What are my options?

My Vostro 1500 seem to have burnt up last night. My kids where playing Counter-Strike on it and the laptop rebooted itself and came up with a white screen.....no bios screen, no nothing after that. My warranty end just this past Oct.

Now the question:

Is there any type of recall of this laptop? Anyway dell will still cover it? Or am I screwed?

 

Dell have provided a one year warranty extension for the nVidia GPUs (which is what I presume you have). Those GPUs eventually die due to thermal cycling causing them to fall apart.

There is discussion of the symptoms at Direct 2 Dell (I think this page, but the site seems to be down). That the problem developed during gaming suggests that the GPU is the problem.

John

 

Plus, if you get in a bind, you can always find good mainboards on eBay for a little over $100 US http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Vostro-1500-Intel-MotherBoard-WY041-TESTED_W0QQitemZ280291039999

 

Yes, the laptop is the one in my sig. It had the 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GT. Thanks for the link also.

 

Just to be sure I got this correct. If I purchased the Vostro 1500 on Oct. of 2007, if the issue was caused because of the GPU then I'm covered till Oct. of 2009?

 

Check they weren't playing counterstrike with it on the carpet or a couch cushion too... If it was on a soft surface it could have legitimately fried.

Also try it without the power cord - the power brick could be going bad but still causing the laptop to ignore the battery when it's plugged in.

 

I've tried it without the power cord and they played it on a nice flat computer desk.

 

The extra one year of warranty is for the GPU. That Direct2Dell link still isn't working for me, but Google for "Dell Nvidia warranty extension".

John