Problems with brand new Alienware Aurora

It doesn't sound great to be honest... Assuming this happens with all games? Sounds like you have some faulty components..

My advice would vary depending on how much hassle you want to go through. My response when I had memory issues and graphics card problems was just to send the thing back; this was after I decided to let Dell Tech Support try to fix it. After several phone calls, a technician remotely connecting to my computer installing a load of programs I didn't want or need just to find what I had already told him, before being told to just update the drivers (which incidentally had nothing to do with the issue) I gave up and decided it wasn't worth my time or money to continue.

If you're prepared to spend a considerable amount of time on the phone to Dell, letting them diagnose the problem (the problem being that they likely can't fix it over the phone but will spend hours wasting your time anyway), before eventually getting referred to an on-site technician (who may or may not turn up, either on the scheduled day or ever) who, from what I've gathered from these forums, is more likely to break other parts of your machine in a botched repair job, before either ordering out parts for you to install yourself, taking your PC away for a few weeks, or just leave and never call back, then go for it... I apologise for the pessimistic approach, but I thought I should warn you of some of the experiences by many Alienware customers - you can find more in-depth descriptions elsewhere on these forums.

Someone more knowledgable than me will no doubt confirm whether or not the parts are faulty - I'm afraid my career's in software rather than hardware.

Best of luck either way.

Get are refund while you still can! I made the dumb mistake of thinking Dell would actually fix my problems. My Aurora also came faulty. The support is terrible from my experiences at least. Good Luck either way. 

Weird thing with this is that I removed and reseated the crossfire bridge, removed all ATI drivers and cleaned with registery cleaner(found a buch of dangling ATI stuff). restarted the machine, installed the Dell ATI  drivers from the web & a bunch of Windows updates and its been fine since. Enabled the Crossfire  I've played Just Cause 2 and worked fine for an hour without problems(totally maxed out settings).     I  believe the games i tried may not support Crossfire fully (Original Crysis patched)  Its been really glitchy on all my computers.  I am going to install FSX10 to see how that performs.   i understand that not all games support crossfire but i hope that the new Crysis does because thats the reason i decided to upgrade to this.  This is what i found out about memory. 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978610

Well, I'd write down the last date you can return the thing and re-evaluate things before then.  Wish I had done that with my M11x.  It really shouldn't have given you any problems out of the box, so even though it's working now, I'd push the thing to it's limits with some benchmarking/torture tests.

Weird thing with this is that I removed and reseated the crossfire bridge, removed all ATI drivers and cleaned with registery cleaner ...   ... I've played Just Cause 2 and worked fine for an hour without problems(totally maxed out settings).

Sounds like you experienced this issue. It's really just a "software problem" with newly setup AW desktops:

 Troubleshooting Dual Video Cards in X-58 based AW Desktops

You should have control over CrossFire enable on a per. game (.exe) basis via a CCC Profile.

Crysis runs fine for me, but I only have one 5870.

Yep pretty much sounds like what problem i was experiencing.  I was debating just redoing the OS but then decided to see if i can fix it another way.  Many Thanks.

Tried a bunch of stuff no luck.  Very frustrated.  Called both cards individually run the Heaven & Tropics benchmarks fine but once you crossfire them watch out .  Graphic corruption and blue screens. 

The full ATI Driver install procedure (with Driver Sweeper) is here ... dated 12-10-2010:

Re: ATI HD-5xxx cards in desktop AW machines

Of course, you have to use the latest driver (or the Dell validated one) to run on your newer 6870 cards.

Not sure what all "bunch of stuff" entails, but if you want it to work, you have to follow the steps exactly.

Per Alienwares instructions

I tested the machine with one 6870 in the active slot and removed the other from the System.  Ran Heaven and Tropics benchmarks testing the card.  No video corruption or BSOD.  Tested the other card the same way.  No fault found.  Watched the temputure with utility.  Did not exceed the tempature they stated.  I'll give the above suggestion a shot at this point I've pretty much given all hope for an easy solution to this except sending it back.  To me the thing is DOA.    It never has worked & probably never will.  I'm debating if I should just do a reformatt and reinstall and start fresh. 

I tested the machine with one 6870 in the active slot and removed the other from the System ...Tested the other card the same way.  No fault found.

That is a good test. That should tell you both cards are good.

I also noticed that i have 6G of memory installed however it show as only  3.99 usable.  Is this normal?

No. Where do you see this, and is the machine still doing it?

This could be the more serious problem, and might be affecting Windows in general (including the video).

Control Panel\System and Security\System

Installed memory 6G Usable 3.99.

Control Panel\System and Security\System    Installed memory 6G Usable 3.99.

Lets back-up a little here ... and then we will get to that ...

How or why do you only have 6gb installed?

Is this machine new or a refurb from the Dell Outlet?

Is this an Aurora (X-58) or an Aurora-R2 (P-55) ?

Do you have the larger 875w PowerSupply, or just the 525w ?

Do you have Windows-7 (64bit) installed ?

6GB was the option I selected

Brand new made to order

Aurora (X-58)

875 was needed for ATI crossfire 6870's

Windows 7 64 bit installed

6GB was the option I selected Brand new made to order Aurora (X-58) 875 was needed for ATI crossfire 6870's Windows 7 64 bit installed

Ok, all that sounds good.

Oh, by the way ... this system isn't Over-Clocked is it ?

The RAM is probably 3 x 2gb = 6gb DDR3 . That would be ok ... that should run in tri-channel mode properly. When you had the cover off, how many RAM modules do you see installed?

So, first ... go into the BIOS and see what it says about the memory modules that are installed. Let us know.

here is a symptom i can duplicate.  The machine is in a "as delivered' state and i only have the heaven & tropics benchmarks.

I called Alienware last night and they had me check the power connectors to the two ATI cards(p14,P15,P16,P17) and had me reseat them.  tested the tropics & heaven benchmarks for three hours and worked flawlessly.  But as with all intermittent problems the graphically issues came back.  Durning this time of testing the cards in crossfire their tempatures didn't exceed what is recomended.  BTW the memory now reports correctly in Windows as 6GB installed and is configure 3X2.  No overclocking.

Usually what happens in this

Dell ATI Drivers

The machine will have both cards in the Device manager and i can enable Crossfire in the CCC.  I will then test the cards wit the heaven or tropics benchmarks and the graphical corruption sets in.  Sometimes the program will just quit and other times the PC just shuts itself off.   I wait a few seconds and restart the PC and a BSOD will occur on startup usually an ATI error or other BSOD.  I then restart the PC again and the machine will boot into windows(after doing a repair).  I then check the device manager and the ATI card is no longer detected in Windows & Crossfire is no longer an option in CCC.  Now that was yesterday. I awoke this morning and turned on the PC and I looked in device manager and both cards were again listed again and crossfire was again listed as an option in CCC.  Tried the same procedure this morning and same thing happened again. 

All in all this is getting to be too much a hassle for a machine brand new out of the box.  I am just trying to run Just Cause 2, Crysis Warhead both of which is what I bought this PC to do & the new Crysis 2 when it comes out.   

As to why the cards worked for that long period in the benchmark I do not know.  My experience with PC's has always been ATI and i shouldn't have this many problems with a clean build.

It also should be  noted that I don't have and problems with one card or the other since I benchmarkedthem both seperately using the primary slot per Alienwares instructions.  I have also tried the above recommendation for installing the ATI drivers correctly with no luck