I'm at my wits end with Dell and Alienware!! I bought an X51 1.5 years ago and have had nothing but troubles since. I didn't believe all the reviews online about not buying these POS machines, but I'm realizing there's merit to them.
Out of the box I've never had any sound on this computer.
I've spent I don't know how many hours on hold and talking to customer service, doing reboots, uninstalling, reinstalling drivers, putting it through various tests and benchmarks.Needing to reinstall all my programs, updates, etc. each time.
Left work early on two occasions to meet a tech at my house to change out parts on these things, neither of which fixed my issue.
After the third call to tech support I was ready to send it back for my refund (at which point I was told there was only a 30 day return policy) so they insisted they will make it right by sending me a new unit. This one worked for a few months and now I'm back to square one, only this time without a warranty.
My last resort to try to get SOMETHING out of this thing, I plugged in a cheap travel size $20 speaker I use for presentations into the front head phone jack, and it works, but ONLY in that front jack, and that's after plugging it in and out a few times to get it to recognize there's something there.
They won't be seeing me back as a customer, and all of my friends, family, neighbors, and acquaintances will know to stay away as well. I know this post may get deleted and Dell will think nothing of it, but I felt I needed to make an effort to make people aware.