The cracking could also be caused by flex in the case. Anyone that has an m15x, is the case solid or does it have some play?

We ran into a problem once with an HP server that would flex in shippment and cause damage. It only appeared in shippments that went UPS or Fedex. If we paletized the server and sent it, we never ran into the problem.

The BIOS update still has not been released, and as far as we know it may a long time away..

I definitely think the cracking problem is an assembly or shipping issue.

Alienware Area-51 m15x-Bios Update Released

http://blog.laptopmag.com/alienware-...pdate-released

Unfortunately, I bought two m15x
The first one got : overheating problems, case breaking, dead GPU
Alienware changed Screen+GPU+CPU
The second one : dead HDD, Screen (screws falling out, hinge and case breaking), Smart-Bay (exterior plastic case breaking), Keyboard (distorted, unstuck keys)
Alienware changed HDD. I have to send back the PC to fix the rest of it.
I can tell now : m15x from Alienware is a very bad quality product.

Hehe... I did the same. I bought 2 m15x's and they were ultimately complete pieces of junk. The Alienware customer support is ridiculous. I'm currently using a macbook pro unibody and have been pretty happy with it. I've switched over to gaming primarily on my xbox 360 but I think I've given up on trying to find the ultimate "gaming" laptop. I've had nothing but bad experiences with AW. It was a fun laptop to "hack" on while it lasted...