Beyond horrible experience with new Alienware 15

I'm not 100% sure on the GA requiring Dell drivers. I looked at the sticky above and it seems to point you at the latest nvidia site driver but it doesn't work. Doesn't matter though the Dell driver for this machine does not exist (yet somehow they put it on my laptop to begin with? go figure on that one). I wouldn't recommend anything Alienware at this point.

nVIDIA do not support the GA I believe, so you have to wait on Dell's drivers each time.

I do not recommend the GA at all if this is the case, as it will result in angry customers with zero support, always waiting for the "next" driver just so they can run a damn game.

Same story. After upgrading to a non retail version of Windows 8.1 Pro can't install Nvidia drivers (getting notorious "No compatible hardware found"). Dell still doesn't provide a driver even though are selling the hardware. Disappointed...

This sounds crazy they can't just send over a zip file containing the files. Like you said, they must exist as they come installed on the laptops?

I've had a very bad experience so far and my Alienware hasn't arrived yet. The order process has been a huge nightmare.

Update: 

Got on chat this morning with Customer Support and explained what had happened and was first offered 100 then 200 to keep my laptop (why would I keep a paperweight?) and then I was told I can get a full refund so I did that and just ordered another laptop and I'm not going to do anything to this one for a while.

@Rokas0708

I know right? Seems pretty bogus. 

@killahboo

I asked them and they flat out refused to give me the drivers. It's really not a bad laptop. I really liked the looks and the sound and intel graphics are actually pretty beastly. Unfortunately, it hasn't been the best experience. First, my order didn't even process when I first ordered online. After contacting them they said it glitched out and reordered for me so that was not a huge deal. Then the fact there is 0 support for these computers for fresh installs is insane.  From the time I ordered until I got my laptop it took 8 days. Ordered 1/12 got my laptop 1/20. Hopefully this new one doesn't take a long time. Tech Support is under the impression these aren't even out yet. *mind blown*

I have the exact same situation with my new 15 and GA that is a giant POS sitting on my desk. This is shameful on Dell's part and if they refuse to take it back I will create holy hell for them. I have no use for this rock and have wasted countless hrs with tech support forums, respawning, trying this, trying that, done.

the 980m driver is up right now!

That's no good Raptoid. As long as you are polite to the person you talk returning the machine shouldn't be an issue. I opened chat support and it was a very simple process. They even sent me a pre-paid shipping label to send it back which was nice. It will take ~2 weeks to get your $$$ back.

What issue did you have with Respawn? my new laptop gets here tomorrow and I plan on making a recovery image immediately for storing and also to put in a new SSD and get rid of the other drives.

Glad to see they are posting the drivers needed.

And so it continues. The new laptop works great with the new SSD option once I made a respawn image and used that to install the SSD. 

AGA just does not work with nVidia cards. From the threads i've seen, the Omega drivers for AMD cards work just fine. I have an EVGA 980GTX AC2.0 inside the AGA and if you plug it into the machine and reboot as instructed, no video card is detected and the machine reverts to using integrated graphics. You can hear / see the AGA light up and start going and the video card fans work so it is getting power at least. 

The sticky at the top of this thread and some links over at alienwarearena offer some "workarounds" that do not work with the 15 model since only the 344.73 (whatever the # that ships with the laptop and is also listed on the support site is) are the only drivers that will recognize the 980m for all users. I have tried respawning and doing EXACTLY what the steps say and no go. I've also tried to reinstall the mobile driver with the desktop card in and it doesn't recognize the hardware. There is a new driver for the 980m released on 1/22 but like other drives from nVidia, it won't recognize the hardware so don't waste your time on that one. We definitely need a solution for this issue soon.

I haven't had the time to look at the AGA myself, but when its attached to the PC, in device manager, what is it detected as? Maybe a simple .INF change is all that's needed. Also, do you have another videocard to try in the AGA than the 980?

I would be angry too if I spent all that money, and time to get a computer that did not work.   I do not have the new Alienware 15, but I have read here (on this forum) of cases where with some of the folks had problems with Video Drivers, and wireless drivers, and some folks reinstalling the OS to discover some drivers/devices were not working.   In my limited experience, Video Driver updates often crash the machine.  

I updated the Video driver to find the Wireless not working.  The Dell technical guys did a remote desktop and got it working very quickly.  (After I spent a bunch of hours with it)

As I have read through all these forum things, I strongly suspect that the problem Driver failures is a M$ Windows issues, not Dell.  In some cases the drivers must be installed in a certain order, or have a particular version of BIOS to work.   These things are difficult for some of us folks to deal with without another computer with a high speed connection.  

I have to ask, although it sounds like you know what you are doing, could you have bumped the video card slightly out of place when you opened computer?   Did the Video Card driver work on the computer when you first got it?   It might have already had an issue before you put in the SSD. 

If the Alienware folks are reading this, it might be nice to have a download for a USB alternative for starting up the Alienware that would allow the user to poke about a bit when the hard drive is not working.   Determine more clearly what is going on. 

When I bought my Alienware, I resigned myself to the idea I was buying extremely fast hardware that might seem  brittle in terms of reliability, but that when I got my Alienware working correctly, it would be bat out of hell fast.  

I got the AGA and a working laptop FINALLY. I'm pleased with the working product for sure. I just don't think they are not (and still are not) ready to support this product. Maybe early next month? Who knows. It is 100% Dell and not Microsoft as Dell has OEM hardware. The problem with the driver for the 15 was that it wasn't available and the one that IS available doesn't seem to have the 980GTX hardware UIDs in the driver so the AGA never gets picked up. The driver linked in the sticky thread at the top is a modified driver w/ the UIDs in it and it works nicely. Hopefully Dell releases the latest driver with the hardware UIDs as there are some nice fixes in them.

The video cards are soldered onto the motherboards in these laptops so there is no bumping it out of place unless the solder points are bad (which they aren't on mine). It was just driver issue.

I think at a minimum, the laptops should ship with a factory image USB and get rid of this "recovery" usb options. I'm used to building my own machines so I thought the recovery USB would have everything I needed (which it is ONLY the OS). If you get your laptop and IMMEDIATELY make a factory image you should be 100% ok. Or atl east make this image setup part of the initial machine setup process.

The machine is great now that it is working. I wouldn't say that it is brittle at all. There may be some driver issues but those APPEAR to be getting worked out. 

Thank you for your information.   I advise that you disable M$ auto updates, which are likely to include video drivers.  Brittle is term that I used to indicate it is not what would be the smooth sailing that one would expect from say, a several year old Apple with well used OS.  Apple being famous for it just works, (unless it is a new product, new software)  Brittle being it does not function correctly quite easily.  

Not sure that a re-install from USB versus a bootable OS on a USB would be the same thing, altho both could be on the same stick.   I do want the download easily available, I can easily format and copy it onto a USB.   I think there is somewhere here I can create it with a working machine.   Ha Ha.   Alienware Respawn should have allowed you to directly download and install the OS from Dell, at least for earlier Alienware models it is supposed to be that way.   When I first got mine, I created the Windows and drivers Optical discs to re-install.   I guess this is a feature about to go away as manufacturers stop turning out machines with internal optical disc drives.  

For me, with an earlier Alienware, Dell Technical Support has been quite helpful, through their 1 888 number.  Best wishes.  Pls keep us apprised of how things go, as it seems likely you are a pioneer in using the 15.