to be talking to me, and there were no replacment parts for out of warranty customers EVEN IF I WANTED TO PAY FOR IT. I was absolutly stunned by all of that. So i sold the laptop to the next poor asshole who could deal with it.

Alienware brags so much about customer service, but the never stands next to their promises. I too was very pissed off when i found out that my laptop was not going to be upgradeable to the any other card other than the 9700. It was most definiatly false advertising, and im quite suprised that alienware was able to get away with it.

I saw someone on EBAy selling a 5500 video card if ne one needs one.