BEWARE of Alienware

Before I say anything bad about Alienware I must

say that I myself know people who have bought

computers from Alienware and they worked just fine. I

however bought a gaming computer from then and

have had some severe problems with it and their

customer support.

First of all when I ordered my computer I payed for

a separate motherboard and soundcard. Alienware

took it upon themselves to give me a motherboard with

the soundcard integrated into it. This isn't so bad even

though I didn't ask for it but get this. The sound

doesn't work at all. I called Alienware about this

problem and their response was I should download the

latest drivers. Being that I don't have an internet

connection to my personal computer this was very

inconvenient for me and I wondered why they hadn't

installed the latest drivers in the first place.

I proceeded to install the new drivers I got from

my friends computer and alas still no sound working.

Now I would have called them again but my roomates

phone got cut off. My next avenue of attack was to

email them with the same problems. It has now been

about a full work week with still no response from them

whatsoever.

I also have another problem with any games I try

to play on the computer. After about 5 minutes it will

quit the program and go to my desktop. Once again

their response was to download the latest drivers

which of course didn't work.

My warning to you computer buyers out there is

that the staff at Alienware obviously didn't test my

computer at all before they shipped it to me and now I

am stuck with a $2250 box. They are not at all the

experts they claim to be. I also rate their customer

service via email a '0' and their phone customer service

a '2'. They answered and were polite but that's about it.

P.S. : I am going to post my problems again in another section so if you have any advice on how to fix my problems please look there. Thanks.

If I bought a seperate sound card and got a mobo with integrated, I would have called them imidiately and had them send me the correct product. You should have done that right away. Most likely your integrated sound is disabled in the BIOS because you ordered a seperate sound card. And then somehow your soundcard was not included with your order due to some kind of paperwork error or someone slackin on the assembly line.

As for the software and driver problems, they are hardly the concern of a hardware distributor. They may offer you help with it, but most of the time they wont be able to solve the problem. Im guessing since it seems you bought this PC fairly recently, you have WinXP Home or Pro, right? Did you run windows update and get all the updates? If not, you are missing many patches and security fixes for it. Most likely if you bought the PC in the last 2 or 3 months, it already has Service Pack 1 installed on it, so that takes care of most of the stuff, but there are other patches. WinXP has many incompatability problems too, and you have to run some applications using win98 compatability.

My question is, why whould you have a Alienware, pretty much top dawg in the computer world, when you dont have internet? i mean isnt that like getting a Ferrari you can only drive around the block?

well guy. why do you need the interent. alienwares arent e-machines lol. they are ment for playing games. and unless youyr a dumb pirate then youget games at the store. not of the interent

A lot of games are multiplayer online games, chitocobo..
)

Originally posted by Shalome
A lot of games are multiplayer online games, chitocobo..
)

The best ones indeed

I probably wouldnt be gaming NOW if it werent for online multiplayer.

Ugh! Why buy Alienware at all...cost too much and i get nervous when i am around any electrical/mechanical equipment worth more than $1500.

ARG Matey. And i've sailed the 7 seas for the ultimate bandwidth treasure.

LOL neway. Everyone has the internet its a useful tool.

First off before I go into my rant about this you may want to try this link. I know you said you got the latest drivers and all, but this may help at any rate. http://support.alienware.com/Profile...downloads.aspx

Now, for my rant..

1. I would get my money back in full, with the exception of re-stocking fees if they have those.

2. Why did you waste so much money on the system? Because honestly your paying that much for the customer support and not the system. If you honestly think it costs that much to build a rig of that mag. then go try to build one on your own, you'll notice a huge price diff. Whether it be OEM parts or retail. They jack the price because Alienware..in all of their ads tout that they have wonderful support, 24/7. Well if you aren't getting your 1200 worth for TechSupport..drop them like a bad habit. (I put 1200 cuz it probably costed a good 1200 more to actually build the system) Alienware is a joke.

3. The other guys do have a point. Why are you going to buy a beast machine, but not pay for internet. Don't say you can't afford it beacuse if you can afford an Alienware you sure as hell can afford broadband, or even dialup if you can't get broadband. My point is that without the internet your out of the loop. Hell even poor ppl have access to the internet (ie: librarys are a great place).

My suggestion is to just get your money back or harass the hell out of them until A you get help, or B you get your money back. You can always go to BBB. (Better Business Burearu) i know i spelled it wrong...

oh..I left something out. Alienware supposedly does rigorous tests on all of its machines before they leave the door. They do burn-ins of all the machines according to them. So theoritcally your system should have been working like a charm out of the box. If you really wanted some action you could always write to Maximum PC or PC Gamer about your problem. I know Max PC has a section that is devoted to bad pr with companies.

THIS IS ALL I HERE FROM THIS CRAP ALIENWARE.....CRAP TECHNICAL SUPPORT..DO NOT buy from there....ur not the only one buddd...
GET ur money back coz there are much better pc builders and faster ones also: Voodoopc.com....and Overdrivepc.com...They have forums check them out...I am in them both...

Rifter i used to think like you...And im with you 100%...but there are other things to consider about manufacturuers...First of all like you mentioned there is customer support....There is Nice good case.....There is a waranty on all ur parts....There is experience behind the building of the machine....There is tweaking and testing.....These ONLY come with a good company....Alienware has good advertising but SH** for pc's...AND the case looks ugly....

If your budget is between 500(maybe get from dell if it is 500-600)-2500$ BUILD IT YOURSELF!!!!! IF ur budget is higher you might wanna get from a company

Originally posted by Bunmiadefisayo
Ugh! Why buy Alienware at all...cost too much and i get nervous when i am around any electrical/mechanical equipment worth more than $1500.

I wouldn't say it's worth that much...that's just what they have decided to charge people for it. If given $2000 I could make a pc that would blow any Alienware away. And that's counting the ones that run $3500-$4000.

I find your comments troublesome. Even though I have a very good desktop PC at home that I assembled, I wanted to get a laptop from alienware to take my games on the road. I went to resellerratings.com and they have an outstanding reputation in that site. What is the deal here, does anyone have first hand experience from alienware??? I am not a fan of alienware or anyone else, but on a product – price comparison with voodoopc and falcon in gaming laptops it seems to me that you get a better deal with alienware. If not from these guys, who can I buy an excellent gaming laptop from???????? Any suggestion would be welcomed. I sure as hell not going to build one.

Only one last comment for Quiksilver, Dell???????? Really????? For gaming??? Do you work there or what??? Common, I have never seen a Dell at the price it was actually advertised?? Their ads always give you the specs of their best machines and the price of their worst machines. Pretty good drafting of ads, I would say. You should read the comments on Dell at resellerratings.com (which, as far as i know is recomended by maximum pc as a reputable source to get info on merchants)

Um, excellent gaming laptop, did I hear correctly? What ' Games ' are you going to run?