manicminer's dashboard

Spam, glorious spam. Spam spam spam spam - spam spam spam spam. S-P-A-M – manicminer, on November 09, 2009 18:00

Spam, glorious spam. Spam spam spam spam - spam spam spam spam. S-P-A-M – manicminer, on November 09, 2009 18:00

A few pics of the PSU with the Heath-Robinson repair and the location of the broken signal wire.

Overheating usually occurs when the room temperature is too high for the PSU to lose the heat it is generating or it is sat on soft surface, e.g. thick pile carpet or shoved behind a desk where there is little airflow.

Once the PSU has overheated components fail e.g. a liquid electrolytic capacitor can vent its fluid and become less effective, or in the worst case cause a short circuit inside the PSU and prevent it from working at all - that happened to me with a pair of lacie d2 drives - their excuse is comically the same as Dell's - it's not our fault - go and buy a new "improved" PSU that we happen to sell... – manicminer, on August 20, 2009 17:12

The break is probably at the computer end, e.g. if you bend the cable left or right whilst its on your desk - man, I'm telling you the red signal cable is very weak, I cut out a 40cm piece and it showed damage in six places! A gentle tug on the wire and it broke into two parts! – manicminer, on August 20, 2009 16:37

Yeah, Dell have replaced my motherboard for no reason - its almost like the old techie idea of switching off and on a PC to make it work. I'd disconnect the adapter and wait for it to cool down then try again - once the internal adapter temperature goes above 105C, irreversible damage is done and you'd have to buy a new one. A tip, keep your PSU on a hard surface at floor level with good air circulation - if gets very hot, unplug it and allow an hour or so for it to cool down. – manicminer, on August 20, 2009 16:27

It won't work for much longer - if the chip goes it's dead and that's it. If the wire breaks you get an intermittent contact, but sooner or later it'll give up the ghost. – manicminer, on August 20, 2009 16:21

The screws are underneath the feet. Pick the feet off and there is a plastic grommet, use a screwdriver to pop that sucker out. The you'll see a Philips head :) Do that four times and it'll come apart. The PSU is glued to one side of the case so you'll need to carefully lever it apart, then you'll need to temporarily bend back the shielding whilst you de-solder and re-solder the wires to the PSU. – manicminer, on August 20, 2009 16:20

Yeah - the Indian call centre was a nightmare - they had a "menu" and read from that, each time, same questions and I got nowhere. Its only when I started to lose my rag with them that I got to speak to someone more senior who said they'd give me a new PSU and not a crap 2nd hand one. – manicminer, on August 20, 2009 16:17

Yeah, I'm not buying Dell again either - I'm in year two of a four year warranty for the XPS M1730, I've had two Dell laptops before that and had no problems (except the exploding battery issue) I don't appreciate holding a conversation with people who don't understand English and who don't understand the problem or product. Dell is doing everything on the cheap and its bitten it and me on the arse. I think my next laptop is going to be a Lenovo - I'm even considering getting a PowerBook! that's how far Dell has pushed me! – manicminer, on August 04, 2009 09:11

There are two reasons for this;

- The data wire from the PSU to the laptop has broken, this is connected to the centre pin on my XPS M1730 - the wire is very weak and easily broken - there won't be any visible sign of damage from the outside. Basic advice, don't bend or pull on the cable whatsoever.

- The EPROM (memory) chip in the PSU is dead, this tiny three legged component tells the laptop what kind of PSU it is. This is similar to the above, but you can only check one or the other by opening the PSU.

Taking apart the PSU is something you should only do if you're qualified and aware of the risks to you, the laptop and the PSU.

If the motherboard needs replacing the message "AC adapter not present" will be in the BIOS battery info page.

I've taken both the PSUs apart and found they both have a working memory device! The memory device is connected to the centre pin of the power jack, tracing this back I found the red wire (this carries the data signal from the PSU) was broken right next to the strain relief sleeve on the PSU. There was no external damage to the cable. I soldered on the section of cable after the break and hey presto it works! Unless Dell change the type of wire for the data signal, then I think there's going to be lots of other people getting this problem. – manicminer, on July 31, 2009 22:00

Update: I was sent a new (old) PSU and that didn't work, so I've had a replacement motherboard and that didn't work. Silly old Dell sending out a "reconditioned" PSU without checking that it works. The fact that it sends out 19V isn't enough! Now I'm waiting on yet another PSU. I was told to throw the other two in the bin - good for the environment (not)

I've ordered a bunch of those pesky Maxim DS2502 ICs and now I've got two PSUs to fix - in a couple of days, probably a third one too! – manicminer, on July 30, 2009 13:40

Does anyone know how to open the m1730 PSU and does anyone have the sequence of bytes needed in the serial EPROM? I guess it is a matter of connecting the USB data + pin to the centre pin of the PSU (switched off, of course ;), to get the data out of a new PSU) - I think this is what Dell does and it does explain why the USB ports sometimes die at the same time as the PSU. Anyways, with those two things and a simple USB cable and the Maxim s/w it looks easy to program a new chip and replace the duff one. Dell are sending me out a new PSU under warranty but it'd be nice to get a second PSU for work so I don't have to lug it around.

For those people in the UK, why not threaten Dell with the Small Claims Court and the Sale Of Goods Act where something has to be of merchantable quality and should last a reasonable amount of time. AC adapters should last five years at the bare minimum! I'm sure they'd prefer to send you a new PSU rather than risk an appearance in court. Of course, tell the magistrate about the *full* cost of a replacement unit and the known defect in the dead one.