The M1330 fiasco

I ordered a Dell XPS M1330 in mid july, 2008. Got it delivered in the beginning of August.

I bought a pretty well configurated system: T9300, 4 GB of RAM, the 64 GB SSD and the LED-display. The total cost was 15 660 Swedish kronor (US$ 2025, 1485€, £1337).

After about two months of flawless usage the computer starts having problems when displaying movies. The task manager says the processor is at 100% work and every process is run extremely slowly.

In the beginning of December the computer starts to turn it self of, displaying vertical stripes on the screen.

Friday the 19th of December the computer finally refuses to start. I contact the XPS Premium Support (India) who says it's most likely the GPU, but that I have to contact the Swedish Dell Support next Monday.

I called Swedish Dell Monday 22nd of December, a few tests were done and the day after a very nice technician put a new motherboard in my computer.

I asked him what says that this will not happen again - his response was that nothing says that.

Now, about 15 days after the new motherboard was installed, I called Dell Support again. The computer is not capable of displaying a HD-movie on an external display. The GPU's temperature peaked at 103 Celsius (217 Fahrenheit).

The Dell Support said that they will send a new technician who'll give me a new motherboard and also replace the cooling system.

I doubt that a new cooling system will fix this, but if it does, no one would be happier than me - I really like the computer (when it's working, i.e.).

But if the problems remain, what rights do I have? If I would like to exchange the M1330 with a M1530, what will Dell say about that?

Please let me know if you've been in a similar situation with Dell.

Regards,
SB

 

I am in similar situation. My M1330 works as long as I turn off the heat in my room and keep the power at powersaver mode. All I do is use my web browser and MS office.

Someone is supposed to come tomorrow and replace my mobo. Wasn't easy to get them to do that.

And that is after trying multiple Vista reinstalls and a new hard drive.

Basic problem I had was recurring Blue Screens, and now its worse--can't see any streaming video or use iTunes. If I do the computer will freeze. And if I get too hot, the graphics will start to fritz and then the computer will freeze.

In reviewing all the messages that I can find posted about it, unscientifically it appears that these machines work for about 6 months and then die. I bought mine in late March and it died in early November.

I expect that this new mobo will work long enough just to get me out of warranty and then that will die, but better that way for Dell--cheaper than a new fix.

I don't think we have any other rights unless you can prove in court that there was a design flaw in the computer. Dell has had many class actions against it for faulty design (wish I had known that back in March). In the U.S. as well as Canada.

Short of that I don't know if there are any options.

From the message boards, I don't see that anyone has ever gotten a new machine out of them. Lots of Mobo replacements.

Looks like they are currently trying to blow out their M1330 inventory in the U.S. by selling at steep discounts in Best Buy. Boy, are those poor customers in for surprise.

I had no idea that Dell had such a problem for poor design and then doing nothing for the consumer. In the Nvidia GPU case, which was so huge, they had no choice but to extend warranty. But I think they were forced into that.

I have the Intel Integrated GPU and still am having problems.

I'll let you know how my new Mobo works.

I paid $1300 for mine and now they are selling at Best Buy for $900.

The lesson for me is never to buy an expensive laptop. If they are not going to last for more than 12 months then I will just have to budget to buy a new $600 machine every year.

Or buy a machine made for a business customer. They couldn't pull this kind of game on the business crowd, only the gamers/consumer crowd.

Live and learn. Expensive lesson.

 

the same ))) price different

 

Now the mobo and the cooler system have been exchanged. Let's see how many weeks they'll last.

 

Now about five weeks have passed. And the temperature is no longer an issue. When playing a hd-movie on my tv the GPU peaks at 84 Celcius (183 Fahrenheit) which is rather cool, compared with previous temperatures. Maybe the new cooling system acutally helped.

 

Have you read this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268081 ?