Ailienwares

[lokithor]

So long story short my home build comp of 5 years crapped out on me a while back.

A friend of mine is sending me her old Alienware Aurora when her new one get's in. Is there anything I need to watch out for? Havent owned a pre build computer in probably 15 years since I've been bui'ding my own. Only reason I'm not doing so now Is because I dont have the money and shes sending me hers just for the price of shipping.

Only things I know about this computer:

I7
Ati in crossfire (dont know the cards)
1.5TB hard drive
Liquid cooled

She said it occasionally blue screens on her, but im usually pretty good at finding whats wrong with them, but from what she was describing its either needs new ram or hard drive (happens if she tries doing stuff before windows finsihes loading everything)

Anyways, was just curious if anyone knows a lot about them (bloatware that doesnt have to be installed, how hard are they to work on, etc.

[Deleted]

best is to start figuring out what causes the BSOD and see if you can snatch a code in the error log. (could be a overclock gone bad on the ram/cpu/gpu's)
can't be of much help without more specifics on the parts and software wise perhaps better to restore it to factory defaults with recovery disk/partition.

[lokithor]

Yeah Im not trying to fix the problem with this thread. I know how to find whats wrong, im just asking if they're a pain to work with.

[stalkerzzzz]

Yeah Im not trying to fix the problem with this thread. I know how to find whats wrong, im just asking if they're a pain to work with.

They're the same as a normal PC.

[Deleted]

They're the same as a normal PC.

This, really.
They are just PCs with a fancy logo and pricetag.

[Deleted]

Yeah Im not trying to fix the problem with this thread. I know how to find whats wrong, im just asking if they're a pain to work with.

varies with every setup, i've seen alienwares with very very limited bios acces or ones that only work with delivered software in order to figure out what's wrong)
personally anything from dell except screens is a PITA to work with imo.

[lokithor]

Well everything should be fine then. Was mainly worried about bullshit software that had to be installed, and didnt know if special tools were needed to work on them. (I've actually seen it on some older PC's.)

---------- Post added 2013-01-21 at 06:13 AM ----------

varies with every setup, i've seen alienwares with very very limited bios acces or ones that only work with delivered software in order to figure out what's wrong)
personally anything from dell except screens is a PITA to work with imo.

Yeah i've got absolutely no idea about prebuilts anymore. But hey I cant really beat it for free, was just wondering what I might be getting myself into.

[majinsnake]

CPU overheating or the liquid in the cooling needs to be replaced. Some liquid coolings do not need to be changed out.



anyway who knows.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

CPU overheating or the liquid in the cooling needs to be replaced. Some liquid coolings do not need to be changed out.



anyway who knows.

Not much point speculating about the source of the BSODs if we know absolutely nothing about the PC other than it having an i7, two AMD cards, a hard-drive and a liquid cooler (probably corsair H80 or another one using the same OEM)

[n0cturnal]

Not much point speculating about the source of the BSODs if we know absolutely nothing about the PC other than it having an i7, two AMD cards, a hard-drive and a liquid cooler (probably corsair H80 or another one using the same OEM)

Hard to tell what kind of water cooling it uses, there are several models used by Alienware Aurora.
http://www.techspot.com/reviews/hard...s/DSCF0381.JPG
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....-alienware.jpg
http://www.maximumpc.com/files/u9069...nside_full.jpg
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...fCQI6vUsXrYqS1
http://www.couponmaster.ie/blog/wp-c...e-hardware.jpg

[Deleted]

best to just assume murphy's law applies here.
im going for the one made for the lowest price :P

[Cyanotical]

varies with every setup, i've seen alienwares with very very limited bios acces or ones that only work with delivered software in order to figure out what's wrong)
personally anything from dell except screens is a PITA to work with imo.

nah, as far as working on them, they are easier to take a part and work on that just about anything

[lokithor]

best to just assume murphy's law applies here.
im going for the one made for the lowest price :P

ehh she said she spent 2100 on it. Sucks I dunno anything else about it. Ill cpu-z it when I get it lol

I dunno where people are getting the overheating issue with it though. From what I understand it's temps run just fine.