Caution buying Dell Notebooks

**Rockntractor** · 06-23-2012, 07:32 PM

Many of the new Dell notebooks require complete disassembly including removal of motherboard just to upgrade the hard drive, The Inspiron N5110 is one that I own and had I known this would have never bought it, many other models including some Vostros are this way. This is the absolute worst design by far I have seen in a note book and you must confirm before you buy Dell that the hard drive is easily accessible, download a pdf. service manual of the model you intend to buy and read it to be sure before you buy one of these bricks !

**Rockntractor** · 06-23-2012, 07:39 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zblXlMA-F_w

**SarasotaRepub** · 06-24-2012, 12:23 PM

Good luck indeed!!

**Rockntractor** · 06-24-2012, 12:29 PM

If this laptop was designed in china some executions are in order.

**Janice** · 06-24-2012, 05:49 PM

Wow. They give you a decent processor and ram only to make hdd repair or replacement a much more expensive or difficult proposition. And then to add insult to injury its only a 5400 rpm hdd at that!

Reminds me how you have to take every single screw out or almost every single screw out to repair the power supply port on some laptops or just to clean the fans properly to re-enable proper cooling. Esp older ones. But one would think with the newer ones they would have learned by now. And with the hdd being attached to the mobo I wonder if the mobo is supposed to help cool it. So what happens to the mobo when the hdd does heat up too much?

My guess is Dell saved some money this way in order to keep the price competitive.

At least its not as stupid as what HP did with the DV series laptops with the single fan which served to cool both the cpu and the gpu which led to those class action law suits. I had to work on a lot of those. Sometimes you could do a reflow on the solder, sometimes you couldnt. They were beautiful, big, full featured laptops other than that.

Good for me I suppose. Im the one or one of the ones in my area they will bring these Dells to for repair.

**Rockntractor** · 06-24-2012, 06:08 PM

Originally Posted by Janice

Wow. They give you a decent processor and ram only to make hdd repair or replacement a much more expensive or difficult proposition. And then to add insult to injury its only a 5400 rpm hdd at that!

Reminds me how you have to take every single screw out or almost every single screw out to repair the power supply port on some laptops or just to clean the fans properly to re-enable proper cooling. Esp older ones. But one would think with the newer ones they would have learned by now. And with the hdd being attached to the mobo I wonder if the mobo is supposed to help cool it. So what happens to the mobo when the hdd does heat up too much?

My guess is Dell saved some money this way in order to keep the price competitive.

At least its not as stupid as what HP did with the DV series laptops with the single fan which served to cool both the cpu and the gpu which led to those class action law suits. I had to work on a lot of those. Sometimes you could do a reflow on the solder, sometimes you couldnt. They were beautiful, big, full featured laptops other than that.

Good for me I suppose. Im the one or one of the ones in my area they will bring these Dells to for repair.

I ordered a hard drive caddy to replace the optical drive, I'll leave the steam powered 5400rpm drive in for extra storage or back-up.

**Janice** · 06-24-2012, 06:31 PM

Thats a good work around Rock. And you could always get a usb cdrom to replace the optical drive if you needed to.

**Starbuck** · 06-24-2012, 06:42 PM

Dell was exposed a few years ago as having a straw man technical support force - one that did either not actually exist, or was filled with people whose intent was to put you on hold indefinitely.

The pity of it was Dell spent real money advertising what a superior support staff they had, knowing they were bullshitting the public.

No chance of me ever buying anything made by Michael dell & Co.

**Rockntractor** · 06-24-2012, 07:11 PM

Originally Posted by Janice

Thats a good work around Rock. And you could always get a usb cdrom to replace the optical drive if you needed to.

It has SATA out and I have a Bluray in an SATA enclosure.

**namvet** · 06-26-2012, 10:05 AM

the video is flawed. step 1 is to remove the back-up batt first. otherwise your into short circuit city. serviceability was not a factor in its design. take it the skeet range. that's where most LT's wind up anyway