Well, most of the people here already have a pretty good idea of my opinion.
It's your money, and your funeral.
If you've read my posts on this forum, then you already know the score, and what I think of the company. It doesn't surprise me in the least that the changes you made to the new machine were lost in the system. I suggest you call back several times, and keep checking. Be insistent. After all, it's you that has to pay for the computer, and by God, it should be right. And if you are very, very lucky ... perhaps you'll get what you requested. In this lifetime.
Of course, a little prayer to the Deity-of-your-choice while you are waiting couldn't hurt.
Don't bother to email them, unless you have a specific name and a box number. Hell will freeze over before you get a response. And even these will change frequently, so you'll have to make an effort to keep track.
I hope you like talking on the phone. Because it's likely that you'll be spending a considerable amount of time, doing just that. It'll be a real delight to explain any issues with the new machine, over and over, to a new person, each day ... who can't figure out why the other so-and-so screwed up and/or ignored you, lost your file, failed to communicate with the technical support/assembly/shipping department. Or the warranty company, who can only take down the details of your problem. They can't actually do anything until they get some kind of approval from Alienware. Which you may or may not receive, because you are just the idiotic end user, and whatever is wrong is probably your fault in the first place.
Suggestion: Take lots of notes. Detailed notes. Dates and times of every conversation, who you spoke to, and the subject of the conversation. You'll be sorry if you don't. At least <i>one</i> person needs to keep track of any problems that occur during the transaction. It might as well be you.
Hardware changes I've been forced to make since receiving my supposedly balls-to-the wall, super-duper warranty replacement system in May of this year:
New mainboard.
New hard drive.
I had to get the mainboard from another vendor, as Alienware would not ship anything except an Intel reference board. I wasn't going to go for that; I don't care much for capacitors falling off the board when you open the can.
I asked for the replacement hard drive to be the new 60 GXP series, even if the new drive was smaller, and cost less than the original series. But that wasn't possible. I should have just RMA'ed the drive directly through IBM.
The replacement hard drive had to be low-level formatted within a week of the installation, due to bad sectors. (It's currently functioning ... but for how long, who knows?) I haven't even bothered to mention this to Alienware. Yet. That's four bad hard drives in a row; three IDE, and one SCSI. When this one dies, (and it surely will), I will again have to RMA through Alienware. (Unless I grow a brain.) Personally, I'd rather have some teeth pulled than go through this again. I've had to call them so many times, I oughta have my own, private support line.
I <i>will</i> say this. My opinion of Roland Poitevien has changed. He has made a real effort to work with me, after an initially frustrating series of confrontations. However, he is not the <i>only</i> person with the company ... and I have not forgotten the many, many months of lying and false promises that occurred previously, from <b>every other person at Alienware</b> I was forced to contact. And that is absolutely no exaggeration, of any kind.
They still can't get my mailing address correct, no matter how many times I mention it. I'm glad that the local Fed Ex driver considers me to be a familiar face, or I'd still be waiting on the hard drive.
My opinion on their systems:
It's mostly hype. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. It's an ordinary computer, with standard parts. I should know; I'm sitting here looking at it. Nice, but nothing extraordinary. Even if you are not an experienced builder, there is no reason that you couldn't order the same exact parts online, and have them assembled by a local shop. Or even order the components through the shop, so they will support the machine. And believe me, it's much easier to work within a warranty if the shop is local, instead of having everything delivered by snailmail, and spending hours on the telephone attempting to track it down.
Doing this would probably save you a ton of cash. And you could spend the surplus on other things, like a custom paint job, or other modifications, like additional fans, a window in the side, neon lights, blowholes ... or different peripherals, such as a high-end scanner or printer.
If it was me, and I could go back in time ... you can guarantee that I would do everything possible to change the fact that I ever ordered a system from them in the first place. I'd build my own. If that wasn't feasible, I'd find someone to build it for me, to my specifications. Or I'd order from another company, such as Voodoo. And that would be my order of preference. It's been a long, hard road that has led me to this opinion ... and mostly because of Alienware. If you are smart, you'll give it some serious thought, and let my educational experience be a guide.
Of course, my experience might be a long, drawn-out series of isolated incidents. Maybe I just have bad Karma to deal with, and owned an Asian sweatshop staffed with starving children in a previous life.
You <i>could</i> get lucky! Nearly anything is possible.
Or you could spend the next year or two thrashing yourself for ignoring good advice.
So ... do you like granite or marble for your headstone? No extra charge for misspelling your name, or for accidentally putting you in the wrong hole. We'll find you, eventually.
Toejam31
P.S. Patience is a virtue. Cultivate it.
<font color=red>My Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847</A>
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<font color=purple>"Have you noticed how much they look like orchids? Lovely!"</font color=purple>
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