My 5150 just returned today from the repair center in Tennessee. They replaced the system board and upgraded the bios. I wish I had more info for y'all who are out of warranty. The unit certainly seems "tighter" and I haven't had any shutdowns. So far my experience with customer service has been mostly positive. I shipped it back on the 14th and they had it from the 18th until yesterday so the rapair actually took about a week. I will deffinately try to get my warranty extended because it expires in three weeks.
My 5150 came back today. Dell replaced the motherboard and fan. So far so good - and I think the new fan might be running a bit quieter than the old one, though maybe I'm just remembering it as being noisier than it really was.
Just one thing confuses me - it now has BIOS A36, and after the Dell screen at the start, but before the Windows XP splash screen, a Broadcom/Intel check comes up - it takes a few seconds, and then says that a drive is not found, please check the cable. I think it might be the floppy drive (I don't have one). The CD drive is working fine, so it can't be that.
Anyone else get this? Can I get rid of it? Strange thing is that when I updated to A36 before it went back to Dell, it didn't add this test then.
Worked it out - they'd changed the boot sequence in the BIOS so that it was trying to boot from the network card before the hard drive. I've moved the network card down the sequence, and it's now booting as normal.
I rebooted to see the name of the thing that runs on startup. It's Intel PXE 2.1.
From the net:
"Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) is an industry standard client/server interface that allows networked computers that are not yet loaded with an operating system to be configured and booted remotely by an administrator".
I guess it's something they used during the repair. Any ideas on how I get rid of it?
Message Edited by cordless_larry on 10-27-2004 10:37 PM
Larry, glad you got your system going. Let us know if any new 'surprises'.
Onila, A36 is the next-to-most recent 5150 BIOS release. Check out the BIOS threads for users' experience with it. Dell changed the fan profiles in A36 and A37. Threads go into excruciating detail on consequenses of this.
Larry - good to hear you are another user whose repair has worked out. I just wonder why they didnt fix your boot sequence before they sent it back. Sure it was next to nothing.. but its thet principal.
I have noticed my notebook temps are around 50c when nothing is going on.. it goes up and down but that is about the average. They told me they cleaned my heat sink but I just wonder why the temps are higher now. I used to average around 40ish..
Just when I was typing a message to this forum, my laptop quit out on me again as I was typing a post just a minute ago! I can't believe that the mobo's need to be replaced with these things? Maybe they're thin and flimsy or maybe the soldering isn't up to snuff. To me it seems like a short somewhere or maybe the heatsink is coming unglued or something? My CPU runs all over the place with temps. This morning it was 30c (for about an hour) and then I took it to my office and it booted up in the mid 40's C, then it freaked and it booted up to the low 50's C. Before it restarted just a minute ago it was running mid 40's and as soon as I powered it off and restarted it booted up to low 50's. That just doesn't seem right to me. Sort of like the heat sink is failing. Anyone else have any thoughts? I think I'm running 36 or 37 BIOS.
I wouldn't worry about the tempature. 50C (122F) is perfectly normal. CPUs don't melt down until about 160F - 180F (71C - 82C) Depending on your processor of course, just check intel's site for normal temps. Besides, intel built on a thermal diode since the P3 that tunes down the processor (thus, generating less heat) and prevents killing itself. Tom's Hardware Guide did an experiment.
Back to the topic, does your laptop reboot or do anything strange when you press on the "C" panel? or anywhere else on the underside?
BTW, what do you use to monitor your CPU temp? I've been looking for a replacment program :|
If you look back through the posts (particularly the first few), you'll notice that the laptops are all different ages, and the problems mainly started happening in the last week of September. So the fact that yours has only just started happening seems to disprove the theory that all the faults started happening simultaneously.
To answer your other question, yes, those that have been returned have been fixed - Dell are replacing the motherboards.
The last week of september! That's about when my problems started happening. I bought my 5150 around Christmas of last year. Its a 3.06ghz P4. What is the "C" panel? I monitor my temps with I8KFanGUI. I'll probably call them back up and see about replacing the mobo. Hate to be without my laptop though.
I'm still interested if Dell has a new revision of the motherboard, or are they replacing with mobos of the same design/revision as originals? When thermal dust problem was finally identified, Dell started shipping a re-designed copper heatsink. Are they doing the same with the (much more expen$ive) mobos? This is of significance to us, either way.
dead.meat
8 Posts
0
October 26th, 2004 17:00
cordless_larry
69 Posts
0
October 27th, 2004 16:00
My 5150 came back today. Dell replaced the motherboard and fan. So far so good - and I think the new fan might be running a bit quieter than the old one, though maybe I'm just remembering it as being noisier than it really was.
Just one thing confuses me - it now has BIOS A36, and after the Dell screen at the start, but before the Windows XP splash screen, a Broadcom/Intel check comes up - it takes a few seconds, and then says that a drive is not found, please check the cable. I think it might be the floppy drive (I don't have one). The CD drive is working fine, so it can't be that.
Anyone else get this? Can I get rid of it? Strange thing is that when I updated to A36 before it went back to Dell, it didn't add this test then.
cordless_larry
69 Posts
0
October 27th, 2004 20:00
cordless_larry
69 Posts
0
October 27th, 2004 20:00
Message Edited by cordless_larry on 10-27-2004 10:37 PM
Onila
13 Posts
0
October 27th, 2004 22:00
What is this A36? Should we get it? How does it help? How do we get it?
Thanks everyone!
dspman
306 Posts
0
October 27th, 2004 23:00
Larry, glad you got your system going. Let us know if any new 'surprises'.
Onila, A36 is the next-to-most recent 5150 BIOS release. Check out the BIOS threads for users' experience with it. Dell changed the fan profiles in A36 and A37. Threads go into excruciating detail on consequenses of this.
Onila
13 Posts
0
October 28th, 2004 11:00
KingSnake1
2 Intern
•
193 Posts
0
October 28th, 2004 11:00
Larry - good to hear you are another user whose repair has worked out. I just wonder why they didnt fix your boot sequence before they sent it back. Sure it was next to nothing.. but its thet principal.
I have noticed my notebook temps are around 50c when nothing is going on.. it goes up and down but that is about the average. They told me they cleaned my heat sink but I just wonder why the temps are higher now. I used to average around 40ish..
threepointonefo
39 Posts
0
October 28th, 2004 14:00
WOW, KingSnake1 just popped in to another thread and refered me to this one.
This is the exact same thing that is happening to me. I just have to ask... and lets really do this, EVERYONE...
WHEN DID YOU GET YOUR LAPTOP?
January 7th 2004
WHEN DID THE PROBLEM FIRST HAPPEN?
October 27th
mnorri
5 Posts
0
October 28th, 2004 15:00
Just when I was typing a message to this forum, my laptop quit out on me again as I was typing a post just a minute ago! I can't believe that the mobo's need to be replaced with these things? Maybe they're thin and flimsy or maybe the soldering isn't up to snuff. To me it seems like a short somewhere or maybe the heatsink is coming unglued or something? My CPU runs all over the place with temps. This morning it was 30c (for about an hour) and then I took it to my office and it booted up in the mid 40's C, then it freaked and it booted up to the low 50's C. Before it restarted just a minute ago it was running mid 40's and as soon as I powered it off and restarted it booted up to low 50's. That just doesn't seem right to me. Sort of like the heat sink is failing. Anyone else have any thoughts? I think I'm running 36 or 37 BIOS.
Cheers!
-Mack
threepointonefo
39 Posts
0
October 28th, 2004 16:00
I wouldn't worry about the tempature. 50C (122F) is perfectly normal. CPUs don't melt down until about 160F - 180F (71C - 82C) Depending on your processor of course, just check intel's site for normal temps. Besides, intel built on a thermal diode since the P3 that tunes down the processor (thus, generating less heat) and prevents killing itself. Tom's Hardware Guide did an experiment.
Back to the topic, does your laptop reboot or do anything strange when you press on the "C" panel? or anywhere else on the underside?
BTW, what do you use to monitor your CPU temp? I've been looking for a replacment program :|
-D
cordless_larry
69 Posts
0
October 28th, 2004 16:00
Threepointonefour:
If you look back through the posts (particularly the first few), you'll notice that the laptops are all different ages, and the problems mainly started happening in the last week of September. So the fact that yours has only just started happening seems to disprove the theory that all the faults started happening simultaneously.
mnorri
5 Posts
0
October 28th, 2004 17:00
The last week of september! That's about when my problems started happening. I bought my 5150 around Christmas of last year. Its a 3.06ghz P4. What is the "C" panel? I monitor my temps with I8KFanGUI. I'll probably call them back up and see about replacing the mobo. Hate to be without my laptop though.
Thanks!
-Mack
threepointonefo
39 Posts
0
October 28th, 2004 17:00
dspman
306 Posts
0
October 28th, 2004 17:00
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_bios&message.id=28015