M1330: Maybe Mobo Revisions do count...

Hi2all,

there have been numerous threads on the subject of 1330 mobo "revisions" improving things such as:

1. CPU whine
2. Noise on the audio channels
3. providing a new nVidia GPU revision

and so on. But eventually I started doubting if any of said revisions made any major changes to the 1330 and it's few pet peves. However, I think I found at least one change that seems to be revision-related.

I recently had my "A04" mobo swapped out with an "A00" due to a power system failure. The first thing I noticed with this "old" A00 mobo was that it had a newer revision GPU (G86-63 1-A2 vs. G86-630-A2 of my two prior A01 & A04 mobos) as well as a newer revision southbridge (SLB9A vs. SLA5Q of my two prior A01 & A04 mobos).

So clearly they are taking older mobos, swapping out failed or defective components and placing said mobos back into circulation. Which essentially means an "A00" can contain newer parts than say, an A04... .

However, I had an odd problem with the A00, which I describe in detail in this thread. In a nutshell, the shroud that "channels" the blue-led light (pwr, HDD, Chg) to the front of the 1330 was missing, causing seepage.

I proved this by comparing pics of the A01, A04 & A00 mobos. So I managed to get Dell to send me another mobo (they couldn't just send the shroud). Well guess what, this fourth and "newest" mobo was again an A00 and again the mobo did not come with a shroud...!

Fortunately for me, I had warned the local Rep that I just needed that shroud and he had taken one from a dead mobo from one of his prior customers, so I finally got my shroud

Point is though, it seems that A00 mobos don't have that shroud in place... that or I had the wildest of bad luck, getting two mobos w/o shroud in a row...

So the next time anyone orders a mobo replacement, have a look for that shroud. I'd be curious to know if anyone got an A00 with the shroud, or if anyone got an A01+ w/o the shroud...

 

So I took a pic of the 1330 with A00 + added shroud. It's not perfect, but the difference is still impressive.

A pic without the shroud and a pic with the shroud.

Makes me wonder if all A00s are "shroudless" or if I just got two badly-refurbished mobos in a row...