Think Twice Before Buying a Dell Computer – They Use Shoddy Motherboard Components
January 31st, 2010. Published under Business Scams, Fraud, Scams. No Comments.
At first I thought what I am sharing with you was a single isolated incident, after the third discovery of the same issue with Dell motherboards, in three different models I decided that it is time to disclose Dell’s use of cheap and/or shoddy electronic components. The first incident I discovered in one of our PowerEdge 4600 hosting servers. The server in question is worth more than the card I drive. A year or so ago one of the four hot-swap power supplies began to cause errors and subsequently the server would randomly shut down. This affected many of our customers financially. After babysitting the server for several days, I pulled the malfunctioning power supply out and let the server run on the remaining three. The server stopped shutting down and for the time being I forgot about the issue. About 9 months later (3 months ago) another power supply started causing the same problems. The server again would randomly shutdown. I shut the server down and pulled it all apart and discovered the power distribution board than controls the four power supplies had swollen and leaking capacitors as you can clearly see below. I did manage to talk to Dell Support on a Saturday morning and they gave me the part number(s) for the power distribution board. I called Dell parts the following Monday and they did not stock the part, I was told that it would have to be manufactured (?) and the couldn’t tell me when a board would be available. I couldn’t wait indefinitely for a board from Dell so I ended up getting the board from a Dell equipment surplus company. I got the board in three days and after installing haven’t had any further problems with the server. Shortly after that a customer brought me a high-end Dell XPS tower PC that would not startup. After troubleshooting the power supply I started looking at the motherboard. Initially I saw no immediate problems with the board. However, upon removing the fan shroud from the processors I discovered swollen and leaking capacitors on the motherboard. Dell XPS motherboards are extremely difficult to match as the only documentation I can find are “generation” notations (gen 1, gen 2, etc.). I am still trying to match the motherboard so I can buy a surplus board to install. Next my Dell Precision 650 workstation began randomly shutting down, often times while I was in the middle of working. I pull the system offline and opened it up. I am guess by now you know what I found. Once again I found leaking and swollen capacitors. By this time I am seeing a pattern of shoddy/cheap/defective electrical components on system critical boards. The above are three different computer system that were manufactured in different years and yet have the same identical problem. I have never seen leaking and swollen capacitors in this many computer of the same brand in all my 16 plus years of performing computer repairs. The only thing that can cause this sort of problem is that Dell is buying cheap components for their motherboards in an effort to boost their profit margins on the computers they sell. To top it off one of my family members has a Dell XPS laptop and the motherboard has been replaced four times by Dell to date. I am not positive it’s a capacitor issue but you can bet I believe it may be. I encourage you the next time you shop for a computer stay away from Dell computers. Take a look at Acer, HP and Gateway computers. You’ll be better off if you do.
Originally posted here:
Think Twice Before Buying a Dell Computer – They Use Shoddy Motherboard Components