Dell Complete Care Warranty

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Xaeon

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 11, 2004
Messages
453
I have a Dell Inspiron 600M that is over 2 years old. I have something like 250+ days left on my complete care warranty.

My question is this: what kinds of problems does Dell do significant hardware replacements on? My notebook is so packed full of dust and hair and shit that it is definitely running far, far slower and hotter than when I got it. The fans also ramp up to full speed even when only doing stuff like surfing the net. Its much louder and overheats in games like WC3 even if I have it propped up. However, I don't know if these problems are severe enough to warrant hardware replacement.

Also, I had to have the motherboard replaced not long after I bought it. I have a sneaking suspicion that the tech did NOT put any thermal compound on the processor. I think it is probably heat damaged.

Any advice on Dell's Complete Care would be greatly appreciated. Let me know how to get the most out of it.
 
What bios are you running? The 600m's had some issues with every bios after a06(up till at least a15). It would cause the notebook to slow down and lock up in 3d games. The fix was going back to the a06 bios. I had this issue when I upgraded my from like a04 to a14 or a15(can't remember) when I put a wireless g card in to replace my b card. I upgraded the bios because the newer bios supported the new intel card fully. After a while I traced the issue with my notebook to the logic board and when I was trying to get a price on a replacement I found out about this. Found the a06 bios on the internet and the issue went away(since dell would not give me the older bios). The thing was I use my notebook for school so it took me a few months to notice that it was messing up in games(which is almost never runs).

If the unit is locking up back up you stuff and send it to dell. They should clean it out and regrease the cpu when they are testing it.

As far as getting the most out of your warranty it almost sounds like you want dell to replace extra parts that may or may not be needed or give you maybe a new notebook. Asking how to make sure they do one of these is something I don't think the mods here would aprove of.
 
Well, first of all, its not that I want to cheat Dell or anything. I just don't want to call the up and tell them its full of dust and have them say that it's just natural wear and tear and have nothing done. I'm not making it up, it really is running much, much slower today than when I first got it. I had to replace the keyboard once and I got a peek inside while I was doing it. It is literally PACKED with dust. It has formed cakes around most of the components and the heatsink fins are all filled up.

You may or may not know that the complete care warranty covers accidental damage with next business day onsite service. One thing I'm wondering is if it is plausible that Dell would consider a computer full of dust that is heat damaged to be accidental damage. There is nothing wrong with me tailoring my complaint to what Dell wants to hear as long as there is legitimately something wrong with it, as I have shown there is.

In regards to it locking up in games, so far I haven't noticed it happening. However, after the computer has had about 30 minuntes to heat up, the computer suddenly, randomly slows to a crawl. Everything will be fine when it will become slow to respond and frame rates will drop to unplayable (0.25 FPS) levels. It will remain like that until it cools down. It has never crashed completely. This happens even in games like Warcraft III on absolute minimum video settings.

Any other advice would be great.

EDIT: Good advice on playing fat, dumb and happy. That's my cardinal rule when dealing with tech support. Like when I called Logitech about a malfunctioning mouse I did their little song and dance about uninstalling drivers, trying it on a different computer, etc. even though I knew it was just plain and simply broken.
 
Ahh ok I was just making sure you were not just trying to cheat them. The issue with warcraft 3 could very well be heat but look around online. It seems like the bios issue I was talking about. My 600m would run real slow like that and it would sometimes lock up with me trying to get out of the game(in my case css). Yea call them up and be dumb and happy. Tell them you have already formated the machine and reloaded all your software and it is still doing it. If they send someone out they should clean it out for you and replace any parts they think it may need.
 
I have a feeling the issue is heat. If I remember to prop it up before I play, I rarely have the issue. Conversely, if the issue appears I can alt+tab out of the game and prop it up and the issue disappears within a few minutes. I don't even have to close the game.
 
Well, I'm Canadian. But playing dumb is a good strategy, in my experience.
 
from my experience, CC means just that...COMPLETE and anything accidental.

Some of my folks have called up saying they dumped soda on it and they replaced it. Their new ad even shows a beverage spilling on a laptop.

a little dust is hardly a beverage so you should be fine
 
Put the laptop under the rear tire of your car and back over it. Call Dell, they'll send you a new one. Seriously, I have a customer do that, left it on her trunk, it fell off and she backed over it. New laptop within a week. Also had a customer spill coffee all over her's, put in for a new screen, keyboard, touchpad and system board. It was overnighted to me and I installed it all the next day.
 
mrweasel said:
from my experience, CC means just that...COMPLETE and anything accidental.

Some of my folks have called up saying they dumped soda on it and they replaced it. Their new ad even shows a beverage spilling on a laptop.

a little dust is hardly a beverage so you should be fine
Click to expand...

Complete care is the way to go. We get CC warranties with all our notebooks from Dell here at work - we've had all manner of things replaced, no questions asked, due to stuff being dropped, spilled on, frozed (ever see an LCD that endured -20F temps?).

Peace,
Tim
 
Thanks for all the advice, everyone. One last question: Does Dell replace damaged parts with refurbished components? I am personally really against getting ANYTHING that has been refurbished. I think that would be pretty weak if they did that.
 
Xaeon said:
Thanks for all the advice, everyone. One last question: Does Dell replace damaged parts with refurbished components? I am personally really against getting ANYTHING that has been refurbished. I think that would be pretty weak if they did that.
Click to expand...

They have the option of replacing the parts with refurbs. It is up to them.
 
Xaeon said:
Thanks for all the advice, everyone. One last question: Does Dell replace damaged parts with refurbished components? I am personally really against getting ANYTHING that has been refurbished. I think that would be pretty weak if they did that.
Click to expand...

refurbs work like this

car company makes car out of plastic

people crash and die

cracked plastic cars are replaced with steel

nobody dies

in crude explanation refurb=good
 
Xaeon said:
Thanks for all the advice, everyone. One last question: Does Dell replace damaged parts with refurbished components? I am personally really against getting ANYTHING that has been refurbished. I think that would be pretty weak if they did that.
Click to expand...

The parts they use ALL have a sticker that says "refurbished" yet many, in fact most are brand new. It's how they get around something (I used to know.. taxes or something in the warranty... it's odd) -

Of all the Dell stuff we have at work, and that I've had repaird over the years, everything had a "refurbished" sticker on it, and it's outlasted the part it replaced... if that makes you feel anybetter and I've been buying Dell stuff for work since about 1990.

Peace,
Tim

 
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