random total system freezes

See if it is this issue.

http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/p/19345228/19745633.aspx#19745633

http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/p/19353931/19779399.aspx#19779399

As I recall, you set the Windows 7 Power Profile to High Performance, then Stop or Diable the AlienFusion Service ... but go ahead and read through the threads anyway.

I read throught those threads and tried disabling the AlienFusion service but it didn't help unfortunately.

This thread seems to describe my problem. He ended up fixing it by down-clocking his memory in the BIOS. Wondering if maybe I should try that as well.

http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19307844.aspx

I'd love to hear Chris's ideas on the subject, as well as anyone else.

Send it back for a full refund or a completely new (working) replacement system.

- OR -

Power down and un-plug. Re-seat, ram, video card(s). Remove any other optional cards for now.

Use a battery backup unit and connect only keyboard, mouse, and main monitor.

Remove any and all Over-Clocks on your system. (motherboard, video cards, etc.).

You have to narrow it down between hardware or software. Lack of an entry in the Event Viewer points to a hardware problem. At some point you will likely need to do a proper "Windows 7 Clean Install" from scratch (not using the Dell backup Image or AlienRespawn).

Post your system config (with details) in this thread or your signature.

I found this page. It might give you some ideas.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/hardware/hardware_portal?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

Hey vapor,

I have the exact same problem as you. Have you contacted Dell ? I haven't talked to Dell yet because I have been extremely busy the last couple weeks. The last time I troubleshooted with those guys, it took at least an hour on the phone and it didn't solve anything. I don't want to do another one of those until I have hours to waste on the phone. Let me know if they offer actual working solutions.

yeah, I'm really hoping to avoid having to contact support and jump through all the hoops. I ran Memtest again last night and got errors within a couple hours, so maybe it's the ram. I don't know though because I ran Memtest then again through the day and didn't get any.

I went ahead anyways and ordered some new ram (on my own dime too, I really don't want to deal with tech support), so hopefully that will fix it. I'll keep you posted as to how it goes.

my system for whatever its worth:

i7 2600k 3.4ghz | 8gb DDR3 1333mhz | GTX 460 | 525w PSU (a mistake, still kicking myself)

It's just amazing how none of us want to deal with Dell's tech support.

We pay extra for the service and "Dell / Alienware" experience, but I learned from my recent purchase that its more headache than its worth.

My system was dead on arrival. It was dead right out of the box. I wasted over 3 hours on the phone with their tech support, which solved nothing. Then it took at least another week for them to fix my computer(the motherboard was defective).

Now I am having constant problems with this freezing even after the motherboard replacement.

The customer service side has not been a pleasant experience either. They are more eager to close my case than to follow up on my problems. I got extremely frustrated and wrote an angry e-mail to my assigned rep. I was directed to the corporate customer service manager and he literally wrote an e-mail to me which said "Kindly advise if we can close the case already.". This is where I realized, I've reached a dead end and I've given up trying to talk to Dell.

I am really close to giving a zero star rating on the Dell review site, but I am waiting until I have enough time to waste with tech support and customer service over the phone and see if they can replace my freezing system.

Wow......I didn;t think there was this kind of problem with the machine.

I actually ordered one the other day with EDD on 5/12. I really hope I dont have this problem, because I don't want to spend the time to figure it out for a brand new system.

Please post back with the results from changing the RAM. It might also be from the timings? Instead of using auto timings, see if you can set them manually. I don't know if the Aurora has the Memory-Z function in the BIOS or not like the Area 51 does to get the RAM info.

I think the problem might be the motherboard. It probably needs a BIOS update or something. I will test out my system when it arrives. If I cannot fix it within the 21 day return period....its going straight back.

Did any of you guys contact tech support yet ?

I am on hold with a tech right now and he is completely unaware of such problems. I don't know if they're pretending to be dumb or if Dell doesn't want to make an effort to address such issues.

It's been over a week and I haven't had a freeze-up.

The problem for me seemed to be caused by the ram or the slots on the motherboard. I ordered and installed new ram. I got 2 4g modules instead of 4 2gb because I wanted to be able to easily choose which slots I used in case there was something wrong with 1 or more of the slots.

So it's possible that either the modules were defective, 1 or more slots were defective or there is some other issue with the motherboard and using all 4 slots.

It took me awhile to decide to get new ram because I had run the windows mem test, the dell mem test and Memtest86 several times and there was only 1 time that I got errors.

So if you're having problems with freezing I would try swapping out your ram and only using 2 slots. I had to spend my own money but ram's not expensive and it was worth not to have to deal with tech support.

It was Kingston, 1333mhz and I got the same thing for the replacement just in 4gb instead of 2gb sticks.

Nice work!

Could you tell me what brand your Dell memory was?

I am currently using 4 sticks myself and it is working fine. It is Hyundai Memory. 4x 2GB 1333MHz.

See the Owners Manual and/or the Service Manual ... One or the other has some nice pictures.