Broken Laptop - What are the odds?

tr87526 · Post by **tr87526** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 9:27 pm

My 15 month old dell laptop stopped working a couple weeks ago. Nothing would work except the indicator light that shows it is plugged in.

Shipped it back to Dell for repairs. I got it back today. The invoice says they replaced the Motherboard, CPU and Hard Drive.

What are the odds that all 3 would fail at once?

Also, the kicker is it does not have the new HD installed. The repair facility did not have a replacement HD so it is being shipped to me separately. I will have to format it and reinstall vista and drivers.

What if I didn't know how to do that? Why did I pay them $550 for and incomplete job?

Sava700 · Post by **Sava700** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 9:54 pm

Its a simple install..however I would tell them to ship you a Windows 7 install disk/key instead for your troubles as it will release Oct 22nd

As for the price you paid... someone got screwed if you just paid them to do that and for those parts.

SlyOneDoofy · Post by **SlyOneDoofy** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 10:24 pm

That's exactly why I bought HP instead of Dell. HP actually fixed my wifes 3 year old laptop's broken hinge for free even though the warranty was only 1 year.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Thu Oct 15, 2009 7:08 am

tr87526 wrote: Also, the kicker is it does not have the new HD installed. The repair facility did not have a replacement HD so it is being shipped to me separately. I will have to format it and reinstall vista and drivers.

Depending on the model you got, when they ship you a new hard drive, it'll have the Windows image on it for that model. So when you slap in the new replacement drive and power up for the first time, it goes through the unbuckling of Windows like it was the first day you bought your laptop and powered it up, drivers 'n all.

With laptops, usually the mobo and CPU are bundled together as a replacement. This ensures the heat sink 'n thermal grease are all set at the factory, it's not as common to get a bare motherboard or bare CPU replaced under warranty.

With laptops, strive for the 3 year warranty. Something is more likely to fail with a laptop, so it's usually worth it over the default 1 year warranty with home grade laptops.

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Thu Oct 15, 2009 7:16 am

What are the odds that all 3 would fail at once?

Likeley that all 3 didn't fail and the determination was that some motherboard component failed and rather than locate the exact failed comonent it's more economical for Dell to just slap in a new mb w/ cpu and drive. Most all laptop mb components are soldered in, except for cpu, pci devices and drives. Thus, if had a failed power supply on the mb one replaces the whole thing. Dell doesn't do soldering.

tr87526 · Post by **tr87526** » Fri Oct 16, 2009 2:16 am

The story continues....

The new hard drive arrived today and it is blank. OK no big deal.

I installed it and powered up the laptop. On boot up I see the message "scanning for HD". Then I get the message " No array is defined".

I google that message and determine something in the BIOS needs to changed but I'm not real sure so I call Dell support. After an hour and a half, we think its fixed.

I put the Reinstall CD in and reboot.....nothing happens. Dell has me go back into setup and discover my CDROM is not listed. He has me pull it out and re-seat it. Still nothing.

He tells me I need a new CDROM and wants me to box up the laptop and send it back for repairs and there will be a charge. After arguing for I while I convince the to send me a new CDROM for FREE.

So I now have 4 dead components and will be out of action until it arrives