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Area 51 R2 Rig issues
Hi guys,
Have a question here.
Bought an Alienware Area 51 R2 rig in February of 2015 with one year warranty with phone support.
Here are the specs:
Intel® Core™ i7-5820K Processor (6-cores, 15MB Cache, Overclocked up to 3.8 GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
16GB Quad Channel DDR4 at 2133MHz
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980 with 4GB GDDR5
128GB SSD 6Gb/s Main + 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s Storage
Alienware™ 850 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
When I first received the computer, everything was great but I noticed coil whine with the 980.
It grew worse to the point where it was as though a hornet's nest was in the case. I phoned tech support who ran a bunch of remote tests and after an hour or so, said I could RMA the 980.
Replacement 980 comes and the tech who installed it said the coil whine was unacceptable and escalated the issue to "tier 2" on the phone right in front of me.
Tech support has been consistent with communication through phone and email.
The customer service rep suggested an AMD 370 as a replacement for the 980. I said that that was a joke considering the 980 crushed the 370 in most areas. Considering that the 2nd 980 had even worse coil whine I said a 980TI would be the only alternative replacement. She agreed and the 980TI came a week later.
I made sure to ask if my PSU could handle the 980 and she assured me it would. I tinkered around with the Dell website with the same options I chose when purchasing the comp in February with the 980 and I changed the GPU to a 980TI. The website immediately told me with the new GPU that the PSU would be incompatible. The rep assured me it wasn't an issue.
Now the 980TI runs great with little coil whine but now there's a loud whining sound coming from the PSU when I play any game. It comes directly from the PSU as I've checked closely. The sound is worrisome and I've asked the same rep for another RMA. The sound was not there prior to getting the 980TI set up.
Frankly with the 3,000$ I dropped on this machine, I am growing disappointed with the issues popping up. The service techs sent to my home to replace parts are only magically available during the afternoon when people are at work and I'm getting tired of having to RMA parts.
Am I able to simply ask for the entire comp to replaced with a new rig?
Thanks for any feedback in advance.
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Zero989
59 Posts
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0
Posted October 9th, 2015 12:00
There are only two power supplies that are available with the Area-51.
850Watt or something and the 1500Watt.
Both are overkill for a single 980Ti.