Direct2Dell

I Really hope this makes the post...

XPS M1210 Model Replacing the GPU

I've just about had it with Dell, time to take mattes in to my own hands
if you feel the same way read on,  if not, time for you to toss your none working laptop in the trash can.

if you want to try and save it read on... please note this is not for the faint harted

Replace GPU  with same make/type model

mine GPU is a Nvida Ge Force Go 7400 GPU

Things you will need:

A good light is a must

Kitchen Table

Philips screwdrivers small

Flat bladed screwdriver small

a plastic tub

Heat cpu compound/gel

Anti static straps is a must

The Manual that was shipped with the laptop or a down load it!

A Digital Camera

a new GPU

Note: Take out the Battery, and Only take out screws that are marked with a triangle or a "D" and place in plastic tub.

how to take out the top part of the keyboard on the far right there is an indentment, with flat bladed screwdriver insert 1/4 inch and apply pressure and pop  up the corner, then put screwdriver down and with finger slide the rest od the plastic strip from left to right and pop out the left hand side where the XPS logo is located and flip plastic strip up wards 

you will then need to undo the screen hinge screws located on the rear 2 screws on each side one near the power socket and near the RJ45 or network Socket then flip laptop over and lid out screen follow the Manual !!!!

Once you have the keyboard out and the laptop apart  take of top casing and undo mouse controller cable
remove top cover or flip up out the way

locate the GPU, mine is on the right hand side under the heat sink

GPU and CPU handling

Once you have reviled the CPU/GPU take grate care taking out the heat sink, also gentely clean off the cpu old compound again taken grate care......................... then grab the heat sink and clean it off the old compound really good to get the old compound off, it must be removed,

 at this point it is best if you have a digital camera and take pictures of the GPU for refence

Now, locate the GPU, mine in my 1210 XPS is on the far right, take out the GPU set to one side taking note what way it came out normally is marked with a missing pin on one corner, take the New GPU and install in same manor
make dram sure that all the pins line up before final insert

now look at that digital picture you took and make sure it is the same way round as pictures as to what you just installed

once happy insert the GPU, apply CPU heat Gel /compound  to top of GPU and with you index finger just slightly smudge and  let it set for a while do the same with the CPU both must be cleaned before new compound is applied

Once happy, re insert heat sink  on Cpu and Gpu and seat it well and secure it

Apply all the cables you took of and all the screws and re insert all the components that you took out in reverse order

Dont forget to install the Screen Hinge screws i almost did

Once everything is back, snap the ceasing of the laptop together and flip over and insert case screws

make one last check on screws and make sure the case is snapped back together.

Now at this point CHANT or pray, insert battery and power and pray again, then hit the power on button

If you see a post test and then booting to windows and get to log in Your  Done well done!!

you can thank me later.

K4eeZ from the Amateur Radio Community

Hello Lionel .I have oane question:The problem whit this videocard NVIDIA on m1330 if fixed by the producer in 2008 or is in on the all products series?

I have a problem with my m1210 with a 7400go GPU

I had it tested, and was told that the GPU failed

I have tried and tried and TRIED to get Dell to cooperate, even trying to give them reference numbers of individuals who had their problem taken care of for free. Heck, there are people on this thread that have the same issue as me (for m1210), and some had to pay for it, and others had it solved for free.

My sister's Inspiron's Nvidia GPU also failed, and her laptop is useless right now, and I want to get my computer fixed so I can then help her out as well.

Dell, PLEASE help me.

Regards,

Jorge A. Concha

Although it is easy to dislike a large company, and i personally feel sorry for all who are going through hell I honestly have to give credit where credit is due.  I went through dell's chat interface and met with someone who asked me questions, saw this post and then went ahead with sending hardware after troubleshooting.

I have yet to have it repaired and will amend this comment based on how it is fixed, but I feel that Nvidia is the one at fault not really Dell and it has affected all vendors who have purchased such hardware.

This said, while I got excellent service and got an excellent response by going through the right venues, I don't go through phone support.  I've heard too many stories to go through them and personally got hung up on twice when calling.  Amazon really did well going with a US based CS system that is stable and efficient while being large, successful and highly profitable.  I also hope other companies go along with their model and minimally outsource their customer support.

In any case, I purchased an M1530 with 3 years support and wouldn't go less than that when technology is relatively new. 

I don't really recommend HP, Toshiba, nor Asus as I've had WORSE luck with tech support than with dell.  For those who want trouble free machines that require no technical comptency you can't go wrong with a mac.  Expensive, yes but virtually trouble free machines.

Help with support,

I too have tried to wade through the levels of support. Why would it take 5 different support personel to find out that the warrenty being offered is not being honored?

I have been offered  another extended warrenty for $385 for 1 year.

I have been told that I would have to pay $199 to send Dell my laptop to have it tested and then pay $389 to have it repaired plus any other repairs deemed necessary.

I will offer anyone a warrenty for $500 up front and you pay all repair costs.

Could I at least have a replacement motherboard sent to me so I can get it replaced locally?

My 1 year old M1330 sits quietly gathering dust  while my new Asus N81Vg is trying to find help for it.

Hear that Dell?

Lionel-

This whole issue is really souring most of us on Dell.  Repeat business is a cornerstone of the future and we as a group are moving away from Dell.  I'm a senior Project Engineer at a "major" Aerospace company who exclusively uses Dell.  I personally recommend Dell to the masses I work with.  I really don't know how I can rationalize what appears to be a ongoing design issue which Dell is repairing only for a limited time and then only if you can somehow get through the armies of tech support folks who say you have to buy a service contract before we can even talk to you.  I'm out a grand for a laptop and it appears Dell is not interested in addressing it.

I've sent you a couple of emails if you have any influence on the issue.  I really hope Dell is re-thinking this issue.  I think if the real numbers on the problem reports of this issue were known to the public Dell would have a real image issue.

Thanks,

Stan

Hi Lionel,

I emailed you but I figured that I would make a comment about it too. I am terribly frustrated with my XPS M1330 because it has the vertical line problem. When I contacted Dell about it, I got someone who told me she couldn't help me and switched me over to another representative, who just upgraded my video driver. Halfway through, he told me I wasn't under warranty, as it expired in August 2009 but I told him about this blog that said I would be covered for another year. However, he just ignored me and asked if I wanted to extend my warranty for $588. He also said that the next time I phone Dell, there would be a 50 dollar fee for the phone call.

I really don't know what to do anymore. I'm a student that invested a lot of money into a Dell laptop and after a year it's broken down and they refuse to listen to me and charged me even though I'm under warranty. I don't know what I can do anymore.

Good luck to everyone with DELL problems. i have posted the message below about a month ago and i did not get a single reply from Lionel or any Dell representative. I dont think Dell wants to do anything with our problems. DO NOT BUY DELL products again.

i also have this dell m1210. i bought it in singapore february 2007 and i am now in the Philippines. my problem is exactly the same as those mentioned here so it is the vga card. i tried contacting dell a couple of months ago when this started to happen and it is impossible to get in touch with dell singapore unless you still have warranty left. no way to communicate with email or phone call. I've seen that some people here were assisted by dell with this problem even if its a few months off warranty. obviously this is a problem that has to be included in the extended warranty. this is my 2nd dell notebook. is there anyway to get in touch with dell and get this fixed? this sucks.

I am a sad Dell owner of the problematic Dell XPS M1210 which arrived to my doorstep in 2007.  After the integrated camera issues were solved, my XPS ran perfect until June 2009, after about 1.5 years of use.  Taking into consideration the primary use of my cpu—word processing—I was amazed to discover my Motherboard had to be replaced due to a integrated Ge Force Go 7400 Video Card Malfunction.  Because my XPS was out of warranty, I was instructed to send my cpu to the Dell out-of-warranty  repair center and was told the repairs would cost $199 for inspection and an additional ~$300 or so if the issue was motherboard associated.  As this was an expensive laptop at the time of purchase I was amazed to discover that it would cost $500 to repair! Instead of buying a totally new pc, we agreed on a price of $400 for repairs. 

After receiving my hopefully problem free repaired XPS, I discovered the hundreds maybe thousands of online posts concerning the same exact issue I had encountered.  Dell users from all over the US and even the UK and Australia were experiencing the same black screen, video card issue.  Hoping there was a warranty extension or a recalling of parts, I searched Dell.com and found this: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2008/09/12/nvidia-gpu-update-limited-warranty-enhancement-details.aspx

Again, sadly, the XPS M1210 is somehow not included in the limited warranty.  After reading that many XPS M1210 users had this problem resolved free of charge, even if their warranty had expired, I again phoned support.  My intention was not to ask for a refund of money, but to ask for a warranty on the Motherboard/Video Card that was repaired.  I refused to pay any additional money considering I already spent $$$$ for the original laptop and an additional $400 for repairs.  However, the support manager denied my request stating that the support forums were out of his control and counter offered a $200 warranty service.  I refused to pay any more money.  So after paying the $400 for repairs, if they didn’t correctly fix or the prone to failure Ge Force Go 7400 fails again, I’m left without a CPU, and an empty wallet again.  Thank you Dell-- for your products and support that leave the customer frustrated, with no peace of mind and the treatment of a bottomless wallet. 

Sincerely,

-Me and the others who have had the same XPS M1210 issue.

Hi lionel

I'm sending you this comment while I'm so much disappointed with the dell customer service and tech support.

I have and XPS M1330 and it has been about 1 month that I'm experiencing the "NO VIDEO due to failure of video card" issue and I haven't wasted even a day to call the Dell tech. support!

I have spent more than 12 hours talking with different representatives from more than 10 different telephone numbers. each time, after staying a LONG time on the line, I hear contradictory sayings from the representatives; the more I call, the more I get confused.

each time, one forwards me through the other one, one gives me confusing information, one forwards me through WRONG NUMBER!!! and one tells me that there's no such warranty extension. overall, they don't seem to help at all!

I'm living in canada now I since I'm a student, I'm in a big trouble without my laptop. I really appreciate it if you can do some help.
If you need any further information, just send me an email or answer in the same place.

Regards, Shervin

Hi lionel

I'm sending you this comment while I'm so much disappointed with the dell customer service and tech support.

I have and XPS M1330 and it has been about 1 month that I'm experiencing the "NO VIDEO due to failure of video card" issue and I haven't wasted even a day to call the Dell tech. support!

I have spent more than 12 hours talking with different representatives from more than 10 different telephone numbers. each time, after staying a LONG time on the line, I hear contradictory sayings from the representatives; the more I call, the more I get confused.

each time, one forwards me through the other one, one gives me confusing information, one forwards me through WRONG NUMBER!!! and one tells me that there's no such warranty extension. overall, they don't seem to help at all!

I'm living in canada now I since I'm a student, I'm in a big trouble without my laptop. I really appreciate it if you can do some help.
If you need any further information, just send me an email or answer in the same place.

Regards, Shervin

Hi there. I have an XPS m1330 that I purchased last year in December. The warrenty will run out in about a month. About 6 months ago, I had to have my screen replaced and about 4 months ago I had to have my mother board and a power adapter replaced. Today, I just had to call in again to get my power adapter replaced for the second time. After reading dozens of similar stories online, I'm afraid that the screen or motherboard problem will happen again after my warranty runs out.

I'm really disappointed that I have this fear as I've never felt obligated to purchase extended warranties before and after buying such an expensive system, I expected it to not have any problems. My system has all the bells and whistles and was about $2400 before any discounts. I'm on the fence with extending the warranty because it's so expensive (yes, I know the laptop was super expensive but I had a scholarship to help cover the costs.) Also, every time I get service on the laptop, it takes two to three weeks which is time I can't afford to loose when I'm working (I do technical writing, graphic design, and websites so I use my laptop constantly) It seems like it might be cheaper and more efficient to get it serviced by someone other than dell or by a friend.

Knowing more about this warranty extension might help me make up my mind. It sounds like people are having a hard time getting this warrenty extension so I was wondering if the extension would apply to my system and if so, would I actualy be able to get it If I needed it.

Hi Lionel,
I'm hoping you can help me. I'm reposting my message. I have the M1330 and for the second time in the life of this laptop, I'm having the verical line issue. The first time it happened, the warranty covered the replacement. It just happened again and then 1 year warranty has expired. I called Dell with no luck, they didn't seem to know about the extended warranty although they did admit having issues with the video card. I appreciate all the help you could give.

Thank you so much,
-RS

I have a Vostro 1400 with the 128MB nVidia GeForce 8400M GS Graphics Card. My warranty expired  in July 2008.
If I'm not covered by the extended warranty, do I need to order a Main Board or is it possible to just replace the video card? If I have to replace the mainboard, does anyone know the part number and how complicated it is to swap on my own? Thanks.

Hi Lionel,

I am from Belgium.

I have a XPS M1330 and have had the very same nvidia GPU issue.

I have bought my laptop 25 october 2007 .

about 15 months later after a lot of heat the laptop completely crashed leaving me with strange coloured lines on the display.
back then I happened to have professional contact with somebody at Dell Netherlands who fairly quickly solved the issue for me after I asked her about the extended warranty.
A person from Dell came to change the motherboard in my laptop.

I guess he changed it with the very same type of motherboard.
just now I am starting to experience the same issues.
the laptop starts to overheat again, and I get the colors again while shutting down.
It didnt crash yet, but have the feeling that it will happen one of these days.

Since I bought the laptop with only one year garantuee a little more then 2 years ago, I am wondering if this still is under the extended warranty considering that they changed the motherboard less than a year ago...?

would this still be under warranty? or do I start trying to fix the issue myself following this guide?: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268081 (not sure if this works)

thanks

I just wanted to say my XPS M1210 was an awesom laptop while it lasted...paid Dell $3206.94 May of 2007 ...this was my first laptop aswell as being my newest computer in 5 years...so I maxed out the specs..last week I was getting the vertical lines in the display, random characters and, nvlddmkm.sys failing with repeat reboots.  I just spend 2.5 hours on the phone with tech support/customer care...tech support admited I have the GPU issue but failed to recognize the extended warrenty repair specific to the NVIDIA GPU flaw...after being transfered back and forth between the barly understandable "english is my 2nd language" support professionals I called it quits and, told them I was tired of talking on the phone.

Just had to vent...I beleve im done with DELL

I purchased an XPS M1210 in April of 2007 for $1800.00 within three months I noticed a weird faintly colored barcode like square around the cursor. I thought that this was an anomally of Windows Vista but didn't pay much attention since this would go away and only appeared occasionally. The then appearances started to become more frequent so i reinstalled the video drivers and bios upgrades and that appeared to help some what. Them occasionally I would get vertical lines on the screen or the laptop would shutdown. Finally just last month it was completely dead almost. The machine will boot and you will hear the windows sound but no video. When I purchased this machine I opted for the supposedly better nVidia GeForce Go 7400 video card in lieu of the Intel video. From what I see on this blog, talking to Dell Tech Support (Raammadammapaathee "You can call me Frank") in Delhi would be like talking to my Yorkie. I know the Yorkie can understand me but the end result whould be the same as talking to "Frank".  What am I to do??? BY the way since 2006 I have purchased 12 Dell PC's or laptops. I have, just recently,  since July 2009 have purchased 3 Inspiron laptops. Is there any way to get help for my XPS 1210 or am i to look forward to the same problem with all of the other laptops?

Lionel

I (for the second time in the life of this laptop) have the M1330 vertical line problem.  The first time this happened the laptop was in warranty and the mobo was replaced promptly.  It's just happened again and now I'm getting no luck at all with tech support.  The first guy I spoke to said he'd have to get the out of warranty team to call me back but that it should be covered by the limied extended warranty if it was a gpu problem - this gave me some hope!  Soon to be dashed however after the callback when the guy stated that the warranty extension was not available for laptops purchased for business purposes!  I mean, what??  That is ridiculous.  He tried to make up some rubbish about searching on the community.dell.com website where he directed me to some totally irrelevant search results, obviously hoping that I would go away.  I told him that it had been replaced before, and he allegedly went away to check on this, and then told me he wasn't going to do anything about it and that I should call their business line on Monday.  I'm about to message you with my service tag / details, and would be so so grateful if you could sort out this mess please.

Thank you

Phil

Hey everyone,

I own a Vostro 1400 laptop with the Nvidia Geforce 8400m GS graphics card; I bought this March of last year and the warranty expired March of THIS year. During the last week my laptop has experienced all the symptoms characteristic to the faulty GPU issue I've been reading about all over the internet. Right now all my laptop does is display a blank screen as soon as it powers on. 

Ive called DELL technical support concering the problem and mentioned several times the extended warranty supposedly offered to those experiencing the GPU related issues with this particular graphics card. After spending 3 hours and $50 troubleshooting the problem they tell me my motherboard and graphics card needs to be replaced for about $480. They seemed oblivious to the extended warranty DELL is offering to correct this issue. The only response I received was that they cannot extend my warranty until they resolve the graphics related problem I told them about. This doesn't make sense.

I don't know what to do now, I need this laptop fixed and ready to use for my engineering courses immediately; I am useless without it. If someone can please help me with this, I would greatly appreciate it. Why DELL hasn't announced the issue publicly remains a mystery to me, this part is clearly defective.

I emailed Lionel but go no response, so I guess I'll post my situation here. My M1330 had vertical lines and the nvidia GPU had failed, right after my 1 year warranty ended. So I contacted dell support and they said that my laptop DID NOT qualify for the extended warranty because my laptop didn't have the defective chip, when it clearly did. Support said that only laptops shipped within in a certain time frame had the problem. Infact almost all nvidia 8400m's are defective and mine should not be a exception. Dell shipped these laptops with defective chips and should fix ALL laptops with this problem. I like all people with the problem should get a extended warranty, this problem wasn't bad enough then I get rejected on the extended warranty, this is ridiculous.

Lionel,

I just hand up the phone with Dell Customer Care. I have a XPS M1330 that I purchased 18 months ago and having the same video card issue. After 2.5 hours on the phone with Dell, being transferred from one department to the other, Customer Care didn't know anything about extending the warranty because of the defect. The XPS technical specialist confirmed that it's a known issue and transferred me to customer care again to see if the warranty can be extended. Customer care wasn't aware of what's going on. I sent them the URL for your blog, customer care manager read it and said that they haven't heard anything about this and since this is only a blog, they can't honor the extended warranty.  Can you help me/direct me to the right people who can help? I appreciate all the help you could give. Thanks much.

-RS

Dear Lionel and Dell,

Yesterday I've e-mail to you all my case details but I only receive a auto respond mail saying that you are out of office, hope you are well and get back to work soon.   On the other hand, I don't understand why my post here being removed without any notice or reason.

You may not be aware of but I am one of the first who forward about Engadget's  "All NVIDIAll NVIDIA 8400M / 8600M chips faulty?" article in the Community's Laptop Video forum to keep everyone early alert of this incident back in JULY 2008.  I have my faith on Dell so at that time I am not too worry about the warranty side. Beside, why should customers have to spend extra on warranty for a manufacturer defective component in the machine?

I do believe Dell will taken good care of her customers...the out come is that I am too simple and a bit naive!

After two years + one and a half month my Inspiron 1420 finally hit by the GPU defect, it power up with No Video. Dell support people instructed me to test the LCD by pressing "D" upon machine start up, I can see the color test which confirmed no problem with the monitor, the notebook can also boot into Windows with fully assessable network drives.  Everything in the machine behave normal except lost of display.  I was being informed that my display fault is related with NVIDIA's GPU defect BUT I was being quoted ~US$570 for repair and labor charges because my notebook was just one and a half month beyond the NVIDIA defective GPU Limited Warranty Enhancement period.

Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I'm not pleased. I paid for a non-defective chip - one with all the normal life expectations. I want Dell to exchange my defected chip with a good one at no charge. I accept that some chips are going to go bad and you just replace them as they fail. But I accepted that risk based on the premise that I was getting a chip without such a major design defect. Customers don't know about this fact when the time they purchase this machine.  I'm sorry, but adding 12 months warranty is just not good enough for such a defective GPU, these machines can go on working for many years... unless there is a defective GPU chip in them. I have 2 x Inspiron 8600 around for more than 5 years and an IBM Thinkpad X20 for 9 years and they are still working fine but why my Inspiron 1420 die on me just in 2 years time?  I believe this kind of manufacturer detect warrants should have at least a 3-4 year extension in order to bring the computer through a reasonable max usage life, 2 years is not what I would call a adequate life cycle for a laptop!!!

I definitely won't spend extra to repair of this Inspiron 1420 because this is more than half of the original purchase and for the same amount I can buy a brand new notebook with comparable configuration. If no appropriate and reasonable arrangement can be made by Dell, this will be my last post and I will say goodbye to Dell - a loyal customer who use Dell for over 10 years both at home and recommended her to every company that he worked for...

I have a Dell M1330, and after 5 months the graphics card failed, since it was under guarentee they replaced the mother board, Nvidia graphics card and the screen, with guarentee on those replaced parts, but around 7 months after that and after the guarentee ran out on my laptop, the hard drive failed too, I bought a new one and installed it myslef, after that the fan started acting up, after reading the past articles on this subjet I understand why, but I would like to know what Dell is going to do about this. My laptop has been a disappointment, and I feel like it may fail again.

Dear Lionel,

i already wrote you an email 1 week ago. I have the same problem with my M1330, it won't boot anymore. The last 4 calls the tech support always told me that they can do nothing for me because my Service Tag is from Europe and I'm actually in Canada. Today I got the Mail that my tag was succesfully transferred to Canada.

Again i called the tech support and they told me that i only can enhance my warranty when my Laptop wasn't affected. Since the problem occured i'm not able to enhance my warranty.

I think thats a really stupid answer. However I don't really know what to do now! Maybe you can helb me!

cheers Roman!

Dear Lionel,

First of all, thanks for the information, as it is quite complete.

I started experiencing this problem this same week on my XPS M1330. A couple of months ago, just on the last month of the warranty period, I started to have trouble because overheating and a fan just running wildly all of the time. I phoned the technical service and they just made me upgrade the BIOS version to the A15. I did that, and the fan noise dissapeared, so everything seemed normal. Until this week. Yesterday the failure was complete, I was just able to continue working some time, so I was able to save my files. This morning my laptop is simply unavailable. It seems to start but as it's not possible to see anything I'm not sure.

The thing is that I talked with support yesterday claiming that I had seen this information about the video card failure and that I was having exaclty the same behaviour. They asked me to make some testing and they told me it was a failure on the motherboard (the problem was all of the time with the graphics card ???) and that my laptop was out of warranty, but nevertheless they were going to change the motheboard. This morning I have just received an email with a "purchase order" telling me to confirm that I will pay more than 500€ (more or less 750$) to repair the laptop.

I was wondering what happens with this warranty extension, as my warranty has not finished a year ago still, but just some months, and this is a well-known problem. ¿Any suggestion?

Thanks. Best regards.

i also have this dell m1210. i bought it in singapore february 2007 and i am now in the Philippines. my problem is exactly the same as those mentioned here so it is the vga card. i tried contacting dell a couple of months ago when this started to happen and it is impossible to get in touch with dell singapore unless you still have warranty left. no way to communicate with email or phone call. I've seen that some people here were assisted by dell with this problem even if its a few months off warranty. obviously this is a problem that has to  be included in the extended warranty. this is my 2nd dell notebook.  is there anyway to get in touch with dell and get this fixed?  this sucks.

Dell XPS M1710 with GeForce Go 7950 GTX, started getting NMI: Parity Check / Memory Parity Error myself this past week.   I'm lucky enough to still have extended coverage on the laptop though since I use it for work.  

Issue started with lookups while left on overnight.  Now they have progressed to crashing while doing anything graphically intensive and even a random video card driver error that recovers while simply browsing or checking e-mail.  Also random graphical anomolies in games.  Once a crash has happened, can be graphical errors on restarts for 5-10 minutes, sometimes until the next day. 

I run i8kfan and control my fans manually, increasing them when I'm running the laptop hard to reduce heat strain on components.  I also use the laptop on a cooler tray and the case is hardly ever above ambient.  I guess this is how I lasted this long.

Laptop will be leaving in a day or two for service and we'll see how things look when I get it back.    All in all I've been pretty happy with the laptop though and I'm not saying I'll never buy another Dell or nVidia product by anymeans.  If this is resolved as painlessly as my other service call then I'll be happy to continue with Dell.

I have an Inspiron 1420, about a month off of original warranty, and now it is having the GPU issues (no video on the laptop display, garbled output on an external display). When I called for support and told them it was the GPU issue, and covered under the Limited Extended Warranty, the agent put me on hold to check with her manager, came back and promptly told me only XPS laptops were covered, no other models.

3 calls, same result, and I'm a Dell employee, so don't think we get any special treatment.

Hey there. I have an M1330 and the warranty expired in February. I've tried to get the GPU replaced, but have not had any luck with Tech Support.  Who can I contact to get this resolved?

Nuevamente me comunique con Soporte Tecnico de DELL de Latinoamerica. Y el señor me responde diciendo que no tienen ninguna orden alguna de ver esos problemas y mucho menos fuera de la fecha de garantia, es decir cuando se vencio la garantia. Tampoco saben absolutamente nada de los problemas que existen en los XPS M1330. Ellos desconocen lo que sucede en DELL.

Le comente de esta pagina web y ellos desconocen totalmente de este blog y servicio que ofrecen a sus clientes perjudicados con la compra de los equipos DEL XPS M1330.

Lo q me pide es que la respuesta que usted me dé, yo se lo reenvie al mail de la persona que este atendiendo mi llamada de servicio tecnico y recien ahi tomaran acciones debidas. Mientras tanto mi reclamo en invalido y NO PROCEDE.

Es decir respuestas negativas por cuarta vez que llamo.

Anticipadamente gracias por su respuesta.

El año pasado decidi adquirir una laptop y escogi una DELL XPS M1330. Lo compre en la tiendas Ripley de Perú, decidí por esta marca por buenos comentarios de amigos extranjeros aunque la marca no ha entrado con fuerza aún en el mercado peruano de laptops. Sin embargo me arriesgue a adquirirla.

En el mes de setiembre se cumplio un año de garantía, y a las dos semanas, comenzó a presentar las mismas fallas descritas en comentarios anteriores.

1. La pantalla se apagaba y luego volvia a mostrar la imagen con una nota del sistema diciendo que el sistema dejo se funcionar correctamente pero se habia recuperado.

2. Luego la pantalla mostraba lineas verticales. Yo reseteaba la maquina y funcionaba normalmente por veinte minutos y nuevamente comenzaba a mostar lineas. Y no funcionana el teclado ni el mouse. Se bloqueaba completamente.

3.Luego aparecio el mensaje de el driver NV.KLLL..... dejo de funcionar correctamente.

4. Duro asi dos semanas , hasta que finalmente al prender mi laptop mostraba una pantalla verde.

Comence averiguar acerca del error y me lleve con la sorpresa que no era la unica de los usuarios de DELL con ese problema. Son muchos!!!!

Me comunique con Servicio Tecnico de DELL (latinoamerica) y no me dieron solución al problema debido a que se me habia vencido la garantia. Ellos me dijeron que no podian hacer nada y que debí adquirir una garantia extendible, pero en las tiendas de RIPLEY (donde venden DELL en Peru) no me mencionaron nada.

Estoy muy incomoda, ya que en mi pais no existe ningun representante directo y toda comunicacion fue via telefonica con DELL, no me dieron ninguna solucion y solo me dijeron que compre otra Tarjeta Madre para la Laptop y  con la misma tarjeta de videl NVIDIA, ademas de pagar el servicio de instalación todo eso por el costo de $500 aproximadamente!!!!

Hasta el dia de hoy no tengo a donde reclamar, no tengo a quien acudir. Yo soy ingeniera Quimica y necesito la laptop para los diferentes trabajos afueras de las oficinas. Yo  trabajo en la empresa TECNA en Peru. Y actualmente mi empresa en Argentina  esta adquiriendo todos los equipos de computo a DELL , mejor dicho pasando de HP a DELL, por lo reconocido que es la marca.

Estoy muy frustrada e incomoda con este problema. Por favor agradecería me ayuden y que me den una solución, hice un esfuerzo al comprar una laptop y solo me duro 1 año!!!!!!. Yo les ruego se comuniquen conmigo para que me digan que puedo hacer. No está a mi alcance adquirir nuevamente una laptop y me urge por mi trabajo tener una.

Gracias anticipadamente por su ayuda.

Here in Brazil the Dell is not cooperating with the exchange. My computer turned junk.

Hi, I have a M1330 and last week it have the vertical lines run on the screen when boot up too!  I've tried to contact Dell Technical Service but they declined to fix it without a fee.  I had emailed Lionel but have not heard anything yet!  Please help!!!  My warranty have expired 7/3/09!

Hi, I have a M1330 and last week it have the vertical lines run on the screen when boot up too!  I've tried to contact Dell Technical Service but they declined to fix it without a fee.  I had emailed Lionel but have not heard anything yet!  Please help!!!

Hello Lionel,

This blog was a great help. I have a vostro 1400 with the same GPU problem, 6 months out of warranty. I call Dell Technical and they simply don't want to take responsibility, i insisted about reading your blog and asked the rep repeatedly to view this blog, which he finally did and bang, he made a special service order. Dell is awesome and Lionel you are the man.

ALi 

Lionel i already sent you a PM... I called my local tech support in Chile and receive no positive response about this extended warranty. Does this warranty cover international users?. My normal warranty expired on February 2009.

Thanks in advance,

Felipe

Great. I just had my mobo replaced 3 weeks ago due to video issues, and I just got the vertical line lockup again.

Lionel - I want a refund. How do I make that happen?

So, My Dell Vostro 1400 with the nVidia Card hit this problem yesterday 2 years and 15 days after I purchased it. The customer service has told me that it will cost me $750+ to fix my laptop since my laptop survived 15 extra days( 1 year normal warranty + 1 year extended warranty for this problem) . Help?

Hello, it's not my first time posting here (unfortunately)

I purchased a XPS M1330 in July 23rd 2007. In May 2008, with 10 months of use, I started having the Nvidia GPU issue.

After writing my complain here and receiving Mr Todd's help, I had my motherboard replaced in 15th October 2008 (delays due to international tag transfer, but that's another story). It solved my problem, even though the cooling fan was a bit noisy with the new BIOS version, but I could live with that...

Until the same problem just came back again! I am surprised that they replaced the motherboard with the same fragility just to postpone the problem once more. Actually, not so much surprised, seeing that this topic is still so active.

The big problem is: now my warranty is expired, even with additional "warranty enhancement".

Is still there anything I can do?

Hi Lionel,

I purchased Dell Inspiron 1420 on 1-Aug-07 in US, after that I moved to India. My system had a similar problem from past one week i.e while starting the screen is split into 2 and all the images are very poor quality. System is also getting overheated, I believe its the same problem which is being discussed in this forum. 

Could you please let me know how to get in touch with techincal guys as my one year extended warrenty that you talked about is also expired last month. Please help me and thanks in advance

Lionel, please help

I have a Vostro 1400 with nvidia 8400m gs graphics card. My warranty has ended 9 months ago. When i turn on the laptop, all i see is coloured vertical striped Iines. I have just got off the phone with a dell technical support worker. I mentioned this warranty enhancement to him but he said it doesnt exist... so instead he gave me phone number to a technical parts service. Does this warranty work for canadians? Apparently not.

I currently have a faulty XPS M7130 with the well known nvidia chipset problem. I reported the fault on the 2nd September and still waiting for a fix it keeps getting delayed with reported shortages world wide. In these posts I have seen no mention of the extended warranty applying to this laptop. Why not it is based on the same chipset.

I had a previous post deleted due to mistakenly putting in "sensitive" information.  But I pretty much posted that I had an m1210 with the same problem as described in these posts.  My 6 hour call with dell's overseas customer service (weekends/non-business hours) proved to be highly unsuccessful as well as a bit stressful as they denied knowing anything about the problem.

However, today I decided to call during business hours in order to see if I could get a hold of a North American rep.  After just one hour, and a simple diagnostic test, I was approved for a motherboard replacement.  Granted, my warranty was still in effect due to (thankfully) purchasing the 3 year coverage, so I'm not sure how much of a factor that played into the quick decision.

Satisfied with Dell's customer service (the 2nd time around), but I'm still a little shaken up as to what my next purchase would be as I have had issues with my laptop that go beyond the failed hardware.  Just hoping that this is the last....

any updates people?

Hey Lionel, I came upon this blog after trying to find out what went wrong on my Dell Inspiron 1420. I have read through almost every post on this blog and am quite concerned about some Dell's support personel not knowing about this issue and refusing to change a new hardware. I am from Singapore and I have a major problem trying to contact the technical support. From the Dell support Singapore website, I called the technical support hotline listed and keyed in my service code, I was told that my warranty had expired and only options I got were 'Press 1 to renew warranty' and 'Press 2 to finish' and therefore got no chance to talk to any Dell personel. I have since sent you a email regarding this issue, hopefully you have a way to get them to contact me or another way for me to contact them.

Sorry for the wall of text. Thankyou

Lionel,

Found this blog this morning and have a M1330 with the issue.  I called Dell and confirmed the issue.  This laptop has been broken since July and the regular warranty ended 9/5/2008 and I was denied by 13 days!

I have the tags from the previous attent to repair the unit to prove when the unit failed.  I asked to speak to a supervisor to plead my case as to the lack of information available and the 13 DAYS!  I was told the the supervisors are too busy to speak to a customer.

DELL CUSTOMER SERVICE ... what happened to service ... and without customers ...

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks for the INFO,

Victor

Called Dell again and was told that no such warranty existed.  Once again I asked them to view this blog and once again I was told NO because blogs are not where warranty information is found.

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO FOR HELP!!!  It's obvious that other people are getting their systems taken care of and I'm about to reach through the phone and choke out the next technician that talks to me like I'm an idiot I'm that frustrated in dealing with these people.

Lionel or someone who works for Dell PLEASE ADVISE on what I need to do or who I need to call specifically.

Sean

Update:

I posted late in Sept.  that our laptop was approved, but not without a bit of hand holding on my part and pointing customer service to this blog.  

After the approval process the fix went very smoothly.  A FedEx shipper box arrived the very next day from Dell.  It was overnight to us, but ground back to Dell.  From Michigan it took about 4 days for the box to get back to Dell and 3 days for it to make it to the warranty center.  It took about a week from then to get it back, so all told about 2 weeks to fix.  The warranty paperwork says the motherboard was replaced.  The laptop functions perfectly and we are satisfied.

Per my previous post, I would be much more satisfied if I didn't have to track down this blog to know about the extended warranty.

I will, however, give Dell the benefit of the doubt (thanks to Lionel and Dell's extended warranty) and consider them for my next laptop purchase (Son #2 goes off to college next year and we will be in the market for another laptop.)

Thanks again, Lionel.  

Hi

I bought  a dell xps m1330 in june 2008  in Australia but now   I am  presently now in  US . My warranty got expired and now   i have these issue of lines on my screen due the nvidia gpu  failure . Whenever I contact  the technical support and give them my service tag they are not able to find details of my laptop .They say that they are not able to find any details based on my service tag as they are not on their database .WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW ? PLEASE HELP ME OUT !!!.  HOPE MY CARD IS REPLACED AS  SOON AS POSSIBLE..

Hi

I bought  a dell xps m1330 in june 2008  in Australia but now   I am  presently now in  US . My warranty got expired and now   i have these issue of lines on my screen due the nvidia gpu  failure . Whenever I contact  the technical support and give them my service tag they are not able to find details of my laptop .They say that they are not able to find any details based on my service tag as they are not on their database .WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW ? PLEASE HELP ME OUT !!!.  HOPE MY CARD IS REPLACED AS  SOON AS POSSIBLE..

Dear Lionel,
I got my replacement and I'd like to say thank you! Altogether it took me two weeks to get my replacement after I sent you a message. However in service center they couldn't tell me whether my new motherboard has a special prolonged warranty or not. Could you please tell me that. My extended warranty (including one year of extension) will terminate on 11 Dec 2009.  I would appreciate your help.
Anna

PLEASE HELP!!!  I called the number listed from the link provided by Lionel's post.  They technician  kept telling me that I was out of warranty and I would have to purchase a new motherboard/video card.  Then he told me that the extended warrant only pertains to video cards sold seperately from the original purchase.  I informed him about this website/forum  and he told me over and over that he would not look at it because warranty information is not obtained from Dell Blog sites. 

My warranty expired on 10/11/08 so I only have a couple weeks left to get my system fixed. 

I have the Inpsiron 1420 and my screen only shows vertical lines.  I hooked it up to another external screen and the same problem happens. 

LIONEL - I sent you a private message regarding this issue so I hope you see this and get back to me on what to do next. 

Thank you for any information you can send me.

Sean

Hi everyone,

I did have this issue a couple of months back and was suggested to purchase the extended complete cover for 2000 INR. Well, after a google search, I came this blog post and Todd replied back to me after which a technician called and all was fixed without me actually having to purchase the extended warranty for replacing the NVIDIA.

@Lionel : I think it would be a very good idea if all the technicians are notified regarding this particular issue and made clear that there is an extended 1 year worldwide warranty by Nvidia for the 8400 M GS GPU's as the reply from the technician's is always the same, that the issue is not covered under warranty if Dell warranty is void. It would also be a nice thing if an option be given to the customer from Dell's end or rather Nvidia's if it comes to that to replace the GPU by an Intel GMA X3100(well ... i would say we are at a loss when it come to the extra 100-150$ that we paid, but it is worth it that it is not going to get replaced by 8400 again).

(Is the motherboard that is shipped as a replacement, being shipped with a "mod"ded fan with a newer thermal metal heat dumper? because I have been monitoring the temperatures for over a month and I haven't seen it go beyond 60C(well, i practically gave up gaming and also big computations on my laptop) ... )

Hi,

I'm the proud owner of a Dell XPS M1530. Dual 2.6MHz Centrino and GeForce 8400 GS.

As with most other owners of this system I have experienced higher than acceptable temperatures when running high GPU demand programs and have become frustrated with the lack of fan control with this unit. I have experienced temps as high as 95 Celsius and the system has automatically shut itself down to protect itself several times while playing high demand games such as Crysis and COD4. 

I have noticed that the BIOS update for the M1530 is the A9 version. I have just updated the BIOS direct from the Dell system update service site and it gave me the A12 version and when I flashed the BIOS to "update" to the A9 version you supplied it told me that it was an older version. This makes perfect sense to me but I am wondering which would be the better option.

Regardless, I have up to date card drivers and there appeared to be no other solution to this problem so I called the Dell tech support guys for my region: Australia. 

I just got off the phone with the Dell tech support team and after explaining the problem they were a bit bashful and put me on hold a lot, presumably to confirm the solution with a senior. The solution was simple... "We will send you a new video card. A technician will be at your house next week to install it free of charge as your system is still under warrantee!”

This seems like a simple, elegant solution to MY problem, but if this is a problem endemic to all M1530’s then this could get very expensive for Dell!

So, this appears to be a multi stage statement:

1.        To all M1530 owners with this problem who still have they’re systems under warrantee; give Dell a call for your free, brand new video card, installed while you wait!

2.        To all BIOS and card driver programmers out there; please – for the sake of our sanity (and perhaps for the sake of the Dell hip pocket??!!) – hurry up and code a BIOS update or plug-in program of some sort which will allow for at least some level of manual fan control, if not simply eliminating the problem.

3.        And to all the people at Dell who thought BIOS with no manual fan control was a good idea; just because you THINK nothing will ever go wrong with your system, so no one will ever need to change the fan settings, doesn’t mean it will never happen! In fact, you should include it for precisely that reason! Murphy’s Law: anything that can happen… will.

What are your thoughts Lionel?

Regards,

W

Hi Lionel,

There's nothing more I can say that hasn't been said already about this problem, so what I want to know is whether or not this problem has been fixed, and if not, whether we can choose to downgrade the motherboard to have the Intel X3100? I was told by a rather rude technical support technician no, but I find that hard to believe. This is not something I wish to experience again and having paid $1800 for a premium notebook to have it last only alittle longer than a year is ridiculous. Given the troubles and the fact that the only way to get around this issue is to downgrade from my dedicated graphics which i paid an additional $150 to have, I am really turned off of buying another Dell product again.

Please send me an e-mail on whether or not you could help me out. I have heard of people getting their's replaced with a new Studio XPS 13 and this sort of service would make me beyond enthusiastic to support Dell.

Dear Lionel,

I follow your recommendation, called Dell support to fix my problem with lines on the screen. The agent name Sam, I also have agent id if you want, he said I have to buy extended warranty for $499 to get my XPS 1330 fixed since my warranty ended in June 2009. I just had this problems started last week. When I told him about your blog comment that Dell offer extended warranty, he said if it's NVIDIA problem, I should call NVIDIA to get it fix. Please let me know if Dell really support this problem.

Thanks

Tira

Hello,

          Although I have been with computers for a while, this is my first forum comment. And of course it is a complaint.

So without the moaning here is my problem. I have been using a  XPS 1330 for over a year and have reinstalled the OS at least 4 times

have lost the microphone card and lately getting the NTLDR error finally followed by the standard video chip problem, colourful but useless.

Finally contacted Dell and ended up with the choise of having to buy (n.b my warrentry is out) a new motherboard at around 400 euro OR

extend warrenty for another 3 years at 200 euro. I obviously choose the latter, grudgingly. You see, it is not my fault that Dell choose this video chip for their motherboard and yet I must still pay for their mistake. Ah well, if I have to, as Joe Public, pay for the greed and criminal

behaviour of the banks, I don't see why I should expect any different from the Dell orginisation. Think I'll head back to desktops, which are easier and cheaper to maintain. AND IT WON'T BE A DELL

Hi,

I got my XPS M1330 in January 2008 (bought in Belgium). I've hesitated before buying a Dell, but finally I cracked for this little, taking into account the fact that I've been working on Dell computers for already a couple of years.

I paid +- 1.300 EUR for what was at that time a state-of-the-art laptop.

In February 2009, my laptop got ill ... the same problem as all other XPS M1330 ... the Nvidia GPU killing the motherboard. Since it was out of warranty, I placed it back into the box it first arrived and left it there until a few weeks ago.

I must say that in February I was offered by Dell to have it fixed for an amount around 300 EUR ... I cannot express here my feelings regarding their proposal ...!!!

One month ago I found this page and I contacted Dell Suport to check if I can also benefit from the extended warranty. It took me 10 minutes to talk to a Dell suport consultant and he arranged for a tehnician to drop by to fix it.

And this happened in the next 3 days ... the dude came, fixed the laptop in 20 minutes and left ... no questions asked.

Well, all seems nice until here.

After the tehnician left my house, I've started using again my laptop.

Here are the problems:

- the cooler is working non-stop, making a killer noise and draining the baterry in less than 1.5 hours (please take into account that I have an extended 9 cells baterry)

- the temperature of the GPU core is at this momenet 69 Celsius and I'm only surfing the internet ... I can easily cook something on my laptop

Now, since I work as an IT consultant, having a reliable laptop is mandatory ... it would be rather unpleasant to have the laptop dead in the middle of a Powerpoint presentation ( if I open a Powerpoint slide now, the temperature goes really fast to 75-79 Celsius).

At this point, my confidence in any Dell laptop is really close to NULL. I only have a moral issue ... I would like to sell it, but I cannot ask for money since I know that in a couple of weeks/months the GPU will fail again ...

It is kind of expensive to use a Dell laptop ... 1300 EUR/year !!!

I was hoping that they will replace the defective GPU with a different one, but based on the current behavior of my system, it's the same faulty one.

When you have a laptop that has 3 GB of RAM, Windows Vista Ultima Edition, Intel Dual Core 2.2 Ghz  .... you expect it to be at least capable of surfing the internet .... yet, even this is difficult.

Dell, I'm expecting from you to show that you wanna do business on long term. And this means, among other, to asume the failures.

A laptop is used maybe for 3-5 years ... then it gets old. This means for me that I'll be buying around 6-8 laptops from now on ... it depends on Dell attitude if I'll buy a Dell or I switch to Apple.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.

Hello Lionel,

I have an XPS m1330 (purchased 5/5/08 from Dell US) that failed to boot since Jul 09. When I turn it on now, the screen is dark and there are some thin, rainbow-colored vertical lines on it.

Following the instructions you provided in your blog, I contacted Tech Support to request the 12-month warranty extension. My call was eventually routed to a rep named John in the Out-of-warranty Support department who told me the warranty extension program was discontinued a few months ago and it would cost $528 to replace the motherboard. However, after conferring with his supervisor, he offered me a $199 discount, thus reducing the repair cost to $329 + tax. But I declined because I was noticing that you were offering to help people in my same situation who wrote you as recent as a couple of weeks ago. When I mentioned I would like to seek your help first, John turned on his hard-sell tactic, saying the discount he was offering is a one-time deal only and if I call back, it will be $528! I hope John was just misinformed about this program and not that he was being less than scrupulous with me.

I would truly appreciate any assistance you can give to get my laptop repaired under the warranty extension program. I just emailed you my laptop's service tag.

Thank you very much.

Dzung

Hi,

I think I need some help...

I have an xps m1330, and my warranty expired in the end of August. My problem is that I live in Hungary where the distributors haven't heard about the extended warranty and they were sure that it is not true for my country...

When I tried to do the steps which were written above, and I choosed my country, there is no contact us and more options... and no green phone...

What can I do in this case? Is this really possible that I cannot get this extended warranty?

(Now I ordered a normal extended warranty from one of the distributors from here, but it is still in process ... maybe I'll wait untill I get it:))

Thank you for the help!

Dear Lionel,

I"ve sent you my personal information yesterday on your e-mail.

Please help me!

Regards,

Vlad

I too had visual and graphics problems with my DELL XPS M1330 after 10 months of it's purchase and called up the customer care, here in Germany.

The system screen going black right at the time of start and sometimes it does start up but within a few minutes the display crashes with a few green and violet line on the screen. Some times it does restart on it's own and recovers but most of the time it does not.

With about 15 minutes of waiting time over the phone (partially due to lack of German Language understanding) and just 5 minutes of conversation, the person at the help disk understood my problem and promised to arrange an appointment with the technical department who would send me a person to replace my mother board and graphics card. Seems this problem is a very obvious with this model and very well known to the customer care executives.

So far so good, but the next question, just like others, which haunts me is that my warranty period would expire in next 2 months. How is it that I can go for this extended warranty without any charge. Do I have to tell them specifically regarding this or what else is to be done from my side. This seems to be a very well know hardware problem and one can not just throw away such an expensive notebook for an inbuilt fault by the designers/manufacturers.

Do I ask the technician who comes to fix up the problem to make a note of this? I am confused. Please guide.

I also had exactly similar problems with my DELL XPS M1330 after 10 months of it's purchase and called up the customer care, here in Germany. With about 15 minutes of waiting time over the phone (partially due to lack of German Language understanding) and just 5 minutes of conversation, the person at the help disk understood my problem and promised to arrange an appointment with the technical department who would send me a person to replace my mother board and graphics card. Seems this problem is a very obvious with this model and very well known to the customer care executives.

So far so good, but the next question, just like others, which haunts me is that my warranty period would expire in next 2 months. How is it that I can go for this extended warranty without any charge. Do I have to tell them specifically regarding this or what else is to be done from my side.

Do I ask the technician who comes to fix up the problem to make a note of this? I am confused. Please guide.

First I'd like to thank Lionel for this blog.  Without it I would never have gotten satisfaction from Dell regarding this issue.

Some advice for Dell.

1.  When there is an "extended warranty" it shouldn't be so difficult for the owner to find out about it.  I only stumbled onto this blog after hours of searching and then it was from a link from a link from a link.

2.  When there is an extended warranty, it should register in the customers account and they should not be directed to pay money, let alone $49, to talk to customer support.

3.  When there is an extended warranty, it should come up when a service representative views the account.  I contacted to reps, online chat and telephone and both did not know about the extended warranty until I directed them to this blog page.

I'm glad I didn't have to pay $500 to have this fixed, or buy a new laptop but I would be MUCH more satisfied if Dell had contacted me on the issue or at least known about it when I called.

My XPS M1210 motherboard completely failed outside the standard warranty period.  The LED error was Flashing - ON - ON which is CPU Error.   I replaced the CPU and the error repeated, proving beyond any doubt that the motherboard had failed.

Although I knew that my issue did not reflect the GPU error as described here and elsewhere, I figured it was worth 'pleading' to Dell for a motherboard replacement, due to high failure rates, and to my surprise they offered straight up they a replacement and had the technician onsite the next day.  They just clarified my troubleshooting steps, there was no fuss at all.

I am mightily impressed with Dells service and commitment.  I shall be sticking to Dell products in future.  

It was Australia and NZ,  XPS technical support dept, that helped me out.

My XPS M1330's GPU gave up the ghost yesterday. My experience with DELL support is good so far: I called them and they immediately made an appointment for an engineer to come and repair the machine for free. So I am happy so far, but I am sitting with one question:

Will the new GPU be improved, means not having this issue, or will I just get the same parts and left with a timebomb that will fail at some point.... As reliability is essential for me - I am using the machine for business - I cannot live with patching and patching and patching, but need a real fix.

Thanks for any clarification - Mark

I wish I had the experience of the 1st poster.  When my wife's XPS 1330 screen issue occurred on 8/20 (a Thursday), I was confident that my issue would be handled.  Lucky me I also own an XPS 1530 (can't wait to relive this nightmare when the video breaks on it....what fun).  Anyway, the rep explained the process where the extended warranty had to be applied and I would receive a call back.  I thought all was good and Dell was going to take care of me.  I am posting this tonight in absolute frustration.

I am now very aware that anyone outside of XPS support is not aware of the issue.  I kept my case number(s)...for reference in calling back and was told there was nothing in the notes about the Nvidia card issue or warranty extension.  Tonight’s call took me through 4 people before I finally got someone who knew about the Nvidia issue.  Unfortunately tonight I was told the same thing as my 1st call.  That the warranty extension needed to be applied...apparently this mystery group at Dell never works.  The rep said they are open until 9pm central, but it is 8:30 eastern and I would have to be scheduled for a call back since the rep couldn't reach anyone there.  So here it is almost a week later and I still have to continue waiting for some magical and powerful group (that I am starting to believe doesn't exist) to update my warrenty so they can create a service dispatch to ship a box (yawn....more waiting) to pick up the laptop.  This rep promised me a call from her supervisor tomorrow.  I now have my 3rd case number....obviously this is the only thing Dell does like giving out these days.  I hope she is able to keep her promise.

I've had many Dell systems and have always recommend them to friends and co-workers.  Guess what.  I'm done.  I realize Dell didn't create the problem, NVIDIA did, but Dell's process is broken and not customer friendly.  No one at Dell has the power to do anything other than refer you to another department....who never handles the issue.  Maybe I should go back to using a desktop from Billy Bob's local computer shop so when it breaks I can stand in his store and address the issue, not be passed around like a hot potato.

Count me as a satisfied customer.  Had a wildly overheating M1330 with screen lockup issue on a laptop that was 10 months past end of warrenty.  Read this post, called up xps service in Switzerland, spent no more than 15 minutes on the phone explaining the issue and noting that warreny was extended, and two days later a technician was at my home replacing motherboard at no cost to me.  Dell charged me approx 15 USD to replace heatsink-fan combo with next version unit. 

Unfortunate that situation exists at all, but this is the way to handle it when it does come up.

Paul

I bought a Dell M1330 on April 2008 in the UK. About 3 days ago, it went to 640X480 resolution after a reboot. After I changed the resolution to what it should be, vista reported a driver issue. I thought it was a driver issue so I upgraded BIOS and video card driver from Dell website. However, last night it couldnot boot at all, the screen went to blink (even no POST) and after while I could see some colourful vertical line on the screen. I tried to reboot it at least 5 times, finally it worked again. I also noticed the temperature is higher then normal if it could not start up, but seems ok when it is working. This morning same thing happeed again!

From reading the posts here and another website it is obvious that this problem is related to the graphic processor. I phoned Dell help line and reported my problem, and I was told I can have the graphic card replaced free of charge but to be able to determine if this problem is cause by the graphic card I need to pay 30 pounds! (I think my warrenty has expired). My question is if this is a well known hardware issue (obviously it is) why should I be charged for the test? Also, I don't want to send my laptop to Dell because a lot of very important stuff are on the hard driver. Why cannot Dell just send someone to my place to fix it ! This is a design or manufactor faulty! Why?

Regards,

Hi  everybody!

I bought my Vostro 1400 with an Nvidia GPU on February 2008 with 1 year warranty.

Now I'm experiencing the typical symptoms of a GPU fail: colored lines on the screen and sometimes no video at all.

So i contacted the tech support and they told me that I can't use the warranty enhancement because only a limited number of Vostro 1400 can be affected by this problem and mine is not between them.

Is that correct? I mean, that's not what Lionel said at the top of the page.

How do you know if mine was defected or not? Do you have the serial numbers of all the faulty GPUs?

Moreover, i bought my Vostro a couple of months before this case broke out so I wouldn't categorically exclude the possibility.

Thanks in advance for your answer and your patience

hello again  lionel

    I was able to call a dell support here in the philippines,  I asked them about the limited waranty enhance ment and they said theiy were only advised with the xps models,I wonder if its because my friend bought her laptop from US. It really feels bad that this happened just more than a week after waranty..I hope you could give me a feed back about this..

Lionel

        just an update with my post just a few minutes back...since the lcd generated outut, I tried to update the bios but the video is still black..the device manager shows that the mobile display adapter is fine.I checked display properties and it shows only 1 display is conected while having an lcd external and the laptop lcd..as Ive said, the waranty expires august 11, not 1...the model is covered nvidia limited warranty enhancement right?does it apply to our situation?

Dear Lionel,

I have been provided a Dell Latitude D630 by my office back home (Oman), which I am using during my stay in the UK for the next year. I have been facing the "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered" error. My laptop screen would freeze up, with a purple fade or show either dots or lines after using it for a few hours, usually after watching videos online. Then it would go blank but the laptop shows some hard drive activity. The keyboard would stop working after a few seconds and the computer would either restart on its own or I would need to shut it down manually. Once it starts up again, I would get vertical lines and the screen will split up to 6 individual images showing the same image. I also notice that the laptop would heat up much more than normal.

I flashed the BIOS to A16 and updated the video display drivers to the latest nVidia Driver for my Quadro NVS 135 M one both from support.dell.com website but without avail. I tried contacting Dell Support in Oman via e-mail and they directed me to contact Dell Support UK. When I contacted Dell Support UK, they directed me to contact Dell Support Oman. I explained to Dell Support UK that I am currently in the UK and they gave me phone numbers to call. When calling those number, I was ask to enter a passcode, which I did not know. I e-mailed Dell Support UK about the passcode issue, but did not hear from them for the past 5 days. Which is really annoying.

How can I get my issue resolved?

Thanks

Ahmed

Hi Lionel

Im from the philipines,my friend bought a inspiron 1420 in US. I checked today and the waranty expired last august 1, 2009.while reading your blog it seems clear that tou could posibly help me..the display of the inspiron is gone..I tested an external monitor and it worked but the laptop lcd is just black..Ive been trying to look for contact support here in the philippines but I cant find any..I hope you could help us

                                                                                                                                                                                                 mark dg

                                                                                                                                                                                                  philippines

I've got the same problem... actually living in Spain, bought the PC in Spain, they try changing the motherboard more than once, the fan, etc,... instead of changing the whole equipment, would be easier and cheaper...

Hi -

My dell vostro 1400 just started having the problem. 

I knew nothing about this issue and spent 6 hours on the phone with microsoft trying to troubleshoot the problem.  I called Dell and spent an hour on the phone and no one would help me without me paying 50 dollars.  I finally found this post and I am on the phone again, on hold, right now with Dell.  The person who answered tried to get me to pay again.  I told him about this extended warranty and he was surprised.  I will update as the phone call occurs.

Hi Lionell or Todd!
I bought my Dell XPS 1330 in March 2008. Week and a half it showed the signs of Nvidia GPU failure-lines on the screen etc. My warranty expired on 11 of December 2008. Unfortunatelly i live in Russia- i called to technical guy and a call-operator told me that extension of warranty was not available (full stop)! . So Russian Dell-support refused to help!

Can you please advise me- am i intitled for GPU replacement on extended warranty or not?? And if yes, how this can be done in my coutnry??!!

Hi Lionel,  I bought a used Dell 1720 (a little over a year old now) and successfully changed the ownership with Dell Customer Service.  I have what I think is a problem with my NVIDIA 8600M card, the screen goes mostly black and with a few white lines. Sometimes it runs 20-30 min before this happens, other times it happens on startup. I can power it down and start it back up and usually get it to run. If I run the fan at full speed all the time it runs without any issues. Is my graohics card going to fail on me, and if so, can I get it replaced under warranty. I monitor its temperature with NVmonitor and I have never seen its temp go above 65 deg C.

Dave 

My M1330 died yesterday morning after giving me several "display driver" error messages. Now all I have is vertical lines and nothing. I spent 2 hours with the online chat people but they couldn't help me in the end because apparently I was not the registered owner of the computer (I bought it on Ebay around mid-2008). I spent another hour on the phone with customer service and they gave me the same old line, your warranty is expired. It would help if we could actually understand one another on the phone too. I use this laptop for work and without it I am with much hardship. The Toshiba I am on right now is OLD. I NEED HELP! I gave alot of money for this laptop and here I am about a year later with nothing. My old Toshiba is 5 years old now and is wonderfully reliable. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What about those of us that are more than 1 year past the end of our warranty?  Did we deserve to be treated like this?  Last time I ever buy a Dell or allow anyone I know to get one.

Hi, I have just got my motherboar replaced 3 days back because of same problem. The motherboard replaced was refurbished one and hope that this problem was sorted out in the replaced part. Please clarify. 

I have a Dell M1330 purchased on Feb 10 2008. 

Today it will not boot, after one day of intermittent video problems.  The screen displays colored vertical lines and will not complete the POST.  I input my service tag on-line and was told I was out of warranty and would need to pay to talk to anyone at Dell about this dead laptop.

From reading the posts it is obvious that this is related to the graphic processor problem reported by many others;  My M1330 has an NVIDIA 8400m gs.  Sounds like this is a bad piece of hardware.

What I need is a new system board with the Intel graphics chip.  How can I get one, either under warranty or not?

I like the machine and would like to save it if possible.  My technical level is advanced, so I am confident that I can replace the unit myself, if necessary.

Regards,

R

Hello,

I'm having trouble with my XPS1330 since a couple of weeks.

It shows all the characteristic problems described above, and since a couple of weeks I'm not able to boot it anymore, the screen just slowly fills with vertical lines at boot up.

After takling to dell support exaclty one month ago, he just told me that my laptop has no note in the system concerning this problem, and that they would not be able to help me unless I would pay for it.

So I tried to reach Lionel Menchaca over the community, got a short reply that he was willing ot help me, and haven't heard from him since.

Now I just came of the phone with another techsupport guy, who wasn't willing to help me either.

Just can't think of anything else to do anymore, but I'm still not willing to pay because I'm sure that I'm supposed to get this warranty enhancement.

Alain

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On 23 feb 2008, I bought Dell XPS 1330 in Moscow. Unfortunately, one year later it showed the signs of Nvidia GPU failure, as described above (lines on the screen). I called to Russian technical support and a call-operator told me that it is suffering from a gpu failure but the original 1 year warranty expired on December 2008 and the extension of warranty was not available because the warranty of my Dell was provided by a distributor and not by Dell itself. So he refused to change the motherboard and advised to address my request to the shop I purchased my laptop at. After that operator denied to connect me with his supervisor. So Russian Dell-support refused to help me in this case.

With regard to message after Lionel_Menchaca, “NVIDIA GPU Update: Limited Warranty Enhancement Details” I wonder if it will be possible to enhance warranty for my laptop.

I would appreciate your help.

Anna

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Hello,

On 23 feb 2008, I bought Dell XPS 1330 in Moscow. Unfortunately, one year later it showed the signes of Nvidia GPU failure, as described above (lines on the screen). I called to russian technical support and a call-operator told me that it is suffering from a gpu failure but the original 1 year warranty expired on December 2008 and the extention of warranty was not available because the warranty of my Dell was provided by a distributor and not by Dell itself. So he refused to change the motherboard and adviced to address my request to the shop I purchased my laptop at. After that operator denied to connect me with his superviser. So russian Dell-support refused to help me in this case.

With regard to message after Lionel_Menchaca, “NVIDIA GPU Update: Limited Warranty Enhancement Details” I wonder if it will be possible to enhance warranty for my laptop.

I would appreciate your help.

Please note, I will be out of the office for an extended period and will not be able to receive or reply to Private Messages.  If you have questions or need answers please contact Lionel Menchaca for assistance.

My Dell Vostro 1400 has suffered under the problems of the faulty Nvidia 8400M chipset!

At first my LCD display was all messed up and went green and discolored so I used a external monitor and now the video output on the monitor has gone bad as well.

I am 100% certain that I have a faulty GPU but I am out of the warranty period and Dell will not help me!  Is there any sort of extended warranty support I can receive and not have  to pay for because I am a victim of a faulty hardware design and now I have a useless laptop.

Hi Lionel,

I am currently having troubles with technical support. I have all the symptoms of the NVIDIA GPU failure on my Vostro 1400. I tried to contact Dell during July 2009 about it, however my original warrenty expired on 8-1-2008 so when I tried to get a hold of dell tech support was not able to because "my warrenty has expired". I finally was able to get ahold of online chat for expired warrenties (which I just found) and they are telling me they will not help my because it is 11 days past the 1 year warrenty extension. I told them I tried to contact them in July but they say they have "no record of that".

Please Help!

Respectfully,

Greg Sorensen

it's time for Dell to own up and admit that ALL model with the nVIDIA 8400 & 8600 GPU is faulty and claim responsibility. Sony did, even after a year of denial, HP did, Tosh too.. even Apple. So why is Dell playing hardball and not considering to rectify the problem ? The argument that the other models (mainly 1520 and 1720) are using different components which are not affected DOES NOT hold, because it's the same GPU as the one being fit in other models.

Be a man and own up DELL. I'm fighting for the sake of my dead 1520 here in Malaysia, and I'm pretty sure soon, there will be legions of angry customers at your door step wanting explanation.

I'm just a customer who wants what I deserve. A functioning laptop. Not a dead one.”

Hi

I have a Dell XPS M1330 That is showing the signs of Nvidia gpu failure white lines up sceen with a bright blue line in the middle .

After been on to technical support in the UK . I have been informed that it is suffering from a gpu failure but as the original 1 year warranty expired on Feb 2009 i must pay for an extended warranty  to get this fixed they said as the motherboard and gpu are one they cannot repalce the gpu without the motherboard been replaced as wel and this is not covered under the extended warranty

Is this correct . any help would be muchly appreciated

Thanks

Steven

I've been reading reports that Sony is now owning up to using these dodgy Nvidia GPUs and is offering to fix the problem for free within four years of the purchase date, irrespective of warranty status.  Why does Dell only offer a 1 year extension and then make the customer to fight to get their laptop fixed?

What should I say. How good Dell it is. When I call the tech support line (1800-624-9896) and talk about my Inspiron 1420 GPU issue, no one knows this problem, even though the limited warranty extend. Looks like this announcement is just a joke. After asking the technician checking this webpage, he said he wants to send me the "GPU" and I need to replace the "GPU" by myself. What the wonderful service Dell provides. After a long conversation, he said his manager agree to send me a box and ask me to return my problem laptop for repair. I totally agree with this deal. After less than one minute, the tech support suddenly hang up the call and does not provide me any confirmation number and no call back. I know he just plays me like a fool. I totally understand this is the way how Dell treat their customer. I am a small business IT person, I will ask my boss to not to consider buying any machine from Dell if you can give me a reasonable answer. OK~~ Please let me know what should I do next? Call my sales who takes care of our company's purchase about this issue?

What Nvidia graphic chip got impacted by this issue. My Inspiron 1420 recently had Lines on the screen and No video issue. The operator said the model is not impacted by the Nvidia GPU failure issue. He told me only "Nvidia Geforce 7800" is covered by the warranty extended plan. Besides, he told me I need to pay 49 USD to ask Dell experty to perform some diagnostic. If they still see the same issue, I still need to pay about 1-200 to repair the GPU since Geforce 8400GS is not covered by the plan. Please let me know whether the operator is lying to me. I think I should have enough knowledge to verify whether this is a GPU issue or not.

I've also got a XPS M1210 which won't boot because the GPU failed.  I've got off the line talking with "Dell Customer Support," which I shelled out $50 to confirm this graphics problem which I diagonosed myself.  My unit is out of warranty and that because my unit was not on the extended warranty list I would have to pay to replace my motherboard for $500.  The operator said it was normal "ware and tear."  This is ridiculous, I've had the computer for only two years.  He told me I could talk to another department at 1-800-288-4410, but they're not open right now.   

I don't see why some Dell XPS M1210 owners do get free service even though their warranty is out of date.    

Needless to say I'm quite frustrated and won't be buying a dell in the future unless this problem is resolved.

If you can help me, my case number is 

<ADMIN NOTE : Case number removed per privacy policy>

Help!..... I have a Dell Inspiron 1420 with the exact symptoms of a faulty Nvidia Graphics card. 
My warranty expired in 2008; I live in New Zealand and I've tried calling the Dell customer service line but I haven't been able to get hold of anyone without purchasing an extended warranty ~~~ Can someone please help me? Am I still able to get the graphics GPU replaced??

Any assistance much appreciated!!

Kim

Help!..... I have a Dell Inspiron 1420 with the exact symptoms of a faulty Nvidia Graphics card. 
My warranty expired in 2008; I live in New Zealand and I've tried calling the Dell customer service line but I haven't been able to get hold of anyone without purchasing an extended warranty ~~~ Can someone please help me? Am I still able to get the graphics GPU replace? or is is fried?

Any assistance much appreciated!!

Kim

Help!..... I have a Dell Inspiron 1420 with the exact symptoms of a faulty Nvidia Graphics card. 
My warranty expired in 2008; I live in New Zealand and I've tried calling the Dell customer service line but I haven't been able to get hold of anyone without purchasing an extended warranty ~~~ Can someone please help me? Am I still able to get the graphics CPU replace? or is is fried?

Any assistance much appreciated!!

Kim

My XPS M1210 has developed exactly these symptoms. It runs hot, has vertical lines down the screen, or sometime will not display anything on boot.

The problem is that it is nearly impossible to get anyone at Dell respond to an issue once the Service Tag is checked to have an expired warranty: online chat does not work, nor does any (fast) telephone service.

Added to the complication is that I now am in the UK (system bought in the US): do I talk to US or UK technical support?

How am I expected to contact Dell to obtain resolution?

Good Morning,

I have a XPS M1330 that is exhibiting the exact behavior described with this video problem.  My system warranty expired 10/08, so I believe I would be eligible for this special warranty if indeed this is my problem.  However, when I try to pull up the number for U.S. tech support at suppor.dell.com, it prompts me for my service code and then tells me that because I'm out of warranty, I must pay $49 to call for support.  Am I going about this the wrong way or is there an alternate way for me to speak with tech support to get service on this video issue?

Warm Regards,

Ryan

Hello Todd,

I have Dell Vostro 1400, which is troubling me with the display from the past 3 months issuing errors like "display  driver stopped working". The screen would suddenly go blank and I would have to reboot the system multiple number of  times in order to get the display. It worked initially for some days. During that time I tried to get the latest updates to the NVIDIA driver but then I realized that the system was not causing any trouble with the display when there is no driver at all. So I un-installed the display driver it worked well(but with some vertical lines during bootup) in that condition for few more days. I have also made a BIOS update, but it is of no use. A week ago, it completely went to a blank screen, there is absolutely no display at all(but the system is booting up sometimes, I can hear the windows OS booting sound clip playing) and I can connect to the system using remote desktop connection. In a way the system is working well except for the display.

My purchase order says that my vostro has 128MB nVidia GeForce 8400M GS Graphics Card. My one year warranty ended on 4th Aug 2008. I came to know about the extended warranty(which is also expiring today) just now. When I gave my service tag at dell support, it is saying that the service plan is expired to call 800-247-4618 for fee-based expired warranty support. I guess my system is still under that extended warranty, What is the procedure to get unpaid support/replacement for my vostro?

Thank you

Suresh

And so my Dell XPS M1330 broke down a week ago (warranty expired on April 2009) and i called Dell Singapore @ their Technical Support hotline at 1800-394-7430and explained the problem and described the details to a lady by the name of Angel. Now, you would think that if i called the tech support line, the person who speaks with me and offer me advise would be a tech support person?

No, as it turns out, this lady is a sales agent who's job is to sell warranty extensions. Upon hearing a description of my problem, despite my suggestion that my hardware failure sounds awfully similar to the nVidia graphics problem, she said that my problem is not caused by the nVidia graphics and so if i want support, i'll need to extend my warranty first.

And so i have no choice but to extend my warranty ($400 + GST) before i can get any help from Dell.

As it turns out, the Engineer that came to my house, ran some diagnostics (all in 5 minutes) and told me that my motherboard failed as a result of the nVidia problem and replaced my motherboard with a brand new one. And he was gone in 1.5 hours after the replacement was done.

And so i call Dell today and spoke witha guy named Tim and told them i want my money back as my problem should have been covered by the extended warranty and so i should not have been misled into extending my warranty (by telling me that my problem is something else not covered by the nVidia warranty).

Guess what? They would not do it!! After a shouting match where Tim got Angel on line and Angel admitted to advising me that my problem was not an nVidia issue, they still would not make the refund.

So i requested to speak with Tim's boss and Michelle called me next and still refused to make the refund and when i cornered her with the ridiculous tactic her sale agent used to sell warranties, she said that she can waive the $400 warranty extension but need to charge me $80 for the 'hardware consultation' that led to their engineer coming to my place to replace the motherboard.

If the issue i have was covered by the nVidia extended warranty should it still be chargeable?

This is my fourth dell in 3 years. I've been using Dell because of their good service, until now.

Is there something you can do to help? I do not  want to pay for the Dell extended warranty and would like Dell Singapore to refund it.

I recently aquired my son-in-law's laptop Latitude D620 because the video has gone crazy. I took it to a locally computer shop and had them check it out and they said the video card is shot. When you turn it on and try to boot up Windows you will get vertical lines on the screen then a blue screen with error messages. You can force it into safe mode, then you get double images. i was wondering if it worth my time and money to try to get this laptop fixed or just go and buy a different brand after reading the post from other Dell owners..

Thanks

It's August 2009 and my 18 month old d630 has just succumbed to the nvidia issue. Luckily it's under a 3 year warranty so should be 'repaired'. But what's the point if the replacement is faulty too? Maybe I'll get another 18 months out of it. What annoys me is not the issue but the way it's handled. A BIOS tweak to delay it until the warranty runs out? That's snake oil salesman stuff. We should have been told there was an issue and offered alternative replacements immediately. Expensive? Yeh, very. But not so expensive as it's going to be in lost future sales. I 've bought my last Dell.

Lionel,

     I own two Dell M170 Laptops with the NVidia 6800 graphics card.  One of my laptops is having the same problems, with the graphics card, as described above.  My warranty was up in February 2009.  Would my computer be included in the extended warranty offer?

Thank you for any information to resolve this problem,

Joy

I managed to get in contact with dell support over the phone but the initial rep I spoke to told me I wasn't covered under this warranty. He was adamant (not in a rude way) that my warranty had expired. (Which it did about 8 days ago)

After asking for a supervisor who also didn't know about this enhanced warranty. I managed to explain this page to him and he took the time to actually listen to me list out the website address and checked it himself. He then proceeded to tell me that I could get the repair completed under the warranty and that they would send out a box to ship it to them.

I just got off the phone with tech support so I'll keep this post updated to see how it goes. My laptop not showing any video made me sad too so just know that there is still hope!

Also don't forget to mention this site and ask for a supervisor if necessary. The first rep wasn't rude or mean but wouldn't listen to my comments at all. Just keep going up the ladder until you get someone who is willing to help. Thanks Lionel for listing this info. =D

Hi.

I'm just sharing my experience with the Dell customer support phone line so hopefully everyone can get this problem fixed without issue. My XPS M1330 was actually out of warranty by 6 days because it only had a 1 year warranty when the issue became apparent. I managed to find the link to this page and was relieved that this issue was covered under warranty.

When I called into dell tech support I waited for about 10 minutes before actually talking to a person. When I did get the person he was adamant that I was not covered under the warranty anymore and would not even listen to me when I told him about this enhanced warranty. I managed to get him to get me to a level 2 rep, his supervisor I believe. His supervisor also did not know about this enhanced warranty detail but took the time to fully type out the link when I told him it over the phone. After reading this page he told me that I was covered and they would be sending out a box to my home address.

Hello, I bought an xps m1530 with an nvidia 8600m gt from panama , today i suffered the problem that dell already described of gpu nvidia, but when i contacts with technical service they communicated that the extended guarantee of 1 year only applies for nvidia 8400, please can you explain me that  the guarantee is only applied to xps m1530 with nvidia 8400 because my xps 1530 with nvida 8600m has the same problem as the nvidia 8400.

thank you.

@DELL_Todd S

I've PMed you with my service tag. I've got a Vostro 1400 with the 8400 GS. Ship date: Jan. 20 2008.

I've been unsuccessful contacting tech. support - dropped call both times.

Hi well Im from Puerto Rico, I tried this hehe like everyone else well i was super execited to here from this , but then this happend, i called the US sevice well actually I cahted with them first, show them this awesome post and then after a while, they gave this "please have them check the policy on DSN : 345530" . The suckish part is that when I called the Latam. Dell group and did the whole give Express service tag, make a case # and etc..., they told me "well  this model isn't covered by the guaranty (so this means that Im not the first screaming for this ),so instead of yelling I asked them then what can I do, to my surprise they told me "well we will re-direct you to the parts section" they did after really bad "hold music". Then they just told me that it would cost me $444 (the real mark of the beast ...the wallet destroying beast) so I just said ok thanks then started screaming. Anyways thats the thing they say the Inspiron 1420 IS NOT COVERED, then Intought well should I buy the MOBO? Inspiron 1420 Motherboard UX283, or you think I should swich to the KN548 - Inspiron 1420 Motherboard since the NVIDIA thing seems to be the problem obviously not from them I've found some decnt deal around $160 and so on. Anyways soooo if you guys have any idea you think you can help let me know, like much of my fellow 1420 users school years is REALLY close to sart so  I need this machine. Anyways really hope someone has an idea maybe.

If you are a Vostro 1400 laptop owner with an NVIDIA GPU (particularly the GeForce 8400M GS) , read this carefully:

Call 1-800-456-3355. 

Insist that you got display issues and that your laptop needs service.  The representatives at this point should be well-aware of this situation and the symptoms outlined by Lionel, if not this thread (or else refer to this thread when you talk with them and/or PM your case number to Todd for good measure). 

My Vostro 1400 was well out of warranty (got it in 2007) but I called the aforementioned number and was able to arrange a shipping box be sent to me, no charges.  Turnaround time is 7-10 days.  The representative asked me to remove the HDD and battery before putting the laptop in the shipping box, and also include the AC adapter.

Thanks, Lionel & Todd for committing to help out us out-of-warranty customers.

Hi,

Yesterday the screen Vostro 1400 turned purpleish, and the computer froze, I turned it off for a few hours, and turned it back on, it worked for a half hour, turned purplish and froze again. Today it showed vertical lines on the dell boot screen, then at some point went blank. At the moment the only thing that works is an external monitor, and that too showed little gray boxes all over the screen. I called dell, and after spending some time on the phone with them, they told me all they can do with the warranty extension is diagnose the nvidia problem, and recommend a bios update. If that doesn't work then there is nothing more the extended coverage covers.

Am I misunderstanding this article?

I purchased my Vostro 1400 on Jul 28 2007 (that's the ship date), my 24 months later is today, this was verified by tech support that today is my last day of coverage.

I am having video problems with a Dell Vostro 1400 and I believe I have narrowed it down to the Nvidia Geforce GPU problem which has the extended 12 month warranty. As soon as it heats up it will have strange lines and crash, even in the BIOS. After hours of transfers and being on hold I contacted Tech Support but first they said that my warranty had expired and that I would have to pay for any support with the issue. After trying to point him to the blog posts about it on Dell's webpage he insisted that this is an old issue and the problem was only for laptops that had warranties expiring back in 2007, and that I would have to pay for a motherboard replacement in order to get the issue resolved.

Can you please put me in contact with someone that actually knows about this issue and warranty extension?

I purchased the laptop in December of 2007 with a one year warranty. It has the Nvidia 8400 in it.

apologies for the multiple blank posts  - my connection is not that reliable right now for some reason.

I had posted a comment yesterday Fri 7./24 as this blog post has recommended nad that comment i no longer on the thread so I am posting againg.

I have an XPS 1330, <ADMIN NOTE: Service tag removed per privacy policy> and the laptop is dead. The warranty expired on May 2009. I have been calling technical support for help to verify if the issue is indeed the NVIDIA card overheating and thus my mother board dying. My screen displayed the vertical bars before the lap top died but since I cannot power it up and it does not respond when I try to power it up, i cannot do any further diagnostics on my own.

I have also referred to this article and the responses i have received have not been helpful. I have been asked to pay $50 for a diagnostic and then have been transferrred to extanded warranty departments, military customer service department and have been disconnected throught the transfer process.

I understand that if the problem is not the NVIDIA card, that I would not be eligible for the extended warranty but i can't evern get a proper response about what to do to so I can get a replacement part if that is indeed the problem.

I have tried the channels recommended and have been frustrated in my attempts. Any assistance would be much much appreciated as all I really want to know if is my machine can be fixed or not and if so what my options are.

thanks in advance for any help,

Frances

Lionel -

Lionel -

Read this if you are from AUSTRALIA

My wife's XPS M1330 (bought Oct 2007 - warranty expired Oct 2008) started showing the symptoms about 3 weeks ago (intermittent shutdowns, garbled screen, vertical bars -> gradually turning to white). Today it stopped booting all together - just showing vertical lines. Hooked it up to external monitor and it showed nothing.

I rang Dell and got really good and quick response (whole process took just 5 minutes):

• Called AUS XPS Support 1300-790-877 (press 1 for Home Users)
• They picked up straight away (Saturday noon here Down Under)
• Gave them Service TAG, explained the problem (not even mentioning this blog)
• They asked me to run diagnostic (remove battery, remove AC power, insert the battery, insert the power, hold "D" and power button for 2-3 seconds).  This made screen go through colours and it all looked OK for a short while. Then laptop started booting and vertical bars re-appeared. Video card was diagnosed as faulty
• They then explained that my XPS is out of warranty but NVidia card is covered until Oct 2009. They created Service Request, sent the new motherboard to Technician and said they will call me direct on Mon or Tue. They also mentioned that if any other parts (in addition to Video Card) need replacing I'd have to pay for that - which is fair enough.

So if you are in Aus, you are in luck - they do know about extended warranty for NVidia cards.

Dell: looking very promising; so far so good - we'll see when the Tech turns up next week...

Hello,

I have the same problem on my Latitude D630. I bought my laptop on February 2008 and have one year warranty.

I called Russian Dell support and they told me that my laptop have "Basic" warranty which means I have to go to shop where I bought it and solve my problems there, and Dell can't help me in this case.

How so? Isn't Dell "provide support for all customers worldwide affected by this issue"?

p.s.

I don't remember I had an option to choose the type of warranty. In Dell support they told me that type of warranty depends on service tag and my laptop by default have this Basic warranty. So is there any way I can get my warranty extended?

p.p.s.

I've also contacted Dell's certified parnter to repair the laptop for money and they told me the price $660 to replace motherboard. That's the half price of new laptop :(

Hi

I am Raj Rakesh from India.

I started having the exact same video/display issues that you described in the article and that others described in their replies.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1420 purchased on 22nd May of 2008 with a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400 video card. I only had the 1-year warranty which ended up on  22nd May of 2009 and the problem regarding the video started to come from 10th June 2009.

According to your blog my laptop has also been covered under the 12 months extended warranty from Dell for this specific video problem.

But when I called to the  people at Tech Support they  didn't know about 1-year warranty extension.They just refused about any such extension.

 I am completely disappointed by such an approach from well renowned Dell services.

Please suggest me where should I approach for getting the problem fixed.

It is my first blog which I had posted on 6th July. But till now I could not get my problem fixed.

They agreed to change my motherboard and did so. But just after replacement they put me in a lot bigger trouble. The system now could not boot up and gets overheated and  shutdown automatically  within a few seconds and sometimes displays an error code #M1004. So till now they have changed the motherboard thrice and still can not fix the problem. They have changed the RAM as well as the LCD.

Be it a faulty motherboard or a  processor or mishandling during the replacement which caused it , the new problem is boarded by them as earlier it had no problem regarding over heating. But now  they are telling that they are not responsible for it and recommending take warranty and then only they will fix it.

I have been under the mental trauma for last 6 weeks and its too much now.

Plese make me clear on the issue.

Lionel,

Apparently the technical support services here in Europe have not heard of the limited warranty extension you are talking about : I have called them 10 days ago, and not only did they know nothing about it but they tried to sell me an extension of warranty hinting that they might be able to cover my current problem (=dead MB) with it despite the fact my warranty had expired 6 month ago...

I have refused that offer and promptly sent them an email listing all your blog posts addressing this issue, and many others links documenting the fact that the Nvidia GPU is a well-known failure and that Dell has addressed it with this limited warranty extension.

Still no answer.

So, Lionel, or Dell, or whoever is listening : what do I have to do to get someone to answer me ?

My once beloved XPS is sitting here in front of me, reminding me everyday of what failure it, and Dell support, is

Good day Everyone. 

I am an owner of a M1530 for over a year now and was happy that it's been working rather well for a while.  Unfortunately that has started to change.  Very recently the video card (a 8600GT) has started to produce temperatures of about 83-90 degrees Celsius at full load when it used to be 70.  The CPU stays within normal ranges, always under 70, but the GPU obviously doesn't.  The fan kicks in max at around  4700 RPM.  I do not know if this is low, though my old inspiron 8200 had the fans as high as 5000+ using I8Kfangui. The fans have also been cleaned recently.

While the computer has not been freezing this is only because I take drastic measures.  Once it starts to get past 83 (sometimes as high as 90) I stop whatever it is I am doing and let it cool down.  I run a cooling pad with it but the temperatures are still high

I am under the 3 year warranty but before I file for a repair, i want to know how serious this issue is and if my video card or my fan is a lemon.  Again the other temperatures seem to be ok.  It is simply the GPU that is obscenely high.

Thanks for the feedback!

~SC

I am now having this issue with my Inspiron 1420 and getting a major run around from tech support. They keep telling me they are going to research the warranty status call me back. I've been going back and forth with them for a week now and keep getting told the same thing and they never call me back.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1705 / 9400.

The graphics card started producing random artifacts about 9 months outside of warranty.

It would fail the bios test.

I contacted Dell at the time - they said "out of warranty" - nothing we can do.

I ended up replacing the Nvidia 7900 GPU with a "later" version from the same type of machine.  That 7900 card had two heat sink pipes instead of one.  I also altered the temperature at which the CPU fan kicks on (this cools the GPU also).

I've had a post up on the notebook forum about it - and I get weekly emails from people exactly with the same problem.

We know that Dell had an issue with these Nvidia cards - and Nvidia is taking some heat over it.  They "resolved" the issue by changing going to a dual pipe card and updating the GPU bios to kick the fan on earlier...

I've spent around $250 on the repair.......   I have yet to receive any notification from Dell about the problem - notification and modifing the bios might have prevented this overheat issue in the first place.

hello everyone,

I've seem to hit a roadblock and need some help with my XPS M1210. I called tech support yesterday  evening (07-14-09) and spoke to a very nice supervisor named Wee who ran me through the steps of troubleshooting my laptop. After completing all of his tests, we found out that I happen to have one of the recalled nVidia GPUs in my computer. He got everything necessary ready to have my laptop fixed when he said that I was out of warranty. I already knew this, however, because my warranty expired a while ago. I told him about this post about Dell extending the warranty on units affected and he agreed that they did indeed extend the warranty. He said that I am even outside of THAT window... by 3 months. So now I have a CONFIRMED XPS M1210 with a faulty nVidia GPU that eliminates me from using it when I take nothing but good care of my equipment and I have nowhere to go. I'm REALLY frustrated with Dell because, let's face it, I was not informed of my GPU being a part of a recall. Had I known that my GPU was recalled (or even been notified via email or snail mail), i would have called 3 months ago to get my laptop fixed before i was outside of the extended warranty window.

Wee told me that I could call Customer Service and ask to speak to a manager and they would be able to "activate" my account for just enough time that I could get my computer fixed since it was so close to the warranty expiration date. I decided to call customer service this morning (07-15-09), since customer service was closed by the time i got off the phone with tech support, and spoke to a "senior manager". She told me that there was absolutely nothing she could do and she would not transfer me to someone else that could help me. i asked for her manager and she refused. I explained the situation very calmly and clearly and she confirmed she understood everything but would not do anything to help me.

I REALLY love my XPS laptop, and when the time is right for me to get a new laptop, I want to buy a Studio XPS... But if this is the way Dell is going to treat me as a customer, then I don't think I want to do business with them anymore.

Is there anything ANYONE can do at Dell to help me? I'm not asking for much, I just want to get my recalled unit fixed. I gave the analogy of a car... You buy a car with a warranty, then something is recalled and three months outside of the recall warranty window, the car breaks down. You take it to the shop and they say "yeah it's a recalled part but we can't replace it without charging you." I mean how would you feel? I certainly wouldn't be happy and they never even notified you.

Thanks for your time and hopefully my issue is resolved so I can continue saying great things about Dell and not dwell on the negative.

Why bother to buy Dell???? That is the question that I am going to ask myself and other people that are planning on buying a system from them.  My computer is just over 2 years old, and my warranty is expired by a year.  I am currently unemployed in Michigan, and struggling to make payments.  I paid $2,500 for this computer and I am being told that because of such a lengthy period between my warranty expiration and my complaint that they will not assume resposibility for this product.  I am having the same issues with the Nivida GPU as everyone else.   The tech that i talked to today that was set up by Todd S. told me that they have helped other people that have the same problem but their warranties have expired in the past couple months.  I am sick of being treated like a consumer that doesnt know anything about how a good business is run.  I have worked with HP on notebooks and Desktops at my old job that were out of warranty, and they were excellent.  I do not understand why Dell can't own up to its mistakes and help people out.  The best part of our conversation today was that the tech told me that I can buy an extended warranty and they could help me on any future problems, but not this one.  Why on earth would I spend the $165 dollars or so  to buy a warranty for a computer that only turns on but I can not see anything on the screen.  I am going to go scream from the mountain tops about how Dell's "customer service" is the worst that I have ever come across.  I would rather get my teeth pulled and deal with the IRS at the same time then buy another product from Dell. I am disgusted and irrate over this horrible experience. I am sick of being pushed around by these big companies that think they can just walk all over the people that made them who they are today.  I plan on  making it my goal to let people know how horrible Dell is. I will walk into into stores and do everything i can to deter people from buying a Dell product. I am not working right now so I have all the time in the world to do this.  DONT BUY A DELL!!!!  they wont help you if something goes wrong.  I think i got my point across and I am sure i will be banned and that just goes to show you how they run their company.

Dell will not own up to this for my system and is charging me to replace the motherboard for this NVidia failure.

See my posting on this:

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19283960.aspx

I am also unhappy with GPU problems. I bought my M1710 with go 7950GTX in december 2007 and all worked fine until yesterday when my laptop just freezed for nothing. I had to reboot(power off/on) but then I saw already GPU problems in BIOS with the green lines all over the screen. Laptop was bought in Austria but I live in Slovenia and warranty is of course already out. This laptop costed me 2000€ and I am expecting somebody to help me with this because I do not know what exactly to do as the GPU is definately defective(there are like 1000 comments of same problem on one of the blogs about the 7950GTX) and nothing can save it anymore.

Any Ideas ?

Cheers

Hello!  I've got a Vostro 1400 purchased 1/2/2008.  Last year I had an issue where I suddenly got horizontal colored lines overlayed across the screen for a few seconds then it went completely black.  I turned the computer off and back on and I could hear the "welcome sounds" of Windows booting back up, but no video.  I couldn't see anything...no Dell logo, no BIOS screen, nothing.  I tried hooking it up to an external monitor and the result was the same: no video on either device.  So I called tech support and after explaining the situation they shipped out a box, I sent it in and shortly thereafter I got it back in working condition.  The slip in the box said that they said they replaced the motherboard.  No problems there because the computer was still under warranty. 

But now it just happened again and my warranty expired on 1/2/2009.   When I tried contacting technical support, they said that the NVIDIA GPU issue was a known issue last July and it was too old to be supported anymore so I would have to pay for a new motherboard.   Since I'm seeing posts up-to-date here, I'm not sure I believe what the tech support guy said so I was curious if this is still covered?

I have a Latitude D820 (of course just 2 months out of 3 year service contract).  I am trying to see if I have this issue.  Online chat isn't very helpful as they just want to offload me onto out of warranty support, even when I mention this issue specifically.

When I boot there is no video in the laptop LCD, not even BIOS startup.  There is backlight in the LCD panel so it is not like the LCD is completely dead (at least I don't think so).

When I dock or hook an external monitor to the back of the laptop the video on the external monitor is fine.

I can get some video on the laptop LCD if I let it boot and then close and open the lid.  It is almost like I am tricking the LCD into displaying.  Of course even when I do this the video is terrible quality as it has an almost "blurry" and grainy display to it.

I had a similar issue back in August 2007.  When they replaced the LCD the display didn't come back.  They replaced the motherboard and this went away.  I can't remember if back then an external monitor worked or not.  It is possible it did not but I'm not sure.

My question is...if the video in an external monitor is fine does this mean that it is not this issue?  It seems from this issue that it would show up on the laptop LCD and the external monitor.

The other thing that is strangley similar is that back in August 2007 and now I just had my battery lose almost all capacity.  I leave it plugged in all the time but I'm wondering if having a low capacity battery in the laptop would cause heat issues that might lead to the GPU failure. 

For completeness I should also mention that now when I run the <FN>-POWER auto diagnostic I get the "3-3-3" audio beep code but I do see solid colors displaying at some point during the test.  This is why I'm confused if it might be the GPU issue or just the LCD.  Doesn't make sense that the BIOS startup won't display but the diagnostic can show solid colors.

Thanks,

Stuart

Hi,

I have a Vostro 1400 that I purchased in August 2007 when they were first release. I had the graphics chip fail on me once last year and repaird by Dell and just last night the graphics chip failed again. I got online and talked to Out of Warranty support and showed them this thread and explained to them it has happend before. My repair box is being shipped out to me.

But after I got off the chat with with the agent, I was wondering to myself if my Vostro 1400 will just fail again. The Vostro 1400 is no longer being produced so I am assuming that I am getting another motherboard with another chip prone to failure. Am I right? Is my Vostro 1400 destined to fail a third time because they are all the same revision of board with the same failure prone chip?

Can I pay a little bit extra and get another model of Vostro? How about an extension on this warranty right here? It seems ridiculous to swap out this dead motherboard with another one that will just fail eventually, and especially since the next time it fails it will be completely out of warranty.

Hi,

As Sandy, i bought a Dell XPS M1330 (on January 2008) with a NVIDIA 8400M GS graphics card with the 1-year base warranty in France.
The LCD screen sometimes turn pink or green and the laptop freezes and then reboot displaying vertical white lines with a black background.
Everything the symptoms indicates that this is a NVIDIA GPU problem.
I contacted the DELL's XPS support for France and explained my problem but they told me that I have to pay 35 euros for the diagnostic + 140 euros for a 12-month warranty extension. I refused because I read here that DELL offers a warranty enhancement to customers who's experiencing this problem.

I also sent e-mails by explaining my problem in the service of extension of guarantee, but I had no answer or contacts !!!!
What can I do now ?

Is someone can give me some advice to help me to unblock the situation? ?
Thank you, Bruno.

I'm having issues with the inspiron 1420. Did a beep test and got a 3-2-1 pattern indicating lcd failure. Absolutly nothing shows up on screen but the computer is running.  Forums speculated that it could be the nvidia gpu. I'm a few months out of warranty and I just want a toll free number or a simple way to talk to tech. Does it exist?

The NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 video card on my Dell XPS M1210 notebook has failed. I am using it for over two years now. No problem so far, until now. The system (Windows Vista) crashes as it says a nvidia driver has stopped and recovered, but afterwhich the system hanged. It also shows vertical lines on the BIOS screen. Certainly this is a GPU problem. I have verified this by using the POST test and observing the LED diagnostic codes.

I understand that this is a general problem with Dell notebooks like the XPS and I was informed that Dell has extended a limited warranty on models including the XPS M1210, due to a known fault with the NVIDIA GPU on those models. See: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2008/08/18/nvidia-gpu-update-dell-to-offer-warranty-enhancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx?PageIndex=1 for details.

Can you extend help or assistance on how my unit can be repaired or replaced? I am residing in the Philippines. The unit is bought in Oman (in the Middle East). Please instruct me on the proper way to address this problem. I can be contacted

by email on<ADMIN NOTE: Email removed per privacy policy>,

or by phone on<ADMIN NOTE: Ph no  removed per privacy policy>.

The SERVICE TAG of my unit is: <ADMIN NOTE: Service Tag removed per privacy policy> and its EXPRESS SERVICE CODE: <ADMIN NOTE: Express Service Code removed per privacy policy>.

saluyot

Hello Lionel,

I read your blog http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2008/09/12/nvidia-gpu-update-limited-warranty-enhancement-details.aspx?PageIndex=2 regarding update of the nvidia warranty period. I have an issue with my laptop screen. It shows me only vertical line and doe not display anything else. My warranty has expiered. I took it to a local guy here and he said the issue is related to graphic card. Then I came across this blog posted by you last year. I tried to contact Dell but they do not know about it and few times they cant be reached. Always wrong department. Can you please help with it? My name is Dhvanit Dave and I was gifted this laptop by my uncle Sudhir Dave. <ADMIN NOTE: Service tag removed per privacy policy> .<ADMIN NOTE: Contact number removed per privacy policy>

Please help me with this. I am a student and I dont want to spend money.

Thanks,

Dhvanit Dave

So,

Here we are after a few months of complaining and wondering what is going on over at Dell. I have a Dell XPS M1210 and for some odd reason that laptop model is still NOT listed.  I am well aware of multiple cases of the same problems both on here and on the web throughout different posts.  I dont get why DELL isnt taking any steps in helping us M1210 owners.  I had my computer for just over 2 years and 2 weeks when the screen went black, and when turned back on it was full of red and green vertical lines.  Now it is just sitting behind me because my warranty ran out 2 weeks prior to the event.  I am disgusted with Dell for their lack of concern. I spent almost 2 hours on the phone to dell "tech support" where i talked to a gentleman named "James".  I paid an arm and a leg for this computer ($2,500) to help out with school and work.  So now I am paying for a computer that doesnt work and it is killing me to pay for something that doesnt work when I am unemployed like half of my home state of Michigan.  Can anyone in the Dell "community" help me out in figuring out what to do with this situation?? I am fed up and I know that I cant cover the price of a new laptop right now. I would like to be able to recommend Dell to my friends and family, but with this serious lack of response I can not do so.

Hi,

I purchased a Dell XPS M1530 from India with nvidia card 8600M GT. I'm currently facing issues like white lines on my screen and intermittent video issues quite often during the gaming and above that even my laptop gets shutdown at times when i play games like Mirror's Edge, FEAR 2 etc. Even the Dell Diagnostics is failing with error message 0334

I contacted the Dell Customer Care with this issue and they told me that nvidia doesn't cover the extended warranty for this card. Above that they urged me to buy the extended warranty and asked me to reinstall operating system and completely neglecting the fact of Dell Diagnostics failure.

My XPS M1530 details are as follows:

<ADMIN NOTE: Service Tag removed per privacy policy> 

Thanks,

Sachin Nair

Hi, I'm Chong from Malaysia, I have one Vostro 1400 is black screen now, the laptop is bought on 9/24/2007 and the warranty ended at 9/24/2008. The Laptop have a  NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) Go 8400M GS graphic card.

The support person at Malaysia do not know about nvidia 8400GS problem, and it caused my system black screen, now i cannot access to the system nor the bios, the screen totally blank.

Can you help me to get a replacement for the graphic card from Dell Malaysia? or can you help me to get a support staff from Malaysia which can help me on this issue.

Thank you,

Chong

Hello,

I have purchased my Dell Vostro 1400 in the US with a NVIDIA 8400M GS. I am staying in India. I am having these "Blank Screen", "Vertical bars" and quite frequent freezing of the screen if the machine runs longer than an hour with NVIDIA running. So, I rebooted to machine to run purely on Debian without using the NVIDIA, then it does run a bit longer, say about 2 hours.

So, I called up the Technical Support in India who asked me to call Dell Support US at 18006249896, to know whether my computer is flagged for this issue. But, when I contacted them, they claim that my GPU is not covered under this. But, I see that this list does have teh Vostro 1400 and to my knowledge this model was only released with a 8400M GS. Can you please clarify this and also let me know the procedural details for the replacement, as I have quite a decent bit of programming to do and this is wasting my time.

Thanks

Hello

I am Jlelovic from Hong Kong. I had an issue with the NVidea GPU causing overheating and eventually vertical lines etc etc.

I tried to contact Dell Support here in Hong Kong but could not get anywhere, (could not actually speak to a human) so I posted here on June 24th.

I have to commend Lionel and Todd as well as Dell, for Todd S promptly getting back to me on this enhanced extra warranty issue specific to the NVidea GPU.

Today a very knowledgable and fastidious tech arrived at my home and replaced my motherboard, and the XPS M1330 is now running much cooler. This was done under the extra enhanced warranty.

The only issue is that unless one spends some time looking around the Dell community forums one generally cannot actually speak to a human concerning this issue.

I understand that Dell could be concerned by tons of not knowledgable and possibly computer illiterate people clogging their telephone lines etc., but I think it would be a good idea for Dell to more openly inform their customers on their main support web site, and issue a special email address specific to this and similar problems, so one does not have to hunt around spending tons of time.

Although my XPS M1330 now runs cooler and normal again, I am going to do the "copper mod", with arctic silver 5 as well. Apparently after this mod the system will run some 25% cooler. If one Googles Copper Mod XPS M1330 there are explicit instructions on how to do this. Enemy Number 1 of all electronics is excessive heat.

Thanks again to Todd S, Lionel and Dell for standing behind their product and supporting the customer. I will continue to be faithful Dell Customer.

Cheers

JLelovic Hong Kong