I'm once again growing bitter with Dell. My XPS 15 (L502x) had a
power supply failure, couldn't have been more than a month ago.
Thankfully, I was still a few weeks away from the 1-year warranty
expiration, so I promptly contacted Dell and, with slightly less trouble
than I expected, had it swapped out.
I wasn't home when it failed. I returned home to find my laptop completely
off, which is not how I left it. I tried turning it back on, but it
would not turn on. I noticed the blue ring on the power connector
(coming from the power supply, not on the laptop itself) was not
illuminated as it normally is. This was a clue that the power supply had
failed. However, I could not turn the laptop back on until I reseated the
battery.
Unbelievably, about 20 minutes
ago my (new?) replacement power supply went belly up. This time I was
using it when the whole thing just shut down. First thing I looked at
was the blue ring on the power connector, and sure enough, it's off. I
unplugged it and tried to turn the laptop on, as it has a full battery,
but just as before, it would not turn on until I reseated the battery.
My warranty expired today, June 2nd. And it's Saturday to boot. I
probably won't get a replacement until Wednesday at the earliest. I'm
pretty sure if I saw someone walking in front of my house right now with
a Dell name tag on, I'd probably hurt him. I'm fairly bent, can you
tell?
I considered contacting Dell and pleading my case with them, fully
aware that they would likely delight in telling me "oh, that's too bad,
your warranty is expired." I even went so far as to try to initiate a
live chat with their support, but their system is not currently
accepting connections. All I get is a message stating that their reps
are busy and the queue isn't open, and that I should call instead. The
last thing I want right now is to hear a foreign voice pissing me off
even more, so to heck with that.
I also weighed the option of finding out how much it would cost to
extend the warranty, and if it struck me as too much more than I could
probably get a new power supply for, I'd tell them to forget it. In the
end, I just can't put myself through dealing with Dell support in my
current mental state. They are usually too much for a sane man, so I'm
definitely going to have to pass.
I'm using up about 50% of my full battery to do two things: order a
new power supply from Dell for $100, and post a blog about my disdain
for the situation I find myself in. I'm on my laptop for hours every
day. The next several days are going to be painful... again.
