I am basically having the same problem with my 5150. I ordered my dell the aug 28 2004. From the beginning my computer would shut off. Not being familiar with XP, I thought it was just me, until Around Sept 18th (not even a month later) My laptop would not power up. The green light came on and I can here a fan noise, but no screen. I spent about 2 hours on the phone with Dell tech until he finally had me send it back to them. A week later they told me it was my fault. They said the motherboard had white powder to indicate corrosion and I had spilt water on it. (NO WAY) I had only used the computer maybe 4 times because I had just got hooked up with cable modem. Dell told me it would be $700 replace motherboard. I am so frustrated. I NEVER spilled water on the darn thing. I can not believe I've had the computer for such a short time, Spent all this money and then they want me to spend another $700. Needless to say, I now have a worthless laptop at home. Could not afford to fix it at this time. Now that I have found that so many other people are having problems, I will fight dell. Any suggestions?
ouch that hurts hey wasnt a certain part of the mobo (the part that was being damaged from the heat) turning white? could the same thing have happened to seaside too?
Well all I got to say is keep fighting nothing more I can say....
Maybe you havent noticed but anything from when copmuters first came out and around that time era (Pentium 1 and stuff) Copmuters, Electronics and everything else was built much more rugidly and could last so much longer. I still have my Micron Pentium 1 Computer hooked up and running, alon with my HP 670c which is really old and still none of them have had a single problem!
Todays products are made with the cheapest parts by the cheapest people and sold for ridiculous amounts. You would think that as technology improved and time went on products would be better than before but I have to say todays stuff are just not good enough.
I have so many things that I too have abused repeatedly and work better than new things that I purchase. lol
Back to the Issue at hand Dell is plain horrible...
It seems that they are rather arbitrary and capricious in their way of dealing with this motherboard problem.
Several people have reported that they tried everything they could to avoid fixing their design flaw.
For me, it was simple. They had me try a couple of quick things, and told me rather matter-of-factly that I needed a new motherboard. The speed in which they decided told me that replacing the mother board was all to common of a fix, and led me to google to this page. It was obvious that this problem was happening to way too many people.
A wise person told me to buy "drop" insurance if I was going to buy a laptop. From hearing your story, I'm glad I did.
Bottom line - i love my laptop, but I realize that it's terminal. I'll try to keep it on life-support as long as I can, but its not going to last as long as I had hoped. But I can guarantee you this - the replacement is going to be from ANOTHER VENDOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Funny thing is, my 8 year old HP 166 box is plugging right along. And I abused it for years when I was writing my book.
add me to the list of 5150 users having the same problem. i would say around the last week of august i started experiencing the touchy restart thing. at that time i was still under the 1 year warrenty (purchased oct 14, 03) and Dell sent me a new board. after some hours of taking apart the laptop i replaced the board and fixed the problem. i only replaced the board at the time... one bit of advice if your planning on doing this, just make sure you remember where the screws go... oh and you don't have to take the screen off of the base to take out the board. after you remove the keyboard assembly etc.. from the top just close the lid and proceed to take the remainder of the screws off. be carefull also when putting this thing togather.. if lower cover is not closing properly there is probably a good reason for it.. don't force it. also remember to plug the cables back into place.. i forgot the sound cables and had to reopen the case! my recommendation is to send in the machine to get the stuff replaced but if your short on time and can't be without a machine just have them overnight the replacement parts for you and you can get the job done in a few hours... at night. took a couple of days to get the board over to me in my situation.. good luck...
You can add me as someone who has this problem now too. My warranty just expired on the 4th of this month (and this hadn't happened once at that point). Last night, it just *poof* went off and since then I've been having this problem (goes to that zombie state if you move it or occasionally even if not moving it).
I'd try contacting Dell straight away. I was a couple of days outside of my warranty, and they fixed it for me without charging. Not sure if this was a mistake, or if it's Dell policy to do this.
I've known the 5160 has been out for a while, but I just noticed the 5150 doesn't appear on the Dell shopping cart. Does this mean they discontinued it / realized that it was flawed and are quitely putting it out to pasture?
prbly the 5160 is exactly the same as the 5150 so it probably will have the same flaws unless dell found a way to fix it. Another reason why I beleve that they changed it is because the 5150 was marketed as a gaming machine even though it couldnt do it (sluggush with games of Direct X9) so thats why they released/ replaced it with the 5160 as a balance between power and price... oh well My 5150 is repaired and working fine so I dont care right now.
Add my name to the list as well as another 5150 victim of the electrical short/shutdown problem. I purchased mine on Jan. 15, 2004 and used it just about every day. This problem was encountered on Dec 12, 2004. Still under warranty thank god. But I'm probably going to have to buy a motherboard on eBay when this happens again next year. :-(
This is nothing new to me. I was plagued by the Inspiron 3800 CPU chip not seating properly and had the exact same problem! I had to replace that motherboard 3 times during ownership of that laptop. Remind me again why I bought a Dell?
Some stats:
1) Dell was very helpful with their customer service.... BUT, I was on hold for 1 hour, 21 minutes. The tech guy I spoke with was in Panama (the country of) and barely spoke English.
2) Dell is doing the ship the box to me and I mail it off thing. I assume they're replacing the motherboard.
Wow so many posting, I read all the way through page 15, then got courious and paged to the end. (I feel like I am back in school, skipping to the end like that) , So if I missed anything please let me know.
I too am experiencing the same problem. I can not move my computer at all, this problem started around Thankgiving 2004, computer was purchased aug, 2003.
Since I am out of warrenty I have completely disassembled my 5150, upon reassembling it still doesn not work. BTW I am a network admin with more than a decade of experience with computer, troubleshooting and have built many, many desktops.
I have found nothing on the motherboard that looks in error, such as discoloration, I have even gone as far as to reset the prossessor. But I am sure from experience and from what postings I read that it is the motherboard, and I hope that dell does a recall them.
Did anyone else experience the system post telling you the time was incorrect (like the bios battery was dead)?
My 5150 is about 18 months old, It gets used 6 of 7 days of the week, from house to car to work everyday, even use in car with cell modem, Taken to lans, have been careful with, but its had its minor bumps now and then. Point being, its very well used, but i do keep it clean with compressed air. Fan always ran on low, unless major usage.
Well, what is different recently is, using wireless Linksys Wirless card in the last month.
What was different last night b4 i went to sleep was, i set laptop down on my notebook tray (helps ventilation) backwards, not noticing the exhaust was partially blocked, this making the exhaust that did come out to be basicly recycled. I was up really late, my fault!
So I woke up this morning to fan on medium to high, i picked up laptop within 10 seconds the fan slowed to normal, but bottom was hotter than usual, then suddenly it powered off!!
This is when it started. all because i let it get too hot. It all makes so much sense now after reading all this. My only thing to do at this point i feel is to send to Joe, let them do there magic. Knowing they can fix it, and prevent it again is good as an extended warranty and a fair price.
If at all i made any sense, Im really drained from a long weekend then to have this happend today and then read 55 pages.
Would someone with a digital camera be willing to take pictures of the 5150 and e-mail them to me (for use on the website - I finally have time to work on it)? I'm looking for 3 types of pictures:
1. Underside of the computer (with and without the panels removed) - possibly even close-up pictures of known problems areas
2. View of the computer from behind (with screen up), and all sides
3. View of the computer with the screen up and taken from an angle so that it looks like this
_______
\ \
\ \
/ / /
/ / /
This will be for making an image that points out problem areas on the computer. My e-mail address is
i5150users@yahoo.com
Visit our 5150 forum at ez-board.com
http://p068.ezboard.com/bi5150users <-contains useful information
Psc777 I would say that the reason that your comp shutoff was because it probably reached its highest level and windows shuts it down but since your saying that when you apply pressure its shutting down well... Join the Club Please take a number and wait to be never serviced or recongized by Dell
"You're not cut out for an autmoatic in the first place. You tend to twist your elbow to absorb the recoil. Thats more of a revolver technique." - Solid Snake, MGS3
seaside204
4 Posts
0
December 17th, 2004 18:00
METALGEAR
106 Posts
0
December 17th, 2004 18:00
METALGEAR
106 Posts
0
December 17th, 2004 19:00
Maybe you havent noticed but anything from when copmuters first came out and around that time era (Pentium 1 and stuff) Copmuters, Electronics and everything else was built much more rugidly and could last so much longer. I still have my Micron Pentium 1 Computer hooked up and running, alon with my HP 670c which is really old and still none of them have had a single problem!
Todays products are made with the cheapest parts by the cheapest people and sold for ridiculous amounts. You would think that as technology improved and time went on products would be better than before but I have to say todays stuff are just not good enough.
I have so many things that I too have abused repeatedly and work better than new things that I purchase. lol
Back to the Issue at hand Dell is plain horrible...
pdbramble
12 Posts
0
December 17th, 2004 19:00
hbages
1 Message
0
December 17th, 2004 22:00
Message Edited by hbages on 12-17-2004 07:09 PM
Eck68
2 Posts
0
December 19th, 2004 03:00
You can add me as someone who has this problem now too. My warranty just expired on the 4th of this month (and this hadn't happened once at that point). Last night, it just *poof* went off and since then I've been having this problem (goes to that zombie state if you move it or occasionally even if not moving it).
--Chris
cordless_larry
69 Posts
0
December 19th, 2004 09:00
pdbramble
12 Posts
0
December 19th, 2004 13:00
METALGEAR
106 Posts
0
December 19th, 2004 15:00
pmm1018
1 Message
0
December 19th, 2004 16:00
Add my name to the list as well as another 5150 victim of the electrical short/shutdown problem. I purchased mine on Jan. 15, 2004 and used it just about every day. This problem was encountered on Dec 12, 2004. Still under warranty thank god. But I'm probably going to have to buy a motherboard on eBay when this happens again next year. :-(
This is nothing new to me. I was plagued by the Inspiron 3800 CPU chip not seating properly and had the exact same problem! I had to replace that motherboard 3 times during ownership of that laptop. Remind me again why I bought a Dell?
Some stats:
1) Dell was very helpful with their customer service.... BUT, I was on hold for 1 hour, 21 minutes. The tech guy I spoke with was in Panama (the country of) and barely spoke English.
2) Dell is doing the ship the box to me and I mail it off thing. I assume they're replacing the motherboard.
kzimm200
3 Posts
0
December 19th, 2004 20:00
Wow so many posting, I read all the way through page 15, then got courious and paged to the end. (I feel like I am back in school, skipping to the end like that) , So if I missed anything please let me know.
I too am experiencing the same problem. I can not move my computer at all, this problem started around Thankgiving 2004, computer was purchased aug, 2003.
Since I am out of warrenty I have completely disassembled my 5150, upon reassembling it still doesn not work. BTW I am a network admin with more than a decade of experience with computer, troubleshooting and have built many, many desktops.
METALGEAR
106 Posts
0
December 19th, 2004 21:00
psc777
20 Posts
0
December 19th, 2004 22:00
Message Edited by psc777 on 12-19-200406:27 PM
Message Edited by psc777 on 12-19-2004 06:43 PM
aznman43
62 Posts
0
December 20th, 2004 15:00
http://p068.ezboard.com/bi5150users <-contains useful information
Dell Inspiron 5150 Users Website
http://www.geocities.com/i5150users/
METALGEAR
106 Posts
0
December 20th, 2004 18:00