CUSTOMER SERVICE LOL

I have an X51 that reboots into BIOS. The Video card fan sounds like a lawn mower. I called Customer support (my X51 is still under warrenty) the rep I spoke with insisted I have a deffective Motherboard.

A repair tech came out to my house today to replace the motherboard; he was surprized that my computer still booted to BIOS. He said the 'setteings' needed to be changed from factory default. X51 still boots to BIOS.

The Service Rep called customer support when the replaced Motherboard still booted to BIOS. They advised to do a system restore... An error message popped up saying the version was incompatiable. The service tech said its beacuse my Recovery CD was for my old motherboard. I was advised to call Customer Support and get a Windows Recovry ThumbDrive, for about $20.00. I was told they work much better than Recovery CD's.  --- I shouldnt have to do this, emphasis added to the fact my X51 is still under warrenty.

Now I have got a shell of windows 7 installed, its booting to windows but the Resource CD isnt installing the Realtech driver and I was advised by the repair tech to avoid the video drivers and call to get another video card.

I log in to Dell to use the chat feature, also a suggestion of the repair tech - because Ill have a record of the conversation with Cusotmer Support.I get this message "Our records indicate that Chat is not available for your Alienware X51 product. We are still here for you and offer a variety of solutions, some of which are listed below." I am told once I put in my Service Tag that the only option I have is to call customer support. Same thing for email support. I call the number thats suggested, 1-866-930-3355 - thats not the standard tech support number because when I called it I was requested to provide my credit card number. I AM STILL UNDER WARRANTEE - so I will contact a differnt customer support number tomorrow.

Oh yeah, the eject button doesn't work for the cd/bluray drive anylonger either now.

This whole process has been a joke

I've "fixed" about 10 of these X51's with the BIOS issue, I recommend you do a full reinstallation of windows, make sure to download all the nessesary drivers before wiping the operating system out, if you can't boot to windows then use another computer to download the drivers, make sure to select the correct operating system when downloading.

The CD/DVD ejection issue can be fixed very quickly, use this link

www.dell.com/.../alienware-x51

Its called "Dell Optical Drive Software Eject"

But if your going to do a full operating system reinstall then use it then as it will be wipedout when you reinstall the O/S

Here is a link to install the device drivers in the correct order:

support.dell.com/.../document

When you do a reinstall, dont press F12 as everyone will tell you to do, just make sure the windows installation disk is in the DVD player, restart you machine and you should get a messege saying "press any key to boot from CD"

Make sure to wipeout all the hard drive partitions while doing the install

I have successfully fixed over 10 Andromeda X51 Units using this method

Good luck, if you need extra help feel free to PM me

FYI - You DO NOT need to purchase another recovery/reinstallation DVD, there are two soughts of recovery DVd's provided by dell, the first one is for older systems and says

Alienware Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit

The more recently released version says:

Alienware Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64Bit

As long as yours has the "SP1" in the title, you can use it, ignore what the techs tell you about this, THEY ARE COMPLETELY WRONG

I have used the same recovery DVD to install the operating system on over 10 X51 desktops without any problems

Hello chad4678,

I apologize for the inconvenience, send me a PM with your service tag or dispatch, I'll take a look for the status and check for alternate options.