New lappy seems to be in order

addy1

water gardener / gold fish and shubunkins
Moderator
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
44,340
Reaction score
29,091
Location
Frederick, Maryland
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
6b
Country
United States
Any suggestions, I have not looked in a while.

My nice dell xps 13 has been giving me issues with the touch pad, it is crooked a bit non responsive. In doing research it is due to the battery swelling ie. thinking of exploding. The indicator is the fact the lappy lid does not close all the way, and guess what! mine does not close all the way.
In reading about the repairs it appears a new battery does the same thing after about a year. Mine is 4 years old. This issue has been going on for about 6 months, just now checking into how to fix. I thought it was just a bad touch pad. Good thing it did not explode!

So now doing the what do I buy next? I do need a keyboard, my hands do not like tablets. Hubby has a nice tablet I just can't use it, too painful.

Any good computer smarties out there with a suggestion? Costco always has one or the other on sale...............

I like speed efficiency, hubby has given up telling me to buy cheap.
 

addy1

water gardener / gold fish and shubunkins
Moderator
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
44,340
Reaction score
29,091
Location
Frederick, Maryland
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
6b
Country
United States
I loved my mac way back when my first hubby bought me one of the first ones made, in the 80's. Cost $4000 he worked for motorola and got a "discount"
But over the years, running the work computers, microsoft, needing to dial in etc I got converted to Microsoft.
Phones android, tablets android.

But in thinking I don't really feed anything onto the lappy from the androids...................hummmmmm convert back to mac...............

but all my back up files are on hd's that are microsoft. So maybe not.
 

j.w

I Love my Goldies
Joined
Feb 1, 2010
Messages
32,948
Reaction score
20,254
Location
Arlington, Washington
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
USDA 8a
Country
United States
Bummer and sorry this is happening. I have a Dell laptop I use sometimes and hope it does not do the same as yours. Don't forget if you bought it at Costco you get a 2 year warranty and then if you use the Costco Visa card you get an extra 2 years so maybe your expiration date has not arrived yet? Check the date on when you bought it.
 

addy1

water gardener / gold fish and shubunkins
Moderator
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
44,340
Reaction score
29,091
Location
Frederick, Maryland
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
6b
Country
United States
Thanks jw will do that. I have found the battery on line for 59 bucks...............Amazon.......... Easy to replace just a bunch of screws. So might do that if out of warranty.

Then spend my time looking for a replacement one. I like this dell, light weight works well, when it is not breaking lol
 

addy1

water gardener / gold fish and shubunkins
Moderator
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
44,340
Reaction score
29,091
Location
Frederick, Maryland
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
6b
Country
United States
I just checked, back when I bought it the additional warranty was through square trade not if you use your visa card though costco.
 

j.w

I Love my Goldies
Joined
Feb 1, 2010
Messages
32,948
Reaction score
20,254
Location
Arlington, Washington
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
USDA 8a
Country
United States
Well darn maybe you can get that one online and fix it yourself. Wonder tho if the computer will stay warped tho? Might be permanent damage to the case but then maybe not.
 

addy1

water gardener / gold fish and shubunkins
Moderator
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
44,340
Reaction score
29,091
Location
Frederick, Maryland
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
6b
Country
United States
Per what I read once fixed the case and touch pad are fine. If not I am only wasting 54 bucks to see if it fixes it. The lappy works well, no real need to replace except for this issue. Just need to remove a bunch of screws. Tiny screws but screws. I do have tiny screw drivers.
If I replace the battery and it fails, swells whatever then on to a new one.

My lappy replacements tend to be on the expensive side so rather do the 54 dollar way lol
 

j.w

I Love my Goldies
Joined
Feb 1, 2010
Messages
32,948
Reaction score
20,254
Location
Arlington, Washington
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
USDA 8a
Country
United States
Hoping it works w/new battery! Wonder what causes the batteries to swell? Whatever it is they need to fix it cuz if it blows up they will get sued.

Found this on the net:
Dell laptop explodes, burns woman
Fire experts say the most likely reason a woman has singed hair and burns is that the laptop's battery malfunctioned.

By Chris Matyszczyk



June 30, 2014 11:58 PM PDT






luff.png

Loretta Luff. CBS Philadelphia screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET
One tends to hear more of phones exploding than laptops.
It seems, though, that the latter can blow up too, as one Pennsylvania woman discovered to her misfortune.
72-year-old Loretta Luff says that she was checking email and playing spider solitaire when her Dell Inspiron laptop simply exploded. The battery pack flew across the room.
"The next thing I knew, my shirt was on fire, I grabbed that and took that off and I think that's when I singed my hair," she told CBS Philadelphia.
Luff ended up with burns to her foot, arm and face. "My foot is the worst," she told ABC Philadelphia. "And I think when I came down on a piece of the hot battery part, I came down and stepped on that."
Her carpet, desk and even her dog's bed were damaged. She told Philly.com that doctors had to remove "stuff" from her nostrils.
Preliminary examination by firefighters suggests -- as is often the case with cell phone fires -- that the battery might have been the culprit.
Dell, in a statement alluded to the idea that the battery may not have been an approved one.
It read, in part: "Dell will take appropriate steps to investigate this incident. It's also important to note that, in our product documentation, Dell tells customers that "using an incompatible battery or a third-party battery may increase the risk of fire or explosion and that they should replace the battery only with a battery purchased from Dell that is designed to work with their Dell computer."

And this one talks about bulging batteries: https://www.dell.com/community/Latitude/Bulging-Batteries/td-p/6058045
 

addy1

water gardener / gold fish and shubunkins
Moderator
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
44,340
Reaction score
29,091
Location
Frederick, Maryland
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
6b
Country
United States
Thanks JW I am fixing. Per the one I am buying it is a approved battery. I am leaving the lappy off and unplugged if not in use.

Going to keep a look out for any real good prices as christmas comes and the new ones come out next year. They tend to dump the one year old ones a lot cheaper.
 
Joined
Aug 23, 2017
Messages
462
Reaction score
373
Location
Merritt BC
Hardiness Zone
5B
Country
Canada
My Macbook had similar issues but not as bad. The Battery would no longer hold a charge. I took the machine into a Mac store and they replaced the battery and mouse pad at no charge for a 4 year old computer with no extended warranty. Apple stands behind there product, if there is multiple issues and it is found to be a part defect Apple fixes it no charge. I will only buy Macbooks now. Little more to purchase but cheaper in the long run.
 
Joined
Oct 28, 2013
Messages
13,070
Reaction score
13,394
Location
Northern IL
Showcase(s):
1
I'm an Apple fan, too. Just got a new MacBook Pro a month or so ago and love it.

Hopefully it's a cheap, easy fix! Don't wanna see you set yourself on fire!
 

addy1

water gardener / gold fish and shubunkins
Moderator
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
44,340
Reaction score
29,091
Location
Frederick, Maryland
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
6b
Country
United States
I used to love apple, I would entertain moving back to apple but all of my hardware is windows driven. If I changed over I am not sure what all would need to be bought new.

Work made me change, I helped fix and run our department network long time ago before it was hospital wide. I had to swap to windows to be able to dial in and fix issues. Then it as dialing in to do payroll.
Hopefully it's a cheap, easy fix! Don't wanna see you set yourself on fire!
54 dollars so far think I can handle that!
 
Joined
Oct 28, 2013
Messages
13,070
Reaction score
13,394
Location
Northern IL
Showcase(s):
1
I work on a Windows desktop machine at work - thankfully I leave it there! We also got to choose a laptop for portability - Mac or Windows - and there's always a stack of Windows machines in the tech office. Those of us with Macs experience very few issues with either hardware or software. With so much of what we do going cloud based, the OS really doesn't matter as much.
 

addy1

water gardener / gold fish and shubunkins
Moderator
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
44,340
Reaction score
29,091
Location
Frederick, Maryland
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
6b
Country
United States
How true and I was reading you can run windows on a mac. I might just convert. But phones will still stay android love my note9

But first fix this one see how long it lasts before I bite the bullet.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
30,782
Messages
508,589
Members
13,042
Latest member
lucaryan

Latest Threads

Top