New Dell XPS 1530 - Heat issue, AC adapter issue, CD startup noise issue

Just got a new Dell XPS 1530. Looking for some experience and opinions. Had read about some having a heat issue, seemed like some had it, some didn't, but mostly during heaving use. This is kind of crazy -- the wrist rest area got too warm to type comfortably after being on for an hour with very little more than web browsing, and never cooled off over the next hour until powering down. That is surely a defect. Does one call for a tech or just return it? This is far too expensive of a "toy" to have such a serious problem.

Have others who have experienced the heat issue found this specific symptom, I thought it was more an internal temp issue. And again, this was during very mild computing.

A factor might be that the power cord appears to be 2 incompatible parts -- they do not hitch up firmly together all the way, but rather one part blocks the other from completely connecting. It still allows the battery to charge. In my experience with setting up Dell laptops professionally, these 2 parts should mesh completely and seamlessly. So it looks like we call that in and see what happens. Unless there has been a design change and others have these 2 parts that only kinda fit halfway?

One other issue is that when the laptop is powered on, there is a brief but very loud noise that seems to come from the CD/DVD player as it looks for a disk. It's quite the disturbing grinding sound. I thought I had seen something about it out here prior to purchasing but can't find it now to save my life. Was there a fix for that? I'd prefer not to disable the CD checking at startup in case I'm trying to boot from CD!

Thanks very much for your input.

 

The wrist rest unfortunately is a passive heat cooler.
Its meant to get warm. If it's getting excessively hot - as in too hot to touch then maybe your hard-drive is over heating.

As regards the cd/dvd drive, that also unfortunately is a common occurance. Though slot loading drives usually are a good bit louder than tray loading drives anyway.

 

the sound during the startup is normal and necessary (i think) as it checks if there's a CD/DVD and if the drive is functioning properly

Use HWmonitor to keep a tab on those temps
Idling temps:55-60C
Browsing:55-69C
COD 4:74C

 

Wow, thanks. That's a little crazy, we didn't pay $1500 to get a laptop with a wrist rest that gets so warm it is not comfortable to type, no way. Passive cooler indeed, huh. That's just wild, it's only got like 5 vents. A wrist rest is no place for a passive cooling mechanism in my world!

 

The heat issue in the left side, there is where the hard drive is located, so make sure u re not blocking the ventilation underneath the laptop, u can also try lifting ur notebook to get more air underneath, the startup noise is normal, since the Slot drive checks is there is any disc to "suck" this drives are known to be louder and noisy, the power cord, chat or call dell , they will have your cord replaced and ask u to send back the faulty one, and if u still not happy with ur hard drive getting that hot, tell them to send u a new hard drive, since u have overheating issues with that one, and same procedure, install it and send the hot one back.. i guess u are not using the laptop in your legs, where mine also gets hot, jeans blocking the vents, but if u are in flat surface and just browsing, it shouldnt get that hot... good luck!

 

i had the problem with the AC adapter. Very annoying. I just chatted with Dell and they sent me a replacement that worked beautifully

 

Just ordered a power supply replacement from Dell. Took some talking as usual, and they found the power cord mismatch was a known issue. Hurray! We'll see if that helps with the heating issue, could very well do so.

One can only imagine how many people are working with faulty power cords, since they do fit together somewhat enough to function and stay put.

To address the other reply about the heating issue, no vents blocked, in fact have the large battery holding up the back of the laptop.

The CD startup noise -- it just seems it is at an unacceptable high level of grinding, too loud, sounds awful. I did see a thread or two about a potential fix for that but not sure it worked out.

Anyone have any other input on a very loud CD startup noise other than that's the way it's supposed to be?

PS my cable installer told me "that's just the way it's supposed to be, it's digital", when my cable box took 3 seconds to change channels and flickered 3 long hard times each time. They had already been there 2 hours and changed boxes once, called tech support and all. Of course that's not the way it's supposed to work but I hoped it would improve and let them go. 4 weeks later I'm suffering with my cable and have no time to have a rep come, and I've confirmed that is indeed not the way it's supposed to work. Not saying it's a reflection on the CD issue, I'm just saying.