I agree in that this is  probably from defective hardware somehow and it should have shut off…   Frankly, I would think Dell would be happy it didn’t cause a fire or some kind of injury and they are dealing with me rather than a legal team and just fix the issue…  BUT it is what it is I suppose.  Ron – she didn’t purchase this through the MSU Computer Store unfortunately but if you happen to have a contact at Dell I could talk to that would be a little more understanding about what happened that would be helpful.

From: Rivard, Ronald [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 12:33 PM
To: Bill Park
Subject: RE: [MSUNAG] Dell Problems

Hi Bill, this is Ron Rivard from the MSU Computer Store.  Is there anything I can do to help you with this issue?

/ron

From: Bill Park [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 1:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MSUNAG] Dell Problems

Has anyone ever had any trouble getting Dell to honor warranties?  I’ve got a user who has an Inspiron N5110 that was brought to me because it wouldn’t boot.  Upon inspection I noticed on the bottom of the laptop on the plastic piece that covers the RAM slots appeared to be somewhat melted.  I removed the plastic piece covering the RAM bays and noticed even further evidence of burning/melting on the inside of the laptop (it’s worse on the inside).  I also noticed that some of the metal clips that help hold the plastic cover piece in place were burnt and/or falling off.  The laptop works with one of the 4GB memory modules removed but it appears one of the slots was damaged.  I’m guessing one of the metal clips fell off as a result of the overheating and melting the plastic that holds the clips on and shorted something out.  It seems pretty clear that the melting/burning originated on the inside of the laptop…  She has “Next Business Day Support” on this thing until 7/20/2014 so I advised her to just send the laptop into Dell.  Dell returned the laptop and said the damage was “induced” and that we needed to contact the “out of warranty” repair department.  I’m not sure how this could be “induced” but regardless it seems Dell isn’t prepared to honor the warranty and cover this. 

Has anyone had any similar problems with Dell and found a way to get them to actually do something about it?  I have pictures if anyone is interested…