Returning my D820 because of firewire issue.

Because of the ongoing firewire issue, I have decided I will unfortunately be returning my D820. I've had it 2 weeks, and it's financed.
I shouldn't have any problems, should I?

I need this for work,and I need it to work now.
So, I'm going to pick up an HP nc8430 instead.

It looks like the HP uses a very similar dock as the D820. I'm hoping I can use the Dock i already bought.

 

Nope...the docks are incompatible since they are Dell/HP proprietary. My girlfriend has the D820 and I've got the nc8430 and we both have docks. The physical connections are definitely different.

 

Bummer.
Oh well. How do you like the HP?

 

I just got a good deal locally on a 3 month old nc8430 for $1300,-US via Ebay.
I should be picking it up this afternoon.

 

Youve already invested in all this and your losing money by going to the hp. Cant you pick up a firewire card and have service come out and fix it? Your choice just doesnt seem to make sense. Firewire issue, oh time to get rid of it..

Firewire card until at home comes out. Alot cheeper than taking the hit on restocking, and buying a new hp with shipping costs, etc..

 

I already tried a Firewire card. it doens't work either. The Siig Expresscard they sell on the dell site doesn't work.
If you read teh Firewire issue thread on this forum, you'll see that it is a case of bad hardware impemenatation with the BIOS.
I need this for work, and i need it to work now.
And I swear if they try and charge me a restockign fee for returnign a laptop due to a fauly design, there will behell to pay.

Thank god I financed it.
I'll be contacting my bank to make sure no money is taken out fo my bank account by dell for restockin fees.

 

Were you using your computer for high end audio use? What types of devices failed to work on your Dell?

I was about to pull the trigger on a e1505 but have hit the brakes because of this firewire thing. I do a lot of video work.

 

It would not work with my presonus firebox. There's alot of complaints on the Presonus website about the dell laptops and firewire.
I would not do any highbandwidth stuff involving firewire with the Dell's at this point.

Don't get me wrong. I loved the build quality of the machine. I simply have to get work done. Now.

 

Well, HDV is about 19 megabits per second. Is that high bandwidth?

Did you ever try hooking up a Firewire hard drive?

 

I tried hooking up a Firewire HD to both the internal firewire and teh Expresscard firewire adapter that i bought. Which was even worse.
And Dell even sells the Siig Expresscard o their website.

They really need to test their stuff properly, or at last repsond quickly when a problem is discovers.
I discovered that this has been a known issue since last August.

 

Read through my NBR review (link is in my signature)...bottom line: I like it a lot.