Alienware aurora reviews? lets try this again.

Hi there , I have a buddy that just got his. I will say it looks and seems to be a pretty powerful PC. So far it looks pretty much upgradeable.Performance wise his benchmark of it was very good.I was just days from ordering parts for a custom build,but after seeing his I will most likely buy alien ware.Good luck...

Thank you very much for the info!!

Hi, what system did they get? how long was the build time? if its the aurora not the alx version is the front panel mechanical? any help here would be good since i put in an order on oct 8 and the ship date is nov 14.

Old post above but I wanted to toss my two cents out there.  I love my Aurora desktop.  Beautiful machine.

Karl Meiner

I guess ill give some contrast to this post. My aurora came broken. The outsourced tech support is a joke ( they have little knowledge and if they dont know whats wrong your going to be on the phone for 20 hours troubleshooting.) If they have to replace a part they use unqualified "part swappers" who have little to no knowledge with computers( in most cases not all) . After 21 days if something breaks the replacement parts will be refurbished. MY recommendation is to go elsewhere but of course listen to every else's opinions. Another thing to consider is how they struggle with upgrades. For example...If you want to add a second video card and needed a better PSU you cant buy an third party unit unless you dont care about your case lights not working. Same thing applies to most motherboards if you wanted to upgrade that its a hassle to get the lights, CC, etc. working. They are marketed as being so upgradeable but your so limited to Dell parts that are not up to date. SO if your aurora comes and its working fine and you dont plan on upgrading your good to go. Most people that liek their Alienwares have not had serious issues because anyone that has to deal with the support for a certain amount of time would never recommend buying one. good luck!!!!!

I guess ill give some contrast to this post. My aurora came broken. The outsourced tech support is a joke ( they have little knowledge and if they dont know whats wrong your going to be on the phone for 20 hours troubleshooting.) If they have to replace a part they use unqualified "part swappers" who have little to no knowledge with computers( in most cases not all) . After 21 days if something breaks the replacement parts will be refurbished. MY recommendation is to go elsewhere but of course listen to every else's opinions. Another thing to consider is how they struggle with upgrades. For example...If you want to add a second video card and needed a better PSU you cant buy an third party unit unless you dont care about your case lights not working. Same thing applies to most motherboards if you wanted to upgrade that its a hassle to get the lights, CC, etc. working. They are marketed as being so upgradeable but your so limited to Dell parts that are not up to date. SO if your aurora comes and its working fine and you dont plan on upgrading your good to go. Most people that liek their Alienwares have not had serious issues because anyone that has to deal with the support for a certain amount of time would never recommend buying one. good luck!!!!!

Join the club, Never buy Dell again. Just ....................

He is right the Aurora is having huge problems and dell is afraid to come out and admit it. Whether or not they can fix it is not an issue because i would gladly spend money for a private technician to come and fix the problem if i could only isolate the issue. Sadly if you cannot meet Dell's 21 day policy on return and rebates you will be left like me and many others legally robbed of your money. Something to note, since i bought my aurora at the end of april, it has already gone down 200$ on alienware.com

I have an Aurora ALX and couldnt be happier.

The system is powerful, overclockable (4Ghz stable on an i7-920), and fun to play with. I run everything on full specs Crysis2 included and I get great framerates which is so much fun. I've dusted off Crysis and Warhead and ran those full specs with great results.

I've added hard drives, an extra fan to the radiator, and have had tons of fun with the lights and fins. I am actually very surprised by the range of programmability of the MIO board/AlienFX - although not everything seems to work with the software (events fyi). The lighting effects are just so dynamic - a lot of work went into it and for those wanting to mess around, you can spend hours on just that alone. Ask my wife.

I had a few problems - not all sunshine and roses. Something USB-related required me to reinstall the OS, and I had a side panel lighting issue that support fixed up with a new panel. They didnt get the right panel the first time (shiny black instead of matt black), but they sent a new part out right away. I've gotten through to support quickly, and people were pleasant. Shipping was delayed by a week or more, but it did arrive safe and sound.

All in all, i"m pleased. The system looks very cool and performs well and does what I wanted.

I am glad I spent the extra $$$ for the ALX. It came with TactX mouse and keyboard, fins, all the lights, hat, mouse pad, stickers, and a really great pair of headphones. It certainly was extra $$$$ too, but after looking around at all the other systems out there, nothing has all the extras like Alienware.

This is not the general view around this board, though. Many unhappy folks have systems that came broken, and have had many bad experiences with sales and customer support. With a large company like Dell, that is not surprising, and so their stories are important to hear and take into consideration when making a purchase.

I dont believe Dell/Alienware is chronically bad, but that's only my belief after having a different experience than many here. Perhaps the same is happening with HP, and Origin, and of course home built systems (which just cant touch the uniqueness of an Alienware).

Been through two of the Aurora R3's and both suffered the random lockup issue.

The 3rd Aurora R3 arrives today and I am hoping that over the next 20 days I do not see it randomy lock up. If it does it will be the last (3 strikes and your out Dell) and I will return it for a refund as I did with the first two.  I really don't have the time I do a complete build but I have all the parts saved on Newegg to do it in the event this Aurora R3 still locks up.

Chris the Dell Liaison did ask for service tag info of systems randomly locking up back on 5/5 and stated that engineering was looking into this issue on 5/6.

We are now two weeks out from that date and not a peep on this issue from Dell. At the very least a follow up comment that they are still looking into the issue and are or are not making progress into finding the root cause for the problem would sure be considerate.

Yeah, my first Aurora R3 was returned within the first 21 days

because of MANY freeze-ups,many calls to tech support  who

suggested that I exchange it or get a refund. I went with the

replacement (deiivered 5-6-11) and so far NO problems or

freezes. Hopefully these freeze/lockup problems will be

soon  remedied.

Disappointed is an understatement in my review.

Well, for me the Dell Madness continues.

No one on this site seems to be able to address the customer support issue or the weak tech support. I've asked for help and it was ignored.

I was called two days ago, again, by a customer service manager. She said tech support would be calling me yesterday to resolve my two month part issue they refused to send as they "mistakenly" cancelled my warranty 18 months early. It only took Dell around 10 months to fix that error and then they would only honor the orginal warranty period.

Well, no tech called yesterday or today, and the follow up call promised by the manager today never happened either.

I don't think I've every experience such poor product support or customer service for such an extended period of time. The last company that performed this bad I had to deal with was Sprint. Left them over ten years ago and will never go back. Same can be said with Dell. Never again. Way to many other choices to ever try this mess again.

It is systemic with Dell and it will eventually catch up to them.

 The new Aurora R3 I received yesterday ran last night and so far this morning with no random lockups so I am cautiously optimistic. However I am still not confident this will last since there has been no word on if engineering has made any headway into what the root cause of the problem is/was. So we will see how it behaves over the next 19 days.

My problem is still unresolved and I can't do any work on my system. I have bought another system elsewhere and it's working like a charm. As far as the Aurora R3 goes, I am still open for real solutions from Dell.

I see no other option but to escalate this further if it doesn't get resolved. I don't want to, I really just want for Dell to help me correct this problem.

I paid for a working computer and support/tech service, I have got none of it.

I just want justice to be done. The problem is simple, Dell sold me a computer that doesn't work and they have not provided a reasonable solution to fix this for two months. That's the gist of it.

My R1 Aurora (X-58) has also worked perfectly for the whole year I have owned it now.

This is an old thread from 2009 ... from when the Aurora first hit the scene. We were just trying to get some feedback on this new AW machine that Dell had made. There were some problems reported, but most were minor and the usual stuff ... and many revolved around the MIO-Board and Command Center as they worked out the bugs.

Back then all the motherboards were mostly X-58 (with a few R2 P-55s mixed in). Usually, when Dell changes motherboards, the model number changes. On the AW models, they just add R3, etc. The motherboard is really what sets the identity of a machine ... not the pretty case it comes in. In summer of 2011, the Aurora ALX is still X-58 chipset based.

It looks like this thread is destined to become another "Aurora R-3 Freeze Thread". As most of you have done, continue the mention if your Aurora is R3. As users form opinions about the Aurora's performance and dependability, I urge you to keep the R3 machine segregated.