My XPS M1330 woes

I'm having quite a lot of trouble with my XPS M1330 (T9300 with nVidia), which I know is a common thing amongst many of the m1330 owners, especially the one with nVidia GPU. So far Dell has changed the MB twice. First time was GPU related, which I was expecting and the 2nd time was due to power failure - something to do with short circuit or something.

In both cases, Dell CS agent was very helpful sorted out the problem very quickly by sending their engineer to my place. I had the power failure again and expecting a service call setup this week. I have 3 years next business day (parts and service warranty).

I was wondering if I should approach Dell to give me another system- afaik, it is quite unlikely, but I just wanted to post here to see what our experienced members advices are. The way I see it this machine of mine must be costing dell huge amount of money, which they were not expecting.

Regards

ash

ps: tips for others, I should say that Dell email technical service people are quite helpful. All my correspondences with Dell was through that dept.

 

I've had problems like this, unfortunately they'll only replace your system if the part is not available. I rug the XPS premium phone line and spoke to the manager, and he said that they'll replace parts as many times as possible, until the parts run out.

 

thanks for your useful info, Woodpigeon4. I wouldn't mind if this happens without too much delay, which hasn't so far.

Just out of curiousity, what do you think about Latitude E6400/E6410?

 

ash_bd, I went from a non-nVidia M1330 (was stolen) to an E6400 and I've been very quite pleased with it thus far. Not a thin or light as the M1330, but the trade off for the nice magnesium casing is worth in IMHO. Less heat issues as well, though some of that may be moving from a T-series (6400) to a P-series (9700) in my E6400. Other than the 'thinness' of the M1330, I think the only thing I really miss is the slot-load DVD drive. Not a huge issue, just got used to not have to deal with an unpowered tray

If you are looking, skip the the E6400 and just move up to the E6410 to get the i-series CPUs. Wish I could have waited, but needed to order a new laptop to get my insurance reminbursement sorted out.

Good luck.

 

Thanks Ferretwulf. Very sorry to hear that you one was stolen. Every time i go to uni leaving the lappy, i feel a bit nervous!

Since you've mentioned about waiting: iirc, my current XPS was ordered just 1-2 weeks before the E6xx series came out. I had go for that since my one came from USA and my uncle was going to bring it. Otherwise, I would've got that...but i guess the pace at which computer upgraded hardwares arrive in the markets, it is always too late.

Rest assured next time any laptop i buy will not be consumer grade one...afaik, (correct me if I'm wrong), E6400/E6410 are less than 2.10 kg, which about 0.20 kg more than XPS M1330. So I don't mind. But whether i go for it will depend on the current one.

 

You're welcome, ash_bd.

Not sure why it feels that way, but the M1330 just seemed to feel "lighter" even though the actual weight difference is really not that much, particularly given that the E6400 is a larger screen laptop than the M1330. Probably just the smaller physical size when you had it folded and in your hands (particularly if you had the LED screen option, as I did).

Honestly, had I my druthers I'd have waited for the new E4310 to come out, but that is still waiting in the wings. Not really a lot of size difference between the E64XX and the E43XX, but I like the size of the 13.3" laptops, and, hey, my two laptops bags are sized for 13" laptops I had to go get a new one for the slightly-larger E6400. Not disappointed though, its a great laptop, and with the P9700 CPU it really walks all over my older M1330 (with T6400) in some apps.

Happy hunting

 

Yes, there's a lot of choice at the moment - the E64xx and E43xx series are great, and sony have recently released some vaio laptops which are actually quite powerful, IIRC i7 CPU coupled with GT330M. The HP envy is also pretty cool, but if you want to stick with dell I'd look at the E64xx and E43XX series, or maybe the studio XPS 16.

 

Hi,

I have a XPS M1330 bought in 2007 (so out of warranty) and a few moths ago it started to randomly shutting down. I am not computer parts literate, so I took to a "relieble" workshop (in the community college I work, at least the charge cheaply), but after checking for viruses and possible software or hardware problems, they only suggested changing the power adapter form 60 w to 90w. But I found on similar blogs that that did not work either. Any new findings or comments on this problem?

 

lol computer shops
Ask them if they can take the laptop apart and replace the thermal paste on the CPU and GPU with a decent brand like Arctic Silver 5 or Arctic Cooling MX-3. If they don't know what that is, try a different shop.

 

Just an update - Dell sent someone on 28th (iirc)- changed the MoBo, DVD-Burner, new heat-sink and new Bluetooth. Things are working fine excpet now I notice the power adapter's LED keeps on even if it is not plugged into the main power supply! I guess it means that it is using the battery. Should I be worried?

 

I'm not sure I'd trust them after their previous advice.