Windows 7: Dell covering up laptop issue

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I think Dell have disgraced themselves with this. All manufacturers have mishaps & 90% of the time, consumers will forgive that mistake if the problem is rectified in the correct manner. The fact that Dell refuse to acknowledge, have banned users from forums etc.is damn shoddy and will put me off ever buying from them.

That really sucks.

For some reason, I am not at all surprised. Way to go Dell, making an even worse name for yourself.

~Lordbob

TBH, when you read stories like the one i posted above & one's like these, it's a surprise they're even a name in the PC world!

I purposely haven't flashed my BIOS to the latest version because I read that it messes with the cooling system that sounds somewhat like this issue.

How interesting... Do you have a source for those other reports you have read?

I have an E6500 (see specs on left) and am on BIOS A14.

Works perfectly.

No cooling or black screens of death at all!

I'm on a Dell E6400 and I haven't noticed this issue at all...although a coworker has had this happen to him at home. In his case, it's only happened when plugged into the docking station..but he uses a 130w Power Supply when in the docking station.

Overall, professionally I have been pretty happy with Dell. Considering the sheer number or corporate desktops they are installed upon...I don't think their number of historically bad problems is that outrageous. Every company that I have worked has used both Dell desktops and laptops.

I agree and have mine into the docking station at work (130w PSU there) and on the 90w PSU at home. We have 5 of these E6500's at work and all are 100% good so far.

Interesting to note the number of BL-SOD's mentioned as a problem with any of our expert crew here (a number pretty close to zero), isn't it?

As to the BIOS matter, that could well be an issue if Dell messed up the cooling with an update... There are several of them too...

I use a Dell E6400 at work, and provide support at work for them. Mine has NO issue like that, though we HAVE seen significant infant mortality issues with the HDD's in these units. We had some fail w/in a week of deployment, some w/in a month and others, mine included, (knock on wood) has been fine since August, though I'm sure I treat mine better than the users do. We run XP in our environment, 4,000 users (using various Dell models) on my site alone.

For those not 'in the know', 130w is the standard adapter for the E-series port reps, 90w is the standard with the laptop (in our environment anyway). If you didn't know, a D-series adapter DOES work on an E-series.

It's not that interesting. It was some time ago (not this particular model of PC) but I will look for information. I meant to say fan instead of GPU. Dell was acting on the GPU supposedly getting too hot so they released a new BIOS version to change the fan speed (to really fast) to keep things cool.