Glitchiness, thy name is Vostro 3555

Can't find the master thread at the moment (I know I saw it here before buying) but was wondering if anybody else has trouble with this A70M-based machine. Mine came with an A8 and 6GB plus the usual specs. I went from being initially pleased at bagging a well-performing, seemingly complete-featured notebook at a $200 holiday discount to overall disappointment/annoyance after fewer than 6 weeks. I'd return it if I weren't well outside the window.

The USB 3.0 and eSATA ports are somewhat unreliable, intermittently dropping my external drives for no reason (probably AMD is to blame here). Occasionally it won't start from cold boot, freezing at the gray logo screen; occasionally it won't shut down. The touchpad is not exemplary, though I'd read that before making my purchase. The fingerprint sensor doesn't work w/ Windows 7 out of the box and is the lousiest sensor I've used anyway--switched back to password entry a couple of days on. Also now I suddenly get a "clock interrupt was not received on a secondary processor" blue screen once per week.

Then there are all the little design flaws like the recessed network jack, along with stuff of which I already was aware but didn't expect to find so bothersome: minor reflectivity/glare issues, the obstructed internal speakers, and the variable-RPM side fan. Finally I can't believe in the year 2012 Dell is selling business notebooks without dual-band, but again it's nothing I shouldn't have caught ahead of time. On the plus side you do notice the benefit of the A8 when compressing files or encoding video but that's it, I'm afraid. In retrospect I'd rather own a lightweight notebook with a better display. It does confirm my prejudice that Dell doesn't really care about its AMD-based products.

p.s. the mag reviews all describe a Blu-ray drive as standard yet I can't find that anywhere at the Dell site. Mine certainly didn't show the choice at purchase and overall their customization options have slimmed remarkably compared to the last time I shopped through them, 3 years ago.

 

Bummer, sorry to hear about your experience. I'm afraid you're right about Dell and AMD... I have no AMD experience with Dell, but I've purchased at least ten Intel Vostro 3550 laptops and haven't had a single problem from any of my users. (...trust me, I'd hear about it if there were issues).

I'm sure others have more info on the AMD issues... maybe you can exchange yours for a non-lemon? Good luck to you.