How long has your Dell laptop lasted without repair?

My personal Inspiron 1520 is a month shy of 4 years heavy daily use. About 1 yr in I installed a larger hard drive. Just purchased my second replacement battery and second replacement power adapter because the cords fail at plug that goes into the back of the notebook. I think of these as consumables and like Dell notebooks because parts are readily available from other vendors at reasonable prices. After a Dell machine is a couple of years old replacement keyboards, palmrests, screens and even motherboards can be had inexpensively to keep them running well for lots of years. I outfitted a small field sales workforce with Dell notebooks for almost 20 years and have been a very happy customer.

 

I have a Dell Inspiron 1545. I've had it for 2 years now, going to 3 and all I need is a new battery because it lasts about 45 minute full charge. Other than that, the system works well.

My wife also has a newer Inspiron for about a year, unfortunately the motherboard fried but it was replaced with no problem.

 

My Dell Latitude E6400 just passed the 3-year mark. It has been used 60+ hours every week, been on 10+ flights and traveled to-and-from the office with me at least four days per week. It even survived an eight foot drop onto a concrete floor about six months ago with only some minor cosmetic damage to the front edge- the display, hard drive and all other components escaped without harm! =)

I bought another E6400 about three months prior to this one and ended up wanting the higher-res LED display, so I sold it to a friend. She hasn't had the first problem with it either.

My best friend has an Inspiron 1520 that will be four years old next month. I bought my sister an Inspiron 1545 in July 2009, so it's more than two years old. Neither of those have had any issues at all.

To be fair, prior to buying my first E6400, I ordered a Dell Studio 1535 when they were first released in June 2008. It was a flimsy, creaky piece of crap from day one! In the seven months I was stuck with that thing, they replaced the motherboard THREE freakin' times! They also had to replace the hard drive once and were never able to get the keyboard backlight to work, even after replacing the keyboard twice. It was a nightmare and, had I not already purchased my E6400 before I went through DELL HELL, I probably wouldn't still be a Dell customer.

Thankfully, after seven months, hours of tech support calls and service visits/repairs, they finally replaced it with a newer, better-equipped Studio 1558. I sold it online for the same exact amount I originally paid for the lemon it replaced! =)

I highly recommend the Vostro and Latitude business models over the Inspiron/XPS consumer products. That is true for HP, Toshiba, Lenovo and most other companies- their business laptop models are usually much more durable and reliable than retail consumer systems. Another bonus, if you purchase a Latitude E6420/E6520 is a standard 3-year warranty.

 

I completely agree with you, I'm currently typing on a Vostro 1000 from 2007 and no hitches what so ever except 1 keyboard replacement. After looking for weeks to find a good laptop for my son who is going to graphic design, I finally settled on the l702x. It has been around a month since I got it and it's still going strong with no problems. The problem is I'm hoping for this thing to last my son at least 3 years if not 4. It's been pretty still so far as he's been taking rudimentary classes for now, but I'm still wondering If I should have gone with A Vostro again because of reliability, instead of power like the XPS has. He needed a good graphics card, after all.

 

i am using dell inspiron n5010 .. i got sound problem with in 2 months! .. but it is my fault i have installed VLC media player

 

Dell Inspiron 1564:
Replaced the keyboard a few weeks past the 1 year mark. The down arrow key went "sticky".
There's another repair scheduled when I find the right motherboard. (HDMI not always working/flickering).
Since yesterday it seems my SD card reader combo thing is dead. Might need to mess with the drivers before trying to find a new board for that.
Also the laptop is starting to lose paint and scratches very easily, it looks like it barely survived a war! I think I'll have to use some of that carbon wrap stuff for cars..
I had consumer grade laptops last me 4 years easily without these problems.. I'm sad
Besides that the dog ate my charger, it still works but it's slowly destroying my battery
I don't seem to have any luck with this laptop.

~Aeny

 

Ya the last half decent consumer Dell line was the 1520/Vostro 1500 and anything before that. Build quality was excellent back then IMO. Biggest issues with new Dell's are palmrests/keyboards, speakers, and of course your occasional bad motherboard/AC adapter, HDD.

1564 was based kinda off the Studio design, and only lasted a short while before the 1_R line was launched (N5010,N4010,N7010). 1564 was a worse design IMO than the 1545, I dislike having a door for the hard drive, I prefer the old school design of integrating it into the chassis. Of course the newest Sandy Bridge 1_R series hides it under the motherboard.

 

Bought a XPS 15 in November 2010. Had that one replaced in January. Have been problem free with this one since then.

 

Idk about the new ones, but from my experience with older Dell computers, they always worked for more than 5 or 6 years with minimal issues.

 

My Inspiron 1520 lasted more than 3 years without repair. Even then the repair was due to a bad adapter and was a minor one.

Lasted for one more year after that and then due to another bad adapter (broken cable, sparks flying around) my motherboard fried.

Just got a new motherboard fitted in!

So if it hadn't been for my recent luck with adapters, it would still have gone on strong without any repairs! I love the machine!

 

I have had this Dell Inspiron since December of 2007, and last year particularly around February of 2011*, I had to replace the screen because the back-light gave out completely. So I'd say about a good three years and the repairs I made myself and pretty much rebuilt my laptop with assistance from people here. I don't think I would've gotten as far as I did with the enhancements I made to my laptop without the help from here, so this was a great place to start. As far as reliability goes for Dell products, this is the first one I've had and it's really good but I'm not to fond of everything they released after this one, it just didn't feel right except for the Studio 1545 or Current XPS 15.

Since then, I've made upgrades to my laptop but not necessarily repairs as the things I've replaced, I've used to build a second laptop pretty much just like mine, in which they are still functioning optimally. For instance, I replaced the originally configured memory of 2GB (1+1) that I had with 6GB total (4+2), got a bigger HDD (from 120GB to 500GB), replaced the old screen (1280x800) with higher resolution one (1920x1200), updated the optical bay to a blu-ray drive and out fitted a black keyboard because it feels right.

Honestly, I've dropped and banged my 1520 into a wall a bunch of times but I've never really needed to repair anything, physically. I must also mention that a few times that I thought I had completely broken my laptop was when I had it wrapped in the Targus Notebook Carrier and it fell down a whole flight of stairs. I opened it up and nothing was wrong, it turned on and nothing seemed out of place. The build quality on the Inspiron 1520 can actually give a great deal of business class laptops out now a run for their money.

 

Dell Inspiron 8600 going on 7 or 8 years (still using it).

The battery won't hold charge so I keep it plugged in and I imagine I can just buy a replacement battery and it will be fine.

Not one thing has gone wrong since I got it... it actually was a warranty replacement for an older Dell because Dell stopped making 14.1" screens in 1920x1200 and my screen went out. So they shipped me this new Inspiron with a 15.4" WUXGA screen that has lasted all these years.

 

My Vostro 1500 has seen alot of abuse too, but ya it goes back to my theory that the 1520/Vostro 1500 was the last decent Inspiron line to be tough as nails as Dell's old school business class laptops. The plastics change in the 1525 as Dell got reamed for making fat/thick notebooks so in an effort to make it thinner/lighter notebooks.

 

I mean, looks isn't everything but it does mean something, the fact that people can use the laptop 4/5 years after it's launch date is something in of itself. This laptop doesn't look bad at all though, sure it might be thick but wouldn't people want something that would last? When I was considering getting this laptop I was debating between the HP DV6700 I think it was but I'm glad I stuck with this simply because my cousin bought the DV6700 at the same time and his crapped out on him about a year ago (motherboard fried). I believe they had pretty much the same type of configurations.

 

Speaking of that, I almost didn't order my Vostro 1500 for college. I was looking at a dv6000 from HP or funnily enough the XPS M1330. But both hit over 1200 for the specs I wanted. Both only had Vista, and I wanted XP Professional, so literally I ordered the Vostro 1500 only a few weeks after it debut, thank goodness I made that decision.

 

Laptops :

1998 Inspiron 7000 used without fault for 3 years before replacing. Passed on to my girlfriend who used it for another year or 2 without fault before upgrading

2001 Inspiron 8000 in daily use for ~12 hours per day without fault for 6 years before replacing

2007 XPS M1710 in daily use for ~12 hours a day had two nVidia 7950 GTX failures in year 3, fixed under warranty. Now 4.5 years old and still going strong

2008 Inspiron 1525 (girlfriend's) in daily use without fault for almost 3 years and counting


Desktops :

2008 XPS 420 used infrequently (about once per week) without fault for 3.5 years and counting

EDIT : October 2012 - XPS M1710 (now 5.5 years old), XPS 420 (now 4.5 years old) and Inspiron 1525 (now 4 years old) continuing to work without fault a year further on.

 

I didn't even know about the XPS-line, I probably would've tried to get that laptop had I known, the reason I started looking at the Inspiron line was thanks to my friend who spoke so highly of them. I don't know how well the HP DV6700 would have held up back then, I am more careful but I don't think it would've been as flexible as the Inspiron was when it came to upgrades (i.e. fitting in a WUXGA screen when clearly none was released for it). Vista wasn't really my option but I remember getting only because I wanted to give it a shot and spoke to the Dell guy to include a version of XP alongside it. Of course I had to pay more money but really, I ended up wasting a lot of money for the laptop, with the knowledge I have now, I would've beasted on the laptop back then and gotten everything for the money I spent.

 

Ya it's a good thing I bought base spec for my Vostro 1500 back in the day, as my parents gave me a budget of 1000 for it. So I had a T5470, 2 GB RAM, XP Pro, WXGA screen, 8400M GS, 160 GB 5400 rpm, 9 cell battery for 900 shipped. It suited my gaming needs until I build my 1st modern gaming desktop in 2009.

Of course it was a complete crapshoot that I bought a Dell that would be upgraded like this. Did not know Vostro 1500 was an Inspiron clone back then. Ya the Vostro being Dell's entry level business back then came with an option of XP Professional or Vista Business which I kindly took XP Professional.

 

Yeah mine was very much similar to yours and pretty much the same price as well, let's see I had mine configured at T5250, 2GB RAM, Vista (32-Bit), WXGA Screen, 8400M GS, 120 GB 7200RPM and the 9-Cell Battery. I had no idea what I was doing was about only 20 but I wanted a decent laptop and then I was like I'll get this.

Given what I know now, I probably would've configured it differently, but I was glad I didn't get the faster processors because I think at the time they only offered the Merom-line processors (T5xxx and T7xxx) and I believe they charged an additional $220 just for the T7500.

 

My XPS 15 l502x lasted for 1 day before it shutdown after 15 mins of mafia II because of overheating... -.-. so now it's sent to service.. hopefully it'll be ok when it comes back...

My old inspiron 15 lasted for 2,5 years without any problems though..

 

So, a little update for my 1564. I do like it better than the 1545 although I have never worked with one so can't really comment on that.

Close to 8000 hours running, 1year and 3months owned.

• Replaced keyboard just before 1year(€15).
• Now replaced the adapter(dog chewed it), little upgrade from 60w to 90w one(£27).
• Card reader is still fine, that was my fault(bad driver ).
• HDMI port need a good hit before it works, still looking to replace mainboard(+$200).

Heck if I replace the hinges on my Aspire 9420 then it'll be going like new, +3years old. Wished the 1564 could take the same beating.

~Aeny

 

I think this is a difficult question given the wide range of laptops Dell offer as some are likely to run longer than others. Most of my Dell laptops have been flawless within the 2-3 year timespan I've owned them bar an XPS M1710 I was unlucky with that was faulty out of the box with an odd video error that was a pain to get sorted but that hasn't put me off buying Dell again.

What I do like about Dells is that Dell provide the service manuals for free and that it's usually easy to find parts. My Mum's Vostro 1310 had an intermittent display (over the three year mark) which was due to the cable to the mainboard being damaged. No problem though as had a new cable ordered next day and fitted without issue thanks to the service manual.

A friend had bought a Dell 1545 on my recommendation as she'd damaged her previous machine and it had been impossible to find parts. This time the cat had tried to jump above the laptop and knocked a glass of wine into the laptop so my friend had asked for advice on a replacement machine. I said I'd have a look at her Dell but she warned me that the wine had been pouring out the rear vent. I took it away and found it powered up fine but the keyboard was faulty, onto ebay and a new one was on its way for £15 which was a breeze to fit and some 18 months later that laptop is still in use.

I am a bit concerned about some of their newer machines though which don't seem nearly as well designed for maintenance.

John

 

I have an Inspiron that operates a remote weather station and it's been operating 24/7 for close to 8 years. I have it running on a battery backup so even when the power goes out it keeps on ticking. It's missing one key, lost all it's teeth but it continues to collect and store data, can be accessed remotely via the intetnet and when I have to use it to copy or download data it frustrates the hell out of me because it's so slow....but when all is said and no repairs. It still works like the day I bought it.

Right now we're using 2 Lattitude 6400's and one 6500 which are all two years old and no issues. All travel and my wife beats the shiX out of heres but still no issues.

Now thinking about a Precison or 6420...trying to control the weight but Dell's are not known for being lightweight.

 

I owned an Inspiron 6000 from early 2005 to late 2009; I ended up having to replace the screen and inverter in early 2009 and I replaced the battery as well. I had to get a power jack replacement at one point when the laptop failed to charge. Towards the end the audio jack became loose and I could only get audio out of one ear in my headphones.

Since January 2010 I've owned an Inspiron 15z with no problems.

 

Been running my Dell since around this time of year in 2003. Just ordered an XPS, figured if I'm gonna make it last a decade I better put some money in.

 

My Inspiron N5030 laptop needed repair after 3 months. Tech couldn't fix, was sent out, they sent back still with the same problem Tech to come out again. Whatever, Dell sucks, would never buy again.

 

bought 2 laptops from the Outlet..one for me, one for someone else..one lasted for 4+ years until something was spilled on it. The other was bought 2 years ago and is still going. No problems with the desktops I got either....so I'm considering buying a Dell again for these reasons.

 

And this is what bothers me about several laptop brands I'm looking at. I got screwed with my Acer..usb ports broke..Warranty did not cover it. At least with Dell you have the option to pay more for them to replace it regardless of what happens. I didn't have that option with my Acer.

 

I have an XPS M1530 that I purchased in March 2008 and have used daily (several hours per day), mainly for surfing/email/chat etc.

It has never missed a beat and is still in pristine condition.

I have never been much of a gamer on PC's, so I guess that's probably why my graphics card hasn't yet failed.

Dell made some cash out of me, as I opted for the three year Complete Care warranty!

I recently decided that it was time to update and ordered a loaded XPS 15 as its replacement. It should be here in a few days!

 

of the 30 + dells I had only 2 over died, one one of those DOA was a new unit out of the box.

I had 2 fixed under accidental damage warranty.

I had a GPU replaced on my E1705 - known GPU Defect not dells fault.

Otherwise been happy with them all, and the friends / family I have passed some of them down to are still using them.

I did have a bit of work done under warranty with my M17x, New 280M cards, new DVD Drive, New GPU Fans, New hindges for the Display.

 

I'm typing from my wifey's Pink Inspiron 1720 now. Its been humming along since October of 2007 with no problems. Other than occasional software issues that have been created mainly by my wifes lack of understanding of why someone would want to infect your system with a virus. She's learned the hard way and after some data loss and a few reloads of Windows 7 she is doing much better about clicking on any and everything in her email box.

Anyway, the Inspiron has been pretty solid. I bumped up the Ram from 1GB to 4GB and swapped the processor from the Core 2 T5250 @ 1.5Ghz to a Core 2 T9300 @ 2.5Ghz a little over a year ago to freshen up the system. I just wish there was a way to add a better video card to this motherboard.

 

You can add a 4GB stick of RAM to give yourself an overall 6GB of RAM with the Inspiron 1720. As they are capable of handling this upgrade.

 

Had an alienware m17x, broke down after 6 months, gfx card replaced. 6 months later 2 gfx cards replaced in 1 month. Laptop sent for repairs. Got it back still not working. After alot of complaints got an offer of a new m17x r3. this one broke down in a month, gfx card replaced. only to break again within 9 days. luckely its all covered in the warrancy and im making good use of it.

 

It's official. Mine's somehow made it 5 years. In that time it's transitioned from "main desktop" to "backup rig" to "windows 8 testbed". Although I can no longer remove the GPU to clean it or reapply thermal paste due to a stripped screw, it's good enough to test applications such as LibreOffice, Flash, Aim-Betas, and any other beta I don't feel comfortable running outside of a sandbox'd environment. At some point though I'm either going to have to put win7 on it, or scrap it because as reliable as it's been, Win8 won't turn on the fans until dangerously high temps ensue. (This is a fault of win8, not the laptop.) The screen has become a bit floppy because the hinges aren't robust enough, but when it comes to audio quality, the m1710 is the BEST sounding laptop I have ever heard. It'll be a sad day when it's core 2 duo and 4GB DDR2-667'd self no longer turns over.

Jason

 

Coming up on 4.5 years with my Inspiron 1520. Never had a part fail (though the battery did eventually need to be replaced), and the only maintenance that was necessary was some dusting every 18 months or so. It's rather tankly in its build, which I like since I don't have to worry about it breaking. Neither falling off chairs while in a backpack nor very high temps (shortly before dusting) have caused problems. So I'm quite happy with the reliability. And I have no plans to buy another laptop anytime soon.

I did somewhat expect the 8600M GT card to fail after that started happening in all sorts of laptops. But it never did. I don't know if I just got lucky or if Dell had better design on the 1520 and 1720 in some way than most laptops of that time, but either way I'm glad it's lasted.

 

On my last 3 Dells, the left trackpad button has given way around 2-3 years mark. Also 2 graphics cards have failed (1 Ati, 1 Nvidia), no doubt due to excessive gaming and associated heat. Unfortunately Dell seems to have a long standing heat buildup/insufficient ventilation/heat dissipation problem across many/all models with high power graphics cards.

Unfortunately when it's come time to retire them (around 5 year mark) none of them has stayed in fully running condition, so that it could be still used as music/movie player etc.

I'm still buying Dell though because of their warranty options; always get the 24h at-location service. This way my maximum timeout is around 2 days, compared to WEEKS with other brands (mail in/drop in service only, just had a discussion with a friend whose Sony Vaio spent 6 weeks on a warranty service trip!!).

 

My 5 year, 3 month old Inspiron e1505 is still alive and kicking and running great! I've put a new hard drive it and doubled the RAM, upgraded to Win7 (x32 because of the 2gb limit)... it's been an awesome machine used a TON for over 5 years. Original battery still lasts about an hour.

I've recently upgraded to a Lenovo U300s ultrabook because of the weight and portability, but my Dell still runs great and I will use it on occasion when I need to burn a CD/DVD. (btw, I would have gone with the new XPS 13, but impatient)...

 

I have an old Dell Inspiron 1525, maybe a $500 laptop when I bought it. Nothing fancy. It's lasted since early 2008 so 4 years so far. Still going strong, just running out of space. I bought Dell because that's what my family had growing up and we've never had any problems with them!

 

My Inspiron 9400/E1705 has lasted me about 6 years. Still running, battery died last year and screen hinge finally broke 6 months ago. Ive got my moneys worth out of it.

 

My Dell Inspiron 6000 is 6 years and 2 months old and not a single problem other than battery needs replaced which I think is about right for a notebook this old.

I just bought a new HP for something different and an upgrade for a pretty decent price. Happy with both and the Dell will make a nice backup and vacation computer.

 

Inspiron 1720 bought in 2007 is still going strong. Was using if for Folding@home for a while on our NBR team. Link in my sig if you want some details. It was a nice laptop. One of my favs. Gave it to my bro though

 

XPS m1530 bought early 2007 and still running, one problem though, accidently dropped the laptop and the HDD ceased to work, replaced it and works 2 years+ as a charm no problems encountered, running Windows 7.

 

The 1520 (and 1420/1521/1720/1721) were the last of the "built like a tank" consumer laptops from Dell. I bought a 1520 for my best friend in 10/07 and it's hasn't had a single issue in almost 4.5 years.

It's hardly a powerhouse, with a T5450 processor and Intel X3100 graphics, but he still loves it! At least I sprang for the WXGA+ (1440x900) display, which still looks great.

They don't make 'em like they used to...

 

Key came of my inspiron 1545 and had the keyboard replaced today by dell.

 

Had a inspiron 1501 built in 2007 that had a hard life. Was my uncle's before he passed away and he had burnt it with a cigarette, had it sitting in special brew beer for god knows how long and yet it still kept on working. It did stop working for a bit when it got wet but when it dried out it started working fine. It's been washed inside and out and had a repaste job done. Other then that its the sane old machine. Battery still lasts over an hour.

I just hope my xps 17 3D lasts as long!

 

Beginning to get concerned with my L702x its been almost a year and it starting to boot slowly, run slowly and the hard drives are acting finicky....either needs a reinstall or something is dying.

 

My Dell Precision M90 lasted slightly over 5 years before the Quadro card started to fail. I think it is a known problem, tried the card baking method and it's back up and running without issues. Has been 6 months since I fixed it and still works fine.

However I should really get a new laptop soon. It has served me well.

 

My screen just gave it, I'm not sure why but I upgraded to the WUXGA screen this past June and it lasted until yesterday. Still trying to find a suitable replacement screen. I don't want to spend $195 on it from Dell. That would just be insane amount of money.