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Dell Inspiron 7537 no longer charging- motherboard failure
I will try again with posting this. I dont see anything against terms or rules in my post. I would like some advice and opinions on this issue and if my grievance is reasonable?
I purchased this laptop in early December 2014. I would like to add that this laptop cost me close to £1000 when purchased. Purchase was direct from Dell.
2 days ago, the laptop developed a fault where it would not longer accept any charge from the charger.
No notifications or messages on the laptop informing me of any faults with battery or charger.
I use this laptop for work and i am self employed- this is a very important tool for me and my business will come to a halt without it.
I contacted customer support and through diagnosis they inform me that the motherboard needs replacing. The charger when plugged in, has the green light come on but when plugged into the laptop the green light on the charger flickers and turns off. I am told the motherboard is sending a current back and causing the fault, preventing the laptop from charging.
Dell are asking me for £600-700 which is nearly the cost of the laptop new. An engineer will come out and replace the board.
This is completely and wholly unacceptable. The laptop is just over 2 years this month- It is a £1000 machine and was a high spec, premium multimedia laptop from the 7000 series which is supposed to built and made to a high level.
This is not an entry level budget laptop. I would expect a battery or charger to fail after this period but a major component such as a motherboard to fail is completely unacceptable.
I am in the UK and the Consumer Rights Act dictates that the item is fit for purpose- this includes life expectancy, and finish taking into account the price paid and the type and age of the laptop. For example, a cheap second-hand Netbook might be expected to have a shorter life expectancy than a brand new £1500 Apple MacBook.
A £1000 premium laptop should last a minimum of 3 years without major components failing. This is general consensus for high end tech/equipment. It is not reasonable to fail at 2 years and the most important/expensive part on the laptop at that. .
I am now without a working laptop which i rely on for work. I cannot get through to any customer service team or escalation team in the UK or abroad (where all calls are going) who can deal with this and i am furious about receiving this sort of service from a large company like Dell.
My rights are not being respected. Dell is defaulting on the Consumer rights act and i will have no choice to take this matter further legally unless i get some for of assistance and a reasonable resolution. In the UK we have some good protection in regards to this (legally) but i dont wish to pursue this path and would rather Dell provide some reasonable assistance and acknowledge the issue.
Very simply, this part should not have failed in the short time frame it has failed in. There is clearly an underlying manufacturing or assembly issue.
ejn63
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December 22nd, 2016 09:00
It could easily be just the DC jack
www.parts-people.com/index.php
If it's not that, then the mainboard needs to be replaced as you've been told.
momo0909
6 Posts
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December 28th, 2016 09:00
If its the DC jack,i dont mind buying and replacing. Small parts do and can go. I am not an unreasonable person. A part which costs just as much as the laptop when it was new is not acceptable for a non-budget laptop in under 2 years of use. They say its the motherboard, i should not be replacing this part in this period of time.
This is a major part that has failed in a short period of time. I was hoping for some further assistance from Dell on here or some contact information from them of who i can contact to escalate the matter.
Ultimately i am 100% i will have Dell pay for it all if i go via small claims court but i dont want to waste time and cause unnecessary hassle for either of us.
I would be happier if they were willing to accept that the most fundamental part of the laptop has failed in an unreasonable time frame.
Thanks for your reply and hope you had a happy Christmas. Also have a great New Year.
asuchemist
9 Posts
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December 28th, 2016 12:00
Have you tried BIOS update or OS reinstall? Years ago I had a netbook that no longer would charge the battery. The charge light would just blink. I updated the system BIOS and reinstalled the OS and the laptop charge system worked as it should.
asuchemist
9 Posts
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December 28th, 2016 12:00
How can they determine a hardware issue like that remotely? Have your tried swapping battery?
2 years does sound like a short life. Did your notebook not come with a 3 year warranty?
Seems cheaper to take computer to local computer shop and get an accurate diagnosis.
verbage
25 Posts
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December 29th, 2016 09:00
Sadly, this is NOT an uncommon problem, and it appears to affect many, many Dell laptops, not just your Inspiron 7537, but other Inspirons and non-Inspirons, too. By coincidence, I had an Inspiron 7520 that I purchased in Aug. or Sep. of 2013, and it had been working fine until October of this year, and then all of sudden, the same thing happened. On plugging in the power adapter, the light on the adapter would go out (i.e. the adapter shut down because there was a short somewhere on the motherboard).
At first, I thought it was simply that a component in the power adapter had died. But I was able to fully confirm this was not the case because I have three separate power adapters for the system--one for home, one for work, and a spare one for travel. All three adapters did the same thing.
As I started to research it, one of the first suggestions that came up, like ejn63 has made above, was that the DC connector on the laptop had a problem. Fair enough--this is a mechanical part to some extent so plugging/unplugging the machine over several years could have exacted its toll. So I ordered a replacement DC jack for ~$15, but sadly, that did not fix the problem.
That's when I started searching more in depth, and realized that the problem was most likely part of the power circuit on the motherboard--hence, the suggestions to replace the motherboard. As I said, there are thousands of postings about this, and it affects not just your Inspiron 7537, but many other Inspirons, and also models from the Latitude and XPS lines, too. Do a Google search such as:
www.google.com/search
It turns out that there are mosfets and potentially some capacitors in the power supply circuits that frequently blow out. If you can hunt down the schematic documents for your machine, and you are skilled with SMD (surface-mount device) semiconductor soldering, you can possibly replace the bad components. But these SMD parts are super-tiny, and soldering is most easily down with a hot air reflow station, not a traditional soldering iron
I note that the problem is so common that many repair services capable of SMD soldering have popped up to offer motherboard fixes at flat rates like $149. For example, for my Inspiron 7520, here is just one of the many companies that offer such a service:
www.ebay.com/.../330924463055
If it gets to this point, i.e. that private companies are offering flat rate fixes, this only works because they can almost invariably predict the problem. In the case of power problems, they know it is related to a few mosfets, caps, or similar, and even if they replace them all, it will only cost them <$2 in parts. So even if it takes one hour of their time for the fix (probably skilled workers can do it in much less time), they make a pretty healthy profit!
Anyway, in my case, I only had a 1-year warranty on the machine, and even if I did have a 3-year warranty, I was a few months over it anyways. So I decided to buy a new machine. Nonetheless, knowing that <$2 in parts would probably revive my 7520 is extraordinarily frustrating...
Given the scope of the problem, it would possibly make sense to modularize the power supply circuits so they are easily replaceable, but that would probably increase production costs a bit. But surely Dell has already crunched the numbers about this to make the business case for its present course of action.
thiyad
5 Posts
1
December 31st, 2016 21:00
Another motherboard replacement story. I also face similar issue where my laptop motherboard got replaced twice ( four hardware failure incident within 4 years ). I believe the motherboard hardware Dell uses is profanity and not reliable.
I heard that they replace the existing one with refurbished motherboard when our laptop is within warranty time.
Which is Dell policy =
Dell will use reconditioned parts for all customers once outside the first 30 days from the original Dell invoice date.
Regarding the design, It has to be a quality one and really it has to be modular. For small parts we shouldn't be replacing whole motherboard. I think the quality these guys offers is not what they promise and not up to the par. Our money is not valued. They want to expire soon the laptops they make thus making us to purchase a new one every few years.