Truly hoping for some attention to Customer Satisfaction

Hello All, 

I am a first time DELL customer with the purchase of my Alienware 17 R3 that I've had since November.  From day one of my ownership, I was unhappy.  I immediately called customer support to setup a fix for my new laptop, which had an ugly screen bleed issue.  

I really hadn't spent much time tweaking and getting to know my laptop, as I knew it was slotted to be returned for repair.  It took me months to have the time to actually send it in as I needed it for work and couldn't afford the lost time.  It wasn't until I could procure a lesser machine on a temporary basis that I could begin the process.  This is where all my nightmares began.

I began with setting up a support request through Dell online.  I typed out my issues, gave all the information requested, and awaited my response.  I received the standard "we've received your request, we'll get back to you" email, yet I never did receive any response.  It wasn't until I made a call to DELL, a week later, that I was told I shouldn't be placing requests for repair online, as it doesn't work.  True story, two different reps told me this, and acted like it was my fault for not knowing that.

After going round in circles with the support staff, I finally agreed to send in my laptop for a screen replacement.  The turnaround was quick, but after booting up, I found that I had new issues.  Screen was acceptable, but now the alienware lighting no longer worked.  After letting a online tech into my computer remotely, he came to the conclusion that my motherboard was bad.  Great.

When I purchased this computer, I purchased all the support available.  Premium care, accidental, all that jazz.  So, they decided they would send a part to a technician, and he would replace the motherboard on site.  Now I'm sure I'm not the only person who has a job with very demanding hours, but I am also working at a job site that does not allow "visitors".  That said, all the repairs would have to take place at my home.  Not a problem, save the fact that I would need to leave my job early to be there for the tech, which is of course a corporate sin.  

After setting up the latest appointment I could get, a tech met me at my home and began to replace the board.  Cutting to the chase, he discovered the refurbished board they sent him to replace my new board with was bad.  In order for me to have a working computer again ( with no alienware lights ) he needed to replace the old board.  This took up 3 hours of his and my time.

After this, needless to say, I was upset.  This laptop was NOT cheap.  I tried explaining my frustrations to a guy in support, he claimed nothing could be done to help me with any kind of "customer care" until the computer was fully fixed.  At this point SO many other companies would have just said "hey, this is a new computer, and you're having all kinds of hardware issues, let's get you a new one".  Instead, I'm told they'll "do something for me" but not sure what, or when.

Flash forward to the next repair.  Tech comes back out, puts in another motherboard, this one boots up fine, but guess what, still a lighting issue.  I thank the guy for his time, and tell him I'll do more research as it looks like a software or driver issue and not a hardware issue.

I myself am pretty computer savvy.  I built the tower in my living room as a 100% piece by piece clean windows install, and have worked in an "IT capacity" for some time.  So I went to work with the DELL recovery USB in hand at trying to solve this issue.  Cut to the chase, turns out the antivirus software think the AlienFX drivers are infected and was removing them.  Lighting back on.  But not without wiping out the drive and reinstalling windows, installing one driver and piece of software at a time.

Now for the third strike.  After getting everything set back up, all windows updates, all drivers, I proceed to attempt plugging in an external monitior.  Nothing.  Look at my drivers, all up to date, but device manager says the 980M encountered issues and was stopped.  Begin round 2 of clean sweeping, but this time focusing on ONLY the video drivers as soon as the OS is installed.  Same issue.

So now apparently I am looking at a bad 980M card, and I am fit to be tied.  I have wasted countless hours of my time and energy on this laptop, and have received terrible customer support.  After spending somewhere in the realm of $3600 on this laptop ( including Graphics AMP and card ) I cannot believe that doesn't translate into a customer DELL would want to keep.  I have never felt so turned off by a product and company in my life.

Between the screen issues, the motherboard, and now the graphics card, my ENTIRE COMPUTER has had issues.  I am still under warranty, still under premium support and accidental damage, but I am not feeling like anyone cares.  All these things I have had to go through have sucked out all the joy I felt about this product, afraid now of what else is going to go wrong after this is fixed.

Can someone who actually cares try to help me out?

- ADAM

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