Ethernet Jack extremely loose! Replacement?

Question

Hey Everyone:

I own the Dell Inspiron 5100 for nearly three years now. I never had any serious problems except for my Ethernet Jack being very loose on the back. This problem occurred when I first got this laptop. I looked inside the jack and I did notice the metal connecting pins were bent a little. I thought it was just the design of the ethernet jack and I didn't bother taking this up to DELL.

Until recently in the last two months, I noticed that my ethernet jack is not clicking with the cable properly everytime I insert the ethernet cable. The cable keeps getting loose after awhile. Windows XP notifies me when my network cable is disconnected. I looked inside the ethernet jack and noticing the bent part is getting worst. Mind you that I don't jam in the ethernet cable or a wrong cable into that jack. This problem occurs with every cable I've used / bought during the three year era of this laptop.

I'm still under the warranty and I'm wondering if Dell should be able to replace the ethernet jack or do I have to get the motherboard repaired? If I do need the motherboard replaced, should I take out my 1GB RAM that I recently installed?

Thanks

NemesisDB · Answer

dell's solution will be to replace the motherboard.  how this will occur will depend on what type of warranty you have.  if it's on site, a tech will come and replace the board.  as you will watch him/her, just make sure that no parts like your ram disappear.   if you decide to mail it in, remove any parts that you added (such as ram).  you don't need to replace this with the original ram -- sending it with none is a perfectly fine option).  you might also consider removing your hard drive as it's unrelated to the problem and it's always possible for them to decide to wipe it.   might be worth noting that the metal around my ethernet jack on my i5100 fell off a few months ago.  hasn't hurt anything *yet* so I don't feel like losing the computer a week for repairs :/ Message Edited by NemesisDB on 12-05-2005 12:59 AM

bacillus · Answer

If you don't feel like taking any action like sending back the laptop to tell then a simple workaround would be to purchase a PCMCIA network card.

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Ethernet Jack extremely loose! Replacement?

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