XPS, the heat and fan noise problem

In another thread I complained about excessive heat and fan noise in
the XPS. I have discovered the problem or at least a very major part of
MY problem.

The large green shroud that directs the air around the circuit boards
had become detached and was lying against the side of the case. And
both rear CPU fans had also come loose from their mountings to the rear
grill and were hanging by their wires.

After reinstalling the shroud and the fans the noise and heat buildup
was significantly reduced. As the heat increased in the case the fans
would rev up but the heat was not being directed from the rear of the
case so the fans would increase their speed even more.

The shroud and the fans had plastic protrusions at their corners which
engaged small slots on the rear grill of the case. Not a very secure or
positive connection. It was a simple fix to remount these but it would
not take too much of a 'jar' to knock them loose again.

This and the following problem was also noted by some on the Dell
forums.

It was noted that the XPS "wobbled". Mine did too but a thin piece of
cardboard placed under one corner corrected that. The bottom of the
case does not have feet but rather has four raised indentations in the
metal at the four corners. It is all one piece and the stamping process
obviously did not create a perfectly flat bottom on all of the units.

There are also three slight but very noticeable rectangular indentations
on the top and near the front of some (or all?) of the cases. No one
seems to know what these are for and they may be a defect caused by the
manufacturing process.

All in all the XPS seems to be well thought out and a quality product.
That is as long as the noise and heat problems are fixed or are fixable.

Something I wonder about though is if there would be any damage to
electronic parts if the XPS was used for a significant amount of time
before the high heat buildup was corrected. I only used mine for a few
hours with this condition. One indication of the heat buildup was that
the CDs were very, very warm when removed from the drive.

Don

I e-mailed the info in my above post about the fan noise and heat
problems in my XPS to Dell Customer Care at 7:25PM Eastern last evening.

This morning at 3:27AM Dell sent an e-mail saying they were shipping a
full new system less monitor along with a return label for Airborne
Express. After I receive the new system I am to call Airborne and
request a pick up of the old one.

Do I have a reason to complain why it took them a full 8 hours and 2
minutes to resolve this problem?

Don wrote:
I e-mailed the info in my above post about the fan noise and heat
problems in my XPS to Dell Customer Care at 7:25PM Eastern last
evening.

This morning at 3:27AM Dell sent an e-mail saying they were shipping
a full new system less monitor along with a return label for Airborne
Express. After I receive the new system I am to call Airborne and
request a pick up of the old one.

Do I have a reason to complain why it took them a full 8 hours and 2
minutes to resolve this problem?

No.

Q

"Don" wrote:
I e-mailed the info in my above post about the fan noise
and heat problems in my XPS to Dell Customer Care
at 7:25PM Eastern last evening.

This morning at 3:27AM Dell sent an e-mail saying
they were shipping a full new system less monitor
along with a return label for Airborne Express. After
I receive the new system I am to call Airborne and
request a pick up of the old one.

Do I have a reason to complain why it took them
a full 8 hours and 2 minutes to resolve this problem?


Interesting. Take a look at the full headers on the email.
Does it look like it came from somewhere in India? And if
you know how, try doing a traceroute on the IP address of
the originating point.


=Roddy=

"Don" wrote in message
...
I e-mailed the info in my above post about the fan noise and heat
problems in my XPS to Dell Customer Care at 7:25PM Eastern last evening.

This morning at 3:27AM Dell sent an e-mail saying they were shipping a
full new system less monitor along with a return label for Airborne
Express. After I receive the new system I am to call Airborne and
request a pick up of the old one.

Do I have a reason to complain why it took them a full 8 hours and 2
minutes to resolve this problem?


I think 8 hours sounds like a damn good turnaround time.

Tom, I am very well pleased with the response from Dell. To say the
least. And I WAS being sarcastic. In my e-mail to them I simple told
of the problem and asked for no solution leaving it up to their good
graces.

I probably would have accepted an extension of my warranty from one year
to four years rather than receiving a new unit. The computer is running
cool and reasonably quiet now.

I think that I misspoke on the time it took for Dell's response. It was
3:27am (EDT-1) which means Standard time (I guess) which means that it
would have been 4:27am my time (Eastern) which means that it took them
approximately .88% longer than I had first thought but that don't
matter much since I was sleeping anyway.

I posted all of this because it seems that quite a few people have the
same noise/heating problem on the XPS. They should open their case and
check the fan and shroud mounting.

Below is the message that I received from Dell. It obviously (?) was
sent from the States. Roddy, I don't know how to do that tracer route
stuff.
***********************************************
Saved e-mail message

From: Date: Thu, Jul 10, 2003, 3:27am
(EDT-1) To: Subject: AT20030709_0000018439 ~xAM~

Customer Resolution Form Submission
Please include the following line in all replies.
Tracking number: AT20030709_0000018439

Dear Donald,

Thank you for contacting Dell Online Customer Care. I apologize for any
inconvenience this issue may have caused.

I have set up a request to send you the replacement for the full system
except monitor. It should ship in 5-7 business days to the original
ship-to address. It will include a return label for Airborne Express.
Please put the original product in a box and affix the label. Then call
Airborne Express at 1-800-247- 2676 to request a pick up.

Your billing reference number is xxxxxxxx. Please write this number on
the label and on the box. Be sure to keep a copy of the airbill for
tracking purposes.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation. ( I was only impatient for
a couple of hours and then I went to bed)

We value you as a Dell customer and your satisfaction is important to
us. In our efforts to improve the services we provide, you may receive a
survey requesting your feedback pertaining to the level of customer
service you received via e-mail. Please take a moment of your time to
let us know how we're doing as we also value your feedback.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to
contact us.
Thank you for choosing Dell!
Have a wonderful day!

Respectfully,

Rik
DTB6322

Monday-Friday 8am-5pm CST
Dell Americas Customer Care
www.dell.com/public-ecare

-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: 09 Jul 03 19:25
To:
=A0=A0=A0=A0
*******************************************

"Don" wrote:
Below is the message that I received from Dell.
It obviously (?) was sent from the States. Roddy,
I don't know how to do that tracer route stuff.
***********************************************
Saved e-mail message

From:
Date: Thu, Jul 10, 2003, 3:27am (EDT-1)
To:
Subject: AT20030709_0000018439 ~xAM~

Customer Resolution Form Submission
Please include the following line in all replies.
Tracking number: AT20030709_0000018439

Dear Donald,

[........]
If you have any further questions or concerns,
please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you for choosing Dell!
Have a wonderful day!

Respectfully,

Rik
DTB6322

Monday-Friday 8am-5pm CST
Dell Americas Customer Care
www.dell.com/public-ecare


That's just the body of the message, i.e. without the headers,
and it could have originated anywhere. ("Say 'Have a nice day'
and you'll sound like an American. Say 'Have a wonderful day',
and you'll sound even *more* American".) The headers can
be viewed by pressing ctrl/F3, and the headers plus the body
will be displayed, and you can cut/paste them into a news posting.
The names of the mail servers between the sender and the receiver
are sometimes names of cities. Otherwise, their IP addresses
can be another indication of the ISPs en route, but you'd have to
know how to do a whois to get the domain owners. Could you
post just the headers?


=Roddy=

It's probably a U.S. answer because the overseas ones use very formal
English obviously written by someone for whom English is not their first
language.
I am finding that emailing is the best way to get problems solved. Also
less frustration on my part hanging on for a techie for close to an hour.
Carol

"Don" wrote in message
...
Tom, I am very well pleased with the response from Dell. To say the
least. And I WAS being sarcastic. In my e-mail to them I simple told
of the problem and asked for no solution leaving it up to their good
graces.

I probably would have accepted an extension of my warranty from one year
to four years rather than receiving a new unit. The computer is running
cool and reasonably quiet now.

I think that I misspoke on the time it took for Dell's response. It was
3:27am (EDT-1) which means Standard time (I guess) which means that it
would have been 4:27am my time (Eastern) which means that it took them
approximately .88% longer than I had first thought but that don't
matter much since I was sleeping anyway.

I posted all of this because it seems that quite a few people have the
same noise/heating problem on the XPS. They should open their case and
check the fan and shroud mounting.

Below is the message that I received from Dell. It obviously (?) was
sent from the States. Roddy, I don't know how to do that tracer route
stuff.
***********************************************
Saved e-mail message

From: Date: Thu, Jul 10, 2003, 3:27am
(EDT-1) To: Subject: AT20030709_0000018439 ~xAM~

Customer Resolution Form Submission
Please include the following line in all replies.
Tracking number: AT20030709_0000018439

Dear Donald,

Thank you for contacting Dell Online Customer Care. I apologize for any
inconvenience this issue may have caused.

I have set up a request to send you the replacement for the full system
except monitor. It should ship in 5-7 business days to the original
ship-to address. It will include a return label for Airborne Express.
Please put the original product in a box and affix the label. Then call
Airborne Express at 1-800-247- 2676 to request a pick up.

Your billing reference number is xxxxxxxx. Please write this number on
the label and on the box. Be sure to keep a copy of the airbill for
tracking purposes.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation. ( I was only impatient for
a couple of hours and then I went to bed)

We value you as a Dell customer and your satisfaction is important to
us. In our efforts to improve the services we provide, you may receive a
survey requesting your feedback pertaining to the level of customer
service you received via e-mail. Please take a moment of your time to
let us know how we're doing as we also value your feedback.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to
contact us.
Thank you for choosing Dell!
Have a wonderful day!

Respectfully,

Rik
DTB6322

Monday-Friday 8am-5pm CST
Dell Americas Customer Care
www.dell.com/public-ecare

-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: 09 Jul 03 19:25
To:

*******************************************

"Don" pasted:
Here is the header from the e-mail that I received from Dell in which
they said that they would be sending a new XPS because of the noise/heat
problems that I encountered on my 2 1/2 day old one.

This should clear up the question from whence it came. ..... Right?
.... Roddy?

**********************************************
Received: from smtpin-2104.public.lawson.webtv.net (172.16.213.114) by
storefull-2196.public.lawson.webtv.net with WTV-SMTP; Thu, 10 Jul
2003 01:37:13 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from smtp9.us.dell.com (smtp9.us.dell.com [143.166.148.136])
by
smtpin-2104.public.lawson.webtv.net (WebTV_Postfix+sws) with ESMTP
id 83F0EFE61 for ; Thu, 10 Jul 2003 01:37:12
-0700 (PDT)
..Received: from smtp-out.us.dell.com (auscemap01.us.dell.com
[143.166.87.114]) by smtp9.us.dell.com (8.12.9/8.12.7) with SMTP id
h6A8VUmE003428 for ; Thu, 10 Jul 2003
03:31:30 -0500
Message-Id:
From:
To:
Subject: AT20030709_0000018439 ~xAM~ Customer Resolution Form Submission
Date: Thu 10 Jul 2003 03:27:16 CDT
X-Mailer: Cisco eMail Manager NT; Build: 234 2002/8/21 13:53:11 , Global
Build CEM-4.0.678-B-233-Patch-5_RServer_Debug
X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.31
X-Brightmail: Message tested, results are
inconclusive

*********************************************
The only word in all of the above that I can connect with as making much
sense is the last one.


Well, the Dell SMTP server's IP address checks out as a Dell
address. And a traceroute shows it going to a BBNPlanet router
in Texas before hitting the Dell domain, so I guess it really came
from Dell US.

The X-Brightmail header was probably added by Brightmail,
the anti-spam service used by a lot of the big ISPs. It couldn't
decide if Dell was a spammer or not. :-)


=Roddy=