** XPS M1330 A04 motherboard exchange thread **

Well, I had all those problems, but in the end, the whine came right back. So In my case, no, it didn't fix anything.

 

Well that's the difference between us, I love legos. And I certainly don't have the patience to let someone build them for me when I know I can do better. Good luck with the depot.

Bumping this up to get some more feedback, I haven't gotten to replacing mine yet, and now I'm wondering if it's worth the time to go through with it. It seems like there hasn't been a definitive trend in either direction, so let's hear it.

 

I just got the A04 board installed. Dell technician came with a correct board and got it installed in an hour or so. The laptop is definitely running quieter.

 

Any signs of whining Inzomnia?

 

The whining sound can be heard if I put my ear right at bottom right of the palm rest. Otherwise it is definitely an improvement from the old board.

 

Good to hear, thanks for the update.

 

I decided to forgo with the A04 motherboard exchange... I'm just afraid more bad will come out of this than good. Maybe I'll decide to take the chance on it in the future...

 

...It's not an issue of ability to build it or even patience to build it. The issue is that the company is selling defective laptops and leaving their customers to clean up. That's not what you paid for, so that's not what you should have to deal with. Get my point?

Anyway, it doesn't matter, I fixed all the "stuff's not fitting" issues while the "return to depot" box arrived. Now I'm just annoyed with them, so I asked for another replacement. If there are any parts at all messed up on the new replacement, I'll take both the current and replacement laptops apart, put together a perfect, or as close to perfect as I can get, machine, and then send them a pile of defective parts. I'm sick of this by now.

By the way, I'm pretty sure the consensus here is that the motherboard makes the noise subside quit a bit, but not enough to get rid of it completely.

 

Hi everyone,

today I got a bluetooth modul installed in my xps. Dell technician told me that he never laid hands on that notebook before. It was so hard to watch him ripping my baby apart. And in the end the cpu whining is still there..so there might be more technician working on my xps. The prolem is...i just can't live with that noise, it drives me mad. Here in Germany they won't change your xps if you tell them about the whining thing.

So what should I do?? I don't want any technician touch my xps again.

sry for the english...I'm really mad at the moment

 

let the technition do the repair, then if he messes up, just dont sign the paper work (you have to sign to say the work is satisfactory before he leaves), and get on the phone to DELL to demand a replacement!

The techy cant leave until you sign, so he will have to call DELL if he messes up and you dont sign. So when he's calling them, they will prob ask to speak to you to find out what the problems is...at that point you can demand a replacement.

And no matter what they say...DONT sign IF the workmanship is shoddy!

 

oh wow, the dell tech who replaced my motherboard never told me to sign anything...

>_>

 

A little off the topic for the thread title, but I didn't want to start a new thread for this question. Does anyone know if new orders (in the U.S.) are shipping with the new A04 motherboard or the older A01?? I want to order, but I don't want to get the old MB and have to put up with an exchange like a lot of you are having to do. Thanks for any info!

 

I just ordered mine a few weeks ago at the beginning of Nov. and I got the older motherboard.

 

i just recieved my xps 1330, it came with the A04 mobo, but I can definitely hear the whine ! it's really loud. what should I do ? ask for an other mobo ? whould it fix the whine ?

 

where does your whine come from? By the express slot at the front? Or from the CPU area at the back?

If its from the front, then its not CPU whine! It's coming from the 82801HBM Southbridge chip on the actual motherboard!

My old HP NX6110 and my mates Sony VAIO both do this (they both have the 82801FBM southbridge chip), but they are almost silent!

You have to put your ear right next to the palm rest to hear them! And even then they are very faint!

If its the 82801HBM chip (by the express slot), then yes, a new mobo or replacement system will be your only choice to get rid of that whine!

 

well, it sounds louder at the express slot. When i am sitting at my desk and the computer is on the otherside of the room i can still hear the whine. but when i use RMclock the whine is gone/much less, so it should be cpu whine ? isn't it?

 

not always! The whine is caused by the chip internally changing voltages. If you turn off C4 state, then there will always be a higher voltage going through it, so it wont need to change as much, cos the voltage it requires will always be there.

Disabling C4 should completely remove CPU whine! Put your ear next to the CPU, and above the express slot (on the palm rest). If its a fair bit louder at the express slot than the CPU, then there's no doubt about it...its the 82801HBM southbridge!

I'll bet you everything I own on that!

 

ok, i just checked, if i dissable the C4, i still hear whine from the express slot. So it's the southbridge, thanks, tomorrow i'll call dell and ask for a solution

 

If I set the min CPU usage to 100% the whine doesn't change at all.

Is there anyone with a clear answer on what this problem is and if the motherboard replacement does anything to fix it?

 

read the last couple of posts I put in here...might be your southbridge and not your CPU!

 

How do I know the next motherboard I will get wont have the same southbridge chipset with the same noise?

 

I got the A04 board installed this past Saturday and so far I have not noticed any sound comparing the old A01 board.

 

OK, so after an hour on the phone explaining that I was told numerous times and had read here that I would be allowed to perform the motherboard replacement by myself if I was on the phone with a tech the whole time, Dell still would not allow me to do the work without affecting my warranty. How annoying.

Luckily, the guy I was speaking with felt my pain for previously having to get a system replacement for the hackjob that a field tech did to my first 1330, and understood that I didn't want another butcher to come do the work. He told me I could use the repair depot, but that's not an option for me right now. In the end, he told me he'd let me get one more system replacement, but that they wouldn't be able to give me another one ever again. The way I see it, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be able to get a system replacement after 30 days anyway, so I figured I'd try my luck one more time. Here's hoping...

Oh, and I can't verify this, but he said several times that there was an even newer motherboard hardware revision, A05 (not the bios). Can anyone confirm?

 

they all come with the 82801HBM chipset! Only older PC's come with the 82801FBM.

So its just luck of the draw as to whether or not you get whine from it.

 

Ok well, I rescheduled to have a tech come out and he just called and he will be out yet today.

He didn't seem very knowledgeable about the part he was replacing so I'm pretty much scared ****less at this point. We'll see what happens.

 

Good luck. Not that many tech's have experienced with M1330 but it is quite easy to do if they know which part to remove first. The tech who worked on mine took 3 hours to replace the MB. However, on a second visit she knows which part is to be removed first. It took her in an hour to complete MB replacement and the workmanship is as good as the unit coming from Dell factory.

 

And no sign of the noise after repair?

 

I just got my M1330 with the A01 board and I have the whine... I contacted dell XPS support via chat and they are sending the A04 board replacement... They are also letting me do the replacement myself. The service manual on how to take apart the laptop is on the dell support website... It doesn’t look very hard to do either. So for those of you that want to do the replacement yourself, it is definitely possible. This is my chat log, the first time I have ever contacted dell. Took all of 20 minutes.

Service Manual: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsM1330/en/index.htm
Support Chat: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/chat/hardware_chat?c=us&l=en&s=gen

My chat log is below..

 

Let us know how the motherboard replacement works out for you! I may give it a shot this way, doing it yourself, rather than any of those techs ripping my machine apart!

 

Yeah, a warning to all, try your hardest to replace the mobo yourself. I had really mean chat people who refused to send me the parts. The Dell tech then literally proceeded to rip my M1330 apart. He mixed up screws and everything, and now everything's got some sort of gap in it.

Don't let the techs replace your parts.

 

The noise is still there but it is very low. I have put my ear next to express card slot to hear the noise.

 

Ok, just to give an update.

I scheduled (again after I canceled) to have the tech come out and replace the motherboard.

I had the Rev. A01 and I just got the laptop brand new last week.

The tech brought the A04 today (VERY quick response) and it took him about 2 hours but he got it installed. After he left I checked out the notebook for myself and found that the plastic piece on the upper left falls off just by touching it, and my SD dummy card was missing. I had the tech's cell phone number so I called him and made him come back to fix it.

He fixed the plastic piece but the media bar still flexes a lot, the keyboard also appears to be slightly warped despite me mentioning a couple times as he was putting it on that the warping issue was common and to make sure to put it on correctly.

After the tech left for the 2nd time I noticed that the laptop was only seeing half of my 4GB of ram, I opened up the RAM bay to find the top stick not seated properly, I fixed it, put it back together and continued to use the notebook.

The whine is still there, it might be slightly quieter but then again it's loud downstairs so I will look into it more tomorrow. The tech was polite and he made a good effort but the results we're still not great.

 

Hope you get it all fixed, good luck. Premium product customers deserve the best imo

My cpu whine is up a bit. I said it was 1/4 of the original whine, now it's around 1/2......................

 

I was inspired by the thread so I chattd with Dell XPS support and they are sending me a replacement system board. I asked them to make sure it is the REV A04. I also had to send a follow-up email to ensure that they give me the one with the discrete graphics. Anyway, the tech support person strongly urged that I have a technician replace the system board but I insisted that I could do it myself. He said that if anything breaks while doing the system board swap, my warranty will be void. He told me my warranty will be fine if everything is successful. I have the complete care accidental damage coverage, will that not take precedence if something goes wrong?

Now for those that have done the system board swap yourselves, did you have to return the old motherboard?

 

Luckily the tech who worked on mine, she was trying until everything was fitted correctly. I did show her how to install the media panel correctly. For me everything fitted better than when I first got it from Dell. The keyboard is completely flat. You have to make sure all the wires are tucked in correctly under the keyboard before installing the keyboard. The 2 end plastic parts at the media panel should go in last and if the media panel does not fit correctly, the 2 end parts will come loose.

 

If you do a little search on this forum, you'll see that there has been a thread discussing about this issue right from the start

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=153436&page=45

It has recieved 29K + views

 

This thread was an extension off of the general CPU whine thread to specifically talk about the results of upgrading to the A04 motherboard, which is supposed to fix it, but apparently doesn't.

Still waiting for more feedback, but it doesn't look good...

 

It's really not, I contacted Dell today to get the whole laptop replaced and they are shipping me a replacment, at least I can hopefully get the perfect keyboard and plastic parts back, I'll just live with the whine since the A04 upgrade didn't do much to fix it.

 

Yeah same here, my replacement m1330 arrives tomorrow.
Hopefully it doesn't have any major problems...since dell will be sending me refurbished m1330s after this one..

 

I recieved my replacement motherboard today (damn fast......). I followed the dell service manual on how to take it all apart and was finished in a little over 2 hours... I recieved a referbished A04 mb with the A06 bios.

The whine is GONE! I also fixed a keyboard buldge and another alignment issue. Now my M1330 is perfect.

 

Congrats! Scott
I'm really nervous about thsi replacement that's coming tmw...sigh.

 

Yeah, I just got my m1330 like 2 weeks ago and they are all supposed to have the A04 now but mine had the A01, I hope the new notebook has a A04 otherwise I'll feel like im taking a step backwards.

 

I just got my laptop back from Dell. The motherboard is now revision A04 with BIOS A05. Not quite what I expected. The high-pitched noise is still there, but it's at least less noticeable. The level of its annoyance is now acceptable. Although I still hope Dell could someday make it dead silent through BIOS update or another revision of motherboard (I read somewhere that A05 is available!?).

 

GamaFu, where is the noise coming from? The top left (by the CPU) or the bottom right (by the express slot)?

If its coming from under the express slot then its the 82801HBM Southbridge making the noise, and not the CPU!

And absolutly NOTHING except for a new mobo will fix that!

 

Mine came with A04 and A06 bios .. I don't notice the whine.. maybe I'm just getting old :S

 

Are you serious?? Mine's coming from under the express slot
The whine is back and it's now really pissing me off. I don't want to have get the motherboard replaced again.

 

Yes mate I am 100% serious! And I'm not just taking a stab in the dark! I know this cos me and my mate took apart his M1330 to see what was causing the whine (cos it was coming from under the express slot, and not by the CPU), and we found that it was the 82801HBM southbridge!

ALL laptops make this noise! Even my old HP NX6110 and my mates Sony VAIO, BUT you can BEARLY hear it, even when you put your ear right next to them! The thing I've noticed between my NX6110 and the M1330 southbridge is that the NX6110 and VAIO both use the 82801FBM, where as the M1330 uses the 82801HBM!

So this newer revision of chip is a bit iffy! And I also noted that applying a bit of pressure to the chip made the noise A LOT worse, but pulling up on the chip reduced the noise by A LOT!

So it seems like the techies are placing pressure on the chips when they are fitting the new mobo, making an almost un-noticable noise, VERY noticable!

And the fact that the M1330 is thinner than my NX6110 and my mates VAIO means that the noise has less barriers to quieten it down before it reaches your ears (again, doesn't help the situation!).

 

My motherboard was replaced like 30 minutes ago. The technicician did a great job, and so far the computer is VERY silent.

Go Dell!!

THe whine on this laptop was comming from bottom right (very loud) and top right/top centre which was more faint. but there were two of them. I don't remember where it came from in my original m1330, but it was really loud. But i don't care anymore because my baby is super quiet. and i also got a free 2 year next business day warranty upgrade for my troubles. I Definately *heart* dell!

 

it's coming from the southbridge chip according to the position that you described. guess there's no way to get rid of it except another replacement... (sigh....)

 

You can replace it as many times as you want, the sound will always be there.

I have a replacement laptop on the way, so this will be the 3rd motherboard total and I can almost bet money it will have the whine.