Alienware does not support their systems to the level of providingspecific manuals for the motherboa

[MidnightRadio]

Thank you for contacting the Alienware Technical Support Team.

Unfortunately, we do not have the manuals for the sound card and video
card of your system. Actually, we do not provide our customers with
any manual except for the Desktop Owner Manual that come with all our
systems and that can be downloaded here:
http://aliendl.alienware.com/System_Manuals/Desktop_Owner_Manual.pdf.
Any additional information can be found in our "Knowledge Data Base"
at: http://support.alienware.com or you may also contact us by phone
at 866-287-6727 or by email and we will assist you in the matter.

If you have more questions regarding this or any other topic, do not
hesitate to contact us again.


Best regards,

Karen Espinosa
Electronic Support

Alienware Corporation
Phone: 305.287.6727
Fax: 786.388.5700
www.alienware.com

 

[MidnightRadio]

I am so very surprised that Alienware does not support their systems
to the level of providing specific manuals for the motherboard, audio
and video solutions they provide. In fact, I would bet the computer
magazine publishers and other forums (including online) would be as
surprised as I am to hear about this!

TTYL!

 

[RBM]

I am so very surprised that Alienware does not support their systems
to the level of providing specific manuals for the motherboard, audio
and video solutions they provide. In fact, I would bet the computer
magazine publishers and other forums (including online) would be as
surprised as I am to hear about this!

TTYL!

If they supplied you with manuals, you'd soon figure out that you wouldn't
need to be buying the PC from them

 

[kony]

I am so very surprised that Alienware does not support their systems
to the level of providing specific manuals for the motherboard, audio
and video solutions they provide. In fact, I would bet the computer
magazine publishers and other forums (including online) would be as
surprised as I am to hear about this!

TTYL!

Alienware may not receive manuals from
manufacturer/distributer to give to customers, if they're
buying OEM whitebox parts.

What need do you have for this manual? Most things aren't
hard to figure out and most manuals are very short and
written in poor Engrish, only stating the obvious things
beyond some features or locations of ports, headers, etc. on
a motherboard but these days jumpers on boards are rare
besides Clear CMOS and headers usually aren't hard to figure
out even if you can't see the silkscreened labeling, unless
they're proprietary which is also getting rare except on OEM
boards for Dell/etc for a special integrated cable to the
case front panel.

Alienware uses brand name retail parts, IIRC, so you should
be able to download the manual from the respective
manufacturer, or at least a manual to a very similar if not
identical part (for example one 8800GT video card is not
much different than another).

 

[kony]

On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 10:50:00 -0700 (PDT), MidnightRadio

Also, it would be nice if your post's subject line were a
concise title, like "Alienware Doesn't Provide Manuals" then
let the reader decide if that's interesting enough to read
further.

 

[GT]

I am so very surprised that Alienware does not support their systems
to the level of providing specific manuals for the motherboard, audio
and video solutions they provide. In fact, I would bet the computer
magazine publishers and other forums (including online) would be as
surprised as I am to hear about this!

Its not a surprise. Last time you bought a car, did you receive a manual for
the spark plugs or for the radio circuitry? I doubt it!

 

[kony]

Its not a surprise. Last time you bought a car, did you receive a manual for
the spark plugs or for the radio circuitry? I doubt it!

It's not quite that simple, if you buy the spark plugs
seperately in full retail package do you get a manual for
them then?

The difference is OEMs don't generally receive a full retail
box will all the random accessories, like a manual. In the
good ole days you might at least expect to receive a
separate OEM installation CD for a driver per device but
that was generally superceded by a master OEM CD that
contained several drivers for all the hardware in many
different systems, which was then superceded by more
system-specific CD so there was room left on it for the
applications too.

I suppose the real question is, "So what?", why is a manual
important. That's one of the reasons groups like this exist
to help enable use of computer hardware. If everything were
spelled out well in included manuals then 3/4ths of the
threads here wouldn't exist.

 

[Grinder]

I suppose the real question is, "So what?", why is a manual
important. That's one of the reasons groups like this exist
to help enable use of computer hardware. If everything were
spelled out well in included manuals then 3/4ths of the
threads here wouldn't exist.

So it's your contention that distribution of more, quality FMs, would
result in more people RTFMs?

 

[MidnightRadio]

So it's your contention that distribution of more, quality FMs, would
result in more people RTFMs?

Bahaha! Nice.

The motherboard in my unit is a seriously complicated component, with
all sorts of switches, ports, jumpers, headers and even a two digital
LED for POST codes. Alienware doesn't care for their clients to have
any documentation on it at all. I considered it strange since
Alienware has a reputation for catering to the tech savvy, those of us
who might like such a thing as detailed documentation. I am surprised
at the support they have gotten from the community despite this
obvious weakness. Oh, well, there are valid points on both sides of
this argument, as expected. Thanks for your opinion! TTYL!

 

[Grinder]

Bahaha! Nice.

The motherboard in my unit is a seriously complicated component, with
all sorts of switches, ports, jumpers, headers and even a two digital
LED for POST codes. Alienware doesn't care for their clients to have
any documentation on it at all. I considered it strange since
Alienware has a reputation for catering to the tech savvy, those of us
who might like such a thing as detailed documentation. I am surprised
at the support they have gotten from the community despite this
obvious weakness. Oh, well, there are valid points on both sides of
this argument, as expected. Thanks for your opinion! TTYL!

You more than likely can get an online copy of your motherboard's user
manual.

 

[kony]

The motherboard in my unit is a seriously complicated component, with
all sorts of switches, ports, jumpers, headers and even a two digital
LED for POST codes.

.... and I'll bet there's a brand name and model number on
the board which you can use to ID it and get the manual.

Alienware doesn't care for their clients to have
any documentation on it at all. I considered it strange since
Alienware has a reputation for catering to the tech savvy, those of us
who might like such a thing as detailed documentation.

I do think they should have provided one, at least in PDF
format but have you checked all the included CDs? Even if
they don't, so long as the system isn't ancient it shouldn't
take more than 2 minutes to open the case, get the model #,
search it with google and have the manual. Something more
inexcusible would be if they didn't provide a manual for
something rare and proprietary where they might be the only
possible source of info.

I am surprised
at the support they have gotten from the community despite this
obvious weakness. Oh, well, there are valid points on both sides of
this argument, as expected. Thanks for your opinion! TTYL!

IMO, the general online web community only drools about high
spec and fancily dressed up systems, not really considering
much at all about factors like long term usability, support,
longevity, etc. If you want the full retail kit for
hardware you have to buy the full retail hardware, anything
else is hit-or-miss. Just another reason to roll your own
system I suppose.

 

[Jon Danniken]

:
.. I considered it strange since

Alienware has a reputation for catering to the tech savvy, those of us
who might like such a thing as detailed documentation.

Hardly; their business model is predicated on supplying high end computers
to wealthy clients (mostly trust fund kids) who are either too ignorant or
too lazy to research and build their own systems.

Jon