Dell Precision 5510 Owner's Lounge

I've also been having USB issues on and off with the TB16 dock attached to a 7510. Sometimes it works fine (for days, weeks at a time) and then sometimes it goes and acts weird. In the end, though, I removed all USB connections from the TB16 dock and hooking them up to the ePort dock instead. I don't have any issues with displays running through the dock.

We do have five or six 5510's with TB16 deployed at my organization, though, and I haven't heard any recent complaints about them. So, it seems like there are cases where it works fine.

Might be worth just grabbing a USB hub to hook your USB stuff up to, and then plugging that directly into the laptop... Two things to connect instead of one, but not that bad.

 

There is another update related to USB -- ASMEDIA

https://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER04...Controller-Driver_MM1NX_WIN_1.16.49.1_A06.EXE

So along with the 1.3 BIOS and the above update my mousing and keyboard through the dock seems back to normal.

Unrelated, but I've had to uninstall the recent Realtek audio drivers which seemed to cause Windows Explorer to randomly hang.

 

Debugging of the BIOS continues: BIOS 1.4.0 dated 25th September 2017:

Fixes & Enhancements
1. Fixes system defense with wireless parameter will cause ME failure
2. System stability enhancements
3. To prevent user update ME Firmware to blacklist 11.6 ME firmware
4. Correct error message in Excalibur
5. Fix Bitlocker issue on Win7 ultimate/enterprise

John

 

Anyone else get a call/notification from Dell about a battery recall?



My 5510 is out of warranty as of May, so out-of-warranty machines with qualifying service keys still qualify for a free replacement.

I am surprised to be the first to post this here! It apparently doesn't affect all machines, so maybe it's less prevalent than I thought.

If anyone has already gone through the recall and replacement process, did Dell replace your 84Whr battery with the 97Whr one from the 5520 and 9560? Apparently, it's a direct replacement, so that would be nice. Based on the one account I've seen thus far, the answer would be no

 

Interesting. I have the Xeon, so that would make sense. Sounds like that scenario that I hypothesized at the end of my advice actually exists then.

It could be an issue with motherboard firmware. Being that the motherboard controls the RAM speed and timings, one would think that it could recognize that the lowest profile provided by the module is too high for the CPU, and then default to a slower profile of the motherboard's own choosing. As I stated previously, the higher speed modules are the same hardware as the slower one's made by a given manufacturer, but the higher speed one's are tested to verify stable performance at the higher speed. Different profiles are loaded onto an ID chip that is not a core part of the RAM (don't recall it's name) and that is what the motherboard uses to determine the module's supported speeds and timings.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are other laptops that do not suffer from this problem because their motherboard firmware accounts for that contingency. It's a fringe scenario with an aftermarket upgrade, so I wouldn't expect Dell to even consider it a bug.

That was a clever test you did, swapping in a single slower module!

 

If the batteries are known to be vulnerable to swelling then Dell has to be proactive (think Samsung Galaxy Note 7).Those who worked their batteries hardest may have been the first to encounter the problem but there's too much bad press associated with potentially problematic Lithium batteries to try to evade responsibility for any design or manufacturing defects (in UK, the "latent defects" provisions in legislation go well beyond any warranty period). Unless Dell has a specific date range for production and relate to codes on the batteries then they will try to replace all the 84Whr batteries. However, they might be slow in contacting everyone as the supply of replacements might be a constraint.

I'll try to remember to contact Dell as I have the 84Whr battery.

John

 

Trouble is this has been going on for 12+ months with the 9550, Dell didn't give a damn until a few weeks ago.

 

I sent an email to Dell support and the initial response was:
"I understand that potential problems with swelling battery. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention as we want you to have a good experience with your DELL system. We appreciate the opportunity to work with you to resolve the situation.

I just want to make you aware that the battery is out of warranty as it was purchased over 12 months ago.

Batteries carry a one year, non extendable warranty as they are consumable items."
So I replied that I had put my service tag into this web page which then led me to this page about the proactive replacement. I haven't yet had a further response.

John

 

I think we can be nearly certain that that is in fact the case. Dell, like any other company in this situation, is going to try to identify whether it is a manufacturing defect that is prevalent in a certain batch of the batteries from the supplier or if it's a design flaw that has the potential to affect every battery. It turned out to be a design flaw in the case of the Galaxy Note 7 which is why they were forced to do a massive recall of all units. There's also the fact that there were multiple reports of phones, not simply swelling, but bursting into flames and new reports were coming in every day. There's a much greater risk of serious personal injury if it's a smartphone bursting into flames as it's held directly on the body, so it has to be dealt with much more stringently. That's not to say that a laptop bursting into flames wouldn't be a very serious and unacceptable hazard, but as far as we know, there aren't yet any reports of that happening to these batteries.

The batteries are likely a custom design for Dell, and Dell likely commits to buying a certain number of units before production begins in order to take advantage of volume pricing. Dell will receive the batteries in large batches. Having some personal experience with manufacturing, I can tell you that these batteries are one of many products the supplier produces for possibly dozens of clients. When Dell places an order to replenish it's battery supplies for this model, the manufacturer sets up an assembly line and knocks out how ever many thousand batteries Dell ordered in a day or two. Outside of a large initial order, it doesn't make sense to have expensive Li-ion cells (financial asset that depreciates) sitting around in custom battery packs waiting for the next Dell order. As the different production runs are often separated by weeks or months and orchestrated by different workers on equipment that may have been damaged in the interim, there are many variables that could lead to a defect in a single production run. If a defect does appear and a recall is necessary, any unit without the defect that must be recalled is an unnecessary financial loss. As no business likes losing money, it only makes sense to keep track of these things and it's not terribly difficult or time consuming to do. Information for each production run is loaded into a database where it is tied to the serial numbers of the units produced.

This type of information is retained at basically every level of manufacturing, since there's big money at stake. Dell collects data on consumer complaints and product malfunctions, and when a significant trend emerges, they trace it to the faulty component and then to the parts order(s) those components arrived in. If Dell still has component(s) from those orders on hand, it'll seek to return them to the supplier under whatever contractual agreement they have. The supplier will then try to trace down the cause of the defects within it's product, battery packs in this case - maybe it's a faulty batch of Li-ion cells or temperature sensors or ICs. Those parts are likely bought in even larger quantities than Dell's battery orders and are used in a range of battery packs, so the battery pack supplier will want to immediately identify and stop using the faulty component if they still have stock on hand and seek reparations from their supplier. The battery pack supplier will also track down different battery packs they've already produced that contain those components to see if a recall is warranted there.

Dell really has the easiest job in tracking down defects, as they source basically all major components like network cards, RAM, SSDs, motherboards etc from other manufacturers and assemble them into the finished consumer product. Most of these components are off the shelf and not Dell's own design, so even if it is a design flaw rather than a manufacturing defect, another party is usually responsible. That being said, recalls are extremely expensive, so you can be sure Dell's only going to recall products that are known to have a component from a flawed production run.

TLDR: It's not only possible, but extremely likely that only a minority of Precision 5510 and XPS 9550 laptops will be covered by the recall. Dell is not responsible for component defects that occur after the warranty has ended and Dell even sells extended warranties for those who want to be covered against defects for a longer period of time. Dell is under no obligation to replace these batteries, but if they do start bursting into flames, they could face legal liability and it would be a PR nightmare, so they've judged that it's worth the expense to recall for affected units. Mind you, this is in the US. I believe the UK, and possibly the EU, require consumer products to have warranties of a minimum length and other consumer right's laws on the books. Regardless, those laws will only apply if you have one of the affected units.

It's also worth noting that even among Li-ion batteries that exhibit some swelling, it's still very rare for them to burst into flames or start smoking. It is however more likely that they'll burst into flames, and swelling usually precedes such an event. Given the danger involved, one such event is too many, so neither myself nor anyone else would ever encourage you to continue using a swollen battery. Looking back 15 years, I used to read about Li-ion pouch cells being used in hobby applications and they were considered extremely dangerous. Overcharging, over discharging, and the smallest amounts of physical damage to a cell could cause them to explode and it did happen on a not so infrequent basis. Clearly enormous innovations in quality control and integrated protection circuitry have been made.

 

I am not surprised by that response. Some degree of swelling is common in batteries nearing the end of their life span, and while swelling generally precedes an explosion, empirical evidence would suggest that it's still a very rare occurrence. Given the stakes, Dell very likely tests their batteries under extreme abuse to verify that they do not explode under such circumstances. As it is the most consumable and frequently replaced component of a laptop, people are trying to get them to replace worn out batteries which aren't defective all the time. It is likely that this is always their first response for an out of warranty machine. This is one of many products, and it's likely that only a minority are affected by the recall, so it's likely that Dell support reps haven't yet heard of it. Ideally, a notice about the recall would be presented to the support rep when they checked your service tag, but I don't think you have anything to worry about.