Uh-Oh...

[Gdad]

Came home tonight and the first thing I notice when walking into the house is the smell of burning or melting plastic. A quick (sniffing) search of the house points to my new computer. My wife had just gotten home and turned it on maybe 30 minutes before. I turned it off and the fan ran for at least 15 minutes after- possibly controlled by a thermostat? Anyway- most data is on an external hard drive so that is safe. I guess I will be sending it back to Dell. I hope it is under warranty- IIRC it's maybe 5-6 months old.

DIS'ing from her laptop in case you were wondering.

 

[JR6ooo4]

I always worry about that. Do servers have extra fans for backup?
I would love to be able to get files off my work computer when I am away. But I am afraid I would come back to an office in ashes.

Mikeeee

Oh and sorry for your loss.

 

[YEKCIM]

Bummer, dude; hope you get a quick replacement from the nice folks at Dell.

~Ed

 

[Evad]

Had the same thing happen to me a while back. My comp. overheated and fried my hard drive and lost everything. Good thing I had my Disney pics burned on a dvd. Good luck getting things fixed Jeff.

 

[NostalgicDad]

Oh man, I thought you were going to say your D300 was in flames!

My brother-in-law just had this happen a couple of days ago to his computer. The power supply apparently over-heated and it got so hot for so long that it actually burned part of the wall next to it. That's an eye-opener.

Hopefully Dell will come through for you.

 

[DVC Jen]

Yikes I hope they pull through for you too. I just got a Dell in December and would not be a happy camper if something happened to it.

Keep us posted.

 

[Groucho]

I would suspect the power supply first and foremost, power supplies are often built cheaply and it's not uncommon for them to fail, though usually without any smells.

Several big-name PC builders (like Dell) skip the use of CPU or motherboard fans in the interest of quiet, and just use big heatsinks and ducting leading to a single fan blowing out the back of the PC. Theoretically it should be OK but certainly it won't cool as well as a proper heatsink and fan combination like you'd find on a more custom-built PC. Have you seen some of the outrageous CPU heatsink/fans you can buy nowadays? There's some real whoppers.

If the smell truly was melting plastic, it's unlike that your hard drive was causing it, as they are almost completely metal. It's fairly trivial to pull the drive out and try it in another PC, if you have the right knowledge of what you're doing and if it won't void your warranty (which it probably won't.) That'd be an easy way to tell if the drive was OK, and to grab all the data that you could before sending it back.

Good luck, hopefully you'll get a quick repair and be back in business!

 

[EeyoreFan1]

Weve had only bad luck with Dells. Sorry to hear what happened. It should definitely still be under warranty!

We jsut recently got a new HP Pavillion.

 

[Groucho]

Weve had only bad luck with Dells. Sorry to hear what happened. It should definitely still be under warranty!

Sorry to say, I'm the same way. I've supported several hundred Dell laptops at my last job and would never buy a Dell laptop for myself. (We love our new Thinkpad. )

Desktops are generally more reliable across the board than laptops though, usually hard drives and power supplies are the big problems... though motherboard failures do happen sometimes.

 

[mabas9395]

Just go buy a new computer and put it on your credit card (oops, sorry. I'm getting my threads crossed).

 

[DueyDooDah]

I have been working with many different PC manufacturers for many years and each have their pros and cons. All have very good products yet they all have an "acceptable" failure rate that they deal.

I believe that support is the key to loving or hating a computer manufacturer. I find that Lenovo seems to have not only a great laptop selection but the support has always been top-notch whether it be a business PC on a global support contract or for the home buyer on the initial standard warranty. I have had great service from all manufacturers when the equipment is under a business-level contract but have found them not to be as "helpful" when dealing with standard consumer warranties. I hope you have a good experience with Dell.