Hope you didn’t miss my most recent Dell tale of woe. You know the one where Brittany believes taking proper care of my computer means turning it off.
So yesterday afternoon a new chapter unfolded. Just to review: My Dell XPS M170 laptop is a warranty replacement for a 1st generation Dell Inspiron XPS that wouldn’t stay running for long without shutting itself down due to overheating, despite numerous repair attempts. My current warranty replacement laptop hasn’t fared much better. It has had 3 LCD screen replacements (hmm…my fault again according to Brittany), one video board replacement (an Nvidia Go 6800 Ultra 256 MB), and one premature battery death.
I am writing this blog article while running in Windows XP Safe Mode on my laptop. Why is that? Because Airborne is en route to my friendly local service tech with a new motherboard and video board. Yes, the video board failed yesterday and I can only run in Safe Mode using default VGA mode. Normal booting causes a BSOD as soon as the Nvidia driver loads (and I did try an uninstall, purge, and clean reinstall of the video drivers). I ran the Dell diagnostic, and it generated a bunch of failure codes and messages on the video memory test (as I suspected before I even ran the test, based on how the display appeared). After calling Dell, their help desk decided — despite what the Dell diagnostic results are — that the problem isn’t the video board, but the motherboard (which passed all Dell diagnostic tests). Fortunately, I argued successfully for them to send a replacement video board in addition to the motherboard. They state they will instruct the in-home service tech to replace the motherboard first and rerun the diagnostic to see if it fixes the problem before replacing the video board as well. Maybe there is something about the motherboard that is causing failure, but the video board is dead regardless. I would be surprised if the tech doesn’t just roll his eyes and replace both to begin with.
This will be six repairs in 15 months, five of them major repairs of catastrophic failure requiring an on-site service call. Oops, seven…forgot about the failed cooling fan.
I’m at whits end. I’ll say it again, this (and the previous) Dell is just a steaming pile of smelly crap. There should be a lemon law for computers like there is for cars.
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Man, all the troubles you’ve had with Dell really suck. I would hate to be the next “customer satisfaction” representative that talks to you.
Well I’ve only had my Inspiron 6400 for a week now, but things are working very well with it so far. I’m not even going to cross my fingers… I’m just going to think happy thoughts about productivity.
It gets worse. The repair tech arrived yesterday with the replacement motherboard and video board. He’s a nice guy, has been here several times, and takes pride in his work. But he doesn’t work for Dell. He works for the contractor XQualServ that performs on site service.
Anyway, the video board was DOA. When XQualServ tech called Dell to get a replacement ordered, the Dell tech on the phone made the baseless statement the motherboard would just fix the problem, and he refused to dispatch a working video board. The repair tech had to put my broken video board back, so I’m still with a broken laptop and Dell uncooperative about fixing it. As soon as the video board gets warm, I get display artifacts, and once it heats up further the computer freezes and gets a BSOD on reboot. Then I can only run in VGA mode by booting in Safe Mode. I demonstrated this to the repair tech by bringing up Half Life 2. It showed display artifacts immediately on game start, and locked up completely within a minute or two.
This makes 8 component failures on this laptop. I think I’ll just order a MacBook Pro and start whatever legal action I can take against Dell (starting with a consumer complaint to the MO Attorney general).
“I think I’ll just order a MacBook Pro and start whatever legal action I can take against Dell…”
I think that is what I would have to resort to at this point, also. Having a paperweight laptop when you are a tech junkie is really torturous.
But will you still be able to play Half Life 2?
Now it’s taken to shutting itself down without warning. I cannot eject USB devices, disconnect the AC power cable, nor physically move the laptop without it shutting off — and I don’t mean a system shutdown, it just powers off with no warning. It did provide a Dell #M1004 error code and message about overheating at one point. Don’t know why it overheated. Guess I was reading too many email messages, or my blog reader had too many articles. Yeah, that must be it.
It boggles the mind. It’s not like I’m hard on the thing. It sits on my desk at home, goes into the car to work, and sits on my desk at work. God forbid if I was a student trying to use the thing, taking it around to classes, coffee shops, libraries, and other places of Dell laptop woe. And what if I were a real gamer? It might disintegrate before my eyes.
I’m told they have escalated my issue, whatever that means.
I would give up HL2 to have a laptop that really works reliably.
I am perhaps a bit late to the party, but you might find solace in Dell-related posts on The Consumerist blog.
Dell ended up replacing:
1. video board (I actually talked them into upgrading it to a nVidia 7800 GTX)
2. video board fan
3. video board heatsink
4. motherboard
5. CPU
6. CPU fan
7. CPU heatsink
I think that makes around 15 part replacements for this laptop in 15 months. Anyway, the damn thing is so unreliable I bought a MBP.
I’m having serious problems with my M170. So far:
I could not activate my virus software, since the laptop is a refurb and the previous owner activated it. Therefore I paid for a $60 piece of software that is effectively dead worthless.
I have had numerous issues with overheating and the video card and/or mobo are shot. I have visual artifacts all over the screen and I can’t boot into either my linux or windows partition in anything but safe mode. Since it is just out of warranty (conveniently), I have to pay the $40 to have someone say, “yes it is broken” and then pay a tech to tell me what I already know, and then pay for a new mobo and/or video card. I was THIS CLOSE to buying a MacBook pro, but a friend talked me out of it. I am really regretting my decision.
The virus software problem is easily solved. Get AVG Free version. If the software that came with it was Norton, count your blessings that you couldn’t activate it.
The symptoms you describe sound like a bad video board. Run the Dell hardware diagnostic and see if the video memory test fails. That’s a sure giveaway. I had the same thing. I could only boot into safe mode with a bad video board.
You should have gotten the MBP. I did and have no regrets.
My Dell story has a new chapter (positive for a change). I’m working on the story and will have a post soon (later today or tomorrow).
I have a xps m170 here with the same problem. Corruption is like the matrix going vertically down the screen this happens even in the bios and during boot and blue screens if the nvidia driver is installed.
It fails the dell diagnostic on video memory so i ordered a 7800 gtx on ebay a few days ago and still waiting for it to arrive.
I’m not going to be to pleased if it turns out to be the motherboard. When You had your mobo replaced did the problem clear up and was you able to boot again?
Yup, you have a bad video board (actually bad memory). Same symptoms I had. Your motherboard is probably fine. Dell replaced my motherboard because they are completely clueless. There wasn’t anything wrong with that.
In the end, Dell finally just replaced the entire laptop. I now have a Precision M90 they sent me last July. It works OK and hasn’t had any problems, but I don’t use it that much either (at work for email, MS project, Office, etc). My primary computer now is a 17″ MacBook Pro and a 23″ Apple Cinema Display. You couldn’t pay me to go back to Dell. The Mac is thinner, lighter, more powerful, and has an OS that doesn’t annoy me constantly.
Thanks for the quick reply Dean, the 7800 GTX left Miami airport at 12.45pm yesterday so I should get it mid week here in london UK.
I bought this XPS from a customer for £150 ($300) the card cost more at $350 with shipping. Hoping to sell it for £550 ($1100) or I might keep it as my wife has gotten a little attched to it.
I’ve already modded it with a new m1710 lid cover, looking for a new palmrest now.
haha. i think i stumbled onto this blog the *first* time my m170 fucked up. about every 5 weeks, the video card dies or moreso. i’ve had the lcd replaced 4 times, the video card, 4 times, video memory replaced, 2 motherboards and the memory replaced twice.
waiting for a callback tomorrow from their ‘escalation manager’ after skipping over a tech and talking to their manager today.
unfortunately, my business thrives on having a functional machine.
I have not had to deal with a repair, tech support call, or any warranty issue in over a year. That can mean only one thing: I am not using a Dell.
My MacBook Pro continues to be reliable, a pleasure to use, and a vast improvement over Dell and WIndows. I’ll never go back to hell.