Dead M1330 - power related (long story)

I may be one of the 1st to receive Red m1330 as I received my unit in a week after placing my order. Anyway, I may also be the very 1st who has a dead m1330 in his hands. *Sigh*

Tuesday: I used my notebook and everything worked well. I was running on 6-cell battery and worked way longer than 2 hours before I had had enough of studying and shut down the computer. At that time battery had still some juice left.

Wednesday: I had to run some errands and didn't use my laptop at all.

Thursday: While I was booting up my Red DE(vi)LL, I remembered that the battery level was quite low (2 out of 5 lights were lit). While the computer was still not in Desktop, I plugged in the charger and... the sucker went down and hasn't woken up ever since.

Today: I tried to boot up with 9-cell and 6-cell batteries (both have juice, I've checked) but absolutely nothing happens. I tried to start up with the recharger/power brick and nothing happens. Nada. I even tried to use recharger with both batteries... and DE(vi)LL stays dead. I decided to raise my bet and took out the 1GB Intel Turbo Memory card and re-installed memory sticks and... still absolutely nothing. No sound, no lights, no nothing.

Here's an interesting thing I noticed while playing with batteries and charger. If I plug in the power brick into the wall socket first, a blue led lits up on the brick. The moment I attach Dell to the power brick the blue led blinks out. If I attach power brick and Dell first and only then plug the cable into the wall socket, I don't get to see that blue led at all.

So here's what I think is going on: a) The power brick is working and is protecting the laptop by shutting itself off, and b) the laptop itself is in a short circuit.

I called Dell Korea - that's where I'm now - and they'll send me a new 9-cell battery and power brick on Monday. I highly doubt that this will actually help, as I've two batteries and either one works. Anyway, the guy on the phone told me that if 5 lights are shoving in the battery, just like it does on my 9-cell battery at the moment, the battery is bad/dead. Um... right. Maybe they know something I don't, but I think that the battery would be dead if no lights were showing at all.

Anyway, I've already made up my mind. If the new battery and power brick won't fix this problem, and if Dell can't fix it within a week or two, I'll demand a new unit with some free stuff/upgrades or at least give me my money back.

*SIGH*

 

wow man. hope it all goes well.

 

Sorry to hear about that. Hopefully the new power brick will work. BTW, my nine cell lights up all 5 leds when it's 100% charged.

 

I kinda doubt that a new power brick will help, but we'll see in few days. Anyway, so according to this guy I was talking to, Zetto, your battery is also dead because all the lights are lit! Anyway, if I end up getting a new unit, I hope that I get one without CPU whine. I'll report on Monday what happened. Folks, have a nice weekend!

 

damn, and I didn't know it! no wonder, it worked only 3 hours before it dropped to 50% or so....

 

Of course a power brick won't help. You have a problem inside the laptop. The same thing happened to me with my old laptop, but it was 6 years old and had gotten wet.

 

Were u watching porn on it? :laugh: sorry, bad joke, I know

 

Chuckles: I know that the problem is inside the machine. Replacements won't fix anything, at least until they replace the motherboard... which I rather not let them to do.

Zetto: Nope, no pr0n in _this_ computer and therefore no bodily fluids either. Sorry!

Dell Korea will send technician to my house on Monday. If he can't fix the problem on-site (which I highly doubt), Dell has promised to give me new unit within 5 to 10 days. They have also promised to give me my money back if I want it.

I just hope that Dell will upgrade the RAM of the new unit from 2GB to 4GB for free or give me some other free stuff for all this extra work. Furthermore, they have to retrieve my work/research files from the old HDD as well. *SIGH*

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OT: If I decide to get my money back, maybe I should get Sony or Apple instead. Asus has some nice models too. Dang!
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They know something you don't, from Dell Battery FAQ

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/.../en/batteries_faq?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd#faq15

"To check the battery health, press and hold the status button on the battery charge gauge for at least 3 seconds. If no lights appear, the battery is in good condition and approximately more than 80 percent of its original charge capacity remains. Each light represents incremental degradation. If five lights appear, approximately less than 60 percent of the charge capacity remains, and you should consider replacing the battery."

 

really counterintuitive and error-prone battery diagnostics. Altough, better than nothing

 

Here's the latest. Dell Korea technician came and tried to do his magic. Not surprisingly to me, DEvi LL e XPen Sive M1330 stayed 100% dead. Here are the options he gave me after speaking with his boss:

1) new mobo: will take 1-2 weeks (I REALLY do NOT want this!)
2) new unit: if lucky, I could receive it in two weeks... maybe
3) getting my money back.

Since I'll be going back to Finland in three and half weeks, I decided to take the money and run. Technician agreed with me and wrote a report in which he recommended refund. Well, guess what? I just heard that his superiors did not agree with him on the grounds that I received my unit more than two weeks ago.

Obviously the "total satisfaction commitment" that I read about doesn't apply in Korea. *sigh* We'll see how this thing progresses from now. If Dell Korea can't guarantee that I will get my new unit before I leave back to home... this thing might get really complicated.

Since the higher ups are sitting on top of my money and will not give it back, they are trying to (at least according to "them") to find other ways to make me happy. Well, if they upgraded my memory to 4GB and gave me Vista Ultimate 64-bit to utilize it for free, that would be a good start. I could also use a faster CPU as well.

*Grumbles* *Grumbles* *Grumbles* *Grumbles*

 

You may have received the unit more than two weeks ago, but you reported the issue within days of owning the unit. All of this elapsed time is through their own futile attempts at fixing the issue at reduced cost to themselves. Now they want to refuse your money because they couldn't fix it in time?! Bollocks. Pound on some doors. Yell at some representatives. Their response should piss you off as much as it does me, and it's not even my damned notebook!