Aurora Desktop – what is behind start up screen?

You cannot disable it. But you should be able to boot up without a mouse and it should stop with an error, then continue and you will see the rest.

Ummm why? At least it would help dell on some hardware issues if your customers could see the posting screen ie some hardware issues such as ram/hard drives at least your costumers would have a little bit more to say when they call up if its one of those issues, Many x58 motherboards have had dimm slot issues no matter what vendor/distributor it is, and many times if its a bad hard drive issue, it will keep other devices from the startup flash screen or it may not even show up itself. I personally think for the amount customers give you for your product you could make a simple adjustment in the bios for that plus it would save a lot in many cases for support before a customer called saying the bios post screen is only displaying some of my ram or not every drive or any drive on the system is coming up. I have had people bring thier out of warranty alienwares even thiers under warranty to have me fix them and it does not halt on all errors to show the bios post screen just so they would not have to deal with tech support and get the run around, needless rma's and waiting.

When your customers trust you with $1000-5000 dollars plus they should get what they paid for, a reliable machine, you should be able to easily diagnose issues over the phone with information your customer can get easily and possibly have an idea of what it is when they call, and not forced to ride the rma train of wasted time and money on both sides consumer/company.

I have purchased several alienware systems in the past since dell has gotten the company an alienware area 51m 7700, and an Alienware Aurora desktop back in 2005 after dell had purchased Alienware. The notebook had gone though 4-6 ATI m28 aka x800 mobile gpus they kept burning out, not more than a year down the road the notebook shell started to get heat ripples from the shell melting due to intense heat even though it had been well maintained and cleaned every 1-3 months. Hard drive in raid went out resulting in a huge loss in my work, DVD drive went out. Then finally it overheated, melted solder leaked out though the gpu fan housing and gave my legs 2nd degree burns. All dell/alienware offered was to fix it, got it back about a month later new case shell, the alienware head on the top no longer lit up, dvd drive still did not work correctly, but I did get a quadro video card in it at least. It worked ok for a month heat issues started up again, heat ripples in the shell again, then a couple week later it just no longer would stay on due to heat. The entire time owning it was maintained well cleaned of dust inside and out every 1-2 months but it was pretty much 4k+ down the toilet. Oh forgot to mention the ram I got for it when I upgraded it got a bad stick from you guys this was in the first year of owning it. Now for the desktop I think i spent 1.5k-2k on it, about six months the motherboard died, was sent a replacement, a stick of ram went bad, then a hard drive. Then everything literally went out two weeks after its warranty expired. Ended up putting in my own hardware no issues since and here we are 2010 and its still running almost 4 years later after everything in it died.

Since the whole ordeal I only buy sager notebooks sorry but they are of higher quality than alienwares its the US branch of Clevo that has done all the high end gaming notebook designs for dell/alienware/hp/voodoo pc and so on for years now, only difference is they use higher quality components Have had the notebook since 07-08ish to this day still no issues. Went back to building my own machines and that brings me back to my next dealing with dell/alienware I purchased a refurbed Alienware ALX Predator 2.1b case w/light kit  for 180 dollars from you guys, was excited when I got it but then the fun began first it didn’t ship with hard drive mounting brackets got those easily enough, plus the light kit didn’t work, after going though I don’t know how many emails/phone calls I simply gave up on getting the light kit fixed, esp after installing my own noise dampening kit, fans and so on. But with the time/money lost i decided to cut my losses again as something as simple as a case that should had worked when I got it, tired of hours spent on the phone and just the effort. I was offered to have a working case/light kit sent to me but decided to say forget it not worth the time on something that should had been right the first time, I said i didn’t want a new case just give me a light kit i will wire it in myself  its not rocket science would take me 30 to 40 minutes  to break down the shell install it and put it all back together. At this point I didn’t want a new case since I installed my own noise damping kit, and needed my computer up and running to render out my assets for a demo reel, and a contract job I got. Now I am wondering since it is one of the few 3d displays that are on the market and probably the best constructed. The alienware 23" 120hz 3d display I purchased last week what fun I am going to have with dell with this product but at least your displays are something you don't mess up that often "luckily", I just hope I don’t have a dead pixel or a dead dvi/hdmi port on it and results in me getting a bad refurbed that will be nothing but problems.

But back to the main issue, your customers are wanting to see the bios post screen they give you enough money why not give it to them, it will let them see their overclock if they paid you guys the money to up the multi on an extreme or the qpi on a none extreme if you guys even offer that."I still cannot believe how much you charge for this btw a monkey could do it" to give the consumer that warm fuzzy when they turn on thier machine, options so they feel like they have gotten thier moneys worth when they fork over a lump sum of money. If there is an issue with ram or drives, and even the motherboard they will at least have some info to give the not so well English speaking staff down in Miami "dell/alienwares base of operations area" trust me its not fun dealing with a majority of them, You have to be very stern and clear going out of your way to explain things to them of what’s happening so you can get the parts you need replace replaced and your issue resolved possibly the first time if your lucky.

But look at my system now, toss in a 2nd 480 how much would you guys have charged if the i7 965 extreme and ram  was still new and bleeding edge? Even without the 2nd 480 you would had charged an easy 6-8k plus and I am sure it would had been some special edition system.... when it essence it only cost around 3100 to build, minus the case 3-5 year warranty on a few parts and lifetime on the rest. To be honest your customers forking over large sums of money to have a custom made quality machine should be getting the red carpet laid out for them by you guys, a few smaller custom build companies do that "luckily there are a few out there still for people who do not know how to build their own computers or have the time to learn that have not been bought out by the corporate giants" , they let their consumers know what they are getting a quality product. So I would say let the guy asking to see his bios post screen get just that, without having to unplug his mouse. A simple 30-40 minutes if that to add that to your bio's update file is not hard.

I bet if dell took the original business model for alienware and applied it again to their alienware systems for a quality system "the small outfits of quality pre build systems have figured this out and are doing it", quality support before the buyout in 2005 a lot more people would go to buy alienware again over competitors. Dell bought out Alienware for a reason since they failed in the department of building good custom gaming pcs so they bought out a company that was able to and its slowly morphed into the average run of the mill dell in terms of quality and support. I remember calling dell i think it was last year and got a very pushy outsourced agent that was pushing for my cc info and address to get me to hurry up and order the product.... stuff like this is what I am talking about. But look at these forums if you think I’m blowing smoke look on the old Alienware forums. You should be rolling out the red carpet for your consumers.

This is bit disappointing, even for simple troubleshooting issues they should allow you to see exactly what is happening during start-up. When I first got my Aurora during first power-on I thought there was something wrong because it just stayed so long at the main (with alien head and bios version) screen. Luckily I got distracted by my dog so I just left it and Windows came up. This is my first Alienware and I hope it will last although I’m bit worry after reading some of the posts on this forums. I upgraded from XPS 420 which never gave me any problems and it is still being used at home.

Wow thats alot of words for dell to ingnore, you seem to have forgotten that dell is only in it for the money now, nothing else period.

Sad but true since alienwares buyout in 2005 the quality/service support of these systems has gotten to low  low standards, yes they are out to make money but to misinform the consumer best played on alienware, to try to give that warm fuzzy feeling on a computer to make people believe they are getting a top notch system with top notch customer service and support is well just wrong. I only care because I've been there and got ripped off by this company in that aspect with the wall of txt I put up. Its not very hard to up the service on these systems, you produce a good product, offer grade A support and customer service for people’s money they come back for more. When those things get to low levels that are just bad ripping the consumer off that trusted you with their money they don't come back and its money lost. Like in many cases that resulted like mine or worse the hardware vendors/distributors/manufactures get our money and we really get what we paid for and wanted in the first place, or people go to digital storm or main gear and they really get a nice custom made product with the red carpet laid out like the consumer wanted in the first place when they thought they where going to get it from Alienware/Dell but didn’t. Yeah other people not my problem but the most I can do is help them avoid it or steer them in the right direction while offering help on issues at the same time. People want to save time, do not know how to build thier own systems, all i can suggest is learn no diffrent than a model car or legos and if they just want to buy a good system and get everything they paid for with top quality none aftermarket parts aka junk go with Maingear or Digital Storm.

 You should talk to my buddy at dell that fixes motherboards "that dell labels as new and puts in new systems and in replacement parts" and other hardware they had him intentially soldering on bad capacitors onto motherboards that would fail shorty after the warranty would expire and they knew it....

Like i said if the OP and other alienware users want to be able to see thier post screen so they can troubleshoot simple issues they should be able to, a majority of the time a user can avoid alot of un-needed parts replacement and down time if they know what the issue is before hand, and can even fix it themselves.