and the hits just keep on coming :-( (dead DVD drive now)

[kayatai]

Originally posted by: Mucman
I turn on the @$#@ thing and all I get is a blank screen now... the machine is booting, the HD light is going crazy, but nothing shows up on the screen. I try attaching a monitor and
nothing gets to the monitor as well...

sounds like the pin that tells if the lid is closed or not is on, somewhere above the f4 key on the keyboard. see if you can pop that out. otherwise the video cable is probably lose or something

 

[Mucman]

Originally posted by: kayatai

Originally posted by: Mucman
I turn on the @$#@ thing and all I get is a blank screen now... the machine is booting, the HD light is going crazy, but nothing shows up on the screen. I try attaching a monitor and
nothing gets to the monitor as well...

sounds like the pin that tells if the lid is closed or not is on, somewhere above the f4 key on the keyboard. see if you can pop that out. otherwise the video cable is probably lose or something

Ahh, good suggestion... the machine wouldn't even boot if it didn't detect a video
card, right?

 

[Mucman]

Played around some more with the button above F4 and took the battery in an out... turned it on a voila
the screen came back! I'll keep you posted if this is an ongoing issue. I really hope it's not.

 

[Mucman]

ok.... the problem happened again. Tried playing with the button above F4 and that did nothing... I then removed the battery, and put it
back in. Voila! It starts working again!

I can't afford to return the laptop mid semester though 🙁 my standby is a P100 laptop)

 

[kayatai]

did it ship with the A06 bios? There are also probably a ton of driver updates from dell's site, doesn't sound like anything but the bios could be causing the problem though (well unless it's hardware of course).

does the problem ever occur without the battery altogether? It could be a faulty battery I suppose.

 

[Mucman]

Originally posted by: kayatai
did it ship with the A06 bios? There are also probably a ton of driver updates from dell's site, doesn't sound like anything but the bios could be causing the problem though (well unless it's hardware of course).

does the problem ever occur without the battery altogether? It could be a faulty battery I suppose.

I'll find out the BIOS for you... it happened again this morning and I wasn't able to get the computer going. I'll see what
happens if I remove the battery and just use the outlet to power it. Must say this has increased my stress levels a bit 😛

 

[Mucman]

ok, here's the scoop...

Called Dell support yesterday. I went along with the silly stuff they asked me to do... all of the sudden it work. She seemed quite happy
that it was working because I don't think she really had a clue what went wrong. I asked her to note that I've called and that I will call
right away if it happens again.

It happened again this morning. Called Dell and got a tech support person in 30s. I was impressed by that. This guy seemed to know more
than the last person. He explained that he had to ask me to do those goofy things (blow in the RAM slots???). After that we ran a diagnostic
by pressing 'mute' and the power button at the same time, the lights started blinking and junk, then some beeping happened. I got 2 sets
of 3 beeps followed by 1 more beep. After looking this up he concluded the my video card or motherboard is damaged and that I must return
the laptop. Purolator is going to ship me a box, and I just give my DSP number and they will come by to pick up my laptop and ship it out. So far my overall feeling of service is positive... still annoyed that my 1 week old laptop is broken, but I've built 30+ computers in my day, and I know that this stuff.

Of course I'll keep you all posted!

 

[dnuggett]

Good to see there aren't any hang ups as far as the service goes. Still dissapointing that this happened though.

 

[Mucman]

Here's an update!

I waited a week for the box that I was supposed to ship the laptop back in, and it never showed. I phoned Dell and the support person apologized for the
delay and said that one would be here within two days. Sure enough I a box in two days (never really found out what happened). Called Purolator after
packing the box and they came by yesterday to pick it up. So the symptoms first showed up on the 13th, and I just sent the laptop back yesterday... looks
like I will experience about a month of downtime after having the laptop for a week 🙁

Again, I am pleased with the response time and personel with Dell's support. I've called them at least 8 times now and I got a hold of a real person with a
couple minutes. Every person was very friendly and I felt they really did want to solve my problem. One was so friendly that I figured that he got laid by
6 hot chicks the night before! Never talked to someone on the phone that seemed so happy 😛. I am not happy about the broken laptop, and the box shipment
mixup. I'm sure these things happen, and I am just unlucky. My other two choices were IBM, and Mac... I wonder how a similar situation would be handled by
them.

I'll give you another update when I finally get the thing!

 

[dnuggett]

Hope you are up and running soon, and w/o any future probs!! BTW when did you start the Rush quote in the sig?

 

[Mucman]

Me too! I've already committed myself to using my desktop for this semester though... If the timing is right, I might be able to migrate to
the laptop again shortly after I receive it. I just don't want to waste my precious homework time debugging my home computer problems.

I think that Rush sig has been there for 3 years 🙂 One of the few constants in my life 😛

 

[Mucman]

Woohoo!!!

Laptop was shipped out last Friday, and I picked it up from Purolator today (6 day turnover 😀). I could have received it yesterday but I wasn't home.
Inside the box was a letter from the technician describing the problem. They problem was with the built in video (ATI 9000) so they replaced the
motherboard.

I can't fault Dell for receiving a bad motherboard (I've built many computers and know that this happens). I'm not happy with how my box shipment
got messed up, but they did rectify that promptly. Definitely no complaints about the turn around time. Overall I would say I am very satisfied with
Dell's level of support.

 

[Mucman]

I was ripping some newly purchased CD's (yes I buy music), and it halted in the middle of one of them. I couldn't eject, so I rebooted and
tried to eject then. Still couldn't.... then I booted into WinXP (normally using FreeBSD) and Windows would popup saying that there is no
disc in the drive, and the software eject doesn't work. The only way I could get my CD back was to use a pin and hit the manual eject.
Tried removing the drive and putting it back in but that didn't help.

UGH!!! I just want this laptop to work the way it is supposed to!

 

[Pandaren]

UGH!!! I just want this laptop to work the way it is supposed to!

At least the drive is a modular bay item and Dell can ship you out a replacement quickly. Despite all the bad things I have to say about Dell's telephone support, I will say that they have always promptly shipped me the correct replacement parts whenever I had hardware failures.

 

[Mucman]

Dang... after some tinkering (a technical word 😛) it started working again.

I got 8 cd's to rip so it will be interesting to see if it does it again.

 

[eastvillager]

it is pretty easy to overheat a drive ripping discs, especially in a laptop.

 

[kayatai]

Originally posted by: Mucman
Dang... after some tinkering (a technical word 😛) it started working again.

I got 8 cd's to rip so it will be interesting to see if it does it again.

I just think your cursed, lol. Good luck Mucman!

*edit* Mucman, I knew that... Mudman was a cool name too though...

 

[Mucman]

kayatai, it's Mucman 😛, and I think I am cursed too 😛

I was able to rip those CD's without further issues. So far that problem has only occured once.