Laptop Issues, any Ideas?

[madmattd]

Alright, so I got my replacement laptop about 2 weeks ago, see specs in sig. For those wondering why I say replacement, well, Dell lied about the first one to me. Plus the HDMI port failed epically and I wanted the FHD screen anyway (one of the lies->they told me they would never do one, lol). Let's just say Dell's customer support people don't know wtf they are talking about, but I know that's no surprise to anyone, myself included.

Anyway, 2 issues are driving me nuts.

1. Apparently the fan doesn't want to turn on sometimes. This was not an issue on the first. What is happening is basically I will be playing a game, the CPU and GPU get hot (no duh), but the fan never turns on. So it downclocks the CPU to 792mHz, but it is still running at 85+C (owies, hot!). I installed a fan control program (Speed Fan), which detects the fan, but if the laptop is deciding not to use the fan, bumping the speed manually does nothing. But sometimes the fan does run correctly, and I can game no problem, though a bit on the warm side (about 10C hotter than the original system, I'm probably going to repaste the heatsinks with the Arctic Silver I have laying around, I'm sure Dell failed at this part too).

So, I'm going to try opening up the case tonight (once I deal with a stripped screwhead) and see if the fan connector is loose or something that could explain the intermittant workingness. If I had to guess, the system is correctly trying to use the fan, but it isn't running.

***If reseating the fan connector doesn't solve the problem, any other thoughts guys?***

2. I ordered a 8GB (2x4GB) pack of Crucial 1333mHz DDR3 RAM and installed it. I had immediate crashes almost every time I logged into Windows (I got that far no sweat 100% of the time...). I ran a Memtest and had errors almost immediately on one stick. No sweat I figured, I did an RMA and got a new set. Same problem. I suppose I could have gotten 2 bad packs in a row, but it seems very unlikely, plus this is the first I've had what appears to be a DOA from Newegg in all the crap I've ordered the last 3 years.

According to Crucial's site, their notebook DDR3 1333 RAM is compatible with this very system. For reference, the Dell-equipped 2x2GB RAM was Hynix 1333mHz.

***Any suggestions? I can try an RMA again, but after 2 no-works I don't feel confident in a 3rd.***



Other than these 2 things, I love the system (aside from Dell only soldering 2 RAM clips on the mobo but putting stickers in there saying you can put 4 chips in...apparently you have to order the 3D screen that disables pretty much everything good about the Sandy Bridge chips to get them to put the right clips in, IDIOTS). It plays SC2, TF2, etc all very nicely even at FHD resolution. And it also gets 5+ hours on battery while surfing the internets.

I'd appreciate any other thoughts, I really don't want to go through another return or a mobo swap (I have software tied to the ethernet MAC address that I already had to get changed once due to the swap, and it was a painful situation. MAC spoofing doesn't work, the software looks at the hardware, not what Windows says in the MAC...)

[SirDumpling]

I'm probably not going to be too useful, but:

1) Don't buy Dell Shittiest customer service I've ever had to deal with.
2) Don't check the fan if there is any chance at all of voiding the warranty. Dell's a giant penis when it comes to technicalities.
3) Try ordering/borrowing another brand of RAM. If that doesn't work, odds are it's your computer.

And the finale, 4) Be a giant bitch. When in doubt, make angry phone calls. They'll get you a lot further than if you sound patient.

[madmattd]

1) Don't buy Dell Shittiest customer service I've ever had to deal with.
2) Don't check the fan if there is any chance at all of voiding the warranty. Dell's a giant penis when it comes to technicalities.
3) Try ordering/borrowing another brand of RAM. If that doesn't work, odds are it's your computer.

And the finale, 4) Be a giant bitch. When in doubt, make angry phone calls. They'll get you a lot further than if you sound patient.

1. I knew this going in but they could get me the better system for what I wanted than anyone else. Eventually. TO be fair, though, I've dealt with the support from a few other manufacturers (I'm looking at you ASUS-or was it Acer?) and they were pretty awful, Dell at least sorta listens after you scream a bit.

2. You could be right there, but your 4th point comes into play here...plus playing dumb and saying "I didn't do that". I've heard of people getting laptops where the inside on the mobo was all scratched up and whatnot the second they opened the box...

3. I was thinking along these routes, I'll run the RMA tonight, I will probably go for the direct refund this time. It had free shipping initially, so yeay.

4. Yup. Been there recently. To keep a long story short, Dell couldn't keep their story straight about some things after I ordered and found some discrepancies (mainly the RAM slot idiocy). I tried the patient route, got fed up after 8 hours across several days (some of this was dealing with the broken HDMI port) and no real answer and just a lot of general stupidity. So I wrote a NASTY letter in the "Unresolved Issues" section, in the box that asks for a short description of why the issue remains unresolved...perhaps I'll post that tonight, it was a pretty good one. It also got me a full refund when I was well past the 21 day exchange period (which by the way starts when they invoice you, which is usually at least a week before they ship...).

Any one else have some ideas about these 2 issues? I can probably get Dell to send a new fan, but it does run fine when it runs, so I might try the reseating thing. They give a full manual on their site on how to remove it, lol, and I got the stripped screw holding one of the HDDs in out.


For the record, why I ordered this one instead of the Sager I was eyeing (would have ordered through Xotic PC most likely, not Sager directly):

TLDR! :

1. Better Graphics card options. At the time, no one else sold anything above the 540m that was Optimus-enabled (switchable graphics, hence the awesome battery life in a 17"). Dell sold the 550m and the top-notch one, the 555m. A bit of a premium, but a far stronger card than the 540m (which would likely have been fine).
2. Dual HDD bays. Not a huge deal, but it does mean I can add a smallish Gen 3 SSD when they become more available (and drop in price) and still have a large storage drive.
3. Large-capacity battery. 92 WHr versus 62 is a HUGE difference (5.5+ hours versus 3ish), and the increased battery life is big for me when I take 5-hour flights fairly often for work. I can mess around on the plane as long as I want, versus having to stop halfway through a video or something.

That all said, I would look harder at the Sager now that they have the 555m card. Points 2-3 still favor the Dell, but pricing is a bit better on the Sager now, plus their upcharge for 8GB versus 4GB RAM is in line with what you can get 8GB on Newegg for (ie. not worth the effort). Dell wanted $120 to go from 4GB to 8GB, I told them on the phone they were thieves

[Stephen]

my acer netbooks fan doesnt turn on till a certin temp.

check to see if there is any cool n quiet modes in the bios or there in there bloatware

[madmattd]

Bloatware is gone, first thing I did was format and do a clean install. It had 90-something processes on start-up out of the box...now its in the 60s with all kinds of my crap added...

Nothing really in the BIOS that can be changed at all, nothing resembling cool n quiet. And I would expect a fan on when the CPU is 90C...When it works it comes on more like 55-60C.

[Molimo]

I know you're pretty tech savvy, so here is what I would do.

When you open it up, if you do not see a problem with the Fan Connector, Try running some sort of lead wires from it. Route them outside the laptop and power it back on. Connect the two lead wires to a Voltmeter and check to see if the Mobo is actually supplying Voltage to the Fan. And How Much it is supplying. There could be a problem with the fan itself. It's a 12V DC Fan, Normally they need 4-5V to get started. But if it is damaged, it could take 10V, and the mobo only supplies that at very High Temps.

And for your Ram, I've seen double DOA's before. You said you had Errors on one chip as soon as memtest started, did you try removing it and putting the other one in it's place and simply running memtest with one stick, in different slots? I know you, you probably did, I just wanted to know what the results were.

[madmattd]

Hmm, my last post from last night disappeared sometime in the last couple hours. Server trouble?

Anyway, I spoke with Dell re:both issues. They're sending a tech to replace the fan/heatsink outright. Maybe this one will even be pasted better, if not I might try to get it done while the tech has it open...I have some Arctic Silver laying around still, it's amazing how long that stuff lasts.

As for the RAM, I am returning the Crucial and I've ordered some Corsair. I have seen some cases where one brand jsut doesn't work for unkown reasons. Dell thought it ought to work, but suggested I try the Corsair (which I was going to do anyway, lol). I'll know more in a couple days. I've heard of triple DOAs too, but they are rather rare, I figured I might as well try something else, plus I found several people using the Corsair I ordered in the new XPS systems, can't find anyone using Crucial (odd). Also, Crucial's memory finder shows a different part number for my system, though I can't find a difference in the specs (yes, the PN I have is also listed on their site as something different).

I was too lazy to memtest each combo. I did try booting with just one stick, changed which stick, tried both combos of using both sticks, all with poor results. Well, one stick seemed okay on its own (musta been the one that didnt immediately fail memtest), but the other tests caused crashes pretty fast. Hoping it's not a mobo issue, I don't want to deal with getting a couple of licenses reissued AGAIN (tied to MAC of ethernet).

I will definitely test the fan when it is pulled out, I will play with a stack of batteries and see where it's dead zone is. Fact is though, at 90C it should be at full speed and it wasn't spinning. Yet sometimes it works fine...(like last night).

[Stephen]

switched it to joes hosting which had a older backup

[SirDumpling]

We need a 'like this post' on ATG

[madmattd]

You can probably get a mod for it.

[madmattd]

Update: The Dell tech came today to replace the fan (boy that was 1.5 days from the call, kudos on the speed there I must say Dell). He had a box with 2 heatsinks instead of a heatsink and a FAN....gg Dell, minus kudos there.

He did open up the computer though at my suggestion it was a loose connector, and sure enough the fan connector was barely clinging to the header on the mobo. Reseated it such that it clicked into place, fan runs more frequently now and sounds like it has more guts. Woot for easy fix, though I will be keeping an eye on it to be sure.

Hoping my RAM comes tomorrow but idk, it's coming DHL->USPS and, well, DHL doesn't update their tracking until after you've received in in my experience. Hoping they work fine.

[Stephen]

so he would have pierced the sticker that usualy covers a screw

did he put a new one on or now you got free range to open it yourself

[madmattd]

There were no stickers over screws.

And yes, he swapped the existing heat sink with the non-bent one Dell sent (one of them had a nice kink in the heatpipe....) just since we already had it open. I also looked at the pasting before it was installed, looked like solid coverage, but there was no film or anything over the paste on the new heatsink, it was just chucked in a box...now that I know how to open this thing, I still might put some Arctic Silver on it at a later date.

Played some SC2 last night to give everything a decent burn-in and GPU temp stayed around 70C at full load, CPU a tad higher, fan running nicely the whole time as expected. So far so good.

Side note: the tech was stunned when he heard about the crap Dell has been playing with the RAM slots on these systems. Dell has decided to stock the SAME mobo with 2 different RAM clips just to be idiots. You only get the 4 clips with a 3D system with the 555m GPU, but 3D means all of the good features of the new Sandy Bridge CPUs are disabled (widi, optimus, quick sync, etc). What an epic fail.

[madmattd]

I had a dell once...the hard drive failed twice, and I took it out back and put a bullet in the drive...later on I found random aluminum foil in the case(I have no clue wtf it was for it was just there by the pci slots). And given your story about this matt, my advice to you is never trust a big commercialized pc company...

Well I have had great life out of my old early 2005 P4 laptop that still runs fine, it just never was an amazingly powerful laptop (32MB integrated Intel graphics ftl). It was a Dell. But Dell was well-respected for their service back then (never had a lick of trouble with the system though so idk), I've known for years they were going downhill.

Having seen the inside of this machine, I have to say I was surprised by the quality, it looks well-made overall. You never know with everything being made so cheaply and usually poorly in the Far East...I'm looking forward to the day when building your own laptop is a reasonable idea (not now obviously) like a desktop is today.

[madmattd]

Well the RAM finally came today (forgot how painful EggSaver can be...stupid DHL taking 4 days to get it to the Post Office...). So far no crashes, and not seeing RAM usage in the 90% range is a good thing...

So for reference, for whatever reason the XPS l702x (probably the l502x too) don't like 1333 MHz Crucial RAM...