dell inspiron 1420 graphics card issue

I felt compelled to share a bit of my experience with my computer. 2 years ago i bought my current Dell Inspiron 1420 {Delia} with the Nvidia Geforce 8400m gs graphics card because my previous computer, a BenQ Joybook 2000e, {Ben} one of the first notebooks the company release lacked one so I didn't get to play serious games on it. I miss Ben especially the fan noise. Its easy to mistake it with a plane's engine.

I've always regarded Dell's customer service to be one of the best. This and the customization feature on their website contributed to my decision to get one. In the 2 years since I've had Delia I've not run into any problems what so ever. There have always been a suspicion that the fan may be blocked which explains some of the heat issues I've been experiencing but no deal breaker. Until a few days ago after using it for a while, I shut down and headed for home only to turn it back again and be greeted by a blank screen.

There was no familiar Dell logo and the option to choose between windows 7 and ubuntu. Nothing. So as you can imagine i freaked out. This is not the kind of thing you want to experience when your warranty expires. After exhausting all alternative options i called the Dell helpline and took the option to extend my warranty since they didn't provide any other alternative. It was that or nothing. The nice lady didn't expect me to complain about my computer having display issues but I didn't care. I explained that this issue is suppose to be resolved by Dell since its a known defect with this particular graphics card and I read online on the Dell forum that they were providing replacement motherboards for customers worldwide with this issue free of charge so I made my claim and sure enough one day later I get a call from one of the Dell technical officers with a replacement motherboard. He even cleaned my heatsink and thats where I found out the heatsink was blocked with dust and stuff.

What have I learned?
Know your rights. I think its dubious of Dell to keep quiet when they know this is an issue. And i think they don't do well to inform their customers. I would expect a recall of all the 142o models and a change in either firmware or graphics card. They are big. They can pressure Nvidia to deal with this issue.

Extend your warranty. Yes the computer was dirt cheap but there's a reason for that. They don't make them last so they recover some of their money with warranty costs. From what I understand from the technician, its cheaper if you extend before it runs out. Here too Dell is dubious.

Backup. I was not too scared to lose my data even though I didn't since most of the important documents are in a separate harddrive sitting at home in miri. My songs are on a separate harddrive, portable enough to carry about. Same goes to my pictures.

Get your hands dirty. I know for some people opening up a computer is a scary thing. For me its not. I can't count the number of things i've ruined just because I was too curious and got a screw driver. Especially for laptops its good housekeeping to open the heatsink once in a while and by a while i mean months to clean it, get rid of the dust and things that clog up the vents.

Stay aware. In this age of the internet, ignorance is not an excuse. Make sure you know atleast the basics about your computer. The make, model, and components inside. Occasionally go to manufacturers websites and look for updates to the firmware on your system.

Hope it helps. Gong xi fa cai to all the chinese :)

-ONWARD