What should I do about my Dell Latitude 7390

In June my Dell 7390 will be two years old. I stupidly purchased the wrong size hard drive. Currently, my battery is nearing the end of its life. My hard drive needs replaced. Network card needs to be replaced and the mother board needs to be replaced.

Everything except the battery is under warranty. Dell wants me to send it to Depot to be fixed because they won't send a new battery to a field service person, despite the fact that I said I would pay. They will send the other parts though.

Here is the annoying part.....since they will have my laptop taken apart, I said that I would pay to have the larger hard drive installed. They said the Depot doesn't do that....only repairs. I would have to send my lap top, have all the stuff replaced, wait for a service person to tell me my battery is almost dead and approve a purchase, then put the battery in, then send my laptop back to me. And then, I would have to purchase the larger hard drive, and send my laptop back and pay for labor to have it installed.

It is the most absurd thing that I have ever hear of......until, the salesperson told me the cost of the hard drive would be $279. When I went online and pulled up Chat on the website, the customer service rep told me
1. there weren't any new batteries that I would have to buy a refurbished one with a 90 day warranty and
2. I could purchase the larger hard drive for $199 and he would send me a video on how to replace.

I am not tech savvy and cannot do this, but I don't even know what to do now. I am so upset that the salesperson was charging me $80 more for the hard drive, and that they just wont replace my hard rive with the upgraded one, that I am willing to purchase, while they are spending time replacing all of the parts.

I don't even know if any of this is worth it. My son says I should just buy a Mac.....he's been saying this for about 10 years now.

Any thoughts?

 

Use it all the way until the warranty expires.
Then bring it to a compu-smith(computer workhop) u know to get the battery changed(if they could source one), and the system interior cleaned up(dust off).
Or... u can source ur system battery by going thru internet search, thru e-tailers. Get those "fresh" ones than recycle ones. Then bring both the laptop and ur own sourced battery to the compu-smith to get it install and cleaned up. Then put it to those "garage-sale" websites to sell it off to budget tight buyers who may have bigger interest with ur "expired" lappie. The Latitude laptops have higher interest response than XPS or INSPIRON as well as VOSTROs in the resale market.

To continue use it or not, it's ur call.

Once u've got it redone, u may get a higher quotation if u sell it to a preown trader, or lower if u chose not to waste any time on it, straight away push it to the preown traders. From what i see, 2yrs machine is considerably "fresh" to preown traders that they themselves can do the internal clean up, as well as doing the "expended" battery change to make it good to fetch higher resale value.

Usually such words comes from a firm believer that MAC OS is the best and premium Operating System surpassing the good old buggy Windows that most other commoners are suffering on, with bad user experience, as well as buggy drivers that make hardwares buggy...

However, in the world of technology...
Electronics are made to be dumped for advancement... if u had noticed why there are more e-wastes in the last 20yrs than the 90s or earlier.

 

How do you know "My hard drive needs replaced. Network card needs to be replaced and the mother board needs to be replaced." with such certainty?

Do you have to have a larger hard drive, or could you put some data on a cloud service, thumb drive, external hard drive, etc? There are plenty of possible solutions - learning more about your specific needs may help others make a recommendation.

What kind of data is it, and what sort of budget do you have? If it's mission-critical business data, you should probably be backing it up in a few ways/locations, for example.

 

Honestly replacing the battery and HDD on this model laptop is pretty easy, and dell makes the service manuals available online for free. This gives you a step by step set of instructions for removing and replacing every single component of your laptop.

Dell Latitude 7390 Owners Manual

Dell Latitude 7390 2-in-1 Owners Manual

Hardware wise this machine is pretty easy to replace the battery and HDD. Just remove the screws on the bottom, pull off the cover and there they are ready for replacement.

 

Ed - so you are saying, that I should not send my laptop to dell and have them replace all of this stuff? The warranty is good for another year. I should use compu-smith instead?

When I contacted Dell - my fan was super loud and my battery was losing its charge in under an hour. The tech told me to update my bios, which I did and that stopped the fan from overheating. Then he told me to run diagnostics and I got several codes.

According to the tech, the codes meant that I needed a new battery. A new network card and a new hard drive. And he said, the hard drive may mean that I need a new mother board as well. His supervisor approved replacing the mother board - everything is still under warranty.

First Error: PSA V306.11 Error 2000.0132 Validate Code: 94874. The battery is reaching the end of its usable life.

Second Error: Error 2000.155 Validate Code: 91575 Hard Drive - not installed

Third Error: Error 2000.620 Validate Code: 103807 Network 1 failed with device error

The online tech person in the chat box actually said he would send me a battery and the directions on how to install.. but he also said there weren't any new batteries available. He said that I would have to purchase a refurbished battery. Which upset me, because the tech person on the phone did not tell me that. And I don't want them installing a refurbished battery that is only under warranty for 90 days.

I have my data backed up on two external hard drives - one is acting as an extension of my storage, since I dont' have enough and the other is acting as a back up, incase something happens to the first external hard drive. I am also backing up in the cloud with google drive

 

If ur warranty is still valid until the end of next month, i won't stop u, but encourage u instead to go and make that request, or demand to get ur internal components changed. However, what're the chances that u'll get ur request/demand met?

Parts and components are subjected to availability... back in workshop. If this is a common problem, then i guarantee to u that there will be a tendency of shortage and u'll hv to wait till the replacement component shipped to workshop and got ur gear repaired. But how long is it going to take? What re the chances of availability? By the time the component is available, do u hv to pay for that? Is the company, DELL, going to oblige and give it to u for free... as an closure to their aftersales agreement to u?

Batteries do not hv warranties that long to last for that long term warranty u've opted during ur purchase. Most of the makers clearly states in their warranty policies that batteries either carry limited period warranty against defects(6mths mostly) or u buy extended warranty package for ur battery(like Lenovo) ior best, included but with a premium final price as in total package(Apple comes into the picture).
Hence, what're the chances u will get to have ur battery replaced?

Like i mentioned earlier, no harm trying to contact DELL to get ur gear repaired as per aftersales warranty terms and conditions applied. But should there be any delay, what are the chances u'll have?

 

So... That Warranty Extension/Battery replacement surcharge gets u 1 more year covered on other components other than the battery that is limited to 90days?
Sounds like a good(but not really best) insurance to me.

 

Here’s an update:

I sent the laptop to Dell depot for the repairs. I received an email that it was on hold pending my payment for a new battery....the hard drive, notecard and motherboard are under warranty

I could only call to authorize the battery. I asked the type of battery. They said they only had refurbished 60watt 4 cell and the cost would be $81 for the battery $49 for the labor and $9 for the shipping

I said that my laptop was totally taken apart and was being sent back to me free under warranty and that I was told that I wouldn’t have to pay for labor, since my laptop was already being worked on - plus I don’t want to pay $169 plus tax for a refurbished battery that is only under warranty for 90 days

I was told that they don’t do partial repairs and wouldn’t fix the other stuff, if I didn’t get the battery - which is beyond absurd

Especially, since originally they sent a hard drive to the local tech to replace without the battery

After i got them to agree to replace the parts that are still under warranty - which lasts for another year, i asked if i could purchase a larger hard drive and have it installed

They said they don’t do upgrades.

The whole process makes no sense.

Bottom line. They are replacing the three parts under warranty and sending me back the computer and kept the contact information from the local tech and he is going to install a better battery and said he could get a larger hard drive too for a good price.

Now i will have the brand new hard drive that Dell installed

Is that something i can sell. Or should i see if the tech wants it, like a trade in and offset the price of the larger hard drive