Careful buying Alienware

[Trooper110]

Chris Pagets Blog

[Duke{CLR}]

My worst PC buying experience was buying from them so this doesn't surprise me.

[Hammy]

before they aligned themselves with Dell, this company was insane about customer service. Thats just too bad to hear that they make junk now.

[Duke{CLR}]

before they aligned themselves with Dell, this company was insane about customer service. Thats just too bad to hear that they make junk now.

I bought mine years before the buyout and their service was the worst I have had.

[Sirex]

Alienware... dont surprise me.

One of my friends bought one from their 'customize your laptop' page, and lets just say.
Was a few things wrong with it.
Main one I remember was, the WiFi card in it was not working from the start.
They sent an enginer out to replace the card (nice of them)
Turned out there was no card in it, the guy could not put one in with out authorization...
It took 2mths of fighting with alienware to get them to fit the card...

This is why when I look at laptops instore etc, i have great reservations about getting one...

[JohnyRico]

I bought a desk top from Alienware about 8 years ago I guess. It took longer than I expected to get to me and when it showed up the fan on the power supply was damaged so the power supply burned up in about 10 minutes. They paid for shipping back and forth and swapped out the power supply and after that I was pretty happy with the rig. Not a perfect experience but not nearly the worst.

I have a Dell XPS now and after about 30 hours (yes 30) on different tech support lines and swapping out cards I gave up on ever getting a wifi card to work and just plugged it directly into the dsl modem.

God help you if you ever buy a pc from IBuyPower. I still get pissed just thinking about it. If you do a search in the forums you can find somethink like "My experience with ibuypower" that I posted last year I think.

[Apache Warrior]

I remember you posting about your experience. That was an ugky one too.
Apache

[JohnyRico]

http://www.cainslair.org/showthread....ight=ibuypower

[BigTwinky]

Anyone have any GOOD sites to buy from?

[Dead...Again]

I just buy the parts I want from Newegg, ZipZoomFly, etc. and build it myself.

[BigTwinky]

For those who don't have the time/patience/knowledge to do so, what would you recommend?

[Duke{CLR}]

BT I would buy direct from a company that can support whatever you need. I had excellent service with my XPS laptop from Dell. My current laptop came from BB and I have a service contract in case something goes wrong. Some of these place will not back up their work and if you don't have the time/patience/knowledge then it best to have a service plan.

If you want to try and find a deal the Dell outlet has a few nicely priced rigs.

Rand bought one from Velocity Micro and he seems to be happy with his machine. The also use regular parts that can be upgraded easily.

[Gimmie2]

For those who don't have the time/patience/knowledge to do so, what would you recommend?

No idea about their customer service... but try Gaming Computers, Gaming Laptops, Computer Gaming Support! they are like alienware, but WAAAAAY more expensive. but i just use their PC creator thing as a model of which parts i should build my comp out of.

One of their more interesting customer service policies is

"In the unlikely event that you select a component that is incompatible with the system, we will either upgrade you to a compatible component or contact you to make corrections. We will never downgrade your configuration."