Comments on: Beware the Dell Inspiron 1420 NVIDIA Defect

By: CGW

CGW — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:52:49 +0000

The 1420 was a total lemon. Like others here, mine died in 2008 inside warranty(thankfully), got a new motherboard, then died outside the abbreviated warranty Dell Canada offered on the new–and similarly defective–board in 2010. US Dell 1420 owners got a break but Canadian 1420 owners got shafted. Dell.ca offered me a refurbed 1420 with the same baked-in defect and no warranty for $400–$50 less than a replacement defect-ridden MB on my old machine. This was a pricey, top-of-the-line config machine that was junk after 2 years. My third and LAST Dell product-ever. Even cheapie ACER laptops hold up better than Dell’s crapola products.

By: Jay

Jay — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:17:59 +0000

WHAT?!?!
And I only learn of this in 2011?!?!

I got my Inspiron 1420 in August of 2008 and in October of 2009 I experienced random crashes when playing Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Eventually PC wouldn’t boot up. I had to send it in for repair, costing a whole lot of money (warranty ended just a few months prior to the problem)
When I got it back, it worked, everything’s fine (I’m still using it right now! although I just built myself a new pc with an intel core i5-2500k and radeon hd 6850 [can't trust nvidia lol] having problems with the wifi with it though so I’m still using this XD) and apparently the problem was due to a ‘video hardware problem’ with the GeForce 8400M GS. I just assumed I happened to be a very unlucky customer who just so happens to receive a faulty GeForce 8400M GS.

I didn’t know it was a huge defect that others experienced as well!

“A problem with your video hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.”

After reading this I will never purchase an NVIDIA or Dell product again. Good thing the pc I built has AMD Radeon.

By: Harish

Harish — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:28:09 +0000

Hi Guys, I got the mother board replaced from Dell in extended warranty in 2009 but now again Iam facing the same problem. To hell with Dell.. Is there any quick fix by replacing some minor part in mother board ?

By: jonoave

jonoave — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 02:13:44 +0000

@Vijay

Hello, I can’t say the events that happen to me are similar to yours. Mine was:
1. Screen started flickering, growing more frequent over time.
2. No display on scree, though screen is lighted. E.g. when you boot up and load windows before anything appears on the screen.
3. Testing with the video display, it will bring up the colours bar properly.

Good luck with your problems!

By: lina

lina — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:29:26 +0000

so, it would seem i may be having the same issue instead of dealing with the run around from dell i think im gonna drop it off with my uncle to fix, ive attempted to deal with dell before for other issues and found it almost impossible for them to fix anything unless you waste half your day on the phone with under qualified techs who wouldnt know their faces if you showed them a mirror, in short never again will anyone in my family or friends own a dell POS

By: vijay

vijay — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:09:32 +0000

Howard, Thanks for the wonderful blog.

I am also having similar issue where my Inspiron 1420 did not boot after i powered it up, no display but the fans seems to be working. I tried the two methods mentioned in the blog, pressing the ‘D’ button shows different colors, but holding the fn + start button i didn’t hear any beep after 5 mins. Is this an indication that the issue is not related to Nvidia chip?

Also the below are the events i observed after i boot up
1. Press power button
2. The hard disk LED lits up and after few seconds goes off
3. No LEDS lit up on the top row like Volume up, down, mute…etc
4. After few seconds i see the fan is running. No display even after hours.

Can any one please confirm are these observation are in line with what you have observed. Paul?

Thanks,
Vijay

By: jonoave

jonoave — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 01:55:54 +0000

@AK_Guy

In my case, I got the motherboard replaced after taking out an extended warranty (which cost slightly less than the motherboard itself), as I didn’t know bout this issue at that time.

If you’re getting a new motherboard, get a different model. Ie. not the Dell one with an nVidia graphics card. The problem is the motherboard/graphics card itself, so if you get another one it’s just a matter of time before it fails again. For me, once this motherboard kaput (it’s only a matter of time), I’m getting a new absolutely non-Dell laptop.

By: Manikandan

Manikandan — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 06:40:12 +0000

I am also facing the same problem. This bleedy del online support team

By: AK_Guy

AK_Guy — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 01:18:34 +0000

Update: So, I called Dell. They asked me for my service tag, warned me I was outside of warranty, and then forwarded me from the technical support desk to the out of warranty service center. They then informed me that even if I had a warranty, the max warranty is only good for 5 years max.

They said the new motherboard with the 8400M would be around ~$450 (US), and that if I ‘called’ a sales rep they could get me a new, faster computer for less than the motherboard cost. I instructed them that I had seen this page and many other people experiencing the same issue – some of them getting a replacement motherboard free of charge.

It didn’t matter. They informed me that they service, and offer service to “NO” computers that are out of warranty, and that I would be expected to pay full price for the part and need to have it installed at a service center or Best Buy.

I tried to explain myself again, but it was no use. They were not willing to help.

I hope other have better luck working with Dell on this, but sadly, I’m stuck having to search Ebay for a used part.

By: AK_Guy

AK_Guy — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 01:28:24 +0000

Same issue here. I got my Inspiron 1420 in 2007 right at launch, and today right in the middle of some time critical work the display driver crashed and recovered. Then shortly after it failed again and the screen defaulted to a locked minimum resolution at 4bpp color depth. There was a ‘mesh’ oh horizontal lines of random information all over the screen. After about an hour (while I scrambled to backup my files) the laptop simply shut off out of nowhere.

If I turn it back on without letting it cool down the screen stays black. If I wait for a while (and it improves the longer I wait) and power it on, it will sometimes let me see the graphics in a semi-normal fashion (with some display corruption).

This has been a very well kept machine, in an ideal cool environment. I don’t game on it or push it. And I have been running the latest firmware that keeps the fan RPM’s higher than normal. Despite that, it still seems to have failed.

I’ll call Dell in the morning and see what can be done. I’ll reference this article when I speak with them.