Hi-res refurb Dell laptop. Comments?

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Ian Petersen <ispeters-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| I own one of those.  Beautiful machine.  Get the idiot insurance if
| it's available.  The video card in mine died and it was going to be
| ~$400 for a new one.  It seems to be a custom build for the laptop and
| you can't get it anywhere but Dell.  Dell treats you pretty well, in
| my experience, once you've paid for the extended warranty.
| 
| Rather than spend $400 on a new video card for an aging machine I
| decided to spend ~$800 on a whole new machine.

I wonder if your problems are related to this:
  <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13554_3-10020782-33.html>
(certainly not the complete story.)

nVidia mobile chips of a certain generation had a flaw.  It could be
ameliorated if they were kept cool, so the fix was to change BIOSes to
run fans all the time -- ugh!

I'm not sure which chips were affected but maybe yours was.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia> says:

    In April 2009, a court consolidated multiple class action suits into
    one case, titled The Nvidia GPU Litigation.[20] Nvidia agreed to
    replace faulty chips in or reimburse purchasers who already spent to
    get their laptop repaired. Nvidia also gave replacement laptops to
    many users in lieu of making a repair. The replacements and payments
    were not made until the settlement was finalized in 2011. Users were
    required to show proof of purchase and mail in their original faulty
    laptop. The chips were present in a number of Dell and HP laptops, as
    well as two Apple MacBook Pro models. Although the settlement cost
    Nvidia millions of dollars, many of the individuals were unhappy with
    the settlement, and multiple websites and blogs reflected this. The
    website entitled Fair Nvidia Settlement [21] was one such site.
Sounds a little whitewashed.  For example, it doesn't mention the
serious writedowns nVidia took.

Some of the web sites have disappeared.

Oh, here's a good one.  Dell's "Chief Blogger":
<http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2010/09/30/nvidia-gpu-update-nvidia-class-action-lawsuit-and-limited-warranty-enhancement.aspx>
Summary: yes, M6300 is affected.  In compensation, Dell extended the
warranty for one year.  Long over.

I'd stay away from a M6300!

| From: Michael Hill <mdhillca-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| I use one at work. In 2007 I started with an M90, same form factor and
| specs. We've had six Dell Mobile Precisions in my department (we call
| them CAD laptops), with a better-than-50% failure rate on the video
| card. When it died in my first M90, I switched to the spare and a Dell
| technician replaced the card in the first one. When it failed in the
| second M90, they told us the nVidia card was no longer available and
| replaced it with a whole new M6400. We purchased the M6300 in
| September 2008 and the latest M4600 (16GB RAM) about three months ago.
| In January last year, the replacement video card in the first M90 died
| and I switched to the M6300 as my desktop machine. The M6300 and M6400
| are still running with their original nVidia cards; as if in
| anticipation of your question, the one in the three-month-old M4600
| died and was replaced by Dell this past week.

I wonder if your machines too were affected by this nVidia problem.
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