Dell/Alienware nightmare

[XxscrubxX]

None stop issues with my new R11 desktop.

So let me start off with saying that I have been nothing but patient and nice to every person I have spoken to at dell/alienware and that most of the people I have spoken too have done the same and have tried to help me. I would say the customer service has been polite and a good experience but that is where it ends.

I ordered my PC back in mid march and did not receive it until April 15th. With everything that is going on right now in the world I didn't mind much about waiting for a pretty decent spec gaming pc since there was no way for me to get my hands on a rtx 3000 series GPU and building my own like I would normally do. It has been a long time since I even thought of buying a pre built pc from anyone.

So my issue start with day one of receiving my pc. Like anyone would be I was really excited to setup this new gaming rig. After plugging it in and getting everything setup I started to install a few games to put it through its paces. quickly I learned that something was wrong. The pc just rebooted after being on for only 30 minutes. I really didn't think too much of it because I figured the Bios and other driver may just be out of date and that could have caused the issue. I decided since its new and that I have a warranty to give alienware tech support a shot at figuring out what was going on. They remote connected to my pc and saw like I thought that everything was out of date and updated the bios and other drivers for me. After that we disconnected and I began to try out this new rig again. about 1 hour in and boom another black screen and reboot. I then contacted them back and they ran a few stress test and everything passed. At this point they asked me to monitor the pc and see if it happens any more. At this time it was late and I just decided to go to bed since I had work in the morning. The next day it was the same thing and so on for every day after that to the point that i was lucky if it didn't reboot at least 3 times.

After doing some more trouble shooting the error codes it was shooting back to me was that the GPU was losing connection and then trying to reconnect which was causing the pc to reboot. A good friend of mine also has an r11 with a 3070 pgu just like me but the one key difference is that he has a 1000 watt PSU and mine only has a 550 watt PSU. I will get more into the PSU here in a little bit. So what we did to see if it was the GPU or maybe even the PCI express slot was we swapped our GPU's to see if his pc would run crash or not. The results were his pc did not crash one time which ruled out the issue being the 3070 gpu. My pc however was having the same issue with his 3070. At this point in my mind it was boiling down to two different things either it was the pci slot or the PSU not having enough power to run this rig. So to rule out the pci slot we threw in a 1080 that actually fit into the case and after running it for a few days the pc did not crash one time. I then put the 3070 that came with this pc back in and boom within 45 minutes black screen and pc rebooted. So after reading more and more from different places it was pointing at the 550 watt psu not having the output needed to run the card which was causing it to power off.

Now on to the issue with the PSU . I was building this pc on the website and I chose the 1000 watt PSU with liquid cooling. Before I put the order threw i got a pop up for a chat window with a sales rep. I then decided to talk with this person who asked if they could call me since I was doing this on my phone and it was hard to communicate through the chat. After talking to the rep I requested the 1000 watt PSU as part of the build. He then placed the order but before hand sent me a spec sheet that i had to to agree to before he would place it. This next part i take full responsibility for and I'm not blaming the rep for the mistake but the sheet showed a 550 watt psu and I did not catch it and clicked accept.

Now on to the nightmare that is trying to resolve this issue with dell/alienware. I will attach one of the last chat sessions i had at the end of this post. To make this part a little short I will break it down. 7 different chat sessions and 2 phone calls. The 7 chat sessions ended with we do not have this part and to check back in a month to see if we do. The two phone calls were a little different. The first phone call was a sales rep in the spare part section and after explaining the issue the rep got frustrated and just hung up on me. The next attempt on the phone was met with 3 different transfer then the call dropping while I was being transferred a 4th time.

The only option I was really ever given was to ship back the pc so they can refund me then build me a new pc with the correct PSU in the system but they no longer sell the r11 and only have the r12. This to me was not an option because the r12 comes only with the 11th gen i9 cpu and id rather have my 10th gen cpu that has more cores and from what I can see runs a lot better and cost less.

These options are not good and for the pc only being a month old then being told this i would be without a pc for more than a month if i was lucky. I mean Dell/alienware are sill building new PC's and shipping them so I don't get how a 1 month old pc cannot get an upgraded PSU that im willing to pay for. I am not asking for anything for free I just want a working PC at this point and with the right PSU all the issue would be resolved. I just feel like the company is saying hey we got this persons money so they can just wait for a part while we take other peoples money for new machines which is not right. I can see if this pc was a year old and this issue was just starting to happen but Dell/alienware agree that the issue is with the PSU not having enough output and that its new.

I can go on and on about this but ill end it here with saying for a company this large to not help someone who just paid them 3000$+ for a new pc and is willing to pay for a new PSU from them to fix this issue is just not right. I would gladly buy an after market PSU however they will not fit in this case so i would also have to buy a new case with the PSU to do that and deal with the other issues that would come with it.

Below is the last chat session with this company and to be fair the rep was trying to help however every that was said by the rep was also said by all the other reps as well so I have little faith anything will come of it. Just wanted to spread some awareness of how bad things can be when dealing with dell/alienware if you are thinking about getting a pre built pc since GPU's are hard to come by.

Session Started with Agent (Srihitha )

Agent (Srihitha ): "Welcome to Dell US and Canada Electronics and Accessories Chat! My name is Srihitha and I will be your Dell.com Sales Chat Expert. I can be reached at and extn ..How may I help you with your purchase today"

Agent (Srihitha ): "Hello Brandon"

Agent (Srihitha ): "There are rare instances where chats get disconnected, just in case this happens, may I have the best phone number where we can reach you?"

Brandon : "hello"

Brandon : "**********"

Agent (Srihitha ): "Thank you for the number"

Brandon : "this is my weekly check in to see if i can get the PSU i need for my new alienware pc..."

Brandon : "i have the part numbers if you need them"

Brandon : "been trying to get this psu since i got my pc back in mid april"

Agent (Srihitha ): "I'll quickly check for the availability and help you with the information"

Agent (Srihitha ): "For me to check, I will need your products service tag number. Service tag is a 7 digit alphanumeric number usually found on the desktop."

Brandon : "0PDJK and the alternate part # 0WTGN"

Brandon : "Service Tag: ****** | Express Service Code: ****** |""

Agent (Srihitha ): "I am sorry to hear that it is not available for a longtime I'll quickly check the status of them now"

Brandon : "id appreciate it."

Agent (Srihitha ): "I see that it is for a 1000W power supply"

Brandon : "im doing all i can on my end to get this part that i cant buy from any other outlet that will resolve my pc crashing issues since day one but have struck out so far."

Brandon : "yes its a 1000w psu"

Agent (Srihitha ): "I totally understand how you are feeling right now. I am checking it with our inventory team for you"

Brandon : " id rather just talk to you guys and have it resolved. im not asking for somthing for free. i know i have to pay for the part

Agent (Srihitha ): "I completely understand that and I apologize for the kind of experience you had with us"

Agent (Srihitha ): "I request you to kindly allow me a couple of minutes as I am checking the availability with our inventory team for you"

Brandon : "ok thank you"

Agent (Srihitha ): "Thank you for staying connected, Appreciate your patience."

Brandon : "no problem"

Agent (Srihitha): "Upon checking I can confirm that unfortunately a compatible power supply(0PDJK/0WTGN) that you are looking for is currently not available with us. I am afraid I will not be able to provide a tentative date as to if/when it will be available again. The de"

lay in stocking up on it could be due the current global effect on the production.<br>I'll personally request the team to stock up on it as soon as possible.<br><br>As much as I want to, I am afraid I do not have tools or options to follow up regarding the availab

ility later.<br>Alternatively, I request you to check back after 5 to 10 days for the availability. I am positive it would be stocked by then.<br><br>You wouldn't have to chat back. You can directly email me at . I'll then check for the

status and help you with the information<br><br>Also, I'll forward a strong feedback regarding the delay in stocking it up to my team<br><br>Your understanding in this is greatly appreciated

Agent (Srihitha ): "The single most important thing is to make you happy. If there’s anything else I can help you for today, please let me know. I’m here to help you!"

Brandon : "well my pc crashed as i was typing to you"

Agent (Srihitha ): "I am really sorry to hear that the PC crashed"

Agent (Srihitha): "I would have certainly helped you if the part was available in stock"

Brandon : "so i do thank you for trying. i will email you for an update and i hope that the part is in stock soon... i know there is a shortage with alot of things right now due to covid/silicon/crypto mining but i mean dell and alien ware are still building and shipping new pc's so my pc is less than one month old and i cannot get a part that is needed for it to work that i just dont understand

Brandon : "its like they got my money so hey this guy can wait until after we get other peoples money before we help him"

Agent (Srihitha ): "I completely understand what you are feeling right now, If I were a customer, I would feel the same way. However, it is not something that we do on purpose As mentioned above. I'll certainly forward a strong feedback to the team and try and request them to stock up on it as soon as possible as I understand how important it is for you

Brandon : "ok thank you for your time and i will email you in about 5-10 as you stated"

Brandon : "have a good rest of your day"

Agent (Srihitha ): "Thank you for your patience and understanding"

Agent (Srihitha ): "Is there anything else I could help you with."

Brandon : "no that is all"

Agent (Srihitha ): "Thank you for choosing Dell Sales!"

Agent (Srihitha ): "Our Chat team strives to provide the very best levels of customer service. I would really appreciate your feedback on a quick survey that will appear once you click on END on top right hand side of the chat session. In case you have liked my assistance yo"

u can forward your kind words to my subject matter expert at and my manager with your valuable feedback<br>My manager gets all the feedback and we use it to help our customers.

Agent (Srihitha ): "Have a great week!"

Session Ended

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The only thing I edited out of the chat session was my name and the reps contact Info.   I didn’t want to put that one rep in the spotlight.

[Avanta8]

This is why you should never buy a dell prebuilt