Going to be a long post, sorry in advance. Noticed a couple of weeks ago that my trackpad was raising up out of the computer.  About a week ago it stopped working correctly. The trackpad is now distended over 1/8th of an inch over the level of the "deck". Today I received a notice from Dell that they've received reports of swelling batteries, that they were offering battery replacements, and that my service tag was identified as a potentially affected computer - they'd even send a tech out to me to install the battery if I didn't feel comfortable (I do but beside the point).  Huzzah! I thought, a company out in front of issues for once!  To be careful in today's world, I wanted to verify the service tag number in the email before clicking the link in the email just in case it was a particularly clever phishing email.

That's when my night went south.  I tilted the computer up to read the tag number and it went dark.  No fanfare or anything, just no power anymore.  Set it back down and pushed the power button.  Silence and then the BIOS code for CPU failure...  Started standard troubleshooting (all peripherals unplugged through pulling the SSD and memory to try to get it to do anything but 2 amber, 1 white flash.  Unfortunately no change.  Decided to call Dell support (as instructed in the email) and was told I needed to be transferred to non-warranty repair.  At the point when he said I'd have to pay for support I explained (not rudely) about the "recall" email.  He transferred me to warranty service...who promptly transfer me to non-warranty service.  I explained the situation they again and was told that I would have to send it in to the "depot", that it may be up to 15 business days, and that I'd be charged for repairs other than the battery.

I explained that logic would dictate that the battery swelling and/or voltage issues arising from that were likely to blame for the other problems.  I also explained that this computer had already been to the depot two or three times already for factory issues.  I told him to hold the progress.  Furious is too mild of a word for how I feel.  I now have a $2500 paperweight that Dell caused the failure in via faulty parts.  I pulled the rear cover to verify swelling and four of the cells are like balloons, the wrapping is beginning to separate at the corners.  In addition there is a clearly visible component of the motherboard that is fried, I'd suspect that's what went when the computer went dark.  To add insult to injury, I tried to remove the battery to get it stored in a location that wouldn't burn the house down if it decided to catch fire only to find that one of the screws holding the battery in is stripped, I haven't been able to compete removal of the battery because of this.

I would greatly appreciate some help, phone support has me so angry (I was never rude, in fact madE sure to keep my voice as calm as possible throughout) that I can't see straight.  I've had almost every Inbee of the major issues with this computer that have shown up on this forum and I love the computer when it's actually working correctly.

I've removed the SSD to (hopefully, unless it fried too) preserve my data and will try to find a safe place to store the entire computer away from anything even remotely flammable, just in case.  

Chris