My little history of being a Dell customer

On my 21st birthday (Mar 07), I bought myself a Dell XPS M1210 as my birthday present. It was a pretty good one, except it was getting hotter and hotter as time passed. Then a month ago, when I was using it to type my class project, smoke came out with burning smell while the screen turned white (I did connect it to a Belkin surge protector...) Then I called Dell and it agreed for a replacement system, while my class project was screwed up, of course.

Then after two weeks, I received my replacement unit. Surprisingly, it wasn't M1210 anymore but a M1330! Besides changing to a newer model, most of the parts were upgraded as well, a 100GB HDD->160GB HDD, larger, thinner LED display, GeForce GO 7400-> GeForce 8400M GS, one 9-cell battery->two 9-cell batteries...etc The only two thing got downgraded were the webcam (1.3MP->0.3) and...the CPU!! (T7200, 2.00GHz, 4MB L2 cache->T7250, 2.00GHz, 2MB L2 cache).

Then I called Dell asking why was the CPU downgrading happened. The nice guy first told me that T7250 used the newer Santa Rosa stuff, while I told him that my concern was the L2 cache part. As a result, the nice guy helped me to set up a service call to change my CPU to T7300, 2.00GHz, 4MB L2 cache for free.

However, the thing is not ended yet...When I was playing my Battlefield 1942+Desert Combat Final Mod, the screen and sound suddenly shut off with no reason. Then I did some searching through the internet and I guessed it was very likely due to overheating. So, I called Dell again and now I am waiting for the replacement heat sink.

After so many things happened, one of the conclusions that I could draw would be that, warranty is really important...Anyway, in general I would still consider myself as a happy Dell customer, except...if I knew Dell would replace a M1330 for a M1210, I would ask the rep. to add the fingerprint reader...
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The performance of my new M1330 is just awesome! Espcially the Intel 4965 AGN wifi card! Before, I couldn't get the signal on campus with the Dell 1500 draft N card. But now, it just catch singnal EVERYWHERE!

 

do you just live in a hot area? computers just dont overheat, do you block off the fan or something?

 

I'm living in San Francisco, Ca. Would I consider it is a hot place? I don't think so.
The other possibility might be that I was placing it on my knee for a looong time.

 

Woah. Very nice of Dell to give you the LED screen.

btw what did you do to the Dell logo? looks like a Bayer symbol.

 

I stick my oen Japanese Animation stuff (The Zeon symbol from Gundam) on it, as I am a big fan of Japanese animation.

 

due to its size, m1330 is rather weak on thermal design...