xps m1330 motherboard again

reddeagle

Hi There,

Have my xps just under 9 months now. So far motherboard and harddrive has failed on it. The mother board was replaced initally due to the graphics card going bust.

I have next day warranty (for the next 4 years ) and they sent a guy out. hard drive was easy to replace. next visit he replaced the mother board. Took him hours.

So all is grand until this morning, the graphis card is gone again, (vertical lines).

The last time they replaced the graphis card, the engineer got it working but when he put laptop back to gether again he didnt do great job, dvd slot battery etc are all misaligned.

I rang up support and they said they will send out new mother board. i asked them to replace the laptop as it pretty much has not worked since the beginning. they refuse to do so and are happy to keep sending out replacement motherboards.

Do i have any "rights" to refuse a new motherboard and demand a replacement laptop instead one that works.?!

TestTransmission

Nope,it is up to them whether to repair or replace.
Altho,when did the faults start appearing?
If it happened shortly after buying it you could argue that the laptop was faulty from the beginning but seeing as you have only had the mbx and hard drive replaced i dont think theyd replace it.

But...
Keep a track of what faults you have and when you report them,

Voodu Child

There was someone in a thread with similar problems and she got a new machine after asking to speak to a supervisor, and clearly explaining the situation (number of repairs, amount of time wasted staying at home for service guys).

reddeagle

voodoo_child wrote: »

There was someone in a thread with similar problems and she got a new machine after asking to speak to a supervisor, and clearly explaining the situation (number of repairs, amount of time wasted staying at home for service guys).

I talked the supervisor! basically the said after 3rd engineer call they will look at the alternatives! as in replacement...

so two mother boards.
hard drive
wifi
and new lcd screen.

surely it would be cheaper to just replace it...

still glad i have 3 years warranty left. never thought how useful it would be.

reddeagle

Well laptop works again after new screen and motherboard.

How ever the laptop no longer closes flush to the keboard big space at the side, left hinge hasnt been correctly screned on
there is a big space between lcd screen and the cover around it.

showed him this and asked him to address, he said he tried everything to get it back the way it was but he reckoned a flaw with original laptop. packed up and left.

Laptop now looks like a poor second hand laptop from ebay.

Voodu Child

Just get onto them again and get it sorted. If he's broken something (or reassembled poorly) then youre entitled to have it put right.

LolaDub

I'm in 'talks' with them about getting a new machine. I've said i either want my money back or a new lap top. The twats just ignored what i said and kept sending back we'll be sending a technician...so i found something on the consumer agency website that said the first repair had to be permanent and sent that to them along with an 'invoice' of the time i had to take off work waiting around for people who were never coming and a formal letter of complaint for the **** i went through. Waiting patiently for a response....:rolleyes:

Dartz

If it's that warped that the screen doesn't close properly then there's something seriously wrong with the chassis. It may have warped because of the laptops own heat expanding the metal.

If it's that warped though then it will only be stressing the motherboard as it heats up again, and it's just going to cause another failure.

Healing Dream

I had a few months left on my XPS Gen2 and decided to get the screen replaced about 2 months ago. Got an engineer around no problem and as you do I asked him how work was. He said busy. The xps m1330 was breaking his heart. Failing all over the place but mainly the MB.

LolaDub

Definitely seems to be more of an xps m1330 issue than an xps issue

Seifer

Someone linked this in another laptop thread. Basically it says that the graphics card you most likely have in your m1330 will fail. And as long as Dell keep replacing it with the same nvidia crap it will continue to fail. The m1330 causes them to fail faster due to its smaller size not dissipating heat as quickly however it will eventually fail in all machines it is used in.

opr

*sigh*

I was just about to buy one of these !

Opr

reddeagle

Seifer wrote: »

Someone linked this in another laptop thread. Basically it says that the graphics card you most likely have in your m1330 will fail. And as long as Dell keep replacing it with the same nvidia crap it will continue to fail. The m1330 causes them to fail faster due to its smaller size not dissipating heat as quickly however it will eventually fail in all machines it is used in.

So i called back del this morning and a manager will be calling me back this evening about a replacement.
Last night, i really had a second look at the work the engineer did.

Left hinge cover fell off on my hand.
The area that houses the led buttons and power button is loose above that same hinge.
The keyboard is not screwed correctly. right hand side bounces when you type
The cover around the screen is coming loose, where he never clipped in the cover of the screen correctly.

Not sure if i mentioned this yesteryday, after the service the engineer told me that dell would send out a customer satisfaction form and he would appreciate a 8.9 or even better a 10!
I didnt know what yo say to that..

Seifer

I've been waiting for a decent offer all Summer to get an M1530. Then I saw that article on Monday and basically now can't until they change the card. Or else have to start looking at other laptop brands.

Seifer

reddeagle wrote:

Not sure if i mentioned this yesteryday, after the service the engineer told me that dell would send out a customer satisfaction form and he would appreciate a 8.9 or even better a 10!
I didnt know what yo say to that..

The only reason someone would be so unprofessional as to say something like that would be if they had been warned that their rating was below average. They're obviously not qualified so be truthful so others don't have to suffer his work.

Dartz

Seifer wrote: »

Someone linked this in another laptop thread. Basically it says that the graphics card you most likely have in your m1330 will fail. And as long as Dell keep replacing it with the same nvidia crap it will continue to fail. The m1330 causes them to fail faster due to its smaller size not dissipating heat as quickly however it will eventually fail in all machines it is used in.

That article is designed to garner nothing more than page clicks. It's smoke. It shouldn't put anyone off buying a 1530.

It does seem to be an issue with the 1330, but I don't recall off the top of my head near as many threads about MB failures on the 1530. It is being said that specific hardware configurations are prone to excarcerbating the issue... I would be inclined to believe this.

With the 1530, it's usually the HDD that goes. There's a hotspot right beside it. Dude, seriously, 1530 is probably the best bang for the buck your going to get, but if you're worried about it that much, ATI equipped studio's will do the same job.

Sop far my 1530 has been faultless, and so far I would recommend it to anyone.

Seifer

The whole point of the article was that they will all fail. The 1330's just fail faster because of their compact size and lesser heat dissipation. It's in the article if you read it.
Whether you believe it or not I'm inclined to due to the crazy number of threads on the internet about the gpus failing.
I thought the studio was a low budget, low performance model so hadn't looked at it. Will check it out.

LolaDub

reddeagle wrote: »

Not sure if i mentioned this yesteryday, after the service the engineer told me that dell would send out a customer satisfaction form and he would appreciate a 8.9 or even better a 10!
I didnt know what yo say to that..

LOL i was told the same thing! I told them i wouldn't be giving them a good rating until the issue was resolved and strangely i never got the rating form

Dartz

NO... it does not mean that they all will fail. I did read the article and I am off the opinion that one article does not a gospel make. I had a quick google during my lunchgbreak... okay so maybe my google fu is not strong,

But, googling:

"Nvidia Graphics bad"

"Nvidia graphics fail"

And the like led me to a bunch of forums posts asking about drivers, a bunch of posts linking to that one article, and another one debunking it.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080716-nvidia-denies-rumors-of-mass-gpu-failures.html

Yes, Nvidia have announced that some GPU are more prone to early failure than others... but that doesn't mean that there is a timebomb sitting on your motherboard. It means that instead of 1 in 100000 failing, 1 in 10000 will fail. Never mind the fact that these are among the most common notebook GPU's...

LolaDub

Dell have sent me an email saying that they will only replace a computer when they exhaust all possibilities of repair under warranty. Sounds to me like they just want to fob people off with repairs until the warranty runs out. I've already had several repairs and the thing doesn't work, i keep ending up in internet cafes to make deadlines because the lap top won't work. I find it so unacceptable that dell will so easily leave people with a sub standard product when its obviously faulty. If i wanted to keep going to internet cafes to work i didn't need to buy an xps!!!

Dartz

That's just stupid on Dells part.

There's a decent enough fix for the problem available if you don't mind getting a poke around inside. It is a hardware quirk of the 1330 that is exacerbating the problem.

From my understanding of what's happened, the chip is thermally weaker than Nvidia's original specifications. The 1330 pushes it right to the limit of those on-paper specifications, and so is overheating the weakened chips and causing them to die.

The 1330 uses a thermal pad to join the GPU with the main heatpipe, which is not as thermally conductive as a proper copper heatsink. This means the GPU is getting hot. It's probably within (right on the bleeding edge maybe) Nvidia's specifications, but the actual chip isn't as resilient as it should be, and is failing.

It is Nvidia's fault, not Dell's. In all likelyhood, the replacement laptop they give you would fail just as quickly as the replacement motherboard.

The M1530 does have a proper heatsink/heatpipe assembly, which is why there aren't near as many reported failures with them.

What people are doing is that they are removing the thermal pad, and replacing it with a homemade heatsink, from a sheet of copper or aluminium, and some thermal paste. Why Dell themselves aren't doing this when they repair a dead laptop I don't know, because it seems to be curing the failures

Finally, can you imagine the pain of recalling each and every XPS1330 worldwide to fix this issue in the factory? It's not that it would be expensive as such (Well not for Dell, who would be sure to charge Nvidia for it), it's just that it would be a very impractical thing to pull off completely.

Only way to do it would be to replace the pads on new motherboards with copper heatsinks, when dead ones are being replaced.

---

For anyone enterprising enough to do the mod themselves here's a guide I found:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=250129

And take a blast of canned air to the inside of your heatsink too...

LolaDub

Respect Dartz but i don't have a clue what you just said.

My motherboard has already been replaced but its still not working. The screen and adaptor have been replaced as well. The lap top keeps crashing/freezing every few mins and is completely non responsive, the screen flickers like a strobe light and eventually goes to vertical lines. The mousepad usually turns into a faint line so you can hardly see it on the screen, and the dvd drive doesn't work.

*warning bit of a rant*

My tale of woe is when i started complaining about lap top not working i was told a million different things including i would have to pay 400 euro. Eventually got someone to help me who took control of my lap top claiming it could be fixed from there. This seems to be a favourite line of dells!!! Agent asked if screensaver was my baby, i said yes he said so cute etc then brought up an internet page on how to leave your husband in 10 easy steps!:eek: Then proceeded to look through all my photos when he thought i wasn't there. Nothing got fixed and two days later the lap top wouldn't even turn on. Rang again got the same thing about taking control of lap top, took about 20 mins for them to cop on they couldn't take control and i needed a technician. My warranty is next business day and i was calling on a thurs but they couldn't get a technician until Mon. Took Mon off work and waited in, get a call at 6.15 saying tech will be there Wed, i told them i'd taken today off work and hadn't been informed of this and the tech was now coming a week after my complaint-not as per my warranty. They said they had tried to call me, turned out they rang me once at midnight!

Had to take Wed off again tech comes very nice guy replaces the parts and said he didn't think it was the problem he thought it was the graphics card but he didn't work for dell and could only replace the parts dell sent him. Anyhow after this lap top was improved but not better and webcam dvd drive and mousepad not working at all and lap top only lasts a few mins before going on blink. Seems to run unusally hot, if its on my knees it burns me through jeans but maybe thats normal? I've learned the story about the fans so its always on a hard surface now. Tried to call a few times, kept either just getting automatic messages directing me to website or i got hung up on. Sent three emails got one reply. Agent just sent me links to downloads that would fix my problem, obviously didn't. I told them i had nothing but trouble since the moment i got this and i either wanted a refund or a replacement. Then was told as per above that they will only replace items as a special case after they exhaust all possibilities of repair and if the item is still in warranty.

So in conclusion spent a fortune on this 'premium' xps product got a ridiculous amount of hassle from dell, lost more money to having to take off work and pissing off my manager, can't use this thing for longer than 10 mins. Everything is broken pretty much on it, i have to have it plugged in all the time and plug in an xps mouse. I'm in an internet cafe 3 times a week doing the work that this won't allow me to complete, if i try to upload/download it goes into non responsive, basically if i try anything beyond internet browsing it goes non responsive. Maybe its just one software prob but because so much has broken i definitely think its faulty. I'm also not prepared to have paid out for an xps and have gotten a product that has me fleeing to internet cafes. Pretty appalled by dell customer service too.

Dartz

That is pretty ****ed up alright. You're getting jerked around, you might have a concumer authority complaint out of it. Just be careful, be polite, and keep your head about yourself. Flying off the handle will not get you anywhere..

It depends on what you get off 'em I guess. Sometimes they work just right, occasionally they dont. Right now, Dell are in my good books. I was impressed with how fast they built and delivered my laptop, especially over a bank holiday.

I've had no need for hardware support yet myself, so I don't know about that. Only problem I remotely have right now is a graphics quirk...which is a result of a setting I tweaked and forgot what it was.

Anyway, what I was trying to say so inelegantly is this:

When Nvidia sold the 8400GS and 8600GT's to Dell, they would've told Dell what the maximum temperature the chip could take. Dell would've designed the laptop to cool to below this temperature.

The 1330 is not as efficient at cooling, because it uses a thermal pad to take heat away from the GPU. It meets the specification Nvidia gave to Dell, but probably not by much.

Now, because there is a fault in the chips design/construction, it is not as resistant to high temperatures as Nvidia thought, or as they told Dell (Or HP, or anyone else). It cannot take the temperature Nvidia said it could take for very long.

Therefore, the 1330 is burning out chips by heating them past what they can actually take.

It is not a problem with the 1530, because the 1530 is equipped with a proper heatsink, which is much better at taking heat away from the GPU. It runs cooler under load, and even with the construction fault runs cool enough for it not to be a problem.

Replacing the Thermal Pad in the 1330 with a homemade heatsink improves the efficiency of it's cooling, and brings the GPU temperature down to a level it is better able to tolerate.

tl;dr: Nvidia told Dell the chip could take a certain amount of heat. Dell designed the 1330 to that amount. Chip is actually faulty and can't take that level of heat. Therefore, chip dies.

I might just be talking out my ass here, but I think this is whats happening. It makes sense to my sleep deprived brain, and it fits what I'm reading on the interweb about this.

---

ChickCool

i heard xps premium support was made redundant in eire and now you have to contact india?how is this premium support if its true?????

Overheal

I was getting ready to chime in warning you about the g8400/g8600 cards but ive been beaten to it.

OP the reason Dell wont get you a new laptop is simple. Right now nvidia is eating up the blame for the fault and so its at nvidia's cost to replace the board(s). However, a whole replacement puts Dell out of money - serious money: The lid and screen on your typical laptop alone represents over half the cost of the materials; they dont really want to pay for things that still work.

reddeagle

Hi All,

To summarise where i stand with laptop.

I think dell xps support has moved to India, previously when i had issues i ended up talking to an Irish guy.

Last week i rang support and within 7 ish days. i now have a replacement laptop thanks to the support guys in India. Laptop was re-ordered sunday night and arrived this morning.

My laptop, has had two motherboards, lcd, harddrive replaced and three engineers out to see it.

Simple i explained to the support dudes, the state my laptop was in after the last engineer visited and how i had pics that i could send on to show his efforts.

They said, after three engineer visits, then they consider replacement, i had three and they honored that.

I'm an IT contractor, i use my laptop alot for travel and development. Im still happy with its day to day performance and still would get the 1330 if i had a choice. It would be great if they sorted out this issue, as i think its a good machine.

LolaDub

According to the national consumer agency the first repair has to be permanent and after that the customer can choose whether they want a repair, replacement or refund. Personally i'm a single parent and don't get paid for days i take off work and really can't afford to be doing so while they exhaust all possibilities of repair. I wouldn't mind as much if i could drop it off somewhere in the mornings and collect it in the evenings or if i hadn't been jerked around so much by customer service and had my privacy invaded. Before i got this xps i had a 6 year old compaq desktop which actually runs ok but v loud and slow, remarkably its still quicker than this but i can't take it with me when i need it. Well done on getting your replacement redeagle, did they extend the warranty to cover the new one too?

2Scoops

Bah! My m1330 has also just succumbed, thanks to the NVIDIA card. I can't believe there's no comeback to this. I'll just have to pencil in a mobo replacement every 6-12 months for the remainder of the warranty. :mad:

LolaDub

I think its pot luck with how much dell support will help you. If you complain to the national consumer agency/authority they will gather all complaints together as this is obviously more than a one off issue. Is it just the motherboard that should be replaced dartz or the graphics card as well or anything else?

Dartz

Read the link...

Anyone reasonably competent can do it. Replacing the pad over the GPU with a piece of copper will improve the reliabiltiy no end. Theoretically, there should be no need to replace the motherboard at this time.

Darwin

Does this also apply to non-gamers as GPU temps would raise considerably during gaming sessions? My M1330 is 8 months old no probs so far, wife also has one. Should we be thinking of extending the warranty?