Question: Warranty Repair Expectations

Call for support - unless there's clear evidence the damage was accidental (case or screen damage from a drop) it should be covered.

I do not believe that. I am thinking the rep might be confusing the adapter rather than the system. The dc jack is on the motherboard and as such IS covered by the warranty. I would call Dell Support. More than likely unless you are still under or selected onsite warranty you may have to send the system into a Dell repair center.

A longer response, including an extract from a response from Dell which included the chat-name (not actual name) of a Dell employee, my case number, and a URL for hardware support,  was deleted by a system moderator for this reason: "Your post contains language that we believe reveals non-public information about Dell or another company or person".  As the response from the system moderator does not indicate which part of the post they found objectionable, I will simply stop here, and say thank you to the people who supplied this helpful information. I will pursue it.

billreith,

Sorry you are having problems with your laptop.  If you would please Friend Me, then send me a Private Message including your Order Number, Customer Number, Service Tag, and a Telephone Number where you can be reached, I'd be glad to see what I can do to help you resolve this.   Thanks.

Regards,

Robert

A followup:  I raised the question this morning with hardware support, making it clear that I meant the jack, and not the plug.  They said (and lets hope this isn't considered secret), "if you would have the complete care warranty on the system then the jack would have been covered, but as you do not have it, so it is not covered"

As before, I am surprised by the extremely limited nature of Dell's warranty.  If anyone has thoughts about this, I would be interested in hearing them.

Thank you.

Thank you.  I see that the Friend function worked.  As soon as I can figure out how to send the private message, I will do that.  I appreciate your help.

Hi Bill,

Yes this Forum has a feature where you can add people to your Friends.  Please click on my name below my picture (Dell-Robert P), go to my profile, and add me to your Friends.  That way we can communicate and others will not be able to see your information.

Thanks,

Robert

No worries, I sent one to you.  Just reply to it.

Thanks,

Robert

I would be delighted, but I don't know what you mean by 'friend you', unless you're talking about Facebook or something similar.  Is there an equivilent function within this forum?

Bill

An update -- while I was talking to the chat-person two days ago, she offered to have the damaged LCD screen (which is unrelated to the power problem) repaired under warranty.  The catch is that the repair has to be done within seven days of entering the repair ticket (which I didn't know - the repair guy called me yesterday).  Had I known, I would have waited until this was resolved, but apparently that's no longer an option.

So - though we still feel that the DC power jack failure on a four month old laptop  ought to be somethng that Dell covers under warranty, we need to get it fixed so that we can charge the battery  so that the LCD repair guy can fix the screen before the seven-day timer runs out.  (We wish we could charge the battery externally, but  the DC jack is the only way to get power to the battery to charge it )

Consequently, we're going to call the Dell warranty people and find out what it would cost to have the jack repaired at our own expense, and if it can be done before the LCD screen timer expires.

So sorry billreith about your laptop jack.  I am going through a similar problem with Dell, my 3 month old hard drive failed due to a firmware issue, and I'm still trying to get some resolution with Dell.  They did install a different hard drive, which was great, but I'm pushing for some resolution about my lost data, in the end I contacted the company that made the hard drive-they seem to be very helpful so far, and may actually fix my problem for me.

I know our problems are different, but if your problem is related to your motherboard (like one poster who answered you suggested) you might want to consider contacting that company directly, who knows, it's worth a shot?  This may be a huge no no, and it may render your warrenty with Dell useless, so this may not be the option to take.

Good luck,

Kendra

Good morning.  Just checking in to see if there is any new status or information.

Our attempt to have the laptop DC power jack repaired quickly was a failure -- apparently, if we want to do that, even if we're paying for it ourselves, we have to send it away for repair -- no on site work. Therefore, we're back to waiting for the LCD repair.

Kendra --

thanks very much for your comments.  What ended up happening what that I was called by someone from Customer Resolution (I think that was the name), who arranged to have a tech come to the house and replace the motherboard, with DC Jack.  He also replaced the LCD screen, and even fixed the loose hinge that I hadn't mentioned.  So, right this minute, we look to be in good shape - certainly, much better off than I would have expected, a week ago.  The performance of these people, up to and including the local service guy, really restored my faith in Dell products.

I hope you have the same kind of luck!

It is nice to hear a Postive post on Dell support. There are a lot more but usually only the negative ones get reported here.