Aurora ALX upgrades - your help please

Return it. Thats my opinion. The best Tech support your going to get is on these forums from people that don't work for Dell. Their warranty means jack from what ive experienced.  There goes one of the few good reasons to buy a computer and not build one. ;(

I get great tech support. Most people do but since this is a support forum you only see the people that had issues or the trolls.   Their warranty has been GREAT for me.

I am sure this is true. And yes this is a support forum so everyone here has had problems. Its not the problems that bother me. Every computer and every PC company will have problems. The problem with Dell is they outsource the tech support and make YOU do all the troubleshooting over the phone. The people you talk to are not very computer savy. You can tell they have a list of troubleshooting they just read through. Then if they finally send a tech to your house after sitting on the phone for hours he also knows little to nothing about computers. Chris confirmed they just hire "part swappers" and nobody certified. Which many people on here will say they actually make the problem worse half the time. Now if you know a good amount about PCs like you do Morblore this Warranty will suffice because you can fix most things on your own and yes if something breaks you get a new one. BUT for most people less computer literate it is lack luster and poor these days. I was a Dell fan for years too. I am able to fix my PC myself in 99% of all situations but I feel for those who cannot and rely on these guys. Outsourced tech support and uncertified technicians, both of these are CONFIRMED. I dont know how that could be considered great. Maybe just O.K. at best if you get lucky and find a decent tech. When you drop that amount of money you should get only the best. :)

The End. lol :P

You make some very good points... but I would submit that it's no better anywhere else either. I think just about every company in the U.S. has outsourced their tech support to India. As far as parts swappers.... again, pretty much standard fare. You may get lucky and get someone who knows what they are doing, but then again - maybe not. This goes for the 'geek squad' at Best Buy too. You cart your broken PC into a Best Buy and see how that goes for you.  I'll take my chances with a dispatched service tech - at least I can WATCH him while he 'swaps'.

I am an I.T. professional, and have been doing this for about 20 years. I have been exclusive Dell (Servers, Laptops, Desktops) for the last 12 of those. Overall, I have had very few issues with getting things serviced under warranty. Heck, one time we unboxed 10 new laptops and had them stacked on a cart for imaging. Some careless fool wanders by and knocks the entire stack over. Busted over half of them - mostly plastic damage. Dell came out the NEXT DAY and fixed every single one of them for free. Granted, we had Accidental Damage on them (I always buy that for laptops) - but the point is, they fixed them without question. They did it fast, and they did it right.

So, don't be too fast to bash Dell, and their Tech Support. I still think it's a couple notchs above whatever else is out there. Could it be better? Sure. But there are trade-offs in everything. Are you prepared to spend additional money when you buy your next PC so that you can talk to someone here in the U.S. when you call Tech Support? Probably not...

-Jim

Most people do but since this is a support forum you only see the people that had issues or the trolls.

... or people that don't really want help ... they just want to vent or to complain publicly.

You also have great points. I know Dell is not alone. They just used to be a lot better in my opinion along with a lot of other companies. But after I heard after their capacitor incident that really bothered me. I heard this about the same time one of their uncertified techs fried my new SSD so thats probably why I sound bitter. Its sad that you are right though. Most companies are doing these same things. I just expected more from them because a few years ago the support I received was very different. The tough economy probably hurt their profits so they cut corners a bit. makes sense.

... or people that don't really want help ... they just want to vent or to complain publicly.

That may be the case for some. But I think its more about informing others of your opinion and or experiences so that the person can make an informed decision. I am extremely mild mannered so for me to go out of my way to tell people what I have experienced shows how badly I was treated. I am hoping I will save others from these same headaches. He has the right to hear everyone say Alienware is great and he also has the right to hear Alienware is terrible.

I think the biggest factor is the razor thin profit margins on PC's (and for that matter just about all electronics). Back in the day, the profit margins were much larger, and thus there was a lot more room to add nice services like American call centers. Just last week I bought 3 Optiplex Desktops with 3 year on-site warranties for about $500 each. That included the license for Windows 7 Professional. That's a pretty thin margin, if you ask me. To be honest, I'm not sure how they do it.

Now, granted, when you get into the price levels of some of the high end Alienware machines, the profit margins go way up. I've played around in the configurator a few times, and it's not hard at all to dump $6k, $7k, even $8k into a top end system. Maybe what Dell needs to do is contract a separate company to handle the support on those type systems. After all, the consumers are paying for it. Doesn't seem fair that I get the same level of support when I call in with a problem on my $499 desktop as the person who dumped serious cash into an AW. I know they have a whole separate support team that handles server support. I would imagine that Dell's profit margins are a bit larger on PowerEdge Servers too.

Thank God for forums like this one, where you can get help from other folks. I have found this place to be very helpful so far.

-JK

But after I heard after their capacitor incident that really bothered me.

It really shouldn't . Dell and HP (and all the others) got caught in the middle on that deal and it wasn't their fault. If you want more info. on the cap. thing, just ask.

Anyway, it's just like the nVidia 8x00m (laptop) problem a few years back ... Just like the current Sandy Bridge fiasco.

But after I heard after their capacitor incident that really bothered me.

It really shouldn't . Dell and HP (and all the others) got caught in the middle on that deal and it wasn't their fault. If you want more info. on the cap. thing, just ask.

Anyway, it's just like the nVidia 8x00m (laptop) problem a few years back ... Just like the current Sandy Bridge fiasco.

Well I think Dell is handling this Sandy Bridge very well. But its nothing like the capacitor incident. Sure Dell did not make the faulty capacitors but they knowing sold computers with them and did not inform the customers. They even replace motherboards that had faulty capacitors with motherboards that had the same faulty capacitors LOL. I have read more than a few articles on it, their stock dropped significantly. Im glad they learned from this. :)

Still waiting for the system to arrive....

How much work is it to swap out the SATA that will come with it, for an SSD boot drive?

Not technically (wires and stuff) , thats probably pretty easy, but I assume there is a factory partition to restore the system again etc so will it be difficult to lay the factory default system down on an SSD drive? Will I have broken the 'reset to factory' ?

I have heard really good things about speed of SSD and the resulting performance boost, so maybe C_RONIC's suggestion is the way to go instead of a second GPU.

Unrelated question - how long did it take for YOUR system to arrive? I ordered it on Feb 2nd - the estimated ship date was Feb 18th, but it still shows in production and i dont see a service tag listed anywhere. I have an email into Sales, but no response yet.

How much work is it to swap out the SATA that will come with it, for an SSD boot drive?   Not technically (wires and stuff) , thats probably pretty easy, but I assume there is a factory partition to restore the system again etc so will it be difficult to lay the factory default system down on an SSD drive? Will I have broken the 'reset to factory' ?

I have found the Dell Factory Restore (Dell DataSafeLocal) software to be flakey and un-reliable. In fact, mine broke itself and will not function.

I suggest you get Acronis instead. It will do "bare metal" backups and restores.

You can backup your existing HDD and/or partitions (to an external drive) and restore them any time you want. If you Acronis Image Backup your C: drive immediately after you do the "Windows first time setup" ... well, there is your "Factory Restore". Don't assume the machine comes with all the latest versions of drivers.

As for the SSD. Personally, I would just boot from it as C:, and install Windows-7 fresh (Windows, Chipset drivers, other drivers). If you have problems, you can disconnect it and re-connect the original Dell spinning HDD ... and you are back where you started.