Posts Tagged ‘dell’
January 21st, 2010
I loved my Dell M1330 notebook until my laptop became another Dell product inflicted with NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS display adapter problems …
Dell Getting Hot and Shutting Down Resolved
After having owned my M1330 for just over a year, it started to behave erratically with the symptoms including; getting very hot, shutting down unexpectedly, ‘freezing’ and the screen suddenly showing multicoloured lines. My laptop was out of warranty and I did significant investigation as to what may be the problem (and resolution). After a lot of Googling and searching the Dell support Website (and I mean many hours searching for a resolution) I came across a blog post by Dell explaining that they are aware of the errors with NVIDIA GPUs and they and are providing a Limited Warranty Enhancement for the following Dell products; XPS M1530, XPS M1330, Vostro Notebook 1710, Vostro Notebook 1510, Vostro Notebook 1400, Vostro Notebook 1310, Latitude D830, Latitude D820, Latitude D630c, Latitude D630, Dell Precision M2300, Dell Precision M4300, Dell Precision M65, Inspiron 1420, Latitude D620. As described by Dell ‘the limited warranty enhancement is specific to this issue and will extend coverage by 12 months from the date the original warranty term for the laptop expires. For example, one-year warranties will be extended to 24 months for this issue only. The maximum combined period for the initial warranty and the limited-warranty enhancement is 60 months. Systems purchased with 60-month warranties will not be extended. Customers whose warranties have expired will be eligible for this limited warranty enhancement from the date the initial warranty expired’.
I contacted Dell support and they sent out a technician who replaced the relevant parts and my M1330 was up and running perfectly until …
Black and White Screen Resolved
Well, I woke up this morning and was welcomed with a black and white screen. After a bit of Googling I have discovered that there are many more people afflicted by this NVIDIA GeForce with Vista problem. My solution to this no color screen problem was to roll-back the display adapter driver which appears to have done the trick (i.e. I have a color screen again). This is all a bit baffling as the display driver hadn’t been updated for a few weeks so I have no idea why the screen was suddenly black and white.
Dell Service
I was a firm Dell proponent until the NVIDIA GeForce problems (note that prior to the display problems my XPS M1330 hard drive required replacement). I can understand that should Dell contact all owners of affected products to advise them of the potential problems they will have a stream of support requests that have nothing to do with the faulty NVIDIA issue which will be costly and onerous for Dell. As a consumer however I believe that Dell has not been altogether forthright with providing information about the NVIDIA GeForce being erratic. Even if Dell provides information about the known error on its support pages that would be a start. Dell is aware of a wide spread issue and should make information easily and readily available for consumers.
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Tags: dell, Dell Errors, Dell Precision, dell support, GeForce, geforce 8400m, Inspiron, laptop, Latitude, notebook, NVIDIA, vista, Vostro, XPS | 
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May 13th, 2009
Dell, the PC brand, went through a difficult patch a few years back in terms of less than desirable service. Certainly, from my recent experience, those bad old days are over.
My laptop of choice is a Dell XPS m1330. Its light weight, fast, the battery lasts for hours and the screen is great (the downside of the screen is that it’s a little small but for a highly portable laptop it’s not bad). I first encountered Dell PCs and Laptops about ten years ago when working as a ‘techie’. I was impressed back then with Dell and continue to be impressed. Read the rest of this entry »
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January 15th, 2009
A Blog is typically a web page containing articles (often called ‘posts’). Articles are added periodically and most Blogs encourage viewers to comment on the article. The vast majority of Blogs are maintained by individuals (such as this Blog). Blogs are part of what is known as Web 2.0 or Social Media.
Who Reads Blogs?
You read Blogs (this is a Blog post you are reading right now) as well as the majority of people who access the Internet. There are well over 200 million Blogs out there and this number is growing rapidly! Although Blogs started ‘life’ as informal and often very personal, that has changed with major media outlets (e.g. CNN) recognising the benefits of Blogging (see this post for more about mainstream media and Social Media). WordPress.com (who host only approximately 3 million active Blogs) received nine and a half billion pageviews in 2008 (that’s 18,000 pageviews a minute!!!).
How Do I Search for Blogs?
If you search the Web using Google, Live, Yahoo or any other search engine you are already searching Blogs (as well as ‘static’ web pages). There are a number of Blog directories which only return search results from Blogs e.g. icerocket.com and technorati.com.
Who Writes Blogs?
As noted previously, most Blogs are written and maintained by individuals. Some Blogs which started with individuals publishing posts have become extremely popular (e.g. perezhilton.com) and the value of Blogs is increasingly being recognised by large corporates. Blogs are being seen as a formidable Public Relations tool as well as a great means of engaging consumers (some companies even use Blogs to do market research). Dell has been extremely effective in raising its corporate image through it’s Blogging as has the Royal Navy in engaging potential recruits.
How Do I Set Up a Blog?
Blogs are simple and inexpensive to set-up. Common blogging platforms include WordPress (free hosting at wordpress.com), Typepad and Blogger (comparing the various Platforms needs a whole new post so won’t be covered here). The great thing about blogging is that it doesn’t have to be ‘right’ from the start. If you are an individual you can always change your Blog (obviously if you are a corporate you must get it right the first time!!).