Dell 5150 Dual Core 2.8GHz inc 19" LCD Monitor & Free Printer £429 (merged)

ddavis

borgs wrote:

Thanks for that. I'll phone Dell tonight and hopefully arrange a replacement. I'm hoping that will all go smoothly and I get one without light bleed and no stuck pixels - fingers crossed. It's just as well there is the light bleed problem as I doubt they'd replace it if the only problem was 1 stuck pixel.

Thanks also for the tip about the cooler housing - I'll definately leave mine alone.

1 stuck pixel is enough for replacement if its new.
The ISO standards aren't on your side but trading standards are.
In trading standards eyes a screen is deemed faulty / not fit for purpose if it has ANY imperfection. 1 pixel is counted as an imperfection.

buggu

ddavis wrote:

1 stuck pixel is enough for replacement if its new.
The ISO standards aren't on your side but trading standards are.
In trading standards eyes a screen is deemed faulty / not fit for purpose if it has ANY imperfection. 1 pixel is counted as an imperfection.

yeh got to agree dont take the excuses most retailersgive you. An item should be fit for its purpose and last a reasonable period of time.

gdh82

My 5150 arrived yesterday and whilst I'm happy with the spec I can't say I'm happy with the variable rattle/vibration sounds the pc makes These noises come and go but do stop if I put my finger on the front casing (by the dell logo). Not impressed of course, especially when you consider its supposed to be "a cool, quiet design for your home".

Are Dell typically noisey machines, can anyone tell me? Is it likely to be the fan or the casing not properly secured ? I guess I'll be seeking a replacement but any other advice appreciated...

biglugs

I have a similar problem with my 5100 - the fan housing rattles up against the case some times. Solved by pinning it down with a bit of Blutack.

Whirly

biglugs wrote:

I have a similar problem with my 5100 - the fan housing rattles up against the case some times. Solved by pinning it down with a bit of Blutack.

It's a problem that's been annoying me but since I have transferred all my work to the dell and started dismantling my old workstation I thought I'd have to live with it.

But your solution gives me hope (especialy as I have some bluetack in my office!) but whereabouts, exactly, did you put it?

Any chance of a picture?

biglugs

I just opened the PC and stuck a bit under the fan housing, which seemed to be rubbing up against the grill mesh of the front air intake.

discountdave_3

I see there has been a lot of talk about the E196FP monitor, my 5150 arived today, I unpacked it and put it together within a minute there was choking black smoke from the top of the monitor, I phoned Dell (35min wait) said they will send another monitor, anyone else had this happen or am I just unlucky?

borgs

discountdave wrote:

I see there has been a lot of talk about the E196FP monitor, my 5150 arived today, I unpacked it and put it together within a minute there was choking black smoke from the top of the monitor, I phoned Dell (35min wait) said they will send another monitor, anyone else had this happen or am I just unlucky?

Yikes, I thought I got a bad one!!!

I've had this happen on an ultra-expensive 17" touch-screen iiyama CRT at my previous employers. Thick black, horrible smelling smoke out of the back. Since then I never ever leave any monitor on whilst unattended (at home) and turn them off rather than leaving them in standby mode.

By the way I'm guessing the cable for the monitor is the one with the 5amp fuse rather than the cable wth the 10amp fuse? No, I don't think this is why your TFT blew up but I just could not see any instructions that said which one should be used for what.

So that's now 2 TFTs Dell are getting back.

By the way if anyone is thinking about using Norton Ghost 2003 to back up their 5150 be very careful. I just put mine in a state whereby it was impossible to boot into Windows and where ctrl f11 (Dell recovery) from the hidden partition didn't work.

You have to set Ghost with the switch /noide (some problem with SATA drives) and set it to use USB1.1 for any external HD you are backing up to. Found that my USB 2 drive was turned off by Ghost when I'd set Ghost to use USB 2.

If you do get into the same state mine was in you have to boot with a DOS boot CD, run FDisk and set the NTFS partition as the active one.

biglugs

I have bought a Dell E196FP which worked fine for 20 minutes, then It started producing terrible ghosting and colour aberrations before becoming totally unusable. Dell sent me another one within a week or so, and collected the old one within about 2 MONTHS! Still the one I have now is great.

borgs

Just rang Dell. I have to test the TFT with the monitor cable unplugged. Will do that when I get home tonight although I'm pretty much certain it will be exactly the same.

I also mentioned the stuck pixel and was amazed that Dell consider SIX pixels to be reasonable - that's about the most I've ever heard of. But like ddavis, I wouldn't let that stupid rule stop me getting a replacement if it was just the pixels that were at fault.

Having said that I do hope that my replacement TFT has no faults.