Alienware Area-51 m15x owners outraged by overheating, cracking issues

We've been inundated with e-mails from Alienware m15x owners who have shelled out thousands of bucks in order to take home a serious piece of gaming hardware, only to find that their machine is overheating and / or developing cracks in the frame for no apparent reason. If you'll recall, this isn't the first time the laptop aficionados over at Notebook Review got all worked up over an issue with the m15x, but it seems the latest round of quirks have pushed the community over the edge. So, have any of you out there awoke to see your machine slightly more damaged than it was the night before? Are things getting way too heated for anyone's comfort? Let us know what's up in comments below.

Update: Alienware pinged us to say that the linked response below is in fact authentic, and that the company is "aware of the issue and working hard to figure out what's going on."

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Read - Area-51 m15x owners experience overheating and cracking issues
Read - Alienware's reply to the issue (confirmed as authentic by Alienware)

[Flashpoint @ Mar 12th 2008 8:21AM]

Is it possible that the Alienware lptops overheat because they have cases and cooling fans that aren't equipped to deal with the high end CPU and GPU they are ordered with?

[COOLBEE8 @ Mar 12th 2008 8:30AM]

While you can get the Extreme CPU, I don't think many people does, and those few with more money than sense pay hefty premium is getting this, it's still a 45 W CPU, and thats alot of heat for a laptop, let alone the extra heat from overclock, which you can do but shouldn't DO ON A 15 INCH LAPTOP.

[tom @ Mar 12th 2008 8:49AM]

I suspect someone is mad over-clocking. I can't explain any reason why else.

If someone wants to be a hardcore gamers, get a desktop!

[Cocatriz @ Mar 12th 2008 9:24AM]

It's Hard for gamers that travel a Lot have a Desktop...

And It's too much easy bring your laptop to a house made lan that bring your Desktop.

[Jrb @ Mar 12th 2008 8:24AM]

I have one of the older Area 51's and it does overheat alot, although not to the point of warping or cracking yet which I am greatful. But dont count on Alienware's customer service being helpful, I noticed something was wrong within the first month and they refused to fix it because it wasnt covered in the warranty. Kinda irks me when you spend over 2 grand on a great machine and they wont honor good business practice and help you out. But oh well welcome to the corporate world, too bad I didnt know about their bad PR rap before I bought it.

[bsm0f0 @ Mar 12th 2008 1:45PM]

Same here. I dreamed of having an Alienware m51 ... my wife surprised me with one, fully loaded, for my birthday a few years ago. I bought a laptop cooler and had to get a laptop table in order to use the thing (forget using one of thsoe on your "lap"). Even then, with what I thought was ample room for proper air flow, plus the cooler, I was still unable to game (old school UT and HL1) more than a half hour without crashing. I tried a few newer games and they were impossible to play.

Got the same run around from Alienware, at least they were kind enough to replace the parts when they died due to the heat. Within a year I had 4 video cards, a motherboard, a cd drive, and two hard drives.

Never again will I buy or advocate for their systems. Thankfully, someone on Ebay was just as clueless as I was and took it off my hands a year later for 90% of the cost.

[coolbee8 @ Mar 12th 2008 8:25AM]

Well, that's what you get for stuffing a 8800m GTX in it, anyone complained about the nuclear reactor that come with it? thought so.

[Neeko @ Mar 12th 2008 8:30AM]

I think for the $$ we pay for these you can rightfully expect better build quality. If not then theres no reason to pay those high prices.

[scagnetti @ Mar 12th 2008 8:36AM]

I see this ending up like Superman III with that 8800GTX in those laptops. I got 3-way SLI with those cards in my desktop and it kept overheating. So I went to Home Depot and got a twin turbo multi directional window fan that actually fits perfectly on the side of the chassis. My computer doesn't crash anymore and it generates so much heat in my apartment that I never have to touch the thermostat.

[Twitchy @ Mar 12th 2008 8:39AM]

So can you run Crysis at max settings with more than 5 fps?

[asphixiated @ Mar 12th 2008 10:39AM]

you must have one bitchin' loud computer haha

do you have a link to that fan?

[Charles Han @ Mar 12th 2008 8:42AM]

pretty much if ur chugging out ur money for alienware, ur pretty much wasting ur money on overpriced hardware. With that if you have 8800gtx aboard, u ought to get a good notebook cooler, most high end gaming laptops rarely handle heat by itself very well and will almost always overheat with intense gaming. I mean i am a casual gamer but for me up towards 8600m gt or 8700m gt is good enuff. If you are so die hard that you must purchase 8800gtx laptop, it's seriously better off getting a desktop to get more bang for your buck.

[cmdwedge @ Mar 12th 2008 5:39PM]

Wait.. what?

[COOLBEE8 @ Mar 12th 2008 8:46AM]

Dell bought this company, and they sell alienware on their site,
there used to be a time when dell had good quality and after sale
support, now I guess alienware is repeating the price, but anyhow,
like dells this laptop IS NOT CHEAP, and people who pay for it should
by able to feel the return of their PREMIUM PAID without HAVING TO
WORRYING ABOUT the cracking OR PAY FRIGGING 15% RESTOCK FEE IF THEIR
FRIGGING EXPENSIVE LAPTOP DIES OR CHASSIC CRACKS (or getting injured in a meltdown)...

[scagnetti @ Mar 12th 2008 8:43AM]

1920x1200 with 30-50fps at high no aa

[Jeff Stoelker @ Mar 12th 2008 8:45AM]

alienware sucks... gg n00bs for havin one

[COOLBEE8 @ Mar 12th 2008 8:48AM]

*repeating the history (not price)

[COOLBEE8 @ Mar 12th 2008 8:50AM]

Now I wonder how you BLEND that into the m15x.

Was going to get one of this, now I'll wait for Eurocom's Kick Ass 15.4 incher with 8800m

[Andir3.0 @ Mar 12th 2008 9:55AM]

Let me see... how can I word this so you'll understand:

CHECK your caps LOCK man! You SEEM to have A PROBLEM with capitalizing VERY random words IN YOUR sentences. It seems to be OCCURRING in every one OF YOUR posts so FAR.

[Zeus.:God @ Mar 12th 2008 10:02AM]

Andir, he was CAPITALIZING the word "BLEND" for EMPHASIS as he was HINTING toward a JOKE.

[Andir3.0 @ Mar 12th 2008 12:58PM]

Check the rest of his posts as well.

BTW, way to refresh the page and vote me down and yourself up. Well played. Not.

[Lars @ Mar 12th 2008 1:23PM]

I'm with Andir, but I don't really notice the caps as much as I do the rampant spelling and grammar errors in his posts. Seems like there's a few posters today with horrible spelling/grammar, but if English is not their first language then all is forgiven.

[Zeus.:God @ Mar 12th 2008 4:01PM]

Really? I voted you down and me up? Thats pretty childish of you to think, or even consider that.

I don't really ever vote, and I don't give a shit whether I'm ranked up, down, sideways, or backward. That said, you can only vote ONCE, even if you refresh the page.

But, then again, you obviously think everyone must absolutely love you to think that I would do something so stupid. You make a dumb comment that people don't agree with, you'll get ranked low- apparently you don't know that.

[coolant8 @ Mar 12th 2008 4:33PM]

The post was suppose to be a reply to another thread, something happened and it ended up as a separate post, my bad; by the way this is engadget the last time I looked, not engrammar, as Chauser would say 'And eek men shal nat maken ernest of game'.

Correction: as long as you use a different IP, your vote will be counted.

[Zeus.:God @ Mar 12th 2008 5:45PM]

That would mean having a dynamic IP or a proxy, and of course thats true, but under normal circumstances (ie: someone using the same IP, because its pointless to even try to rank someone low), it won't do it.

Either way, it's childish to accuse someone of doing that, just because you don't see the same way.

[Andir3.0 @ Mar 12th 2008 6:40PM]

Ah, that's the Zeus we used to know. For a minute, I thought you might have grown up and come back to be an adult.

BTW, you don't need a dynamic IP, mine has stayed consistent now for some time and I can vote up down "or sideways" as much as I want. I don't know why. Blame the crap-tastic blog software.

[Zeus.:God @ Mar 12th 2008 8:04PM]

Wow- thats coming from the guy accusing me of ranking him down over and over... Because, you know, accusing someone of doing something like that- as if it's important, is "grown up" and "adult" like, right?

For the rest of us, we can only vote once. Not that it matters for me, because I rarely use it.

[Andir3.0 @ Mar 13th 2008 6:55AM]

It's okay man, I know your history as "Zeus the God"... you're trying to put forth an image of change and growth. Maybe you just need more time.

[Zeus.:God @ Mar 13th 2008 10:19AM]

Andir, again, you prove me right by INSTIGATING, just as you ALWAYS do. Seriously, just shut up. You're not proving your point, and really just making a bigger fool of yourself.

[BowserUSC @ Mar 13th 2008 8:23PM]

@Andir3.0

You're a fucking douche bag.

[Lars @ Mar 24th 2008 5:36PM]

Can't we all just get along?

[Hellion Prime @ Mar 12th 2008 8:59AM]

Here are a few of my thoughts on the subject after working notebooks in the service industry for a decade:

-Desktop components have no business being in a notebook chassis. This is especially true of processors. If you buy a machine with a desktop CPU in it, then you don't get to bitch that it puts out enough heat to cook a steak into charcoal. And don't even get me started on the idiocy of putting SLI video cards in a notebook.

-"Desktop Replacement" style machines often make some pretty bad compromises WRT to structure and chassis design to save weight. This means they make a lot more use of plastic than is really a good idea, and not enough metal or composite materials. This means they tend to be very flexy. Circuit boards do not like to flex. It makes them cranky. That is a far more serious problem than cracks on the exterior, but the root cause is the same: poor materials and poor design.

I feel bad for the people who spent money on machines like this, I really do. But they should have educated themselves better before making their decisions.

[SugarDaddy @ Mar 12th 2008 9:26AM]

Well I agree with you for the most part. People probably recognize that a desktop is much better equipped to be a gaming rig. However, I feel like these people that bought this gaming laptop (heh) were overtaken by the ability to play games on the go without thinking that buying a laptop to play games is probably a bad idea.

[Jesse Anderson @ Mar 12th 2008 9:04AM]

And I fell in lovve with this! I have forget that sometime some thing's that man make don't alway work the way they suppose to do, so now my heart is at odd over this because I have not get one or test it out. but not now that I know about this then we need to walk softly on this.

[BowserUSC @ Mar 13th 2008 8:30PM]

Do you have some sort of brain tumor that makes you type inconsistent babble?

[Chris Stone @ Mar 12th 2008 5:24PM]

The extreme processors in the m15x are acutally non-overclockable, which defeats the purpose of them in the notebook. What I am trying to say is that if users are paying over 3K for a laptop that they want to be able to game with / carry around easially, then they shouldn't have to deal with a complete lack of quality control. I mean seriously how do you ship out that many notebooks with overheating issues.

[Nate @ Mar 12th 2008 9:24AM]

Big deal. Macbook owners have been dealing with this forever.

[jollyllama @ Mar 12th 2008 12:37PM]

Yes, but when I brought my Macbook in to an Apple Store they replaced it on the spot for free with no questions asked. Alienware has been (according to the forums) making people wait in long phone queues, mail their laptops in, and then charging people 150 bucks for "restocking". There's a pretty serious difference there.

[Nate @ Mar 12th 2008 12:41PM]

They replaced two of them for me. But, unfortunately, that doesn't solve the problem.

It's a shoddily engineered product.

[Dan H. @ Mar 12th 2008 12:49PM]

They flat out refused to replace mine. I have had three repairs for 5 different issues in the 8 months that I have owned it. I now have to take it in agan. Macs are pieces of crap.

P.S. Mine is actually a MacBook Pro

[Arkweld @ Mar 12th 2008 12:55PM]

buying and getting a replacement at an Apple retail store is a completely different experience to the Apple online store. In fact it's almost exactly the same as Alienware.

[Nate @ Mar 12th 2008 1:33PM]

I've actually never bought a Mac from an Apple retail store.

All of my purchases, and service, have been online.

At this point, I'm not a fan of Apple's current lineup, and I don't own any of them, any more. There service, however, is top notch.

[Jeff @ Mar 12th 2008 9:24AM]

Welcome to the special layer of hell that was previously reserved only for cracking Macbooks.

[Ryan @ Mar 12th 2008 9:44AM]

I bought an alienware 51M about 6 years ago, thinking it would be an awesome piece of gaming hardware... the hardware specs were great but the construction of it was terrible.. overheated constantly... dvd / cd drive failed 3 times and had to be replaced 3 times, the aluminum casing around the monitor cracked at both top corners, the fan on the cpu failed once and was replaced, the mother board fried twice and was replaced and their tech support is shoddy at best because everytime something went wrong it took them about a week to come to the conclusion that it was a hardware problem and re-install windows was not the solution. . plus their turn around time and response times for customer service issues was attrocious especially considering that I purchased the extended warranty and live alien ware support..... never again ... never again..

[Valgas @ Mar 12th 2008 9:56AM]

One word. Hahahahahahahaha!

[cody @ Mar 12th 2008 10:25AM]

mine has not cracked yet but it get really hot and the graphics card downclcoks it self so performance is decreased by half in games. i might return mine.

[jason @ Mar 12th 2008 10:32AM]

Ive allways been adesktop user,
With beening alaptop u can allmost take it anywhere.
I dont think it needs anymore explainatory........................

[Zeus.:God @ Mar 12th 2008 11:05AM]

uve alwyz beeeeen a dsktoop yooozer?//?/////? 4 wat ten minits cuz u cant tipe 4 poop

[DOUG @ Mar 12th 2008 10:35AM]

wholly crap, i'm glad i ended up not ordering one! the design is nice though, i hope they get it worked out (which shouldnt be a problem with Dell's R&D ;)) and reimburse the early adopters with a redesigned laptop and some cash! Otherwise, i see a recognized brand name loosing some value here.

[Thain @ Mar 12th 2008 11:52PM]

Dell's R&D? I think you're a little confused about notebook sellers. Dell has almost NOTHING to do with the build process of the notebooks they sell. They go through groups like Compal, Quanta, ASUS (not so much anymore), MSI (also not so much anymore), and Clevo to have notebooks built to their specifications. To say that Dell has an R&D department is like saying Best Buy's Geek Squad has trained professionals. Neither is true in the least.

Regarding the M15x, I'm not surprised in the least. Clevo is the ONLY company I've seen really nail adequate cooling for high-powered components (they make the only notebook with a desktop processor and SLi that I would actually trust), and people who buy their products are always complaining about the fan noise (me? I'm happy to hear that fan kicking into high gear, because it means my $2,000 isn't burning itself up). I'm sure Alienware tried to make the M15x run as quietly as possible to add to the "cool" factor, which of course leads to overheating and chassis damage.

Clevo is going to be putting the 8800M GTX into a 15.4" notebook soon, but I'm willing to bet it's going to be chunkier than the M15x, and it had better have more fans.

Seriously, though, thousands of dollars shelled out or not, no one has the right to expect such a small notebook to run cool enough to be functional for long periods of time.