Dell's Replacing my E1705 - What do you Think With?

[DigDug]

1. They said, I'm getting a new one built, not a refurb. I imagine because they don't have any refurbs that have the 17 inch truelife screen I have on the one going back, so had to just make a new one.

2. The won't tell me what it is until they are about to ship it..

3. So that they won't scam me with a computer that's "better" in some ways, and worse in others, I was wondering what you experts think they are cooking up for me pursuant to my complete care replacement. This decision to replace on their part comes after countless hassles with them over fried nVidia 7800 cards on this machine. They finally admitted, after I pushed, that theres a known defect with these cards overheating, and that the e1705 has some serious heat dissipation issues.

My puter' stock specs:

E1705/9400
17" 1920x1200 trulife screen
nVidia 7800 Go
2.1ghz Dual Core computer
512mb memory (which I upped of course)
100gb drive

What do you all think? I was adamant that I get a laptop with a 17" trulife screen and a commensurate graphics card.

Thanks for the help!

 

[DigDug]

nice

 

[alyarb]

you haven't really given us any good information pertaining to your case, but on the CPU side of things, you're probably going to get a better machine because dell doesn't have my 65nm meroms lying around. you're going to get a little penryn chip probably in the ~2 GHz ballpark and it will be faster than what you had before.

if you want dell to provide you with the closest possible video solution to what you had, it's going to be refurbed, it's going to be a mobile geforce 8400 or 8600 and it's going to be subject to the exact same kind of failures that your 7-series was. there was a huge recall years ago pertaining to these G84/86 parts and it cost nvidia hundreds of millions out of pocket. it was in the news forever. i'm surprised you didn't hear about it, because if you had, you should've asked dell to just give you the intel GMA video. it would've saved them money and gotten the build done faster. it has nothing to do with on-hand supply of trulife panels. this is probably why they're reluctant to help you out. they know you want a brand new system that is just as prone to fail as the last one, and you want it covered by their complete care service. it's exactly like insurance companies grumbling when its time for them to pony up. except you're making it more difficult for them because they stopped offering geforce GPUs in the home/home office segment. they only do intel GMA 4500 and radeon 3000-series now. i'm not sure they offer "trulife" displays anymore, they're probably just regular LCDs.

the inspiron is the only consumer laptop they offer with a 1920x1200 screen, and it's not trulife, and they don't offer any discrete GPUs with the inspirons. the studio 17 can be configured with a discrete CPU, but the highest res 17" screen they offer is only 1440x900. so you can either have the high-res screen, or the radeon, but not both.

you'd have to get an XPS or something to have your cake and eat it too, and there's no way they're sending one of those to replace some mid-end laptop they gave you 4 years ago. they could send you a vostro 1720 with a geforce 9600, but again, that's a $1000 laptop. what did you pay for your piece of shit E1705? like $600? $700? can you see why they're reluctant?

in short, we have no clue what they're going to send you because we don't work for dell, but you are probably not going to get a trulife panel or an nvidia chipset because they don't offer those products anymore. they're going to try to match the screen size and CPU speed that you had before, and you should be grateful if you get that. i'm sure you're a great guy who deserves to a working, reliable computer, but from their perspective as a customer you are more trouble than you're worth, and this replacement is going to cost dell a few hundred bucks (because of a design decision made by nvidia 4 years ago! this isn't even dell's fault). i hope they send you something nice.

 

[alyarb]

in fact, i'd be interested to get an update on this when it does come. i want to know if that complete care service is worth it (how much did it cost you?).

 

[IlllI]

DigDug your posts are confusing. not sure what you are trying to say or ask

 

[DigDug]

Sorry for being so unclear.

I paid top dollar for this one when it came ot. Well over $1000 to have the 17" trulife (1900x12) and seperate graphics card. It was definitely not the mid-end when I bought it in 1996.

I talk them that I do gaming, and that I demand to have a 1900x1200 truelife (17") display. I think this is why they are making a new laptop versus giving me a refurb. I won't settle for less.

They offered the complete-care warranty and I had taken it. I'm not one of those people who abuses such warratnies - ths whole thing came about because their Nvidia arragement was a firasco that their own due diligence should have figured out when designing this laptopt. Whether it was a bad move on their part is irrelevant to me. They make a bunch of money from lapsed warranties to begin with, that they should honor my warranty in good faith.

 

[alyarb]

i'm sure you mean 2006, but regardless, as i've said they are going to jump through hoops to make this happen for you so you're going to have to wait.

 

[DigDug]

Originally posted by: alyarb
you haven't really given us any good information pertaining to your case, but on the CPU side of things, you're probably going to get a better machine because dell doesn't have my 65nm meroms lying around. you're going to get a little penryn chip probably in the ~2 GHz ballpark and it will be faster than what you had before.

if you want dell to provide you with the closest possible video solution to what you had, it's going to be refurbed, it's going to be a mobile geforce 8400 or 8600 and it's going to be subject to the exact same kind of failures that your 7-series was. there was a huge recall years ago pertaining to these G84/86 parts and it cost nvidia hundreds of millions out of pocket. it was in the news forever. i'm surprised you didn't hear about it, because if you had, you should've asked dell to just give you the intel GMA video. it would've saved them money and gotten the build done faster. it has nothing to do with on-hand supply of trulife panels. this is probably why they're reluctant to help you out. they know you want a brand new system that is just as prone to fail as the last one, and you want it covered by their complete care service.

Save your breath. I mentioned all of this, and which is why they are issuing me a new computer, and now a refurb.

it's exactly like insurance companies grumbling when its time for them to pony up. except you're making it more difficult for them because they stopped offering geforce GPUs in the home/home office segment. they only do intel GMA 4500 and radeon 3000-series now. i'm not sure they offer "trulife" displays anymore, they're probably just regular LCDs.

Why don't they offer trulife screens anymore?

you'd have to get an XPS or something to have your cake and eat it too, and there's no way they're sending one of those to replace some mid-end laptop they gave you 4 years ago. they could send you a vostro 1720 with a geforce 9600, but again, that's a $1000 laptop. what did you pay for your piece of shit E1705? like $600? $700? can you see why they're reluctant?

No I paid over $1200 for my "peice-of-shit-" E1705.

Why is my asking to be made right pursuant to their own warranties seen as an attempt to have my cake and eat it too, when the complete care warranty *they sell* specifically exists for this kind of scenario? If they are warranting the issuance of a computer that meets/exceeds the specs of the broken one, then this is what they must do. Why are you so quick to what turns out to be a poor business decision, in this particular instance, made by Dell?

in short, we have no clue what they're going to send you because we don't work for dell, but you are probably not going to get a trulife panel or an nvidia chipset because they don't offer those products anymore. they're going to try to match the screen size and CPU speed that you had before, and

you should be grateful if you get that.

Why should I be? That's not what I bargained for with my agreement to their Completely Care Warranty.

I'm sure you're a great guy who deserves to a working, reliable computer, but from their perspective as a customer you are more trouble than you're worth, and this replacement is going to cost dell a few hundred bucks (because of a design decision made by nvidia 4 years ago! this isn't even dell's fault).

Tough, toogies to them. Why does their perspctive matter to you so much? That's the business practice they have in place, and which, most likely makes them a bunch of money. If they have to make good evey once in awhile, then so be it.

i hope they send you something nice.

I hope they send me something that fits my warranty!