BEWARE Alienware Owners

[CharminUltraStrong]

This is technically troubleshooting for those that could be confused about their laptops, fyi.

 

TL;DR: ALL ALIENWARE USERS TURN OFF "EXPRESS CHARGE" IN THE BIOS TO PREVENT A MELTDOWN. Included are pictures of the damage.

 

Pictures of the damage:

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I've owned my Alienware 15 R2(These issues are applicable for the 17, and 13 models as well) for around, 6 + months at this point and I've been happy it until last evening. Before I get into what occurred last evening let me give you a timeline.

• October: I buy the laptop
• November: I notice that when charging the laptop could burn you
• April: I notice my access panel sustained some odd rippling damage, assuming I bent it when I took it off at one point to install a 2nd M.2
• May: (a week prior to today) I had an odd issue where the laptop would switch between charging and not charging, until I blew in the port(Later I'd find this was pure coincidence that blowing it would fix it)_
• May: (last night) My computer experiences a complete and permanent battery failure

Okay, so there's what's occurred in the past several months, here is what I discovered last night

• Upon removing that panel I discover that rippling affect was caused by, what I assume was a miniature fire? There was a black spot on that spot on the panel, cloth wire sheathing was burnt off and brown, the cable label was also toasted brown
• I talk to Customer Support, fortunately my guy was EXTREMELY helpful and Alienware computers get quick service. We went over what had happened and later confirmed my assumptions
• My assumption, the express charged enabled via BIOS, while VERY quick to charge the laptop probably caused the "meltdown" due to higher than normal power draw.

Also, to clarify, the burned cable was the "DC-in" cable on the motherboard.  Now, I assumed the high power draw was causing the heat because a laptop like this shouldn't be able to charge that fast. In 30 minutes or so the laptop would reach almost 75% charge WHILE gaming.  Only recently did I shut off Express Charge through the BIOS because I was too stupid to realize that laptops don't normally charge this quickly. Unfortunately it seems Dell didn't properly test this function on the computer and has left people like me to our own devices.

 

[Damascus]

Good to know, planning on getting a 13" in a while.

[CharminUltraStrong]

1 minute ago, Damascus said:

Good to know, planning on getting a 13" in a while.

No problem. After I researched, there many users that didn't have a 15 model who experienced the same issue so I'm certain it's widely applicable.

 

[SaintPosum]

Definitely read title as beware of Alienware owners, however thank you for the information.

[thenastyjbenny]

Did they get you a new laptop?

[CharminUltraStrong]

1 minute ago, JR8 said:

Did they get you a new laptop?

No, but they agreed to fix the issue. They'll run some diagnostic tests.