M1330 dead :(

Well my M1330 died just 2 days before my MIS final. I have to say Dell has bad timing. I'm pretty sure it's my motherboard based on some other posts of dead M1330s. My power light doesn't turn on when it's plugged in to the wall and my battery still have lots of power.

I changed my wireless card, 1 stick of ram and HD. Should I pull or replace all of these before I send it in? I'm going to have to at least pull the HD to get my final project off the drive.

 

I'd put the original parts back in so they can't try to blame it on you. Are you sure you don't have at home service?

 

I'm in Canada so it doesn't come standard with complete care. If my system had only died 5 days later. I have a 2 week break between the end of this term and the start of the next one.

 

You should definitely put in the original parts before you send it back.

 

wow you almost sound resigned to its inevitability. i guess Dell is making a reputation for itself.

 

Do you think I can avoid putting in the original HD? It's now in the external enclosure and I'll have to move a lot of things around to clear it off. Additionally, I don't the the original install on the drive anymore. I could claim something like data privacy.

I don't know if I thought this was inevitable but I guess I do realize that things do break (not that I'm rough with them). I am pretty annoyed by this but it could have been worse. I have a couple days after my exam to submit my final project and have the technical knowhow to pull the drive and extract the data. This is certainly inconvenient but I can download most of the course materials again and I had hard / gmail copies of most of my notes/assignments. I suppose I should have been backing up all my course material on the external drive.

I bought the XPS because I thought it would have a better build quality. This may be a freak event (though a couple other threads leads me to think otherwise) but I will have to factor this in my next laptop buying decision to some degree. I know I'm going to take extensive pictures of my laptop before I send it in, I have heard some unsatisfactory repair stories.

What's the chance of them replacing the LCD screen while they're at it? My screen developed a long scratch from the trackpad cutout of the aluminum palm rest (sharp edges). Once I noticed it was scratching (LED LCD is very flexible), I got a screen protector pad. When the brightness is up I don't notice it, but it's annoying nevertheless.

 

They may well tell you to send it back without the hard drive anyway. That's what they did with me when my M140 ethernet port went bad. They don't need your hard drive to diagnose a MB failure.

Definitely replace any other original parts though.

 

Well considering that dell watches these forums, you might as well just send it back as is.

 

hahahah ....

 

Remove the hard drive. They love formatting all your data into oblivion just to get all the bloatware installed in your system again.

 

It's more or less Murphy's Law. Everything that can go wrong will and at the most inconvenient times. I've owned quite a few Dell laptops and the worst problem I've come across has been a dead hard drive. You make it seem as if Dell is the worst laptop producer out there, yet the M1530 has been on top for just about the entire year so far. Go troll some place else.

 

I'd keep it out. They can diagnose without the drive and if you call them they may even suggest that you do keep it so that they are not liable. I have taken my laptop to a laptop repair specialist in town and they have suggested the same.