Dell 19 in 1 card reader failure

Well i'm currently having similar problems with my 530, and am running XP as well. I have only had my computer for 2 months, and now my card reader doesnt work. My computer doesnt even find the drive anywhere, it has disappeared! I too have spent countless hours on hold w/ tech support and run into dead ends. I've researched online other things i could try etc.... with no luck. My card reader was working fine, and i always used a soft eject before removing the card. I tried my prostick & SD card & the light doesnt come on at all anymore. My usb however is still working, so luckily i'm able to plug up my camera directly, but again this is a hassle. Have you had any luck w/ yours since you posted this? Thanks for sharing!!

Bernard, thank you so much for your reply. Unfortunately i havent the slightest idea what device my card reader is :/ I do know my part # is 341-5517. I searched for it under dell products to try and find some info, but for some reason it says no matches found :(  I would however like to know more about this 'earthing solution' technique. I'm not the most computer savvy person, but if i have step by step directions i am confident i can follow through. When searching for the part number of my card reader, i did find some posts that spoke of this thing i could do, draining the residual power, But it makes me nervous to not shut my computer down properly. I've already got this problem, thats all i need is for me the be the cause of yet another one!! Thanks again for your help, and if you think the earthing solution will work for me, i'd be delighted to hear more about. Sorry i cant provide more info for you! Thanks!

Hi Sumilee, The sales part number for my 19-in-1 was 385-10556, but I'm not sure this means anything - the actual part number may be different. One way to find out whether we are talking about the same device could be to go to Device Manager and look for your device, or if its gone, for unknown devices. Then if you look under Properties and Details, you'll see you can look at various things in the "Property" box. Under "Device description" my device says "CAB-200" and under the Property "Manufacturer" is says "TEAC". If you have both these it would be worth trying the earthing solution - let me know what you find and if it looks appropriate I'll send you the details of what I did.

Bernard

All six of my dell PC's bought over the last 4 years have failed.  Dell support fixed one by replacing the motherboard, but have not fixed the others. 

Hi hope this helps have had same problem dell support told me to go into computer remove cables from card reader then put them back it seems the reader freezes doing this rests it let me know if you have same success as me.

* Go to the Device Manager (hold the Windows key down and press Pause/Break)
* Locate either a direct entry for the card reader or possibly an unknown USB device entry
* Uninstall the Media Card Reader or the unknown USB device (right click on the device and then left click on uninstall)
* Close the Device Manager
* Restart the PC and when Windows starts, it should detect and reinstall the card reader
* If still no go -
* Power the PC off
* Open the side cover
* Find the Media Card Reader cable and disconnect/reconnect it to both the motherboard and the card reader
* Replace the side cover
* Power the PC on
* The free hand should always ground itself to the PC before inserting or removing a card from the Media Card Reader

I think you have to read between the lines a bit here - this problem has been going on for nearly two years now. It is almost certainly a hardware problem to do with earthing and whether this is the fault of the device or the way it is attached to the Dell chasis is something that Dell is not going to tell you. The real solution to the problem almost certainly involves a hardware recall of some sort - realistically this just isn't going to happen given the number of units involved. Now, think about the 'solution' that Dell propose - it includes the instruction about always earthing yourself before inserting a media card - to the best of my knowledge no other media card reader supplier advocates this course of action - now, just think about the implication of that.

So, I suggest you take the route of creating a permanent earthing strap between the media reader device and the chassis of your PC. If you don't feel compentent or comfortable doing this for yourself then have a competent friend or PC technician do it for you. Always remove the power cable before working inside your PC and take care. I can almost guarantee it will solve your problem permanently. Try it, you have nothing to lose.

Bernard

Unfortunately, this doesn't always work, and when it does, the reader works for 1 min to 30 min.  I've tried all the fixes, changing power settings, re-installing drivers dozens of times, all tyhe while, the built-in card reader in my monitor never fails.  The only time I ever got one working permanently was when the motherboard was replaced by Dell.  It is too unlikely that all 5 or 6 motherboards built over a period of time are bad.

I just use a external reader, it always works.

For some reason your post back to me doesn't seem to allow me to reply - in fact it seems to have disapeared from the forum. Maybe something upset Dell somewhere, although I cannot see why it should.

I was a bit worried when you replied that you were an electrical engineer - try though I may I have never been able to understand anything to do with electricity - its a completely black art to me. However everything you say makes sense, particularly your point about the casual earthing contact - I think (but remember my ignorance) this is the key to the problem. I've had a permanent earthing connection to my media reader for some months now and have not had a single failure. Previously like you it would go for weeks at a time with no problem, earthing myself before inserting a card would sometimes help, but other times the devices would just vanish from my system without me inserting a card - I guess maybe I just kicked or touched the tower under my desk. I also have a media reader as part of my printer on the same system and I have never had a problem with this. I'm absolutely convinced it is a hardware related issue and a permanent earthing connection has fixed it for me. Good luck with your machine.

Good afternoon;

I've lately received a number of forum comments in my email inbox concerning the same card reader issues that I dealt with, and wrote about, during the first eleven months of ownership of my Inspiron 530 with the Teac internal card reader.

Simply, there is no economical fix that Dell can come up with to rectify the situation. There are literally millions of systems in place with the same hardware / software configurations. In my case, Dell denied, denied, denied, that there was any consistent problem. And yet, when one negotiates the labyrinth of the Dell forum it becomes obvious that a problem has and still does exist. The complaints are identical on the Dell forum. They are also identical on the forums of a myriad of other computer forums such as Znet, etc. etc..

There is also no correlation between the tower size, personal grounding, type and capacity of the card or anything else related to the reader. Dell replaced everything from soup to nuts on my machine. Some fixes lasted a few days, others a few hours. In a nutshell, nothing that their tech support staff suggested online via chat, phone calls, or any other form of communication worked. We also had a Dell tech perform additional onsite hardware fixes and replacements. Again, nothing worked.

At the point in time when I realized that the warranty period was due to expire shortly, I took a proactive approach and decided to solicit comments via the Dell forum from fellow Dell owners with like issues. The situation escalated to the point that the forum moderator was scrubbing my posts as fast as I could post them.

Ultimately, Dell and I came to a meeting of the minds. I agreed to back off on any class action activity and they would replace the defective machine. A replacement for the Inspiron 530 / Teac internal card reader arrived shortly thereafter. Oddly enough, it was a different machine, different OS and a different card reader. Perhaps not so oddly enough, the new machine has performed flawlessly...

I checked the card readers in 3 of my Dell PC's, a XPS 410, a XPS 420, and a Studio XPS.  The Studio XPS was already bonded with the screw mounting, so I bonded the other two.  They all quit working after a day or two, so the bonding fix did not work, or even make sense.

Scaleusa, I'm sorry the earthing fix did not appear to address your problem - I don't have anything else to suggest. All I can say is that my XPS-420 has been absolutely rock steady in this area for several months now since I got a good earth between the media device and the chassis. Previously it would come and go at will - now I cannot get it to go away (not that i want it too) no matter what I do. I also believe this fix has worked for a number of other people. In addition way back when Dell were actively discussing this on the forum they too were talking about earthing problems, and on the XPS-420 there is certainly a very dodgy connection between the device and the chassis. Sorry I'm out of ideas.

Bernard

I have found some comfort in reading this forum, as I have been struggling with my card reader in my Inspiron 530 for months now, and see my own problems descirbed in detail by other Dell owners. I have tried everything that anyone ever suggested, including disconnecting it from the motherbaord and reconnecting. I feel everyone's pain. Your solution sounds simple enough, but sadly didn't work for me. It is apparent that the hardware is faulty, and since my computer is now out of warranty, I am reconciled to the fact that my money was wasted on this one. I hope someone out there in Dell world has better luck than the rest of us.

I saw the writing on the wall shortly before the warranty expiration date of our Inspiron 530 desktop. It was obvious that no fix existed and that hardware defect or incompatibility was indeed at fault. Dell continued to deny, deny, deny. Roughly 30 days before the warranty was due to expire, I opted to become proactive in my dealing with Dell.

Forum policy prohibits me from going into details. The forum moderators have already scrubbed a number of my posts and have threatened to permanently ban my participation if I divulge circumstances surrounding Dells decision to effect an exchange.

That being said, I received a phone call from Dell management stateside and FedEx arrived with an overnight delivery containing a replacement for the Inspiron 530, which we all have suffered with. The replacement desktop was a Studio XPS running Windows Vista, instead of the Inspiron 530 running Win XP Pro. Oddly enough, the internal card reader was substantially different in design and manufacture from the Dell / Teac 19 in 1 that comes bundled with the Inspiron 530. Not so oddly enough, this new machine and it's internal card reader performed, and have continued to perform, flawlessly!

Best of luck to all~