Alienware Area-51 m15x owners outraged by overheating, cracking issues
By Darren Murph 
posted March 12th 2008 8:14AM
posted March 12th 2008 8:14AM
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)
this is just bad design, period. alienware should know better than to release a notebook this poorly designed, on both issues. shame on quanta as well for manufacturing such a shoddy case.
and this is not "desktop components in a notebook" situation, if you check the specs before you comment, you'll see that all the components are notebook components.
Am sorry but thats what you get for buying overpriced, over hyped, junk. Alienware?
Why Hahhahahah Cos u cant afdord one yourself,
I say hahahhah 2 you
Jason, I "hahahahahah 2 u", too, because you can't spell... And you act like a 5 year old- you know what, I'll go as far as saying as YOU can't afford one; maybe your parents, but certainly not you.
if you were a "serious gamer" why would you get a laptop instead of a desktop?
Maybe they wanted a notebook. Drop this stupid, "you should have bought a desktop" bs.
but why spend so much money on a notebook?
Why buy a laptop? Because, believe it or not, there are gamers out there who aren't fat, lazy slobs, and need portability. Pretty sure a laptop is more portable than a desktop.
oh ya.... to play it on the beach
I've got an Alienware m9750 and I've got a similar problem. One of the bottom panels bulges out right in the middle of the back edge. I haven't seen any cracking, yet. It does get ridiculously hot though.
What you get for trying to be "Cool" and use a laptop for Gaming
Gamin is for Desktops with good fans and ventilation, not laptops with cramped "cases" and confined airflow
My experience over the last year with Alienware has been anything but perfect.
I had an m5790 laptop that I used while traveling. Out of the box it came with a horrendous issue. Everytime you slept the laptop, it would turn the wireless card's hardware off (no LED on, can't disable/enable to fix). The only fix was to reboot the computer.
So, essentially, I couldn't use any sleep/standby mode on my laptop, which was pretty crappy.
All in all, it took 6 months to get resolved, and I had to get in touch with the Better Business Bureau in order to bully Alienware around.
Even though I had reported my issue within the first couple of days of ownership, they would not honor that. They kept demanding that I replace the user-serviceable wifi card. After receiving 3 wifi cards, they had me send my computer in. They then determined that they couldn't fix it, and gave me a store credit...sadly, I had to stay with them.
I bought a m9750, and I'm extremely pleased with it. It has been super solid, and has awesome framerates (on WoW, which is pretty much all I play).
The key to remember here, is that Alienware does not care about their customer experience, they just care about making a hard time of it. It took me 6 months to get a replacement laptop from when I started escalating.
Boo Alienware, this article is no shock!
uve alwyz beeeeen a dsktoop yooozer?//?/////? 4 wat ten minits cuz u cant tipe 4 poop
(Way *too* heated)
Yeah, I know that some of their products dont meet quality standards, but from personal experience my m9750 works great and I have no regrets. And considering how cheap it is I still think it has a good value.
Alienware tech service however.....
Maybe it's time they make the gaming notebooks out of aluminum so it expands when it heats up and contracts when it cools rather than cracking when it heats up and/or cools.
A mainstream brand dedicated to gaming and performance should design their own chassis rather than depend on generic ones.
but of course, it the title said Apple MacBook Pro owners.... the comments would be completely different
well yeah, if it said "new MacBook Pro still shipping with crap-yellow screen problem" then there would be a whole different set of people talking about about how Apple cheap out on the manufacturing of a $2500 laptop as well.
It'd be full of people defending Apple, that's for sure. There are lots of problems with Apple's products. They just get swept under the rug, and especially won't get reported by Engadget who are huge Apple fanboys themselves.
If only the crack was appearing in the left hinge, I could have made some sort of a tasteless Nintendo DS joke.
Why is everyone complaining about getting free crack with their laptops?
As someone who has this laptop and is part of the community that is trying to get Alienware to fix the problems with their laptop, I want to clarify some things.
1. The system is NOT OVERCLOCKABLE. PERIOD. You can use Riva Tuner and SysTool to maybe turn up some shader clocks, but honestly, it does nothing noticeable.
2. The issues are widespread. No one has -all- of them. A couple people have cracks, some have downclocking (including myself if I REALLY try to make it, ATITool only forced it to downclock once so far).
3. Some people have trouble with their quick touch controls not working after coming out of sleep or after the laptop gets hot. I personally do not have this issue, though they ARE sluggish if the machine gets hot.
So hopefully that clarifies some issues a little more.
Well, it's good to hear that Alienware did SOMETHING right by not making the system overclockable. I can only imagine how outraged some of the forum folks would get if they fried their computer and found out that Alienware was laughing at them.
That is what is wrong with the whole laptop industry. Too much comprise. Now Alienware too, and for the longest time I thought that would be the ultimate game machine on the go if I could afford it. I'm glad that I invest my laptop on a Eeepc and safe me lots of money, just stick with the regular word processing, spreadsheet, IM, web browsing and e-mail. On playing games, I will use my desktop.
It's funny how the term "downclocking" didn't originate from overclocking a computer and then reverting back to slower cpu/gpu speeds, but from unstable and overheating components that don't function or speced as advertized. It's like buying a Ferrari but with a speedometer locked at 60MPH.
how do we digg this?
If you were a serious gamer, wouldn't it make sense to HAVE a GAMING LAPTOP!???? Seeing as you would want to play anytime and anywhere??
Dee dee dee's
huh, I guess I should have complained about my acer travelmate c310 heating, crack, and falling apart on me! It's a great convertible tablet but the quality, and the weight, both suck... Maybe they would have given me another one. idk.
Get A Macbook Pro and Run Windows...
YES YES YES!
Finally someone is bringing to light one of the issues of a laptop gettgin too hot. I ran across the same issue with my HYPERSONIC-PC AX7. I took pictures, and explained the situation to Hyersonic to which they quickly replied (one of the only times they did ANYTHING quickly) to say that its not something they've seen and is not covered by the warrenty. Deny, deny, deny!
For Jimmy Christmas sakes if you want return customers TREAT THEM RIGHT! They fork out thousands of dollars for a system that starts falling apart right out of the case.
people look at other reviews like cnet or youtube.
so u know other people's opinion before buying. ! !
i would personally recommend Cnet ! !
people look at reviews on C-net before buying ! !
thats all i have to say ppl.
Go Cnett ! ! !
Thankfully, I've never owned an Alienware laptop, but I do own an Alienware computer. This is the replacement model to the piece of garbage they tried to ship me the first time. That computer failed to boot successfully out of the box. After many months of phone calls to Alienware, they tell me it's a BIOS problem and that the way the sold me the machine will not be stable until ASUS fixes the BIOS. I ask for a refund - but I'm told no since they only offer a 30 day warranty. After fighting for with them for two more months, I then hire a lawyer. As soon as the lawyer sends a letter, I get an offer for me to return the machine for a credit toward another. What pitiful customer service. Run far far away from Alienware. They couldn't care less about service and build very faulty products.
Hello. I have been watching this story develop since I ordered and received my m15x. Some of the issues with this notebook are authentic, and I believe Alienware will do their best to correct problems accordingly. I have been using my m15x for over a week and have not had any problems. The m15x is not a toy, people have to adjust to the technology and use it well. Don’t play games for several hours and expect the notebook temperature to not increase; don’t complain about frame rate if you don’t have the latest drivers or patches. I realized while waiting for my m15x to be built that a little patience is required, soon there will be software and driver updates available and more people will have their m15x’s.
"Don’t play games for several hours and expect the notebook temperature to not increase"
Are you kidding me. Of course temperatures are going to increase, but they shouldn't to the point where it causes damage to the system. And how can you say don't play games for several hours. If you're a serious gamer, thats not really that absurd of an event happening. You can't build a gaming laptop and then tell your customers they're not allowed to play games for extended periods of time. That's absolutely ridiculous.
And most people's problems with this who own the laptop is that Alienware is not handling the situation acceptably, which you seem so confident Alienware will do in the future.
I have A Area 51 which the graphics card went out and Alienware fixed for free. I think because of heat, with that if u do not give these laptops air space, there life is going to be short. So I use 2 wine corks to prop it up on the screen side for air space(it makes a huge difference) and keep going.
dude, he's prolly from another country....OR he's really bad at typing.
some people want to have a gaming laptop because their lifestyle requires them to be mobile and they could want to have a highend system to run lots of videoediting stuff or programs and want to be able to do it quickly and with style.
But if you get the new alienware
get a laptop cooler
its not like you're going to have a liquid cooled laptop
so just be careful with your pc and stuff wont happen to it.