Out of the frying pan into the fire?

lowrez

lowrez

lowrez

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I'm typing on an out of warranty and burnt out Dell 1557 i7 with the full shim mod; horrible similar story here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18219777

Tired of the bluescreening, I set out to buy "not a Dell", but after much searching and seeing Di Matteo say of Terry; "everyone makes mistakes", I wandered back onto the outlet and picked up this yesterday:-

£564 - XPS L502x
Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM (4 cores, 8 threads, 6M Cache, 2.2 GHz boost to 3.10 GHz)
6 GB Dual Channel DDR3 1333MHz
15.6" Full HD B+RGLED True-Life (1920x1080) with 2.0MP Integrated Camera
750 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
2GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M
8X DVD +/- RW DRIVE
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 (2x2 b/g/+ Bluetooth Combo Card)
Primary 9-cell 90W/HR LI-ION

You should've seen the ones that got away; I had an 8GB/1TB beauty in the net but someone beat me to the capcha. Still exceedingly pleased with the above spec though.

Anyone got one? Please tell me they run cool, calm, and "unblue"? Hope I did my Google research well - I didn't find any horror stories and figured Dell should have the cooling well sorted post the 1557 disaster.
 
I've heard the dedicated use "screen refresh" software to shorten the odds, although that may be old news; the filters and sequencing clear using the browser refresh button. I had the sequencing set on "low to high by price" and then periodically clicked the i7 filter on and off. Yesterday afternoon the above was the 4th machine I'd had a go at; all slightly different, but all 1080 screens. My mistake on the first 2 was just spending too many seconds looking at the spec. On the second 2, if anything turned up I went for it, had the 3rd, but post entry of the capcha it simply wasn't there, 4th time was "the charm", after I got it in the basket I checked the spec and was instantly happy, doing a quick configure on a similar new unit (£686 even with a 12% discount code), I knew I had a winner.

Keep at it, you'll get a bargain!
 
It varies, on Friday they were popping up, seemingly one at a time, over the course of the afternoon, I must've starting looking from 2pm onwards, wasn't looking constantly due to doing other things, by 4pm I had this one in the bag. I've seen stuff go on over weekends too in the past. I've not looked often enough to understand when the best times are though.
 
If you're looking for a refurbished XPS, check the bay for some of the Dell outlet approved sellers. I've just picked up an XPS 15:

Dell XPS 15 L502x, i5-2450M 3.1GHz, 6GB RAM, 750GB, GT525M, 1 Year Dell NBD Warranty

£480!
 
Nice one!

I keep dropping back to the Outlet just out of interest whilst I'm awaiting the new arrival; not seen anything over and above the items no one seems to be interested in though.

I don't seem to be having any great luck with stuff being shipped to me, I cancelled a Samsung prior to catching this Dell as they'd taken over a fortnight to do anything (not Samsung the people I ordered it off). Thought an Outlet machine would simply have to be bunged in a box and sent, its not like they have to build it, but the status still says "in production".

You'll have to let me know how hot the beast gets if it arrives before mine; I'm hoping dead cool!
 
lowrez said:
Nice one!

I keep dropping back to the Outlet just out of interest whilst I'm awaiting the new arrival; not seen anything over and above the items no one seems to be interested in though.

I don't seem to be having any great luck with stuff being shipped to me, I cancelled a Samsung prior to catching this Dell as they'd taken over a fortnight to do anything (not Samsung the people I ordered it off). Thought an Outlet machine would simply have to be bunged in a box and sent, its not like they have to build it, but the status still says "in production".

You'll have to let me know how hot the beast gets if it arrives before mine; I'm hoping dead cool!
Click to expand...

Hi Lowrez,

Collecting my Samsung tonight so fingers crossed!

As far as your Dell being in production, actually it might! I base this on 2 factors:
1. The Desktop XPS I bought looked completely new even down to the polythene stuck to the front.
2. I tried to spec exactly the same machine on their normal website straight after I'd bought it on the Outlet and you couldn't do it - they didn't offer some of the components for that machine.

There'll probably be lots of people who will post and tell me I'm wrong but I think Dell build machines to use up components they've already bought in and need to use up. They then sell them on the Outlet. That's the only explanation I could come up with for getting a machine with new components (checked some of the item dates) but you couldn't spec yourself to buy off their site.

Cheers:)
 
BlastWave said:
There'll probably be lots of people who will post and tell me I'm wrong but I think Dell build machines to use up components they've already bought in and need to use up. They then sell them on the Outlet. That's the only explanation I could come up with for getting a machine with new components (checked some of the item dates) but you couldn't spec yourself to buy off their site.

Cheers:)
Click to expand...

This may explain why I've managed to get a ram upgrade so cheap (an extra 3Gb for £20). If they're getting rid of components through the outlet then it's understandable that you might not have been able to buy an "outlet spec" through their normal store.
 
Its the fire!

XPS arrived yesterday; did not auto configure at all on first start-up, switch off and back on, tell it to proceed as normal (not attempt a repair) and it does first time configure OK. Next switch-on hung! Obviously a GPU deadly embrace, plenty of graphical noise output to the screen and crushed overlay of text. Another switch off and on without a repair went OK.

At that point I was extremely forgiving of the machine as I really like it, especially the hirez screen.

However! Next switch-on gave a BSOD with an auto re-start! If you'd blinked in the wrong place you'd have missed the BSOD. At the auto re-start this time I chose the repair option. It simply did a roll-back to what looked like the factory delivered install. I attached an external USB hard drive to copy out the few docs I'd made so far and got a "proper" BSOD that didn't re-start.

Just been to the Dell website to action a "within 7 days of delivery return and refund". Typing all this on my 1557! It hangs on in there longer than the XPS! Worst case scenario I will be £20 out of pocket for the cost of the return but I'm up for arguing that off the table.

Where do I go from here I ask myself?
 
Blimey that sounds quite bad luck! I've had no issues with mine at all. The propriatory software is quite irritating but once I get around to doing my backup I'll get rid of the recovery partition and the other software.

Only worrying issue I've had with it was my fault when I attempted to partition the drive using partition magic, which apparently doesn't work well on Win 7. It hung mid-partition and ruined the MBR so a recovery was necessary within 6 hours of owning the damn thing!
 
Good to hear yours is fine...I could do a clean install, but, having seen the GPU freeze and the couple of BSODs my worry is that something more fundamental is wrong. Its probably why this particular unit has been recycled through the Outlet...it is extremely reminiscent of my 1557 but due to sloth and apathy I let that drift too far before anything could be done about it apart from long dialogues with Dell and spare parts etc. This time I'm ditching the dodgy unit without any major attempt to diagnose why and correct. I just don't want to end up with another long suffering dud.

So, I don't really fancy another Dell after this. Probably won't get the same "bang per buck" on another brand though. Samsung VAT back sounds good all over again!
 
If you're still potentially interested in an XPS (i.e. value for money), the store I bought mine through run extensive tests on them to ensure there are no hardware issues. I'll message you through trust if you want to have a look :)
 
Thanks int...I'll wait until I clear this mess up first...not sure attempting to get a highish spec laptop is the right approach any more. I may end up going for a simple netbook for browsing and a desktop for the video editing.
 
Full marks to Dell on the return front; just one ask about attempting to correct the issues, but a firm no from me has a pick up arranged for a return and a full refund...no £20 charge for it as the machine is defective.

Onward!
 
About to go "laptopless" - 1557 just died completely - refuses to charge and won't recognise AC adapter. I'm typing this on the XPS that goes back on Wednesday (its still randomly bluescreening). Decided to salvage what I could out of the 1557 into a low spec machine just for web browsing, was about to pull the trigger on a suitable i3 out on the outlet at £314 when there was a deluge of new machines and this orphan turned up; still with HD3000; couldn't resist it:-

Scratch and Dent Inspiron 15 - N5050 - £247.38 (including £22 delivery)
Intel Pentium P6200 (2 cores, 2 threads, 2.13GHz, 3M Cache, HD Graphics 3000)
3 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (3 DIMMs)
8X DVD+/-RW Drive
15.6 inch High Definition LED Display (1366 x 768) with TrueLife
6 Cell Primary Battery, 48W
Wireless : Dell Wireless 802.11g/n
320 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)

So, thats the web browsing and salvage of my 1557 sorted (500G drive and 4GB of memory to swap in), now on to the video editing desktop...I'll be off line for a while until the unit above arrives, must put this XPS back in the box!
 
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