Hello, 

I reported an issue I've been having for a while on my Alienware M17x R2 regarding over heating of the laptop and my fans never slowing down even when I'm not using the computer. The problem got worse last month and I began experiencing video corruption in games and in windows, and decided it was time to report it to Dell.

A technician was sent 4 days later to exchange the 3 fans, and also the Motherboard and the CPU heat-sink. The fan exchange went fine, but the other parts sent were for a R1 model. The technician then dialed up to Dell and tried to explain that I had an R2, but they kept checking their online manuals, and the pictures and part numbers for R1 and R2 were the same. The technician finished disassembling my laptop and verified that the CPU was not compatible with the socket on the "new" (refubrished) motherboard, so he rang Dell up again.

Finally he was able to find a sticker on the Motherboard with the correct part number. I took the precaution of writing it down and requested a new service call to be created requesting the correct mobo and sink parts.

The next day I checked the status of the support order online, and noticed they requested the wrong parts again (same part numbers as the first time). So I tried calling but after a while on the phone with no success I tried a chat session. The agent was pretty helpful and he cancelled the request, and created a new one with the correct part numbers.

A week later (even with Next Business Day Support) I got a call to schedule the tech's visit... he finally arrived (about 30 minutes late, the same as the first one) and proceeded to disassemble the laptop again... this tech needed a little bit more help from me than the first one (I was just making sure he did not scratch the paint or aluminum or break anthing) but I was not that lucky.

When he proceeded to disconnect the fan for the left video card, the conector broke into 5-6 tiny pieces, leaving just the cables. Since in this second visit they were only going to change the mobo and the cpu heat-sink... they did not bring any spare Fans... 

He rang Dell up and proceeded to explain the situation, stating that the first technician had forced the connector into the Mobo plug, cracking it, and when he proceeded to remove it, it broke.

He changed the Mobo and the heat sink, and re-assembled the laptop, but since there is no fan connected on the left side, the computer will not power up.

When you push the power button it lights up, and the Num and Scroll lock indicators blink while the Caps Lock stays ON. after a few seconds it beeps twice and powers down. All the while there is no signal or image in the screen.

Now it's been 3 business days later, and on a chat session a technician is telling me that there are no spare parts on my country (Mexico) to replace the damaged fan, and now need to wait up to 3 weeks for the spares to arrive so my laptop can be fixed.

I only have 3 months left on my warranty, and I asked what would happen if the problem is not fixed in 3 weeks and need to report it again, and need to wait up to 3 weeks between solutions probably my warranty would run out before they fixed my system, the technician's answer was that for every time my computer was not working correctly I had to report it to support and wait the specified time for parts to be available.

I'm hoping someone from Dell/Alienware with a little more interest in customer service reads this post and help me fix the issue with my now not functioning laptop.

Thanks in advance