***-->The Official Dell Adamo Thread<--***

[crspyjohn]

First of all, I love your Soundsticks! (I have them too!)

Secondly, I guess you got a new Adamo right? What happened to you is just unimaginable!!! I have heard about this before from people who got refurbished ones. The bottom plate in the Adamo has 3 sealing points (one on each side and one in the front of the laptop; check the guide from iFixIt). It seems to me that your Adamo has been opened before, and never sealed back correctly. Fixing it yourself is easy, but this begs the question: Who the hell opened your NEW Adamo? Note that Pearls (like the SU9300s) were not available in Dell’s website for several months (only Onyxs and SU9400s were available). I cannot help but wonder what's the DEAL with DELL… Are they passing old stock after rechecking it (in other words refurbished) as new?

And last but certainly not least, I am really sorry this happened to you...

I bought a brand new SU9400, and paid $899, however I saw a unit at bestbuy for $849.99 (probably returned) and dell decided to match the price so I kept the unit. Also a weird thing was after I called to cancel my orignial order dell said they would match the price and the unit shipped the next day, almost 2 weeks ahead of the devliery estimate.

I bought a Brand New Pearl SU9400 for $899, after EPP discount. I called in to cancel my order because I saw a unit at bestbuy that was returned for $850, but dell said they would match the price if I kept the unit. The weird thing is after this call my order shipped the next day almost 2 weeks ahead of my shipping estimation. So I'm really wondering if I got a refurbished unit because it seems like the light sensor isn't working as well and the bottom plate just popping out like that. Oh yeah and the drive isn't trim enabled...

Today I called the Dell representative handling my case, and he said he would talk to the manager, I sent him photos and everything. I requested a refund but he said lets talk about that after he gets a reply from his manager... I'm guessing my $850 is going to be in dells hands for another month or two argh...

[fem]

Darn! Your story is very complicated... Dell tried to match BestBuy's price? Unbelievable... Did you tell them that the BestBuy was a returned one??? Then they probably saw fit not only to match the price, but the condition as well!

Just get your money back, and try to avoid the restocking fee. Only if they offer to replace it for a brand new would I go along.

[crspyjohn]

Thy offered to replace it with a brand new one and gave me a $50 discount as well! Total is 799 now yay

[fem]

Kydos to Dell for once! Go for it!

[crspyjohn]

Kydos to Dell for once! Go for it!

Hey, I was wondering, what you said about the bottom popping out. Is that due to a poor job by the person who put it together or was i just really unlucky? I'm having second feelings about keeping a new adamo because I'm worried the bottom is going to pop out like that again..

[fem]

Do not worry. It was definetely a poor job. The locking mechanism is very secure if you do it right (check the iFixIt link above). The computer is very sturdy, not flimsy at all.

[rgershey]

My Adamo Pearl like some others described here has a couple of problems:

1) A 128 Gb SSD with ancient FW which is non-TRIM (no remedy for this I guess!)

2) The light sensor doesn't seem to work even though the device manager says it is installed OK (after installing the updated keyboard driver). Also, it is turned on in the control panel (a setting I only recently found!).

The unit was originally shipped w/ Vista installed and a Win 7 upgrade DVD. I didn't notice if the sensor was working under Vista before I installed Win7. Judging by the number of people reporting problems with the sensor is it reasonable to conclude that this is not a hardware problem, but a problem with Win7? If it is how do we get Dell to address this issue?

[fem]

A 128 Gb SSD with ancient FW which is non-TRIM (no remedy for this I guess!)

Dell recently announced an updated FW that supports TRIM- it applies for most of the SSDs included in the Adamo, but for some very old ones with FW VBM15D1Q. If yours shipped with Vista, it's an early 2009 model, so you might be unlucky. Check the penultimate post on page 167 in this forum. The process is a little bit of a pain, though.

The light sensor doesn't seem to work...is it reasonable to conclude that this is not a hardware problem, but a problem with Win7?

Well, the light sensor definetly works with Win 7 Home Premium stock, but lots of people here reported non-working after clean installs. Did you check the BIOS settings for the light sensor? If it's set to disable, this will overide the software settings.

[rgershey]

Dell recently announced an updated FW that supports TRIM- it applies for most of the SSDs included in the Adamo, but for some very old ones with FW VBM15D1Q. If yours shipped with Vista, it's an early 2009 model, so you might be unlucky.

Oh yeah, it's real early... FW VAM05D1O
I assume there is absolutely no hope for this unit...

Well, the light sensor definetly works with Win 7 Home Premium stock, but lots of people here reported non-working after clean installs. Did you check the BIOS settings for the light sensor? If it's set to disable, this will overide the software settings.

Forgot to mention in last post that, yes, the BIOS (A07) setting for Ambient Light Sensor is set to Enabled.

How strange. So what's different about a non-factory installation of Win7 that could cause this?

[fem]

I think, then, there is no other option for your SSD, other that to do some informal TRIM-like maintainance now and then. I have not much experience in how you do that, but try Google.

The light sensor difference... no idea!