XPS 13 (2015) sudden death :(

Hi,

my XPS died yesterday, all by itself.
I closed the lid as usual, but when I wanted to open it (maybe 30min later), I noticed that the fan was running, and the bottom of the computer was really hot.
When I saw that it was stuck (no response, black screen), I hold the power button till it shut down.
And now, impossible to bring it back to life.....
When I hit the power button, the led lights for one to three seconds, then nothing.
The only shortcut still working is holding D + power, then it cycles colors on the screen.

I tried to unplug, replug the battery, clear the bios by unplugging the cmos battery, I've disconnected the SSD, the wireless card, but not result.

I'm gonna call Dell support today, but I have no hope.
......... Reliability seems to be a major problem with this laptop

Config : i75500U / 256Go / QHD+ / Windows10 Preview

 

Your laptop didn't shut down or sleep properly.

This usually happens when you change the settings that control what happens to your laptop after you close the lid or hit the power button. Instead of sleep / hibernate, your setting was left at "Do Nothing.".

The other possibility is that you were running some software that locked up your laptop, and prevented it from shutting down or entering sleep mode.
As a result of either scenario, your laptop remained running when it should have been shut down.

I will also bet that you put your laptop in some kind of bag or carrying sleeve that restricted airflow, and that you noticed the high heat and fan when you opened the bag / sleeve and found your laptop still running.

Typically when this kind of thing happens, the thermal protection on the computer is good enough to shut down components and prevent permanent best damage. Shutting down the laptop, and letting it cool down all the way will fix the problem. Occasionally, the heat will damage some component, and damage your laptop.

If your laptop is damaged, call Dell support and get warranty repair.

 

Called Dell yesterday, as usual their tech support was fantastic (I live in France, don't know if it's the same for other countries). They're sending me a tech tomorrow to change the motherboard (if the part is available).

 

I have had 2 laptops and they were both doing that - sometimes closing the lid didnt take the action. And it definitely was set up to do the "sleep operation". It could be the sensors didnt read the "closing lid" action or something like that.

 

I always disable any kind of sleep or hibernation on all my computers for this very reason

 

By the way, if you (anybody reading this) is using a laptop case / sleeve / bag with a magnet in it, stop using it. Most laptops these days detect that the screen is closed using a magnet. And if you have external magnets around the laptop, it's possible that it interferes with the laptop-sleep-sensor magnet.

 

And how does it end ? Did you find a way to make them boot anyway ?
Dell changed my motherboard, but now I have some really weird alarm sound sometimes during boot. (then I can boot normally). Called them again and they planned a motherboard change again...

I use a AdoreJune sleeve with Velcro strap, and when I had my problems my laptop was flat on the couch, far from any metal / magnet so not sure it's related with the lid sensor.

 

I open and close the lid again. Usually it helps. The laptop sometimes doesnt go to sleep mode because i.e. you close it too quickly and the sensors did not register the action = open and close again. Or I use the keyboard shortcut Fn + ... /depend on the laptop/

 

Hello Ben,

Sorry to hear about those problems.
For information, opening the laptop to change the SSD, clear the cmos battery... didn't void your warranty ?
I thought this kind of laptop was non upgradeable by the user without cancelling the warranty.

 

If a laptop is not easily upgraded, then it is usually a tradeoff for design reasons. You usually see this with very thin and light laptops, where the design engineers make a conscious decision. This may be because of space savings reasons (e.g. if you have RAM soldered onto the motherboard, then you save the space of having to put DIMM sockets on your motherboard) or because of layout reasons.

A laptop designer will never create a non-upgradeable laptop to try and prevent a user from tampering with it. Because you need to remember that if they make a laptop that is difficult for the customer to work on, then they also make the laptop difficult for their own manufacturing team to work on. You may sell laptops where maybe 1% of them get the RAM or SSD upgraded. But you get 100% of your laptops that need to be configured by someone before leaving the factory.

And also keep in mind that a manufacturer almost never enforces a policy where they void your warranty if you open their laptop. Therr are two reasons for this.

1) Some states have consumer protection laws saying that if they want to void a warranty (which is a contract), then they must have evidence that the customer performed some action that caused the damage they are trying to get repaired. For example, Dell can't refuse to honor your warranty claim on aa defective LCD panel, because you opened the laptop and upgraded the RAM.

2) Laptop manufacturers do not want to play "gotcha" with their customers to try and prove why thry should NOT homor a warranty. It is cheaper and faster to just perform the requested warranty repairs, than it is to try and find reasons why you should NOT honor a warranty. For example, lets say 100 laptops get sent in for defective motherboards, and you KNOW that one of those repair requests is a fraudulent claim. It is still cheaper and faster to just replace all 100 motherboards, than it is to carefully inspect all 100 laptops to try and find the one that is fraudulent.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

Hi,

the guy from the support at Dell told me the warranty is fine regarding the tests I made.
In fact, he was very happy with that, because he didn't had to do the usual tests with me on the phone.