Hi, My venerable Dell XPS 13 (9350) Developer Edition Laptop has finally given up the ghost ;-(
I had problems with the battery about 2-3 months ago, which I changed myself, but recently it started flagging up a diagnostic message on the charging lamp. I looked up the problem on the Dell website: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-uk/000141206/a-reference-guide-to-the-xps-notebook-diagnostic-indicators#2014_Present (This device was purchased in 2016.) The symptoms are that the laptop won't boot and the Power LED indicate 3 amber flashes, followed by one white flash, which the above site says is the BIOS Battery. I had found the main battery change somewhat difficult owing to my elderly eyes and the BIOS Battery requires the main battery to be removed again. I therefore rang up Rapid PCs in Christchurch and took it in on Friday. I went there because I had used them several times in the past for laptop repairs, and have always trusted them. However, the guy there said that a BIOS Battery shouldn't prevent booting; is that true? He said that the thought that message on the 9350 meant a memory issue, not the battery, so he took it in to investigate. Yesterday he rang me to say that it was the memory, but the memory chips on this model are particularly difficult to change because they use a ball grid array (I think that was what he said, but I may have misunderstood). He had tried to reflow the solder, but that didn't help. However, when he put it back together, he found it worked intermittently. Anyway, he has not charged me anything for the work. so I will be collecting it in the next day or so. If it truly is BER, then I may break it for spares (there's a nearly new battery in it), but before I do that I would welcome comments on the above. -- Terry Coles -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2024-10-01 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... https://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
