I disagree on a couple of grounds, but this thread is appearing hijacked. I want no part of that, so will not debate about non relevant issues after I make one last comment. To accuse me of twisting your words is a bit of hypocrisy. Look at your own posts...
Moving back on topic.....
The point of this thread was that Dell is offering a warranty enhancement for affected systems that is equal to or better than any other PC maker for this issue.
Good job Dell.
To the poster who wanted to know if this was an automatic warranty enhancement, I do not know, and would be cautious unless you heard straight from Dell.
"The point of this thread was that Dell is offering a warranty enhancement for affected systems that is equal to or better than any other PC maker for this issue.
Good job Dell. "
huh, it's like 3 guys named HP,DELL,Lenovo murdered you, and DELL put some flower in front of your gravestone, really GOOD JOB.
yeah my thread was hijacked, i wish someone would answer my question. but now that its buried under all this stuff i doubt it will be :(
i want to know if the "Warranty enhancement" is automatic or not because my warranty is about to expire in a few days and the dell reps that i talk to on phone have no idea about this whole faulty chipset ordeal and my questions is
will my service tag still be recognized if my original warranty expires?
yeah my thread was hijacked, i wish someone would answer my question. but now that its buried under all this stuff i doubt it will be :(
i want to know if the "Warranty enhancement" is automatic or not because my warranty is about to expire in a few days and the dell reps that i talk to on phone have no idea about this whole faulty chipset ordeal and my questions is
will my service tag still be recognized if my original warranty expires?
I think the details on how it will be implemented are still being hashed out, as Lionel hasn't posted an update to Direct2Dell about it yet. Once the details get worked out, he will post the information, and you'll have your definite answer on how it all will work. If this work as they have in the past for similar warranty extensions, then it would be done automatically, with nothing special being done by the customer.
The reason the techs you spoke to continue to tell you that you would have to pay for the repairs right now is that we haven't yet implemented the extension. Once it is in place, you should be able to call regular tech support, explain the probelms you are having and get the appropriate service set up.
And I have to chime in on the "heat can't cause physical damage" topic. Two words: Thermal Expansion. Just using the system causes components to heat up. That causes the parts to expand (thermal expansion). Over time, that causes components to wear down and, eventually, fail. This is the same as bending a wire back and forth until it breaks. It takes longer with thermal expansion, but it does still happen. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the major cause of electronic component failures is the stress of suddenly having current running through the system at power-on (the most likely time for a component to fail).
Then there is mean time between failure (MTBF) for electronics. If the MTBF is 10,000 days, but you have 10,000 component, then statistically any one part could fail on any given day. How many transisters and other electronic components are in a modern computer? The last numbers I heard (admittedly, a decade ago) were 1000 day MTBF for computer parts ... and RAM uses a lot of transisters ...
IRT Thermal Expansion: This is exactly one of the arguments going in favour of engineering defect. When heat is applied, matter expands, as the bonds between atoms expand due to the higher energy level. However, with the absence of the higher energy, matter will contract again.
The use of the correct materials will have the contracted states before and after the heat application the same.
Some "wrong" materials may be: materials that rely on a non-crystaline chemical structure, where the material has a tendancy to form naturally in a crystaline lattice. In this case, repeated application of heat -> cool will change the material from being "liquidy / smooth / malleable" to brittle.
Another engineering defect may be that the housing or structure of components do not cater for the expansion within the operational parameters, thus causing friction and wear and tear. i.e. a 4cm x 4cm component is given 4.5cm x 4.5cm space, when at it's max operational capacity, it is 4.52cm x 4.52cm.
As for the second, MTBF... you sound like a smart man, and you know as well as I do that statistics lie.
Usually when I've heard of thermal expansion cause stuff to break, it is because two connected peices expand/contract at differing rates or amounts. The difference causes stresses greater than just the thermal expansion alone, and can pull the differring peices apart.
I have no idea if this is part of the problem the nVidia cards are running into or not, however. (Most of you guys probably know more than I do about these particular failures. ;))
hrova
2 Intern
•
2.2K Posts
0
August 28th, 2008 13:00
I disagree on a couple of grounds, but this thread is appearing hijacked. I want no part of that, so will not debate about non relevant issues after I make one last comment. To accuse me of twisting your words is a bit of hypocrisy. Look at your own posts...
Moving back on topic.....
The point of this thread was that Dell is offering a warranty enhancement for affected systems that is equal to or better than any other PC maker for this issue.
Good job Dell.
To the poster who wanted to know if this was an automatic warranty enhancement, I do not know, and would be cautious unless you heard straight from Dell.
fleshbody
4 Posts
0
August 28th, 2008 15:00
"The point of this thread was that Dell is offering a warranty enhancement for affected systems that is equal to or better than any other PC maker for this issue.
Good job Dell. "
huh, it's like 3 guys named HP,DELL,Lenovo murdered you, and DELL put some flower in front of your gravestone, really GOOD JOB.
gtribe
3 Posts
0
August 28th, 2008 16:00
yeah my thread was hijacked, i wish someone would answer my question. but now that its buried under all this stuff i doubt it will be :(
i want to know if the "Warranty enhancement" is automatic or not because my warranty is about to expire in a few days and the dell reps that i talk to on phone have no idea about this whole faulty chipset ordeal and my questions is
will my service tag still be recognized if my original warranty expires?
Larry R
2 Intern
•
1.7K Posts
0
August 28th, 2008 20:00
I think the details on how it will be implemented are still being hashed out, as Lionel hasn't posted an update to Direct2Dell about it yet. Once the details get worked out, he will post the information, and you'll have your definite answer on how it all will work. If this work as they have in the past for similar warranty extensions, then it would be done automatically, with nothing special being done by the customer.
The reason the techs you spoke to continue to tell you that you would have to pay for the repairs right now is that we haven't yet implemented the extension. Once it is in place, you should be able to call regular tech support, explain the probelms you are having and get the appropriate service set up.
And I have to chime in on the "heat can't cause physical damage" topic. Two words: Thermal Expansion. Just using the system causes components to heat up. That causes the parts to expand (thermal expansion). Over time, that causes components to wear down and, eventually, fail. This is the same as bending a wire back and forth until it breaks. It takes longer with thermal expansion, but it does still happen. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the major cause of electronic component failures is the stress of suddenly having current running through the system at power-on (the most likely time for a component to fail).
Then there is mean time between failure (MTBF) for electronics. If the MTBF is 10,000 days, but you have 10,000 component, then statistically any one part could fail on any given day. How many transisters and other electronic components are in a modern computer? The last numbers I heard (admittedly, a decade ago) were 1000 day MTBF for computer parts ... and RAM uses a lot of transisters ...
jkim78
62 Posts
0
August 28th, 2008 23:00
Hi Larry,
Thanks for the response.
IRT Thermal Expansion: This is exactly one of the arguments going in favour of engineering defect. When heat is applied, matter expands, as the bonds between atoms expand due to the higher energy level. However, with the absence of the higher energy, matter will contract again.
The use of the correct materials will have the contracted states before and after the heat application the same.
Some "wrong" materials may be: materials that rely on a non-crystaline chemical structure, where the material has a tendancy to form naturally in a crystaline lattice. In this case, repeated application of heat -> cool will change the material from being "liquidy / smooth / malleable" to brittle.
Another engineering defect may be that the housing or structure of components do not cater for the expansion within the operational parameters, thus causing friction and wear and tear. i.e. a 4cm x 4cm component is given 4.5cm x 4.5cm space, when at it's max operational capacity, it is 4.52cm x 4.52cm.
As for the second, MTBF... you sound like a smart man, and you know as well as I do that statistics lie.
Larry R
2 Intern
•
1.7K Posts
0
August 29th, 2008 13:00
Usually when I've heard of thermal expansion cause stuff to break, it is because two connected peices expand/contract at differing rates or amounts. The difference causes stresses greater than just the thermal expansion alone, and can pull the differring peices apart.
I have no idea if this is part of the problem the nVidia cards are running into or not, however. (Most of you guys probably know more than I do about these particular failures. ;))