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Alienware Alienware™ Aurora™ R4.. Upgrading Video Cards to GTX-780 SLI

42K views 207 replies 50 participants last post by  AsusFan30 
#1 ·
My custom built PC in my Signature caught fire today so I just bought a Brand New Alienware Aurora R4 off of Amazon for $1369.00. I thought this was a good deal so I could not pass it up. The specs are listed below with the items are I am upgrading!

Operating system: Windows® 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3930K (Six Core, 12MB Cache, overclocked up to 3.9Ghz)
CPU Cooler-Alienware 120mm Liquid Cooler
Memory (RAM): 16GB quad channel DDR3 (1600MHz)
Storage (hard drive): 2TB SATA III
Optical drive: Multimedia Dual Drives: BD burn, DVD+RW
Video graphics: 1GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 6870
Media card reader: 19-in-1
Bluetooth®: Yes (tied to wireless card)
Audio: Integrated 7.1 Audio / No speakers

Included hardware: Alienware Tact X Keyboard and Mouse
Preinstalled software: McAfee® SecurityCenter

I am upgrading the Following
2x GTX-580 Classified
1x 1TB 7200RPM WD Hard Drive
256GB OCZ Vertex 4
32GB Corsair XM3 RAM
 
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#5 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by AsusFan30 View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by 5entinel View Post

Just curious man, how come you didn't replace the parts? Were the parts covered by warranty?
I thought about it, but I am going to stray away from the cooling system I had and just do the simple all in one cooling.
Yeah, fine but that still doesn't explain why you decided to go for ailenware instead? Well, I wouldn't have done what you did.

What exactly caught on fire? Your custom cooler or one of your other components?
 
#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by AsusFan30 View Post

It started with the fan controller and then spread to other components..burning up wires and shorting components out.
Well, I would recommend that you contact the company that manufactured your fan controller(what fan controller is it anyway? ) and explain them what happen. Show them photos etc and see what they say. Such a thing is very rare to happen. So you might be entitle for a compensation or by getting a brand new rig for it's current market value.

Can you post pics here? The gruesome aftermath of what happened to your rig?
 
#9 ·
^dang that must've smell terrible.

I agree with Sentinel in that you should contact the MFG of that controller and ask for compensation. wouldn't hurt to try. who knows you may be getting another "brand new" system
smile.gif
 
#11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by AndroidVageta View Post

Custom cable sleeving = custom cables = non-stock manufacturer cable. That would ruin your case against the manufacturer right there! You probably had the cables laid out incorrectly or in either case voided your warranty.
You are incorrect. This PC has been running fine for almost a year If it was something that I did wrong it would have happend sooner.
 
#14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by AsusFan30 View Post

You are incorrect. This PC has been running fine for almost a year If it was something that I did wrong it would have happend sooner.
Incorrect. There is precisely zero guarantee of the idea that if it will go wrong, it will do so "soon".

Example, ZX-7Rs have notoriously terrible wiring harnesses. They work fine for a number of years, but due to the fact that they use wiring and connectors that are not designed for the current they carry, they eventually all melt the ignition and alternator connectors.

This is just a simple matter of dust building up in the connector, which reduces the metal's ability to radiate heat. Before you know it, you have a build up of heat, which further increases resistance, which further increases heat... and you have a cooked connection.

If your wiring was up to the task of handling the current going through it, it would never get that warm no matter how much dust and grime is built up in the connection. Simply put, you have a weak connection in there. Either a crimped joint, or a poorly soldered one is to blame there. This of course does not make it your fault by any means, but you can't assume that just because it worked fine for a year that there is no chance it was a fault of the sleeving.

That being said, I don't know that I would call anything by Alienware a good deal, unless it is being purchased used.
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Masta Squidge View Post

Incorrect. There is precisely zero guarantee of the idea that if it will go wrong, it will do so "soon".

Example, ZX-7Rs have notoriously terrible wiring harnesses. They work fine for a number of years, but due to the fact that they use wiring and connectors that are not designed for the current they carry, they eventually all melt the ignition and alternator connectors.

This is just a simple matter of dust building up in the connector, which reduces the metal's ability to radiate heat. Before you know it, you have a build up of heat, which further increases resistance, which further increases heat... and you have a cooked connection.

If your wiring was up to the task of handling the current going through it, it would never get that warm no matter how much dust and grime is built up in the connection. Simply put, you have a weak connection in there. Either a crimped joint, or a poorly soldered one is to blame there. This of course does not make it your fault by any means, but you can't assume that just because it worked fine for a year that there is no chance it was a fault of the sleeving.

That being said, I don't know that I would call anything by Alienware a good deal, unless it is being purchased used.
Thanks for the info! The Alienware I did buy is new. If you go to the website and select all the components that are going to be in it, it goes for over 3k..so..that is why I was saying I thought I got a good deal.
 
#16 ·
Glad you're able to replace your pc so fast, if something happened to mine I would not be able to do so as fast as you. But I would agree with the others who said you should at least try contacting the company to see if they are willing to compensate you. Won't cost you any money, just a bit of time.
 
#17 ·
A link to the actual amazon sale? Or a full list of components as purchased? Seems hard to believe something worth that much was being flat out dumped on amazon.

Your list is only showing me about 8-900 in components, obviously this is not including the motherboard, psu, exactly what ram it is... etc.
 
#18 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Masta Squidge View Post

A link to the actual amazon sale? Or a full list of components as purchased? Seems hard to believe something worth that much was being flat out dumped on amazon.

Your list is only showing me about 8-900 in components, obviously this is not including the motherboard, psu, exactly what ram it is... etc.
I have the following components I am installing myself to upgrade what is in it. I am not sure how you get 800-900 in components out of this..My price breakdown for what I paid is listed above. These components came out of my R.I.P. Rig.

256GB OCZ Vertex 4-cost me $200.00
1TB SATA III-Cost me $89.00
2-GTX 580 Classified SLI-Cost me $1100.00
32GB Corsair XM3 RAM-Cost me $180.00
 
#19 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by AsusFan30 View Post

I have the following components I am installing myself to upgrade what is in it. I am not sure how you get 800-900 in components out of this..My price breakdown for what I paid is listed above. These components came out of my R.I.P. Rig.

256GB OCZ Vertex 4-cost me $200.00
1TB SATA III-Cost me $89.00
2-GTX 580 Classified SLI-Cost me $1100.00
32GB Corsair XM3 RAM-Cost me $180.00
I dont care what you paid for additional stuff, what I am wondering is what came with the single amazon purchase. I am curious to know what THAT costs to build. And the only things you listed in your original post are memory, cpu, optical drive, a single 2tb hdd, and whatever alienware's cost for the case is to them of course.

That cpu is what? around 550 bones? Plus maybe 100 bucks for the ram, possibly more... and I noticed you edited out whether or not it came with the ssd, but I recall that being an addon from your parts bin.

See what I am getting at xD I am curious to know just how much of a deal it actually is. It might be a 3100 dollar rig to build it with all your stuff, but I am wondering what kind of a deal the 1400 purchase actually was.
 
#20 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Masta Squidge View Post

I dont care what you paid for additional stuff, what I am wondering is what came with the single amazon purchase. I am curious to know what THAT costs to build. And the only things you listed in your original post are memory, cpu, optical drive, a single 2tb hdd, and whatever alienware's cost for the case is to them of course.

That cpu is what? around 550 bones? Plus maybe 100 bucks for the ram, possibly more... and I noticed you edited out whether or not it came with the ssd, but I recall that being an addon from your parts bin.

See what I am getting at xD I am curious to know just how much of a deal it actually is. It might be a 3100 dollar rig to build it with all your stuff, but I am wondering what kind of a deal the 1400 purchase actually was.
Oh, Okay. I misunderstood you. :) I am having problems accessing my orders. I am at work and the website is acting fully. I will post as soon as I can access it :)
 
#21 ·
This is the PC that I got off Amazon.

Dell Price $2,507.00

PROCESSOR 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3930K (12M Cache, Overclocked up to 4.1 GHz) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English edit
MEMORY 16GB (4 X 4GB) Quad Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz edit
VIDEO CARD 1GB AMD 6870
HARD DRIVE 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 3Gb/s edit
MONITOR No Monitor edit
SOUND CARD Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio edit
OPTICAL DRIVE Dual Drives: BD Burn, DVD+RW edit
My Software & Accessories
CHASSIS Alienware Aurora edit
ALIENFX AlienFX Color, Quasar Blue edit
KEYBOARD Alienware TactX™ Keyboard edit
MOUSE Alienware TactX™ Mouse

Here is the Link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0084C39OU/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
#22 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by AsusFan30 View Post

This is the PC that I got off Amazon.

Dell Price $2,507.00

PROCESSOR 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3930K (12M Cache, Overclocked up to 4.1 GHz) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English edit
MEMORY 16GB (4 X 4GB) Quad Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz edit
VIDEO CARD 1GB AMD 6870
HARD DRIVE 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 3Gb/s edit
MONITOR No Monitor edit
SOUND CARD Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio edit
OPTICAL DRIVE Dual Drives: BD Burn, DVD+RW edit
My Software & Accessories
CHASSIS Alienware Aurora edit
ALIENFX AlienFX Color, Quasar Blue edit
KEYBOARD Alienware TactX™ Keyboard edit
MOUSE Alienware TactX™ Mouse

Here is the Link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0084C39OU/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
As far as those parts go, paying anything over $1400 you got ripped off. How dell is charging $2500 for it i don't know, you would have to be smoking some pretty strong stuff to pay anything near that.

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-3930K-Hexa-Core-Processor-Cache/dp/B00603QXPM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368769591&sr=8-1&keywords=3930k
$569 processor

$300 some random dell rebranded 2011 socket motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=-1&isNodeId=1&Description=windows+7+home&x=-1004&y=-112
Windows 7 home $99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231429
$130 16gb quad ram 1600mhz

http://www.amazon.com/SAPPHIRE-Radeon-6870-GDDR5-Graphics/dp/B005C8RTTU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368769808&sr=8-1&keywords=AMD+6870
$260 GPU

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-HDKPC09-DT01ACA200-3-5IN-SECTOR/dp/B00AJMF4O6/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1368769924&sr=1-3&keywords=2tb+3gbs+hdd
$100 HDD

http://www.amazon.com/Asus-DVD-ROM-Internal-Blu-Ray-BC-12B1ST/dp/B004SUO068/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1368769965&sr=8-4&keywords=blu+ray+burner
$56 blue ray burner

$15 DVD burner

$150 for a simular (much better in my opinion case of your picking)

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Alienware-TactX-Keyboard-0G837/dp/B003V0RRA2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368770147&sr=8-1&keywords=Alienware+TactX+keyboard
$70 keyboard

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-ALIENWARE-TACTX-Alienware-TactX/dp/B008LG7UCG/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1368770179&sr=1-1&keywords=Alienware+TactX+mouse

$50 mouse

Thats around $1700 in parts so the deal you got isn't bad, but if you paid much more then what you paid you would have just got them at a normal price. They can keep their keyboard and mouse, they don't look that good to me anyways.
 
#23 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShortySmalls View Post

As far as those parts go, paying anything over $1400 you got ripped off. How dell is charging $2500 for it i don't know, you would have to be smoking some pretty strong stuff to pay anything near that.

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-3930K-Hexa-Core-Processor-Cache/dp/B00603QXPM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368769591&sr=8-1&keywords=3930k
$569 processor

$300 some random dell rebranded 2011 socket motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=-1&isNodeId=1&Description=windows+7+home&x=-1004&y=-112
Windows 7 home $99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231429
$130 16gb quad ram 1600mhz

http://www.amazon.com/SAPPHIRE-Radeon-6870-GDDR5-Graphics/dp/B005C8RTTU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368769808&sr=8-1&keywords=AMD+6870
$260 GPU

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-HDKPC09-DT01ACA200-3-5IN-SECTOR/dp/B00AJMF4O6/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1368769924&sr=1-3&keywords=2tb+3gbs+hdd
$100 HDD

http://www.amazon.com/Asus-DVD-ROM-Internal-Blu-Ray-BC-12B1ST/dp/B004SUO068/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1368769965&sr=8-4&keywords=blu+ray+burner
$56 blue ray burner

$15 DVD burner

$150 for a simular (much better in my opinion case of your picking)

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Alienware-TactX-Keyboard-0G837/dp/B003V0RRA2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368770147&sr=8-1&keywords=Alienware+TactX+keyboard
$70 keyboard

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-ALIENWARE-TACTX-Alienware-TactX/dp/B008LG7UCG/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1368770179&sr=1-1&keywords=Alienware+TactX+mouse

$50 mouse

Thats around $1700 in parts so the deal you got isn't bad, but if you paid much more then what you paid you would have just got them at a normal price. They can keep their keyboard and mouse, they don't look that good to me anyways.
You forgot the DUAL graphics cards, 32GB RAM, and soundcard, plus the computer case and PSU
wink.gif
 
#25 ·
Yep.

Wondering if OP is comparing the computer he bought + his parts on dells website, or just the computer on its own... I am not seeing where the 3K whatever cost is coming from, I am guessing he used his "after" specs, with all the ram and 2x gpus.

In which case, he might still want to take a look at the amount he spent on those parts too. I used a lot of old parts from my last build, but I can't just ignore their cost - I still paid for them... and, well... You can see my sig and the cost listed. Some of the things I have on there I did not pay MSRP for, namely the monitors. When they came out they were something like $230 each, I paid 200 for the third one (a month or so ago, supply and demand you know) and roughly $130 each for the first two over a year ago. Retail would put just my monitors at nearly $700 alone... money which I most certainly paid myself.

My system will walk all over that thing in the graphics department, and the cpu will come close assuming my OC vs his at stock settings. The cpu is great of course, but will OP ever put it to use compared to something much cheaper, like my 3770k? Maybe...

I am wondering what his total investment is there, seeing as just another 200 bucks would give me the audio card and full 32GB of ram - and the SSD isn't going to be doing me much of a favor for anything other than my patience.
 
#26 ·
This thread is very misleading. All of the components listed in the OP would be a stellar deal for the price listed. HOWEVER, that is a list put together with parts from the build he's getting plus the parts that he's using to upgrade. When you factor that in, the deal isn't as good as we were led to believe it was.
 
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