M1330 motherboard replacement

Hey everybody,

I bought a M1330 back in March 08 and it died April 09. It was bought through work and Dell were nice enough to send a tech to replace the motherboard outside of warranty. I believe it was a Nvidia GPU fault. It died again a couple of days ago, just powered off whilst when I was using it and won't power back on.

The battery is charged and AC power doesn't work. As soon as I plug in the AC adapter the blue light on adapter goes out - Power rail fault?

Dell customer support won't talk to me because my warranty has expired now. However, I believe it's a motherboard fault and the motherboard is only a few months old. Do replacement parts from Dell have a new warranty?

Is it a viable option to buy a new mobo off ebay and replace it myself? Or is it better just to give up and sell the laptop for spare parts?

 

I think you can only answer the question if it's worth the hassle to either salvage what you have by A) installing another motherboard yourself B) getting someone else to do it or buying a service on E-bay to repair it or C) stripping it all for spare parts. It all depends on how much money you have and if it would be worth it just to buy another notebook. Getting someone to repair the M1330 motherboard for you could be around $200 to $250 going by e-bay costs. I've seen new motherboards for sale as high as $500, but that's just ridiculous. If you get Dell to do it, I was quoted $450 for the motherboard replacement and then another $100 to replace a broken dvd drive. If you enjoy doing the job yourself and don't want the misery of a perfectly nice looking dead notebook gathering dust, then a motherboard replacement could be the best option because if the Nvidia chip is to blame for your problem, you could always install the Intel Integrated motherboard and bypass the GPU problem entirely.

As far as replacement parts and the warranty, I honestly don't know. I know Dell uses a lot of refurbished parts, but if they say they won't honor any warranty on the 2 month old motherboard, then there isn't much you can do. Frankly I wouldn't have anything to do with Dell for a few reasons. One, because you don't know if you're getting another failed part and also, I'll be damned if I'm going to reward Dell for selling me a defective notebook ( Like I keep saying they chose to put a badly designed GPU into one of their systems) and with a half approach only extending the warranty for a year when motherboards are hardly lasting 6 months; I'd go and then reward them by purchasing something from them or getting my motherboard fixed through them. No bloody way!!

So, if you have enough money to get another notebook, I would. If you have enough money and would still like it repaired, buy another notebook and buy a service, like that which is on ebay, to replace the motherboard. If you have limited funds and are knowledgeable enough to do the work yourself, then look for a good deal on an intel integrated motherboard for the M1330 and go for it. I just hate to see a perfectly good notebook go to waste because of a failed GPU chip, so I chose to get someone to put a replacement Intel integrated motherboard in for me, rather than go through the hassle of selling it for parts or throwing it in a closet to gather dust.

 

Yes, it's the power rail - it happened to me a while back.

If you look at images of the mother/mainboard you will note that the charging circuit is on an own piece of PCB. Hence, you'd think that they would only need to replace that one piece, but Dell replaced my entire mobo. Unfortunately the TechRep could couldn't answer the "why"... :-/

Have a look at the pics I took of the mobo (see my sig. for the link). If you review Dell's 1330 Service guide, it also states that this long piece of PCB is the charging circuit. However, I am not 100% certain that this chunk of PCB represents the entire power "system"... .

In any event, if you're (highly) technically-oriented, you could swap out the Mobo yourself - using the official service guide. I would say it's however a complicated process, even for those of us who have built our own PCs (like myself). If I could obtain a mobo extremely cheap, I would give it a try; otherwise I would let Dell repair it.

Contrary to some other 1330 owners, I still think the 1330's a very nice "portable" Notebook. In fact, I just added broadband (& GPS ) functionality to it recently!

Consider the fact that the latest-gen Netbooks will be released (Oct. 22) w/o even to possibility to upgrade to a broadband solution just helps to remind me what a cool piece of gear the 1330 really is...

 

Thanks for the help guys!

I had a look through the service manual and I reckon I could do it. I've seen the dell tech do it (the first time) and it took him under 30 mins, so I figure with my incompetence it could only take a few hours? But I'm worried I'll end up breaking the new mobo too during the process. Also, I can't believe replacing the charger board requires more work than replacing the mobo itself!

I think I'm going to just sell it as spares on ebay.

 

It IS part of the mobo, so essentially, it takes the same amount of effort (which is quite a bit, imho).

 

Sounds like a headache. You probably made the right choice. Best of luck to you on whatever notebook you decide to buy in the future.

 

I ended up selling my m1330 and buying a new machine.

I figured the cost of a replacement motherboard, going with integrated graphics (yuck), cost of a new required heatsink/fan, and associated trouble was too much.

Also, I didn't have an LED screen, so my new machine got that too, and I don't have to worry about a costly and labour intensive LCD replacement.