Dell 5150 overheating and the US Class Action

Johnny Jukebox

While investigating overheating problems with my Dell 5150 laptop, I discovered that I am not alone and that a group of Dell users have successfully sued in the US; See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Inspiron#Overheating

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lundell_Settlement

This is wonderful news for the US consumer, but what about us Europeans ? Has anyone pursued Dell Ireland/Europe to try and get a similar deal ?

ejmaztec

I've got a 5160 and left my details on the following site. I've yet to hear whether being in Ireland makes any diference. If you look on the Lawyer's site you'll see that they were part of the 5150 etc class action.

http://www.lieffcabraser.com/dell-inspiron-3.htm

ejmaztec

Just got a reply from the US lawyers. Any Irish lawyers want to make a name for themselves?

We do not know of any legal action being taken against Dell outside of the United States and Canada at this time. We suggest that you seek local counsel in your country of residence to determine whether any cases exist or whether you have any valid claims that you might bring against Dell.

Best regards,

Adelina Acuña
Paralegal
Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein
275 Battery Street, 28th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111
Phone: (415) 956-1000 ext. 2261
Fax: (415) 956-1008
www.lieffcabraser.com

Access

Ah Jesus! Here we go again!

I have had a 5150 for the past 3 years, and sure, it does get hot. As i type this, I8kfanGUI is telling me, that the CPU is sitting at 45 degrees, and i aint got nothing else running except for firefox and zonealarm!

Fecking lazy americans! It is just common sense though to keep the fan grill clean by using compressed air and/or dyson! The fault is down to very bad design on the grill plate and flow through.

If you own a inspiron 5150, then do this often and every 6 months or so, strip down the fan and grill and clean them. (google if you dont know how to remove fan etc.)

Dell laptops... Great sandwich toasters! The only fecking thing besides the overheating problem is the battery. Mine will only hold about 25 min at the mo. I am having to keep it pluged in all the time!

Johnny Jukebox

All very well, except I bought the laptop to write software on and have no interest in delving into its innards. As for lazy Americans, more like consumers who rightly wont put up with sub-standard products from arrogant multinationals and whose complaint has been upheld in a court of law.

At this point, I'm going to write this laptop off, as its costing me more time and effort than I can afford. Any new laptop wont be a Dell, and any future professional or personal recommendations or approvals that I make wont be Dell either.

Capt'n Midnight

In fairness DELL do more than one range of Laptop. The Latitudes are the corporate notebooks and tend to be better and Dell designed if not built, but more expensive. The Inspironsare usually OEM'd by another manufacturer, and in the case of the 5150 some of the BIOS updates were related to temperature. IIRC the 5150 was never a top spec laptop , being more of a cheap and chearful model.
As for the 25 min battery life, Pentium Mobile laptops had nearly double the battery life as P4's back them and most manufacturers only give one years cover on the batteries. Had you bought an Inspiron at the time there is a good chance you'd have got a brand new sony battery by now.

What did they win ?, usually the award is split between lawyers fees and discount vouchers.

[unswapped]

ressem

Justing posting to note: Be wary about using the hoover near computer fans, you can easily damage them, and the hoover tip will have a static charge.

And Capt'ns swapped inspiron with latitude above, I think.
Current D generation (business) Latitudes are made by Samsung, from what I read? And of these, those I worked on are pretty decent/cool/quiet.

Johnny Jukebox

Johnny Jukebox wrote:

At this point, I'm going to write this laptop off, as its costing me more time and effort than I can afford. Any new laptop wont be a Dell, and any future professional or personal recommendations or approvals that I make wont be Dell either.

Mea culpa. I take it all back.

Dell arrived out, changed the heatsink, fan and motherboard and now all is well. Credit where credits due...