I would like some advice from the community - or Dell, about this. My wife got this machine as a refurb from the outlet in 2008. It had numerous problems from day 1 and I think that is the reason the laptop was returned in the first place (and resold to us via the outlet).
I'll detail the problems but the questions are: 1) can this be fixed at all? 2) should I bother renewing the warranty ($156) to have it fixed? or 3) considering its age and problems should we toss it and start over? I will never buy anything from the outlet again and considering these problems I might not be in a hurry to buy another Dell.
Anyway, here are the problems:
1) From day one, when this machine is used for a long while (hot) the disk controller seems to fail. I say "seems" because the error reported is that there is no hard drive. When the machine is turned off for a while all is OK again.
2) A somewhat new problem is that the battery does not charge. The system says the battery is OK - but not charging. The system runs fine on the A/C adapter but goes dead immediately when disconnected.
3) Any attempt to download/run software from Dell fails (i.e. the S/W to detect the service tag failed and the double clicking on the downloaded PC Diagnostics binary does nothing.
4) Tolerable but annoying, the flash on the web cam "flashes" now and then regardless of the fact that we have NEVER run any webcam or meeting software.
5) May not be a real problem but things are SLOW. This machine takes about 10 minutes or more to boot. The OS is Vista Ultimate. I know, I know. I will change it if the other problems can be resolved.
Any feedback is appreciated. The machine "would be" good enough for our purposes if it ran well, so I want to avoid sending it to the landfill prematurely.