RANT: Maintainability of some Dell laptops

If Michael Dell and his cohort, now out of the scrutiny of Wall Street and investors, are looking for something to do, they need to take a very close look at exactly how serviceable and maintainable their newer laptops are, and maybe figure out why they aren't selling so well. Yeah, yeah, I know. Windows 8 is toxic, plus tablets and other fondleslabs are all the rage. But try to repair some of these laptops. Me, oh, my.

Some of the models that have shown up here and are really vexing are most any Dell XPS I've ever seen, the Studio 1558, the Inspiron 1545, all of the Inspiron N-series that has shown up here.

Just try to replace a slot-loading DVD/CD drive in one of these buggers. Well, tear it down completely, remove the motherboard and (VOILA!) there is the drive.

Or, just try to clean out the heat sink/cooling fan thoroughly. Again, tear the system down completely, remove motherboard, and now you have access to the heat sink and fan.

Or, replace the power board in an Inspirion 1545. It's really nice that there is a $10 power board, so that the whole motherboard does not have to be replaced. Yet again, tear down the system completely and remove the motherboard to get at the power board.

Last of all we have the wonderful Inspiron N5010 and N4010, and, so you want to put in a larger hard drive or an SSD? Yep, tear it down, remove the motherboard, flip over the motherboard, replace hard drive.

What was so hard about removing two screws to extract a hard drive or one screw to remove an optical drive? The Latitude E6400 and E6410 may have had some other issues, but one turn of one screw and a bottom plate comes off to expose the hard drive, wifi, memory, heat sink, cooling fan. It's all right there for easy repair or upgrade.

There seems to be only one organization in these United States with a focus on electronics repair: iFixit. Not sure where they get their income from, but they do a good job the products they tear down. Wouldn't it be useful to see some maintainability ratings for laptops BEFORE you buy, rather than a year down the road when your cat sheds and clogs up the laptop heat sink?

Michael, I'll be happy to come to Austin with my trusty screwdriver kit and give all the hot shots some real lessons about laptops designed or not designed to be serviced. But get out your checkbook, 'cause I don't take BitCoin yet... Ben Myers

Or replace a coin cell battery on a vostro 1520.

It's motherboard extraction time.

I broke the thing somewhere in the process, but
the old coin cell battery was good anyway.

The directions in dell's online manual were wrong.
Remove coin cell battery happens about ten steps
before it's actually available, leading you to
believe that you can do it yourself.

That the remove coin cell battery page has all
other other steps after it might have given me a
clue, but who expects incompetence at that level.
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

By the way, what's the official method to keep
track of parts and screws as you go, so that you
can reverse it easily?

You wind up with quite a pile.
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

On Monday, January 27, 2014 9:05:29 AM UTC-5, Ron Hardin wrote:
By the way, what's the official method to keep

track of parts and screws as you go, so that you

can reverse it easily?



You wind up with quite a pile.

--





On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Official? Take photos with a digital camera during teardown. View photos in reverse when putting back together. There are also a number of YouTube videos that are pretty good, too, although tedious to view from start to finish.

I generally segregate the screws into a number of small piles, rather than mixing them all together. With some models of Dell laptops, surely only the older ones, the designers had enough sense to use screws almost all the same size, making for one big pile of screws and no ambiguity about which screw goes in which hole... Ben

On 1/27/2014 6:05 AM, Ron Hardin wrote:
By the way, what's the official method to keep
track of parts and screws as you go, so that you
can reverse it easily?

You wind up with quite a pile.


I use a muffin baking tray. It's the different screws
that present the most problem. But the thing I dislike
the most are the thin ribbon connectors.

GR

On Monday, January 27, 2014 2:30:41 PM UTC-5, Ghostrider wrote:
On 1/27/2014 6:05 AM, Ron Hardin wrote:

By the way, what's the official method to keep

track of parts and screws as you go, so that you

can reverse it easily?



You wind up with quite a pile.





I use a muffin baking tray. It's the different screws

that present the most problem. But the thing I dislike

the most are the thin ribbon connectors.



GR

That's not even a half-baked suggestion. An egg carton would also suffice for those lacking baking talent in the family. I've got my eye on that egg carton in the fridge... Ben Myers

On Tuesday, January 28, 2014 11:16:23 PM UTC-6, Ben Myers wrote:

That's not even a half-baked suggestion. An egg carton would also suffice for those lacking baking talent in the family. I've got my eye on that egg carton in the fridge... Ben Myers

....or that SSMTWTF pill-box thing late aunt Betty used! *L*

On Wednesday, January 29, 2014 8:37:47 AM UTC-5, Bob_Villa wrote:
On Tuesday, January 28, 2014 11:16:23 PM UTC-6, Ben Myers wrote:



That's not even a half-baked suggestion. An egg carton would also suffice for those lacking baking talent in the family. I've got my eye on that egg carton in the fridge... Ben Myers



...or that SSMTWTF pill-box thing late aunt Betty used! *L*

Don't have one of those pill boxes yet. Nobody left me one in their wills, either. Rigid mental discipline keeps me on the few meds I take. Mind like a trap. Snap! But, yeah, I guess that one of those would work, too, as long as there are not more than 7 different types of screws in a laptop. And, you know, if a laptop has more than 7 types of screws, it deserves to be run over by a steamroller. No self-respecting manufacturing type would sign off on a design that used so many screws.

I remain an advocate of the free-flowing approach. Take the screws out and leave them on the table. If one falls on the floor, no matter. Take a jar full of laptop screws for that brand, and use screws out of it. Very tidy, because you always have enough screws. Downside is you never know if left a screw out, because there is no count of unused screws. Oh, well! ;) ... Ben

On Mon, 27 Jan 2014 09:05:29 -0500, Ron Hardin
wrote:

By the way, what's the official method to keep
track of parts and screws as you go, so that you
can reverse it easily?

You wind up with quite a pile.

My mother taught me to arrange them in a pattern corresponding to where
came from when they were removed.

But I don't always do that anymore. I found that pill dispensers with
7 sections, one for each day of the week, make good containers, and show
which set of screws came out last.

For a dollar I got a pill dispenser with 3 or 4 sections per day, 7 days
a week. I havent' had a big enough project to use that.

On Monday, January 27, 2014 12:19:29 AM UTC-6, Ben Myers wrote:
If Michael Dell and his cohort, now out of the scrutiny of Wall Street and investors, are looking for something to do, they need to take a very close look at exactly how serviceable and maintainable their newer laptops are, and maybe figure out why they aren't selling so well. Yeah, yeah, I know. Windows 8 is toxic, plus tablets and other fondleslabs are all the rage. But try to repair some of these laptops. Me, oh, my.

Last of all we have the wonderful Inspiron N5010 and N4010, and, so you want to put in a larger hard drive or an SSD? Yep, tear it down, remove the motherboard, flip over the motherboard, replace hard drive.


Ben...I just worked on an N5050 (bought it for $40) and there are 16? screws on the bottom (only 2 being different from the rest), remove the keyboard, 2 more screws, 2 palm rest connectors, pop the palm rest off...slide the HDD over and it's out!
I don't know if I would have gotten it for 40 if it was 2 screws to get it out! ;^)