Laptop broken after overheating

jarhodes314

I bought a refurbished Dell XPS 15 from Fix Your Laptop Ltd in July of this year via eBay (bought using a debit card). They offer a 6 month warranty. In September, I upgraded it from a 256GB SSD to a 1TB SSD (bought off Amazon, again using a debit card). For a few weeks, the laptop has been suddenly claiming it has no charge left and hibernating. When you try to turn it on after the, there is a BIOS message saying that it does not have enough charge to boot up. Plug it in after this and voila, it suddenly has 30% charge (and will be fine if it is unplugged). The other day, the laptop did this, so I placed it in my bag (since I had no way of charging it at the time). I then found an hour later that the thing had somehow turned itself on in my bag and overheated, breaking the SSD inside.

The company have said "The battery is a consumable item, depreciates over time when charging and unplugging which isn't covered under warranty." which I understand, but was thinking that this is clearly abnormal behaviour and a battery that gives false readings is faulty, not overused (along with the fact the laptop tends to discharge fully within around an hour and a half even though 6 months ago it was supposed to be almost new). They also said "if the laptop is not booting we can sort this problem out for you.", but I am concerned they will just replace the SSD with a 256GB one. What should I do?

agrinnall

Although I understand that your concern in this post is about your consumer rights, I think it would be worth posting about the technical issues on the Techie board as it might be helpful to your case to work out exactly what the problem is.

stuartJo1989

jarhodes314 wrote: »

I bought a refurbished Dell XPS 15 from Fix Your Laptop Ltd in July of this year via eBay (bought using a debit card).

Looking at google, it was released October 2010? So your laptop could be roughly 7 years old in total....

In September, I upgraded it from a 256GB SSD to a 1TB SSD (bought off Amazon, again using a debit card).

Ah, did you do this yourself or via the company you bought it from? Sometimes making modifications can void a warranty you see...

For a few weeks, the laptop has been suddenly claiming it has no charge left and hibernating. When you try to turn it on after the, there is a BIOS message saying that it does not have enough charge to boot up. Plug it in after this and voila, it suddenly has 30% charge (and will be fine if it is unplugged). The other day, the laptop did this, so I placed it in my bag (since I had no way of charging it at the time). I then found an hour later that the thing had somehow turned itself on in my bag and overheated, breaking the SSD inside.

Could this actually be related to the installation of the 1TB SSD? It seems to have started "suddenly" after you had installed it... Maybe you need to seek a remedy from the party who sold you the SSD?

The company have said "The battery is a consumable item, depreciates over time when charging and unplugging which isn't covered under warranty." which I understand, but was thinking that this is clearly abnormal behaviour and a battery that gives false readings is faulty, not overused (along with the fact the laptop tends to discharge fully within around an hour and a half even though 6 months ago it was supposed to be almost new).

Well, if I'm right in saying that the laptop is 7 years old then the battery is up to 7 years old.... Again, google is sort of suggesting that the lifespan is fairly shorter! You see, I can't tell whether it is linked to YOU buying the new SSD or that it was an inherent fault at the point of purchase. Weird one really...

They also said "if the laptop is not booting we can sort this problem out for you.", but I am concerned they will just replace the SSD with a 256GB one. What should I do?

WELL.... firstly, you may well have voided the warranty and they may refuse to work on the laptop the moment they see the 1TB SSD....

Secondly, they are only legally obliged (whether through warranty or consumer rights) to provide you with the 256GB SSD as originally sold BUT you should equally be able to claim the 1TB SSD back from them!

I hope someone can come along to help here, as I'm not too clued up on this sort of stuff.