D830 {new} defective RJ-45 & USB Port??

Dell's order and free delivery was great; 7 day total from on-line order to doorstep

Centrino “Santa Rosa” T7700, 2.4 GHz, WUXGA Bright non-glare LGP Screen etc..

None of the usual 'Dell Bloat' on the XP-pro OS and AntiVirus/Firewall Suite was first install.

A visit to MS Update demanded a huge load of post SP2 updates and I have never seen so many hung shutdowns, ended up trying Windows Restore and needed the WinXP (SP2) CD to recover to that restore point. (Windows Restore had lost WININT.DLL and could not even use the <Crrl>/<F-11> Dell PC Restore.)

This time I installed the Microsoft WinXP Service Pack 3 (released for download in December) and another visit to MS Update had very few updates, but had to request IE-7.

System still seemed sick w/hangs and BIOS was not up-to-date (A_05 instead of A_08) considering the 'hang' problem, the Dell Windows Flash was out-of-the-question so after a DOS Flash to D830_A08 all the OS problems were gone and the System seems to function perfectly now.

HOWEVER; While looking to see which USB Port to use for the 'Floppy Flash' it looked like the "Powered USB' on the rear was damaged and further inspection revealed a defect (extra piece of spring-steel) in front of RJ-45 Port.

Since I have never seen a "Powered USB" would someone who knows what it should look like tell me if it looks defective?
{please click on the thumbnail below to open a larger (326 KB) copy and see inside the port}


Below is the RJ-45 issue, a 'snipper' should take care of that


Dell Support is only able to offer a motherboard replacement, or a swap for a "similar" refurb unit (and VISTA is the only choice).

Other choice is to return for cause under the 21 day refund policy and start over.

1. Am I being un-reasonable in my expectation of perfect quality?

2. Any idea when the D840's might be out, have too many 'D-series' accessories to consider waiting for an E800.

Port was fine

Glad to report that the "Powered" USB (D/Bay) female Port on my system has no defect!

Would you believe that the answer came from AntiVir Forum (AVIRA provides the BEST Security Software);

LINK to that Thread below:


I have found a picture on DELLs support, it seems the connector is okay:


This is the picture Michael was referring to:

"Pinouts 4, from Dell Support"

So happy I don't have to start all over, with setup of a new Dell again.

Art

Used the USB side of that receptical to set up the Printer and now Bluetooth will be the 'USB' for the HP460 Portable Printer.

I will fly into a location tomorrow where I should be able to test that Network Port,
the little spring piece might help hold the RJ-45 plug in more securely

There is still one more week left on my 'Return Period' so I won't tug on that little tab yet, but expect this D830 will be perfect for my needs.

keeping D830

Week left to be sure, but it is mostly looking good--- Last night, wrote a page in MS Word, just closed the lid for a few minutes, opened again and it and OS were gone, had to 'hard reset'..
a year ago, the D800 was hit by (right after MS Update) the "missing HAL.dll" and I ended up without ANY Power Management 'features' and it's never worked better

I do like the 'legacy' Ports on the D8xx Latitudes and even have the 'most up-to-date' (non-cardbus) PCMCIA Cards from the LM for External HD, I92 Modem and Network (RJ-45) connection.

Eleven year old Latitude LM (Love My Latitudes) will have an entertaining Retirement in the Pax Cabin, running an 'Air-Show' powered by a serial port Garmin Portable (GPS V) running Jeppesen FliteMap
and the passengers love to play with it. So it will never connect to a Network or Internet again.