I have experienced these failures with some users machines, after they decided to not buy an equivilent machine from HP. Some of the magazines will offer favorable reviews on some units I consider to be junk. Then I go back to that issue and count how many pages of advertising are in that mag for that mfgr. I find that might be a determining factor in the scores give certain mfgrs. Next time try an independent source for the reviews or even a forum such as this one.

I recently purchased a Alienware, Sentia 3450, I was told by the sale rep that it has a on-site service warranty and that if I had a problem it would be repaired at my site (home or office.)

Well the power connector started to heat up and then stopped charging all together. When I called to get it fixed, I was told that I would have to send the computer to Miami to be repaired and that it would take 12 days plus shipping time. When I told them that I had ON-SITE Service they told me that didn't apply to major problems and that If I would have looked at their web site under support, went to the knowledge base, searched under warranty, looked at the 7th item in the list, clicked on the link there and read the complete warranty I would have seen that they have the option to send a technician to repair the computer or have it sent to them. That is what ON-SITE Service and ON-SITE Warranty mean (stupid me thinking it meant that they would come to my place and repair the problems, I guess the sales rep had the same stupid idea to.)

Anyway I would be very carefull before being Stupid like me and buying anything from ailenware.

Dude... it just happened to me too. My 766 is dead in the water, I need a new 5700 FX GO I think, can I get a new one anywhere??? I just put a new dvd burner in it too, this is lame....

Dont tell me to toss it & get a new one.. I need all the data on this laptop, it's got a gig of ram, its still good when it works!

I have had similar problems with alienware. I purchased a alienware area 51m 766 P4 3.0 1g ram Nvidia geforce 5600 fx go 128mb etc etc. I started having problems within a month of recieving my computer. The problems were small so I just tolerated it. When they started getting worse (mostly overheating) I called customer support. They insisted that I send the computer in which I said I could not because it has all my work on it and I cant go with out it. So I dealt with the overheating.... I called again and asked for the onsite service which was denied. I offered to pay for the labor to have it dont locally which was declined. Since my laptop still "worked" I dealt with the annoying system lagging up and shutting off now and then because of heat. Finally I decided to take matters into my own hands and I opend up the "user upgradeable video card" which was never supported and the main reason I bought the laptop. When I opend the videocard area I immedieatly noticed that the blower/fan was not working. I called alienware support once again and stated that I knew what the problem was and I wanted to get a new video card. They told me that they were sorry but that it was discontinued and was no longer available. I stated to the tech that the laptop was still under warranty and he stated to me that if I opened the videocard area that I voided the warranty. I asked about the upgrade and they said well they no longer support pci cards only pci express and I was pretty much out of luck. I was told to check some websites and I could find what I need there. I looked at the sires and the parts I need were not available. I guess I am lucky because my card never fried totally. It still works even know it only reconizes 64mb now and I have to sit my laptop on a two foot box fan to keep it from overheating. A few weeks ago I figured I would give alienware another shot and gave support a call. The first thing the guy said to me when gave him the serial number is that the computer was no longer under warranty and he couldnt do anything for me other than give me the web address for the other sites that didnt have the parts before...I decoded to open up the lapop again and take another look at the video card. When I opend it this time I decided to remove the card. When I took off all the metalic tape and shields I discovered that the fan was not perminatly attatched to the video card. I now thought I had a solution for the problem just replace the fan. After days of phone calls and emails which were never awnsered I came to this conclusion. The fan is made by sunon. I called and emailed all the sunon distributers and none even say that model # for the fan I have exists. I found someone that was helpfull at alliance he told me that sometimes sunon makes custom fans for companies and can only sell them to that company so alliance would not have that part number in any directory and would have no way to get it but he did give me a number to call to talk to someone at sunon. Noone would talk to me I kept getting transfered and hung up on. I left several messages which my call was never returned. I have gotten nowhere since then.

This was my second alienware laptop I had purchased and I even got 3 of my friends to get them too. Now I am dissapointed with the service I have recieved which is none. My friends that also bought alienware laptops have had thier computers about 50% of the time they have owned them because they have been sent back and fourth. Each time the computer comes back to them after waiting weeks to months it has the same problem or a new one. The most recent he got the computer back within 2 weeks and almost fell over. The computer came with a note stating that the motherboard was replaced and tested and everythign was fine. The computer wasnt turned on for more than 2 hours and the same problem started (did they even look at it??) Anyway I started to get off topic. If anyone has any informantion on where to get parts for my laptop or whereI could send it to be fixed or really anything helpful please let me know!! thanks!!
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Since my last post the video card has fried completly so now I have a useless 3500 dollare paper weight thanks Alienware!!!