My Alienware Aurora

My Alienware Aurora

I bought one of these in February 2006.

Cabling Information

I use the upper Ethernet port and left hand DVD connector port.

More Memory Xmas 2008

I want some more Memory. This page at msdn documents the real limits for 32 Bit Windows XP. So I decide to but another 2 Gb to take it to 3 Gb, and utilise the unused two slots. Alienware no longer sell RAM this poor, so I need to buy DDR PC3200.

• The results from crucial.com's scanner.
• Kingston HyperX Memory from Amazon, looks like it has the heat sink, and looks like its cheaper than the e-buyer price.
• Offtek's DDR2 PC3200 page, DDR2 and cheap, no heat sink
• Ebuyer:Kingston Alienware 1Gb, in their memory section.
• Kingston Technology UK home page, with their home resellers

recommended

Boot errors Spring 2008

It developed an intermittent boot fault and I used the Alienware remote support site. They said,

"In this case, the first thing we want to do is reseat the hard drive. To perform this step you will need to remove the left side panel and reseat the data and power cables for the hard drive."

In their knowledge base, they have an article decribing "How to add a disk" which is close enough to guide me. It also references "How to remove the left side panel". I am unclear if you need to be logged in to the site to see these pages.

I have documented my actions as comments.

Documenting problems at Alienware

Next time, use the web form to make a very short problem statement, then use the case management form to add further diagnostics. The first form has a very narrow text box and inserts line breaks where it thinks appropriate. This makes the initial post very hard to read.

Finding a trouble ticket

The Alienware login is domain specific, so .co.uk is different from .com. You need to login to the support site then sue their tools to find the trouble ticket. In the case of UK customers, use the My Hive page.