How long has your Dell laptop lasted without repair?

[Zahn1138]

No, it's my fault.

But, the question asked how long before it needed repair. My first problem was the faulty hard drive - and it was manufactured by Toshiba, not by Dell.

Furthermore, it still needed repair because I dropped it - regardless of the reason, it needed repair. It was a two foot drop, and the fact that it broke indicates the quality and strength of Dell computers too.

[Tsunade_Hime]

No, it's my fault.

But, the question asked how long before it needed repair. My first problem was the faulty hard drive - and it was manufactured by Toshiba, not by Dell.

Furthermore, it still needed repair because I dropped it - regardless of the reason, it needed repair. It was a two foot drop, and the fact that it broke indicates the quality and strength of Dell computers too.

Are you serious? You didn't buy a Panasonic Toughbook or a ThinkPad, you expect your non-business grade Dell to survive a drop? Dropping from any distance significantly increases the chance of cracked motherboard, broken internal components, broken screen, hinges, defective drives.

What separates Toughbooks and similar laptops to consumer laptops is an internal roll cage (disperses force through the entire roll cage) so your motherboard doesn't take all the force. Also business grade notebooks use higher quality plastics/metal alloys to ensure it is more durable than a normal consumer laptop. It only takes a little force to cause micro-cracks on your motherboard. There's a reason why normal warranty does NOT cover physical damage, it can be impossible to tell the extent of the damage without replacing all internal components.

Next time, buy a business grade laptop and hopefully you'll have better luck at a higher quality computer.

[anabolina]

I went ahead about bought the 3 year warranty with my Dell e1505/6400 6 years ago and only used it the first year for a faulty display and also used it to replace a couple of faulty adapters. That was the major expense with the Dell, adapters dying not because they stopped working, but because they became frayed at the point that they connected to the head that connects to the laptop. The power port is on the back and that wouldn't be an issue if it was used on a table, but it was always in my lap. :-) Still, it has no hardware defects after the first year and would still be alive and kicking if I hadn't thought of a brilliant idea a couple of months ago to take it apart and see if a lot of dust had accumulated inside. Nope, not much dust, but I did crack the hinges.

Per the whole dropping thing, I'm not easy on technology and dropped the e1505 several times with no ill effect. It would always fall off the side of the couch to the ground :shakes head: I probably shouldn't admit that.

[LeMartin]

I never dropped my Inspiron 1520, however, when running some program preventing suspend to RAM, I put my closed yet still running notebook into my bag, in mid summer and it didn't complain about it, even though it was too hot to touch and smelled funny. Actually I did this twice.

It runs like 16h a day, and is used for programming, writing and sometimes heavy duty computing. No hick-up whatsoever, that's why I personally will stick with dell.

[SA Spurs1]

In 5 years I have had to replace the keyboard twice and the palmrest once.

[zuffy]

I have the 700m that had the speaker wires snap when you open/close the lid enough. I think that took 1 year to happen. I have my XPS 15 (LX502) for 4 months and the power supply died. I was suprised by how fast they ship a new power supply to me. They fedex overnight the part.

[wjb]

I have had my E1505 (same as 6400) for over five years with absolutely no problems. My mother bought one just after me and I maintain it and she has had no problems, either. I used a Latitude (D630, I think) for over two years at work and had no problems with it. I even dropped that one and cracked the case but it kept working, just fine.

I have just upgraded my E1505 with a T7200 CPU and a larger hard drive. I am hoping it hangs in there for a few more years.

Walter

p.s. I am typing this on a nearly ten-year old Dell Dimension 8200 desktop that I bought from their outlet center. I have upgraded it over the years and have no complaints.

[benanna]

I bought a Dell Latitude D820 in 2006, and 5 years later, it still works great. I'm on my third battery, but I don't think that counts as a repair.

I just got a Dell Precision M6600 less than a month ago, and I'm hoping to get a new screen shortly.

[yossell]

Dell LS400 (Bought used) 2004-2008. Worked perfectly throughout despite being used constantly - albeit for relatively light tasks. Those 11 inch non-wide screens are still, for me, the ideal for the kind of work I do. Screen hinge became a little loose, and the keyboard got a little beaten up.

Dell XPSM1330 - with the *dreaded* nvidia card. 2008-present. White lines of death after thirteen months; motherboard replaced on warrant; copper mod done to keep temps down; since then...perfection. Run problem free last two and a half years.

Have recently changed keyboard for vostro black version, and changed to ram drive. Running undemanding version of linux keeps temps down, fan runs rarely. Most impressed that I'm still getting 5-6 hours battery life from the original 9-cell battery. Hope to get another 2 years out of it.

One of the rare happy bunnies with the xps.

[ganzonomy]

4 years and 5 months on a dell xps m1710.

All i did was upgrade the gpu to the 7950gtx (i wanted a rig) and i just changed the HDD from 160gb to 500gb for windows 8, but the original parts are still fully functional.