Dell Studio 1557

Ah right then it is high. Whilst on the phone this monring I noticed the machine starting up - it must have rebooted itself. Then while starting up it just shut down. Picked the laptop up and it was really hot underneath. So inconvenient as I had been taking notes during a conference call and lost it all. Left the machine to cool down and have now started again. Boo hoo.

Will contact Dell and let you know how it goes. On that point, I assume they may end up replacing parts like fan, heatsink or even motherboard I guess. Do you know if there is a newer design to the way the machine deals with heat since the origial release versions came out in November? I soo can't be doing with sending the machine off to be looked at now we are using it for our little home business start up Arrr. I wonder what the upgrade to @home service call out will cost and whether it would be worth it?

 

I phoned Dell. After explaining the problem with the heat, and after the support agent went off line to check with supervisor, he advised me that they can solve this problem for me 100%. I'm liking the sound of that! We could be without the machine for up to 12 days which is a bit of a problem now that we need the machine on a daily basis. The alternative options I was given were: pay £29 to have someone come over tomorrow (between 9am and 5:30pm) with the replacement parts and do the work at home; buy a 1 year at home warranty (£90) or a 3 year warranty (£139).

You know what, I went for the £139 / 3 year warranty. I really hope I made the right decision there, but it does cover 3 years worth of parts not just labour at home call out and who knows how much this warranty will be used as the machine gets on in years.

I will update the thread with what happens and the results in case this is a useful reference.

 

It is right decision!

 

That makes me feel better - thanks!

I've been using the machine set up off the table by an inch or two and I'm doing my work with the CPU temp at around 63*C. Outlook and 3 web pages open. Much better. Hopefully after tomorrow i can put it back on the table!

 

its always good to go for warranty extension .
well my system is having 4 yrs warranty, i was not sure about that while buying the laptop but now iam feeling pretty comfortable....

 

The engineer has been and gone. The motherboard was changed over, therefore including the cpu and gpu which is built in. The heatsink and fan unit and also the power supply unit like for like.

After start-up we waited for the machine to settle its background startup processes and then checked the temporature readings. 70*C idle. That was disapointing. The area above the keyboard (left side where it says SRS Premium sound and the left speaker area has warmed up. If the machine is being kept to 70*C with the fan and not doing anything/processor usage between 1%-3% - I what chance has this got? Its at 78*C with this web page open and writing this text.

I asked the engineer if a Windows rebuild would help. He said i had quite a lot of processes listed in task manager, despite not affecting CPU usage, but it is worth a try. I really don't want to, but feel I must do everything on my part to try to get this resolved as I would be expecting Dell to mirror my efforts to get this resolved. So re-build it is unless anyone can give me different advice on what to do now?

Also, the machine starts beeping on every kep press sometimes and then goes away - whats that about?

EDIT 35 minutes later: oh brother. outlook and two web pages up and 95*C. Its so bad its almost funny, considering its had all major organs to do with heat just swapped out. The replacement power supply brick is only moderately warm though which is different as the last one would burn up too.

 

78C is too high. Try put something at the back-bottom of your notebook. It will elevate your notebook a little bit. This should improve air flow at the bottom of your notebook. See if it improves your CPU temperature. Please post the screenshot of CPUID Hardware Monitor. What is your room temperature?

You can try re-install windows if you want. You might want to burn the Dell factory image to DVD-R before doing it.

 

Can you tell me the steps to doing this? I thought the laptop had some sort of hidden partition with the image - just need to pop in a dell boot cd?

Also (I don't know what I've done to deserve this :cry: ) but I now have only 2gb ram installed. FFS. you can't make this up. Oh look the keyboard has started the loud beeping again too. Oh lordy. onwards...

 

I don't remember the name because I already uninstalled the application. If I'm not mistaken its called DataSafe Local backup. Launch it & you should see option to burn the factory image to DVD-R. I'm not making this up (I can't remember everything though) but I'm 99% sure such option is exist.

Try boot with linux live-cd (e.g. Fedora Live-CD). If you still experience the beeps sound while typing, it must be hardware problem.

 

I see Dell DataSafe Local Backup software. I only see the option to make some sort of recovery start up disk. The other options require £39 as they are premium features. So, I chose to the USB option, which made one of my USB keys bootable and put some files/folders loaded on. One file on there is about 4gb another is about 1gb and some other files - so hopefully its the recovery files not just a boot device.

 

Got back in touch with Dell support this evening to let them know that the wholesale chages seemed to have had no effect on reducing the temporatures. Actually they are a bit worse. I also pointed out new issues as follows:
The machine is now only reporting 2gb ram
The keyboard now beeps loadly
I can see some tiny cables ending in a small white socket/plug that should be in the mnotherboard but is loose/unplugged, I can see it through the vent in the CPU area.
When the machine starts, instead of the dell bios screen it says: Manufacturing mode level 01

They have re-booked a engineer to com over sometime on Thursday with a replacement motherboard (again) a replacement fan/heatsink unit (again) and 2gb Dimm as the one in the unit seems dead, and a 130w power supply.

Part of me wonders what are the chances that doing the same thing will solve the problem - surely its something else given those parts have already been swapped out? But i wonder what else it could be though. Any thoughts?

 

Be sure that those are used parts.


Ok.You said they put a NEW CPU in it as well.Its not permanently attached should come right out the socket.

Did you see if the CPU and GPU had thermal paste on them?

As for the wire well thats par for a Dell Techs in my area.I believe thats the WWAN cable.
Im sure techifan will tell me if im wrong

That sounds like some kind of Engineering Sample or something?

 

It should fix the high temp issue. Perhaps the heatsink don't have enough thermal paste or the notebook is poorly assembled. Worst case scenario, CPU temperature can jump up to 60 plus Celsius while windows loading (when you turn ON your notebook). After that it should stable below 55 Celsius on normal usage.

 

I think Dell engineer forgot to enter service tag no. If this is true, very very poor job by Dell engineer.

 

I don't know if they have put a new CPU in, now. It wasn't a part that was handled seporately. When I saw the motherboard go in (my assumption at the time was that it was new) and it had the CPU already fittted.

I just assumed Dell would have replaced parts with new bits and bobs off the shelf, not used?! Is that normal or should I be complaining or something?

About paste, I remember the engineer rubbing what looked like paste off the CPU itself. I just thought at the time it was excess something or other that wasn't needed or got in the way of contacts with the heatsink/fan unit, or that it was excess material that needed to be removed because it would overheat the CPU if left there. I wasn't paying attention to how much or what part he was rubbing off as I didn't know then it was.

Looks like the fan to me. I don't think its working. The little noise I hear is the hard drive i think. I've opened up 3 other web pages and MS outlook to see if the fan noise steps up as temp increases, but I'm over 90*C with no step up in sound coming from the fan area. I have attached a couple of pictures of its location on the underside of the machine and a close up. The cable colours are Yellow black blue red. Did Dell really come round to fix my heat problems by unplugging the fan? lol. As nice as the chap was, its poor really when you think about the problem the dell guy was trying to solve for me.

I haven't taxed the system since the engineer left, apart from the above experiment, but of course that means I can't work on the machine. AND I REALLY NEED TO WORK.

I have attached a picture of the startup screen which flashes up instead of the Dell bios screen and managed to solve it. On the picture I tool it tells me to press Fn X to go to normal mode (Which was too fast to notice before I got it on camera). Perhaps this is a mode Dell engineers set the machine to when working on it, or when testing second hand parts before, they are reused.

Enough rambling. Machine now at 100*c and is behaving eratically so need to shut down for a while

 

I believe your FAN is not connected at all. No wonder it really HOT!

 

OMG the fan plug has not been fitted to the motherboard.
See the white plug in the attached picture below, that’s what you can see through the air vents on your machine and of course should be plugged into the motherboard.
This machine naturally runs warm/hot when working correctly therefore I would recommend not using your machine until this is corrected otherwise you risk severe overheating and possible damage at the very least to the CPU/GPU and motherboard.
I would definitely complain about this as it is very bad/shoddy workmanship from the so called dell engineer and also brings into question the possibility of him causing other issues like one of the ram sticks apparently not working.
Lets hope dell sends a more competent engineer this time.
On a positive note at least you are being supplied with a 130w power supply.

 

hehe.. by the which country are you from ???

 

I thought that plug looked familiar. LOL

 

Goodness me. Oh well i hope the engineer comes earlier rather than later afternoon this time.

By the way, what is the deal with the 130w power supply. I have read posts on this thread mentioning it. Could you or someone explain a little more about this issue as I would like to understand why 130watts good/better/benefits and why is 90watts not so good?

 

I'm from the UK.

Tomorrow i am going to make sure there is no world cup football showing in the same room as the engineer

P.S sorry about the username. While I was asked to create one i wondered if you could use symbols and thought it might be funny, but I didnt expect it to work! lol

 

For starters the 130w psu will run cooler than the 90w, theoretically increasing the reliability of the psu. A 90w psu for this laptop running a Core i7-720QM is on its limit and gets hot to very hot.
Also there is arguably an improvement in performance due to a 130w psu being better able to supply the higher current demands of the Core i7-720QM

 

Thanks. On the last point it makes you wonder why Dell didn't specify a 130watt power supply from the off, given this laptop was designed to be at the top end of performance for a laptop CPU. You certainly wouldn't want them to specify any power supply that could be holding the CPU back from its top end performance when it needs that little bit of extra power.

After reading through this thread it seems that (apart from mine which already had a heat issue over and above) the machine runs fairly hotter because of its CPU and GPU. Moreover, given the sort of applications these performance processors theoretically allow you to run on the laptop, Dell really needed to have thought that demanding users will more likely be buying this specification laptop.
But if the latop is generally hotter because dell haven't gone the extra mile in the design to keep temporatures down in the laptop, could that mean the ability for the CPU to carry out its purpose - i.e. uprate the clock spead up to the other end, to 2.8, be compromised? I understand the feature of the CPU going up to 2.8 is temporature dependant - if the machine is always running hotter than normal your purchase decision is compromised. Am I not going to get the flexibility/expandability of CPU performance as it was designed, simply because the way Dell designed the laptop doesn't keep the chassis cool enough for the CPU to think its safe to go into high performance modes?

 

Sorry, but this is going to be a moan so switch away now if you are not interested in this 1557 heat saga!

The people representing Dell who arrange for engineer visits called me this morning to say they can not visit. This is because one of the parts was not available - the keyboard - and they would be back in touch with me in due course. Oh brother. I already felt soar about having to wait two days for them to come over and rectify the situation - which was m,ade worse on their last visit - having payed extra for next day service. Now they can't come after two days and can't tell me a date they can come back.

You know, i can put up with the keyboard beeping for the first minute of use for a while longer and have that done another time, but what i really need is to be able to work on my computer desporately as it is costing me money. Get the violins out but I have a serious disability so no ones employing me - with no money and the fact that I want to try providing for myself first before having to rely on the state, I started my own business not long ago.

I've rung up Dell to see what they can do and I'm waiting to hear the results. Its so hard to keep calm and professional when you are stressing, but the people on the other end of the line at Dell support have always been polite and curteous every time, so i treat them very well but ask them to escalate it. But I will be outlining a complaint to them as soon as they provide me back with the mean to do it. I don't even know if i want the machine now seeing as I have to pay so much more recently to get service (what service?). Rant over - and breeeaaathhh

 

@Smiley Face, You can demand for an exchange with other model. Maybe 1558 because I heard it is very stable (without foolish problem).

 

Agree, I think the notebook components have been overly stressed enough to warrant an exchange, more to the point an upgrade to compensate for your head ache. It would be the only option for me given that a butcher tech has attempted repair and the units future reliability would be in question.

 

I don't think I have the energy if I am forced to have to fight for my troubles. I don't mean to sound like a woos. I'm not but it's easier for me just be nice to people and hope they are the same - in my condition I am week. I mean, what if they just say no?

 

You wouldn't know for sure before you ask them. The product you pay not properly function as it should be therefore you should get an exchange with another model. Worst case scenario, demand for full refund.

 

That is screwed UP!!


Thats exactly what I was talking about.I wouldnt let them swap out a light bulb at my house,never the less touch my computer.

They pass Dells little test and their sent out to fix peoples computer. What a shame

 

I'm so tired that it makes laughing easier at things like this. Your post made me chuckle. Even though it happened to me! It's so true though.

I've worked many a time with Dell engineers when as a project manager (boo) I worked for a large IT company before i came down with illness. And you know what - they were all a credit to Dell. Makes my experience with Dell this time all the more suprising. Perhaps its got something to do with the enterprise level support back then, as opposed to the mr nobody consumer support I have available.

I am seriously thinking of cancelling my premium next day support of £139 I was sold as a special deal just for me (which find today is the same for everyone). After all I paid £139 and was told that with new parts put in the next day everything will be back to normal and it would be sooo worth it. But so far I paid all that extra money, for a fault that was Dells anyway and I didn't get what I paid for in the end.

 

make this a serious issue by writing an email to dell senior executives, post your images also, and state that you are very unpleasant the way dell laptop and the dell service had caused problems to your work which was completely their fault.

i would say, as an irritated customer like u should point out these kind of issues very seriously. Don't be a coward , you have paid already including for the service.

 

So this i what happened today. Please look away now if you are easily bored.

Was told nobody can see me today even without a keyboard. Someone will come the next day and put the parts in and rectify the faults arising since the last engineers visit. I asked if it could be a visit for the morning, practically pleading for someone to go the extra mile for me to phone the people who schedule the engineers and see if they could just sort out a morning slot - that way I could do something Friday afternoon. Two or three hours later and no call to tell me the results of their conversation, so I phoned again and have to explain the whole thing all over again, again. Why can;t we just be put through to the person we had before? I don't mind the cost of the call waiting in these moments.

I find out an email had been sent to people scheduling engineer visits in England but that no one can see any reply. I ask again if it would be too much trouble to forget the electronic requests that don't get replied to and just speak to them and sort something out. After checking with supervisor he agreed to send another electronic message, saying they had a problem with the telephones and could not phone them. Oh well what can you do about that.

When the list of replacement parts was read out to me by way of confirmation of the jobs for tomorrow, I was told 90watt power supply. I explained that the Tuesday agent has checked with his supervisor and on this occasion agreed to do a 130watt supply. The agent said it6s not worth it as my laptop is only designed to use 90watts. I asked him to check that with his supervisor. Supervisor says that as the laptop doesn’t come with a 130watt supply, if they sent one it could break the laptop, even though I thought it could only have benefits. But he was sure and said they would never ever do that for anyone. Oh well, no improved power supply unit.

I said that I was told to mention that as my laptop was suffering from heating problems and then made worse by Dell for making it work up to extreme temporatures quickly and then shutting down, that it could be that parts of the laptop have been overly stressed and that now I will not know about damage that could become apparant or shorten the laptops life a bit further down the line. What I wanted was a replacement. He said that because I had used the machine and that they were ready and willing to fix it with the service I paid extra for, that there was no need to do anything else. it will all be resolved. I asked If I could escalate it then because i didn't think I was being understood. But the manager or supervisor said he will not condone anything like that and there was nothing I could do about it he had made up his mind. What can I do - I don't have the energy and can’t handle the stress.

Even though I was a bit sad about the whole experience I did start to think a bit more clearly that I paid extra £139 for someone to come round and replace the internals the next day, just to sort things out as i was desperate to get working again. But when I think about it I haven't been given what I have paid for. So i said I wanted my money back on the extended warranty. i just wanted to cancel it because I don't feel comfortable about given them so much money when it was their machine that’s broken down on me and they can't even fix it the next day without making an enormous balls. I was asked why, and I just said I didn't feel it represented good value for money - after all I am still yet to see them carry out their part of the service I paid extra for. But the agent said I could not because I had already had an engineer come out once already to replace my laptop innards’ and that I had another engineer booked to do it again - so that’s twice I am using the service already. I said I didn’t get the service I paid for. No budge. Then I thought, don't I have the right to cancel because I bought it over the phone (distance selling consumer rights in the UK) and that I have a cooling off period to inspect the goods or service received and I had 7 days to change my mind. There is nothing they can do apparently. I'm going to escalate it and that the best thing the agent said I can do. I guess I'll be seeing if there is another customer support line that can sympathise.

The last guy I spoke to at dell was nice, as indeed most of the Dell support people. He could not do anything further but gave me his email address as he wanted to know how I got on.

So, I’m pretty much stuck with premium priced warranty that didn’t work. I think I needed to shout and scream to get anywhere – which I didn;t and now I’m an unhappy bunny.

i think I'll wite a letter to Dell and tell them that they need to be more careful vetting and training engineers to go to customers house to replace parts as if they get it wrong it could make matters even worse for their customer. I might be out of pocket because of the inconvenience Dells problem and then mistake has caused me, and the extra warranty I can;t really afford that turns out doesn;t work for the purpose i thought I could leverage. But I'm still alive and when you are really ill everything else pales into place

 

Hello all, Dell replaced my motherboard with a new studio 1558 one, this new chipset have ATI Mobility Rdeon 5470 1 GB and this solves al heat, blue screens, restarts and all problems, if any want this replacement just ask for the supervisor and tell him about the radeon 4570 core i7 incompatibility problem.

 

Interesting.
Has dell admitted that there is definitely a radeon 4570 /core i7 incompatibility problem.

 

hello mike, which country are you from ?

 

I doubt Dell would admit that.

 

actually i argued for that, dell engineers admitted 1558 is better than 1557 because it was an newer laptop and lower temp and has better battery life too. but they told me its very difficult to replace a motherboard to that of different one. they assured me that the all components in 1557 is fully compatible with each other.(actually i was not having much problems other than heating, which was corrected to an extend in the later bios updates).

BY THE WAY ANYONE KNOWS WHATS THE ACTUAL INCOMPATIBILITY here(if there is one)???

 

when i asked for a 1558 mobo they said it won't fit in a 1557.
and i don't think there is any incompatibility problem.but i've heard that intel 5300 had some issues with the new hm55 chipset(which,again, i don't believe).

 

Yes, I would have thought that there would be some physical differences with the 1558 mobo and layout that would make it difficult to fit into the 1557. I currently have no major issues with my 1557 and I am not aware of any specific incompatibility problems.
However a quick search produced this information.

AMD Game Forums - Compatibily issue with ATI 4570 and quad core processors

Any thoughts.

 

Drilled into this service manual: Documentation
and
Checked chassis specs: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Studio-1558-Notebook.24496.0.html

I am certain that the 1558 mobo will replace a 1557 mobo. The chassis and dimensions are identical! I think Dell's support staff have little or no technical aptitude, they are using Dell's procedure manual. More than likely taking pot luck and trying to give educated guesses in answering questions that go over their heads.

Very upsetting indeed.

 

They switched to the 5470 and thats on a smaller process 55nm vs 40nm.Its going to run cooler and use less power with the same performance.Less over heating and throttling ..also that might help with the power adapter problems.

I think its Intels PM-55 chipset myself.It seems they are dumping FAST!

The XPS 1645 has alot of issues as well and Dell has since updated that motherboard too.

 

Took delivery of a 1645 about 3 weeks ago, primarily left and used at the office. Have had nil issues to date. Which leaves me with the paranoia of the 1557 I have at home, have copper shimmed but still feel a little wary of it.

 

The Dell engineer got here mid afternoon on Friday and replaced the motherboard, fan unit and swapped out the faulty 2gb memory with a new one.

Turns out there is still a problem with the memory - only showing 2gb again, so he told me an engineer will be back on monday (today) to swap out the other 2gb RAM with a new one too. Thats two new 2GB memory cards swapped over since Dell engineers had access to the machine, but it can only be just bad luck.

Have been able to get on with much of my work with 2gb since Friday evening and am starting to catch up. During this time the major heat issue has not returned. For example (ambient temps are cooler at the moment granted) I currently have napster playing streaming music in one brower window, Napter in another window and a couple of other browser windows and itunes and the CPU temps are in check - around 50*C - whereas before it would get raging hot. When i get the memory problem sorted and restored I'll be able to work back to full steam and am really looking forward to that.

 

What is the ATi 4570 / i7 incompatibility problem?

On searching for help last week i read that the Ati 4570 gpu we have in our 1557 can't do DirectX11. I believe i read a comment that one of the reasons Dell followed up with a 1558 so quickly, is to put an ATi 5000 series into these machines pronto. If the Ati 5000 series does indeed run cooler than I'd expect Dell couldn't wait to incorporate it into these machines - what with the number of heat complaints perhaps. But then if the Ati 4570 isn't compatible with quad core processors, thats reason enough - but what how is this incompatibility manifested in real life experience on our 1557s?

 

Hi all! Im little worried about my dell studio 1557 laptop , yesterday i tried to update a05 to a06 but the flash will crash, now the laptop is like dead, i have read threads that explains the way to fix it but my problem is i havent another computer with administrator rights, i need someone to upload the archive bios.wph and post here , a05 or a06 , sorry my english , thanks for help

 

Hello all again, im from Mexico, but all guys in latin america with the same issue have their chipset replacement, the new chipset is the HM-55, the incompatibility happens with the 55 nm Radeon 4570 and Core i7 because the 4570 is hotter and requires more power than the 40 nm Radeon 5470, and this cause a power and heat issue between Quad Core processors and old Radeons 4570, the new one runs cooler about 20 degrees diference, and is extremley overclockeable mine is 920 mhz on core and 1050 mhz on memory

 

I think u should call dell and get ur mobo replaced coz their so called 'engineers' say that if a bios update goes wrong then it means that the mobo is faulty.

I assume that the crash wasn't the result of u playing kung-fu with ur laptop or trying to find out what happens if one keeps the power button pressed for a few seconds during the flash

 

After calls to Dell technical support the Dell managed to get an engineer over to my house before the day was out. It was the same engineer from last Tuesday! He was very apologetic about his work last week and so i let him in to do a simple job of swapping out the memory.

As he was getting ready to go he picked up the cardboard box next to him and couldn't understand why it was still sealed. I asked him could it be that he put in the old faulty memory chip that I put to the side instead of inserting a new one - which turned out to be the case. Man, you couldn't make this s**t right? Anyway, new memory put in and after making sure in the bios and windows all 4GB was registered the Dell engineer, who had described what a tough day it had been, was soon on his way too.

What i have now though is my Dell back properly set up. At last.

 

As long as there is a satisfactory resolution to problems you are experiencing, that you are happy with, thats the important thing.

I confess to not understanding the incompatibility issue, as I have this setup and the machine is working and I don't get error messages in bios, windows or diagnoistic routines. I read the above as sounding like the combination of quadcore i7 and Ati mobility 4570 is compatible, but because together they run hotter they require more cooling than the combination of an i7 and Ati 5470? In advance I excuse my ignorance otherwise

 

Hi All.

Following the advice of some here, I called up dell and talked to a supervisor, and tried to get the studio 1558 mobo. The supervisor said that we will consider the 1558 mobo only after they send a tech to replace the mobo, fan, and RAM. This afternoon a technician is scheduled to come over. From this forum, I know that the issue will not be resolved by this, but I'm going to let Dell try this first, so that when I call back tomorrow (unless magically the problem gets fixed) I can say "you've tried you method, now try mine"

Will report back on the progress tomorrow morning.