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
news:13329-3F0D6EAD-...
> 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.