Dude, I ain't gettin a Dell

[Al_Havemann]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

I can easily charge the battey for you if your in NJ or NYC, or maybe want to send it to my office with return postage.

I have a dozen different Dell laptops here, some Inspirons and well. 2500, 5000 & 7000 models as well as Lattitude 500,600 models.

Al
Al

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

[ QUOTE ]
robstarr-lite said:
i had a similar problem with my laptop, and dell wanted alot of money .....in my case it turned out to be an SMT fuse blew. unfortunately i had to tear down the laptop...used a leaded fuse as this was easier to solder ontop of original.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gak. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ohgeez.gif Didn't think to look for an SMT fuse. Here goes another teardown!

[ QUOTE ]


on your serial part if you know the part #, you can order a free sample or 2 from the dallis web site ( think dallis was bought but still selling under that name )

[/ QUOTE ]

Dallas Semi and Maxim are one and the same now. Thing is, even if I replace the part wityh a new one, I'd have to program it with the same code, and if the original is dead, I have no way of knowing what that was. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

[ QUOTE ]

another thought were you able to load the ac supply by itself [ to verify it makes power under load and its not powering down by itself ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Tried another known-good AC supply - no luck. Same "not recognized" baloney. I'm gonna go looking for that fuse though. Thanks for the tip, Rob.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

[ QUOTE ]
Al_Havemann said:
I can easily charge the battey for you if your in NJ or NYC, or maybe want to send it to my office with return postage.

I have a dozen different Dell laptops here, some Inspirons and well. 2500, 5000 & 7000 models as well as Lattitude 500,600 models.

Al
Al

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks Al! I'm not within driving distance of you, but I'll keep the mailing option in my back pocket.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

Well I finally obtained a used power supply that sorta worked. I had to tape down the power cable to get it to stop intermitting, long enough to charge the battery and allow me to apply the BIOS upgrade to fix the original power supply issue. Once I obtain a replacement output cord for the AC adaptor, I'll be back in business for good.

Thanks again for offering to charge the battery for me, Al.

 

[snakebite]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

sounds like the power jack needs to be resoldered.
got a board from an 8200 with your problem and the jack is ready to fall out.
if you are not afraid to take it apart resoldering 3 joints may fix it.
make sure you have a pa-9 adapter.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

[ QUOTE ]
snakebite said:
sounds like the power jack needs to be resoldered.
got a board from an 8200 with your problem and the jack is ready to fall out.
if you are not afraid to take it apart resoldering 3 joints may fix it.
make sure you have a pa-9 adapter.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Snakebite -

Great minds think alike. Already disassembled and resoldered the power jack. I ordered a "refurbished" PA9 adaptor and it came with an intermittent located at the power plug - that's why I had to tape it up. I've since found a source for replacement cords with that 3-pin power plug on it. As soon as they arrive I'm swapping out that output cable.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

By the way, after getting the computer running again, I found that it was shutting down every 5 minutes from overheating. Took it apart again and cleaned out the vent area around the CPU fan, put it back together, and it was STILL shutting down from overtemp. Took some compressed air and blew out the vents again - same thing. Finally I opened it up again and this time I disassembled the CPU fan and discovered a huge furball lodged inside the exhaust area! Once I removed the furball and reassembled, the machine ran fine with no overheating.

The lesson I learned from this is to look in EVERY nook and cranny of the airflow path when looking for overheating issues. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon6.gif

 

[snakebite]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

evil dustbunny!
had a sony given up for dead by the shop that does the warrenty work here.they diagnosed is as a bad motherboard.
would power on and shut down after 5 seconds.
was 2 days out.
they got pissed and bought a new compaq.they were just about to toss it when i went over to install a new hard drive and the gave it to me.
found a large dustbunny heavy on the cat hair wound up in the fan.
the system tests the fan by turning it on and reading the tach line.
wont post and shuts down if it doesnt see the tach pulse from the fan.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

Yeah, the Dell does the same thing during post. I can hear the fan spin up and then spin down again, and the machine doesn't turn it on again until it gets warm enough to need it. A battery-saving measure, I suppose, but why not leave it on all the time when it's plugged into ac?

It seems to me that the fan is a little undersized for the job, but I'm sure they had to make that compromise to keep the size of the case down.

 

[cobb]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

THanks for the heads up, I learned the other day I get a discount on dell computers, however I was leaning to abarebones 230 bucks desktop than the 700 buck laptop.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

They make some pretty decent desktops, but they've had a lot of problems with their laptops, especially with the power issue as well as touchpads that freak out.

 

[snakebite]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

lately dell has had a big run of crap caps in gx 270/280.
seems nichicon had a large batch of bad hm-n low esr caps.

 

[matt_j]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

Dell did few right things by me... Few desktops, few laptops and axim handheld... I can't complain but I hate buying machines that I can't really upgrade due to their configs.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

[ QUOTE ]
snakebite said:
lately dell has had a big run of crap caps in gx 270/280.
seems nichicon had a large batch of bad hm-n low esr caps.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder if this is more fallout from that stolen electrolyte formula that turned out to be incorrect.

 

[cobb]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

I know hte dept for the blind use to use dell from their trusted toshiba systems then when they had to have warranty service on a bad modem, they were stuck with a hundred dollar or so bill to recertify the system to have it to continue to be covered under the warranty. They quit that. Gateway they had problems with the notebooks overheating or the fans failing, not sure which one came first. The trusted toshibas have never let them down.

 

[LitFuse]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

I never imagined myself buying a Dell, but then I found out that they have some pretty crazy deals once in a while.

Two weeks ago I bought a Dimension 4700 (P4 2.8 800 FSB / 512 DDR2 at 400MHZ / 80GB HDD / 48x CDRW / 17" Ultrasharp 1704 LCD / and free printer for $415 (including tax and shipping) after rebate. The price was so good I got two of them.

I like Dell. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Peter

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

Wow, that was a good deal, especially considering that some stores are still trying to get $400 for a 17" LCD monitor alone. Ya did good, Peter. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[KevinL]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

[ QUOTE ]
LitFuse said:
I never imagined myself buying a Dell, but then I found out that they have some pretty crazy deals once in a while.


[/ QUOTE ]

Same. I'd been building systems for literally ten years when I bought my first Dell desktop, a Dimension 4300S in a special low profile case. All the people who knew me and what I do thought I had gone raving mad /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif Dell beat me on both engineering - the system was totally silent when not running at full power - and pricing. I gave in. I still have that system, retired because of old age, but still valued enough that I keep it right here as a backup system ready to go should anything happen to my main workstation.

I'm not denying that others have experienced issues, in fact, issues that I would have handed them their a55 for, but they have always been consistently good to me, shipping faster than expected, and the hardware lasts forever. Maybe because I mainly buy their Latitude laptops - and I deal with their Asia Pacific units, not their North American people.

Ever had an engineer (who actually knows what they are doing) pick up the phone in TWO rings? I thought it was IVR, till the person tried to get my attention..

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

T hanks Kevin, I appreciate hearing an opinion from a different camp. You mentioned that you've had a lot of Latitudes; have you run into the drifting cursor issue?

 

[DarkLight]

Re: Dude, I ain\'t gettin a Dell

[ QUOTE ]
LitFuse said:
I never imagined myself buying a Dell, but then I found out that they have some pretty crazy deals once in a while.

Two weeks ago I bought a Dimension 4700 (P4 2.8 800 FSB / 512 DDR2 at 400MHZ / 80GB HDD / 48x CDRW / 17" Ultrasharp 1704 LCD / and free printer for $415 (including tax and shipping) after rebate. The price was so good I got two of them.

I like Dell. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Peter

[/ QUOTE ]

you will change your tune shortly...

Hope you like your onboard graphics...

Got a PCI express slot?