warranty Dell Studio XPS 16

luxl,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

Dell will only support the original OS that was shipped with your computer. This will only affect the software warranty and not the hardware warranty. Dell does not have Ubuntu drivers for this system.

I think that most people who install Linux on their system don't depend on software warranty ;), the thing is, that this support employee said that installing linux would affect the hardware warranty too.

I asked something similar like "what if my powerfan is defect, will this be out of warranty if i had installed linux?" and she answered something like "how do you think to get support if you have installed linux".

However...

Thank you for your answer!

I also spoke with pre-sales support before placing an order for the XPS 16 - and am going to install Intrepid 64bit on it as soon as it arrives.

I was told nothing about an impact on warranty - my request was whether I could get it without Windows installed (preferably at a discount!). I was told that Dell would ship it to me without operating system, but not offer any discount - so I chose to get it with the OS even though I will delete it.

Since I was offered that they would ship the laptop without an OS; the hardware warranty must be unaffected by your choice of OS.

Not to hijack the thread, but Soren M I'm very interested in getting Ubuntu 64 working on my XPS 16.  Was there a particular recommended howto/wiki that you followed for getting it working on your system?

No special howto/wiki - just plain old Ubuntu 8.10.

Everything worked out-of-the-box so to speak; even had Skype pick up the webcam. Things that DIDN'T work (or at least I haven't figured out how to fix yet):

- The built-in TV Tuner (I never considered this a requirement, so never bothered me)

- Speakers... they work... but, I use the head-phone plug to hook the laptop to my amplifier/speakers. Yet, even with the the cable plugged in to the head-phone plug, there is still sound coming out of the laptop speakers. This hasn't proven to be a problem for me, but I can see how some people might find that annoying. There may be a simple solution to this, but since it hasn't bothered me, I haven't looked into this too much.

(I did try Jaunty Alpha 4, but unless it has improved much in the past month, I would recommend 8.10 until Jaunty is realeased in April).

And remember, you can always try the install cd as a live cd, and try it out that way before taking the plunge and installing Ubuntu! :)

Sweet!  Many thanks!  I'll give it a whirl tonigh.:emotion-2:

Hi all,

recently i bought a studio xps 16. Very nice pc. really. The first thing I did is to install ubuntu leaving a little partition for vista. I install Ubuntu 9.04. Everything works perfectly. Maybe the temperature of the case the higher using ubuntu than vista but it's not a big problem.

I have another big problem, happening in ubuntu but not in vista.

Pressing the key "alt gr", "./:", ",/;" ( refering to a spanish keyboard , in practice all the keys in the last row of the keyboard on right side ) , causes a strong noise in the right-side speaker. I noted that also pressing down the case near those keys causes the noise. Sometimes, the noise appears when Ubuntu boots. Never it happens when Vista boots.

It seems like an electric contact between keys and speaker, but an electric contact should happens not depending by os.

Does somebody have some idea about how to solve the problem?

I need ubuntu for job!

PD the problems appears with ubuntu 9.04 32bit, 9.04 64 bit, 8.04 64 bit, tomorrow i'll try with 8.04 32 bit.

Hi pierocasale,

Unfortunately (or fortunately for me) I cannot reproduce your problem on my laptop. I think you will be wasting your time by spending more time with 8.04 32 bit.

I do remember that I had random strange issues when testing an alpha of 9.04 - so when yoiu say 9.04 is that a pure 9.04 or have you updated afterwards?

Personally, I am using 9.04 64bit with everything updated to latest versions (i.e. "sudo apt-get update;sudo apt-get upgrade")

Only other difference in our setups that springs to mind is that you are using a Spanish keyboard layout and I'm using an English one. If you are still experiencing the noise issue after upgrading everything in 9.04, then try (just as a temporary test) changing keyboard layout to English - this could help narrow down what the problem is.

If none of the above solves or indicates what the problem is, then I think it may be hardware even if Windows is not showing the same symptoms. Unfortunately, I don't think Dell support will be very helpful since the only supported operating system is Vista, and you are not experiencing any problems with Vista...

I did a quick google of your problem (but leaving out that it was a Dell laptop), but found no hits - you may also want to try the Ubuntu bug-tracking system and check anything relating to sound.

Hi Soren M,

fortunately for you, i guess!

before posting my problem, i searched in google but i was not able to find anything. I'va tried with ubuntu 9.04 with and without updates and the problem was still present.

I also tried changing the keyboard layout but the problem was still present.

Anyway, after my post yesterday night, I remove the battery from the laptop. I started my laptop one hour ago and, up to now, I heard no noise. Maybe the problem might be due to the high temperature present in the case??!!!!

Thankyou for the answer.

Hi,

Sorry to bump an old thread, but will the software warrany be valid if I re-install the orignal OS?

IANAL but there is no reason why it shouldn't be valid - re-installing the original OS is sometimes needed with Windows, so the mere act of re-installing it shouldn't break the warranty. That is of course assuming you use the original re-install disks with all the Dell drivers.

Once you have re-installed Windows there should be nothing to distinguish a PC that used to run Linux but now runs Windows from one that always ran Windows but now has been re-installed.

So unless there is some small paragraph, which I haven't found, hidden away somewhere in some terms and conditions preventing you from re-installing Windows, then the original software warranty should be valid.