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Never buying another Dell laptop again. Recommend my next one please! UPDATE: Fixed!

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compuwiz1

Admin Emeritus Elite Member
I have a Dell Studio 17 laptop. It's an Intel duo core. It was pretty expensive back when I bought it. I have since upgraded from Windows Vista to Windows 7 Home premium. This thing has been unstable since almost the beginning. I'm on my 4th power charger, 2nd battery and it has always been plagued by random freezes and crashes. It's been randomly freezing up with increasing frequency the last couple weeks. Sometimes it's only up for 5 minutes before it locks up and has to be hard powered down. I reinstalled the OS and ran all kinds of diagnostics on it, which turn up nothing, no viruses, no malware. Hardware tests turn up no CPU or memory issues either. I'm convinced it's just tired silicon and time for it to be replaced.

So, that said, someone please recommend me a great laptop, with good bang for the buck. I like the 17" screen. Must have UDMI port and at least 8gb ram. I don't like Windows 8 and touch screens. Fire away!
 
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Printer Bandit said:
Don't worry, you'll change you're mind. You're welcome.
Click to expand...

I have collected over 10k MP3's over the years and all the other stuff I have created and stored on a removable HD. From my understanding Apple doesn't work with my stuff. So, tell me more...make a case for it. I'm listening...... 🙂

I'm lost when it comes to laptops. I could build myself another desktop in a snap, but I enjoy portability.

I'd rather not spend more than $1000
 
I have had nothing but Dell laptops and really haven't had a problem. I'm typing this on a Precision M6300 right now. I think you just had a bad one. I always look at reviews before buying a laptop. Some Dells do have a bad rep. but not all.

I bought this laptop bare bones on ebay for 100 bucks with no hard drive, hard drive caddy or power suppy. Bought everything on ebay including a 60GB SSD and slapped Windows 7 on here and it works. No BSODs or anything. Wired part is this laptop has only Vista drivers, but I was able to use them in Win 7.
 
compuwiz1 said:
I have a Dell Studio 17 laptop. It's an Intel duo core. It was pretty expensive back when I bought it. I have since upgraded from Windows Vista to Windows 7 Home premium. This thing has been unstable since almost the beginning. I'm on my 4th power charger, 2nd battery and it has always been plagued by random freezes and crashes. It's been randomly freezing up with increasing frequency the last couple weeks. Sometimes it's only up for 5 minutes before it locks up and has to be hard powered down. I reinstalled the OS and ran all kinds of diagnostics on it, which turn up nothing, no viruses, no malware. Hardware tests turn up no CPU or memory issues either. I'm convinced it's just tired silicon and time for it to be replaced.

So, that said, someone please recommend me a great laptop, with good bang for the buck. I like the 17" screen. Must have UDMI port and at least 8gb ram. I don't like Windows 8 and touch screens. Fire away!
Click to expand...

It's probably overheating. Take it apart and remove dust from heatsink. since there is no warranty left anyway, don't worry. my brothers laptop once had this exact issue and the amount of dust and dirt in there was astounding.
 
Here's another vote for taking it apart and ridding it of dust, along with replacing the old, dried out thermal compound on the heatsink.
 
Hummm, I am typing this post on my Dell Studio 15. I am using this on my daily usage at home for the last 4+ years (July 2010) and no problem at all. I think I will do a factory reset/reformat soon and take it apart to clean out the dust and replace the thermal compound as one of the posters suggested. I do have a cooling fan with this laptop.

I did upgrade the RAM to 8MB but nothing else. I think I "might" upgrade the HD to SSD (maybe).

My family members and friends use Dell laptops too from the deals from their refurbish factory and they do not have any issue.

OP, there was a thread that I created a while back about laptop reliability a while back in this OT forum.
 
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I wouldn't base future purchases on one bad experience. All computers are junk, and sometimes you get a lemon. A bad experience is evidence weighed against a future purchase, but shouldn't be a deciding factor. IOW, with all things being the same, Dell would be second pick, but if it betters the competition in some aspect, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it.

Dell's on my short list for computers to buy, but the deciding factors for me are maximum liberty, or minimal price. A pawn shop machine? I'll take anything that can be wrangled into running GNU/Linux. Paying full price? I want libre firmware, and 100% libre drivers.
 
Thinkpad T series? I personally stick with the X series but they're only 12" screens. Most of them also give you the option to buy with Windows 7. I've tried almost every laptop out there and I always come back to the X series. Built like a tank and they keep going strong so much so that I wish my current one dies soon so I can upgrade.
 
compuwiz1 said:
FLAC and MP3 are different. iTunes does not recognize regular MP3's without converting them and that is too much of a pain in the ass and too time consuming.
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bolded is just flat out completely false.

anyways, i've too had a dell laptop and the battery went out like clockwork, right when the warning started to come up on the laptop. i used my dell for a hackintosh though. but i'd never get another dell either, same battery thing happened to my moms laptop.

right now i have an HP probook, but i also use it as a hackintosh. i do use windows on it though very rarely, but when i do use windows i have enjoyed it. it's an HP probook 4540s. i'm sure the newer models are more powerful though. i got this for $450 from microcenter a while back.

but if i were to get a new laptop, it would definitely be a macbook without a doubt.
 
My wife has the Studio 17. I added more RAM and another HDD about two years ago.
I bought an SSD for it about two weeks ago but the Samsung clone software won't finish. When you go to Samsung's site, they know about it and say to use the free version of Acronis. It won't finish either.
I don't recall getting a Win7 CD with the laptop so I'll probably just buy it and do a fresh install.
I was just going to buy her a new laptop but she doesn't want one.
 
All consumer notebooks are a quality risk. I would stay far away from HP/Compaq's, but others may only be marginally better, sometimes. Business class ones are the way to go, regardless of vendor, for quality. Asus is the only Windows PC maker I know of that bucks that trend as a matter of course.
 
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