Is it worth renewing a warranty?

Fabio

Hi guys,

I own a Dell XPS M1330 which the one year warranty expired on today.

I have been offered a three year warranty by Dell for €160 EX VAT (so it's more like €190 I suppose with VAT).

Are these warranties worth it or can you get accidental breakage and overall cover for a cheapy price from elsewhere?

I've only ever had issues with the lappy once...motherboard had to be replaced by a Dell tecchie but other than that I'm dead happy with the machine and don't plan on changing it.

I treat my laptop well, don't throw it around and keep it clean so accidental damage wouldn't be a huge issue I don't think. However I have had that motherbaord problem and then I've read of the graphics card failures but I was told by Dell that was covered for 5 years anyway so weighing it all up, is paying out close to €200 worth it for a three year warranty???

AlmightyCushion

It depends. If you are fairly competent with computers then some of the more common things could be sorted yourself. If the ram/hard drive/fans/dvd drive were to go tits up you could replace them relatively cheaply and install it yourself. If not then it would work out better for you (if anything does go wrong you have someone who fix it for you).

It's really up to yourself, if you think the €200 is worth the peace of mind.

c-note

i had an inspiron 8500 and faced the same dilema.
i reasoned that i take good care of my stuff, so i didnt opt for the warranty.
good move.. as i didnt need to call on it.

however my gfx card did fry itself about a month ago
the machine is about 5.5 years old,
and to replace the gfx card could be about €60-€80 on ebay.
i'm hoping to find a spare somewhere as i dont wanna put good money into an old machine.

for someting like a gfx card/ keyboard/ hard drive failure you could prob replace the parts yourself for less than the cost of the warranty.

for screen failure or mobo failure or accidental damage, you'd prob be badly out of pocket!

if you want peace of mind i'd suggest going for the warranty.
otherwise, if you confident in you ability to preserve the thing, dont!

Fabio

Thanks for those replies guys.

It sure is one to think about...

I'm competent enough with computers but it's the cost of some of the parts for the lappy I have is what I'm thinking...

Actually what I'd love to know is this - is the XPS M1330 known to have serious issues?

AlmightyCushion

Main one would be the gpu failures but they are covered as you say above. There was a few threads here not to long ago with people having some pretty serious issues with the m1330. You might want to do a search.

curiosity

Ok....M1330 problems.....

11 months old;

2 LED screen failures (though in fairness the engineer who replaced the first one probably went wrong somewhere, it only lasted a week or so)

The graphics card failure that's plagued so many 1330s, new motherboard needed. Dunno about 5 years cover on that, the tech rep I spoke to said it would be covered for 12 months extra, so if you had 1 week left on your warranty, the new graphics card would be covered for an extra 12 months. 5 years sounds a mite generous.

The latest is the battery refusing to charge,they've sent me a replacement battery which doesn't seem to have done the trick, so that means another call, perhaps another charger, then another engineer visit to see if the motherboard is installed correctly.

I wouldn't dream of attempting any of these repairs myself, plus the parts alone would cost a nice bit. I did take out a 3 year warranty when I bought it, otherwise I'd be getting a bit nervous now. Having had 3 engineers visits so far, I got the impression that it was a tricky thing to repair. The guy who replaced the motherboard said he'd be 20 minutes, but ended up taking an hour.

Fabio

Hmmm....it's so hit or miss with Dell.

For every good story there's a horror one. I thnk mine has been in between the two haha!

Going to ask about a two year extension I think...

Voodu Child

Fabio wrote: »

Actually what I'd love to know is this - is the XPS M1330 known to have serious issues?

Some Nvidia graphics cards have a manufacturing defect that gives them a higher than expected failure rate, and the 8400M GS is definitely one of them.

€200 seems like a good price for a 3 year warranty, and as mentioned, you'll get an additional 1-year cover for issues relating to the graphics card. I would go for it personally, but it depends of course on how long you intend to keep the machine etc.

You should also make sure you're using the most recent graphics driver and system BIOS (from the Dell website), because the new Bios was designed specifically to help alleviate the gpu problem.

Fabio

Sounds good thanks Voodoo.

A friend of mine today was saying he wished he had taken out a warranty on his too but his ain't a Dell. He said if he was ever buying another lappy he'd take out a good warranty.

I'm being swyaed for sure towards the warranty...

Fysh

On a laptop, I'd say yes if it's your only computer. It's all very well to say you take care of your stuff, but that's not the issue - the issue is down to potential hardware failure. Sure, you can swap out RAM without too much hassle and it's not that expensive to get it cheapish from elsewhere. What happens when, 15 months after the purchase date, your graphics card dies on you? (and assuming for a second we're not talking about a "known issue failure" here like the general Nvidia disaster that's been going on for a while, but one of those random act of god type hardware failures).

That's where your warranty comes in. On a desktop I'd be doing the maths on potential hardware replacement cost vs the overall warranty cost, but on a decent laptop that I was reliant on, the warranty extension would be worth it.

(In saying that, I currently have an Inspiron 1501 that I got on the cheap and I don't have an extended warranty on that - but then, it's not my only computer and should it die on me I most likely wouldn't replace it as I have a desktop for grunt-intensive work and a 7" eeepc for portability....)

Fabio

Yeah...it's my only computer alright and it has everything on it. All of my music (I buy 90% on CD's anyway so I have hard copies but still...), all of my photos, all of my written articles and then we're not including college stuff...

Hmmm...that warranty sounds like it could be useful alright.

hoppy

its honestly worth it for the piece of mind!