In all likelihood, you need a new system board. This is not an inexpensive repair - even if you buy one secondhand (try www.parts-people.com), you're looking at a few hundred dollars just for the board.
If you decide to buy a new system, no matter who sells it, make sure you get a 3-year warranty. Spending $120-150 up front may save you from 3-4 times that amount in repairs down the road.
Always buy a 3+ year warrantee on a laptop, I have NEVER seen anyone lose money doing so. Everyone I know has had some part (most frequently the screen) die before 3 years. On laptops, any repair is worth more then the warrantee cost.
As a side note, I would not expect a company to help me if I had not purchased a service contract. They can't help people for free unfortunately however nice it would be.
I am sorry about your problem regardless. A while back before I bought a new laptop I used to try and salvage old ones by cobbling them together from several broken ones. From the sound of it, the power management components of the system have burnt out. The parts that clean the power from the battery and powersupply for use by the more sensitive components in the system. Without a degree or at least a good deal of working knowledge in Electrical Engineering I really doubt you could fix it on your own. Repairing laptops is tremendously difficult unfortunately.
thanks for the input guys ~ I was almost sure it was the mainboard. You know as customers I tend to think we get what we expect from firms. Years ago when I bought my first Dell it was with the understanding that they were reliable machines and if they did have a mechanical failure ~ well Dell was there to offer advice , even if they couldnt fix it, if it was out of warranty etc. Generally desktops are easily fixable, by most of us anyway. But with a notebook ~ they're not so easily fixable as a desktop and therefore the build quality should be much better, given the higher cost of them. My particular notebook was only used a couple of times a month ~if that, and with that sort of usage you wouldnt expect a serious failure of components before it reached its second birthday.
You can be sure that I'm doing my research now for firms with build quality reliability and probably just as importantly in-house tech support. I'll certainly be taking out the additional warranty though. :)
ejn63
9 Legend
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87.5K Posts
0
December 18th, 2004 22:00
If you decide to buy a new system, no matter who sells it, make sure you get a 3-year warranty. Spending $120-150 up front may save you from 3-4 times that amount in repairs down the road.
NemesisDB
2 Intern
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7.9K Posts
0
December 18th, 2004 23:00
they should help him for free ... up until very recent purchases, dell offered *lifetime* tech support.
now i agree that in all likelyhood there's nothing they can do short of a new MB, but they should still offer support ;p
Keleios
7 Posts
0
December 18th, 2004 23:00
jmillar
3 Posts
0
December 19th, 2004 11:00
thanks for the input guys ~ I was almost sure it was the mainboard. You know as customers I tend to think we get what we expect from firms. Years ago when I bought my first Dell it was with the understanding that they were reliable machines and if they did have a mechanical failure ~ well Dell was there to offer advice , even if they couldnt fix it, if it was out of warranty etc. Generally desktops are easily fixable, by most of us anyway. But with a notebook ~ they're not so easily fixable as a desktop and therefore the build quality should be much better, given the higher cost of them. My particular notebook was only used a couple of times a month ~if that, and with that sort of usage you wouldnt expect a serious failure of components before it reached its second birthday.
You can be sure that I'm doing my research now for firms with build quality reliability and probably just as importantly in-house tech support. I'll certainly be taking out the additional warranty though. :)
maples
6 Posts
0
January 18th, 2005 21:00