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Returning both E1505s... very disappointed with Dell

post #1 of 23
4/12/06 at 10:21am
Thread Starter 
My first E1505 came with a dead pixel near the center of the screen. Dell, without hassle, built me a new machine. Guess what... the new one has a dead pixel as well. To me that is just unacceptable. On top of that re-installing Media Direct is a complete pain in the ass. The factory puts it in the HPA area of the drive. If you leave that alone you can repair and get it working again but if you blow away the HPA and try to re-install with the installation disk for MD 2 it just goes to the BSOD when you try to start. The MD2 repair routine also re-enables the HPA but ends up hosing up the tables. Bottom line... after multiple attempts I couldnt prevent corrupted tables.

I'm going to hang on to my 8600 and probably wait for Merom. If I decide to buy something before then I will probably look at Acer. Aside from not having multiple display resolutions to choose from they do offer very feature filled machines at reasonable prices.

Tim
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post #2 of 23
4/12/06 at 10:33am
I bought and returned an Acer recently due to horrible build quality and a very annoying keyboard that would skip keys. Dont buy a cheap acer, you'll probably want to go for a flagship model for better quality.
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post #3 of 23
4/12/06 at 10:58am
I shopped around pretty hard and found dell to be a good choice. I did wish they had a 15" book with a Go7800. Are dead pixels common, this is the 3rd notebook I have owned and never seen a dead one?
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post #4 of 23
4/12/06 at 11:03am
Tim I'm sorry you had problems with your laptop... why do you need media direct anyway? I doubt you're saving THAT much battery power booting into media direct instead of XP itself.. plus I found the DVD player in media direct to be sub-par... I'd rather not have media direct on mine, honestly. BTW, with your dead pixel, did you try all the different solutions that usually fix these things? massaging the area, using those screen flash programs, etc?
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post #5 of 23
4/12/06 at 6:33pm
Thread Starter 
I tried the usual method of massaging the area to fix the dead pixel but it made no difference. I guess a number of things have been building up with me and Dell over the last two months...

1. 8600 was issued a new mainboard under warranty (4 yr) about 6 weeks ago. The tech not only installed the 1st gen motherboard (no CMOS battery in my chassis for that) they didn't put the laptop back together correctly. I ended up having to spend more time convincing Dell it was the wrong mainboard. I replaced that one myself.

2. I order a new E1505 and it arrives with a dead pixel and the LCD cover not joining together properly on one of the edges. Dell issues a replacement system.

3. After 3 attempts Dell could not manage to fix an error in the shipping address on the 2nd system. This was an error they introduced. UPS was sent out with the wrong address and wouldn't let me change it because of their policy with Dell. I ended up having to pick it up at the local office.

4. The 2nd system arrives and it has a dead pixel as well. I just can't tolerate that in a brand new system. Compared to my 8600's WUXGA (no defects) the SXGA+ isn't that high of a resolution. It shouldn't be that hard to yield zero defect displays these days. Or Dell should stop trying to go for the cheapest and give their customers a quality LCD panel. I'd pay to ensure my display was shipped with zero defects.

5. Media direct... poorly written installation routines that do not work. I wasn't about to sit online with yet another foreign support person. Yeah I don't need have to have MD but that's not the point.

6. Re-install CDs... just f'ing include them in the first place or atleast give people the option to get all of them when they place the laptop order.

I guess I just don't have any more patience with Dell. My 8600 was great in every aspect but the E1505s seem like a step backwards in some ways from a feature point of view. No dock port, no PCMCIA, no second bay for an additional battery, no WUXGA option, BS partitioning schemes. The only thing the E1505 really offers is the Core Duo. My 8600 is lighter and not as thick. I still want a Core Duo machine but I'm going to get much firmer on my requirements.

If Dell does something to cut costs you can be assured it is going to become a pain in the ass for the end user.

Tim
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post #6 of 23
4/12/06 at 7:10pm
Interesting that you say the e1505 is thicker and heavier than an 8600..... I'm glad to know that, since I own an 8600, and will now take that into consideration....... Thanks
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post #7 of 23
4/12/06 at 8:10pm
That's too bad. Even though they run tests, looks like they don't do them thoroughly.
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post #8 of 23
4/12/06 at 8:23pm
Yeah my my E1505 was f****d from the start.. They should have never have even sent it out. These tests that dell does must not be done by people...Dell insists the noise in my E1505 is due to a faulty harddrive but I don't think that is it. They want me to virtually take all the components out to test each one so they can narrow it down to the harddrive. I said screw that and ordered a harddrive off from zip zoom fly (I was going to upgrade anyways). If the new harddrive doesn't fix the problem i'm just going to return the laptop and be done with it. I'll keep the harddrive and put it in whatever laptop I end up buying. I like the size and build of the E1505 but an E1705 with a 7900 go would be hard to pass up (especially if a good deal pops up).
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post #9 of 23
4/12/06 at 8:43pm
I think the real reason Dell stopped shipping the install CDs with new systems is retarded customers kept losing the damn things. Of the past 5 hard drives I've had to replace in a home system (and the replacement drive wasn't imaged) 4 of the customers DID NOT have any of their CDs....either because they didn't realize what they were and just tossed them, or they're that effin stupid. Dell got tired of sending a new media kit to customers every they sent out a replacement hard drive.
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post #10 of 23
4/12/06 at 9:24pm
Thread Starter 
Well a suprise showed up this afternoon. Apparently they took me seriously yesterday when I told them I would rather them just send me a new LCD panel rather than try to exchange the system again. They sent me a new Samsung (original was LG) panel. I installed it for the hell of it and it is flawless from a dead pixel point of view. In light of this I'm leaning towards keeping it. There is some leakage at the bottom but that is A LOT less of an issue for me than dead pixels. The original panel was an LG and didn't seem to have as much leakage but I'm done fighting it.

Now as for MD2... I'd like to have the functionality restored but in the bigger picture it really isn't all that great.

Tim
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post #11 of 23
4/13/06 at 8:29am
That sucks that you had such bad luck with your E1505's. I haven't had a single problem with mine, and my LG screen is perfect. It's sad that Dell can't keep their QC up enough to ship out an acceptable product everytime. I mean I understand that with how many laptops they sell there will be a few bad ones, but the rate of how many bad ones is the problem. I had tons of problems with my I6000 and it took several months and sending it in several times to get it properly fixed. If Dell is going to keep their current customer base they really need to work harder at keeping the QC up and the defective parts down.

And Tim, keep in mind that the light leakage will get better over time, alot of times once the LCD really breaks in the light leakage will sometimes go away completely. The LG on my I6000 had a little bit of light leakage when I first got it but after a few weeks it was completely gone. Hopefully that will be the case with your new screen.
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post #12 of 23
4/13/06 at 9:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Sloper
My first E1505 came with a dead pixel near the center of the screen. Dell, without hassle, built me a new machine. Guess what... the new one has a dead pixel as well. To me that is just unacceptable. On top of that re-installing Media Direct is a complete pain in the ass. The factory puts it in the HPA area of the drive. If you leave that alone you can repair and get it working again but if you blow away the HPA and try to re-install with the installation disk for MD 2 it just goes to the BSOD when you try to start. The MD2 repair routine also re-enables the HPA but ends up hosing up the tables. Bottom line... after multiple attempts I couldnt prevent corrupted tables.

I'm going to hang on to my 8600 and probably wait for Merom. If I decide to buy something before then I will probably look at Acer. Aside from not having multiple display resolutions to choose from they do offer very feature filled machines at reasonable prices.

Tim
Tim,

If you read up a little on the manufacturing process of LCD's you will find that the reason most lcd builders have what they call an exceptable limit to what they feel is reasonable for the number, color, and grouping of dead pixels, this is due to the process in making these panels has a inherent chance to have dead, or stuck pixel(s). While I completely understand that no one wants an imperfect screen, the reality of it is that you should not black list a laptop just for one dead pixel as if the entire thing is a pos. It is misleading. And may be just a bit overly picky.

Again dont take this as a rip or anything, I would not be any more happy if my screen came that way either even with one bright blue dot in the middle of the screen. Just saying in the industry it is acceptable, and if you purchase any stand alone LCD you will find that 100% of the time there is a fine print on dead pixel policies on all of them. *Although light leakage is not something that is warranteed either, that is the one area if it is too overbearing then I completely agree with you that you should return the screen.

It is not a 100% process and you cannot get a perfect screen every time, same thing goes for a wafer of CPU chips, there are bound to be less than perfect ones in the batch.
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post #13 of 23
4/13/06 at 10:54am
Dead pixels are not uncommon, particularly on the higher resolustion LCS's. If you think about it the WUXGA has 2,304,000 discreet pixels, so if one of them is not functioning perfectly it should not be such a big suprise. I suspect them many of us have one or more defective pixels on our LCD's but don't even realize it. Much of the time they are tough to spot. If you take a magnifying glass and scan your screen carefully with the screen set to a solid color (no wallpaper or applications open - just blank screen) they become easier to spot them. Switch colors and rescan - continue doing so through a bunch of colors. You may be suprised to find 1 or more pixels that are less than perfect.

Now with that being said if I notice a pixel problem with a brand new notebook I would still have DELL send me a replacement screen (particularly if it was noticable during normal use).
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post #14 of 23
4/13/06 at 12:33pm
Yeah, I had a stuck pixel in my first LCD panel on my I6000D, and it never really bothered me that much because it was so small. I was able to get it working anyway by massaging the screen, but it wouldn't have bothered me that much if it had stayed that way. I ended up getting it replaced anyway because it developed this weird shadow on the screen that wouldn't go away and got a perfect LG screen as a replacement.
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post #15 of 23
4/13/06 at 12:57pm
It seems to me an inherent problem with our society today is that everybody expects the world to be perfect... on a cracker jack budget.
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post #16 of 23
4/13/06 at 1:11pm
i spend 1000+ dollars, i get a perfect product.

it has nothing todo with society, we all want perfection for our money that we work hard for.
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post #17 of 23
4/13/06 at 2:34pm
Thread Starter 
Last time I checked we didn't have the option of paying for a flawless product. The only option we had was to return the flawed product and take another crap shoot. If we had the option to pay for flawless and didn't exercise that option then I would agree.. stop bitching. But unless either Dell makes the choice to offer only flawless or gives me the option to ensure flawless I have every right to be completely happy with the purchase I made with my money.

Dell chose to accept less than perfect to maintain margins but the risk with that is that they will have people ocassionaly unhappy. They picked that model and they have to live with it. It's not our job to make sure any manfacturer maintains profitability. My responsibility is to make sure I'm not short changing ME and the money I earned.

Tim
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post #18 of 23
4/13/06 at 6:17pm
i'm sure all these problems are just as common in other laptop brands, but it seems like with dell's unbeatable pricing and coupons, they simply sell in more volume than those other brands.. thus, you see these problems arise more frequently in dells. i'm sure the % or chance of getting these problems is just the same in other brands.
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post #19 of 23
4/14/06 at 12:34am
I 've gone through 2 laptops, and 2 harddrives, and another on the way, so I will end up with 3 laptops. Originally, I ordered the E1505 with the integrated video card, but the LCD was defective, so they sent me out another laptop. I was able to convince them to upgrade my video card with the x1300 with no extra charge. When I received the 2nd laptop, everything was perfect, until the harddrive failed on me. Then they convinced me that they can sent out a new harddrive with everything preloaded, such as the drivers,etc. In a couple of days I received the new harddrive and I installed it, but to my surprise it was missing a lot of the drivers that was associated with my system. Then upon further investigation, they had the wrong operating system installed. It had the home edition installed, instead of the Professional edition. By this time, I was boiling!!! I was so pissed, since it's been 3 weeks and still do not have a laptop that works. I called Dell and went off on them and decided to give them one more chance. They are building me a new system and I should get it by next week, so I will see what happens.
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post #20 of 23
4/14/06 at 1:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by chevyrulz099
i spend 1000+ dollars, i get a perfect product.

it has nothing todo with society, we all want perfection for our money that we work hard for.
If you want a perfect product then you shouldnt buy the product that costs the less.
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