May 29, 2016 04:07 PM
4887 Views
I've owned a laptop configuration very similar to this one for about a year now and ever since I pulled it out of the box it has been freezing on me at random times. I've reinstalled the crappy Dell factory home OS with a regular Win 7 Pro and it's seems to do slightly better. This laptop overheats, freezes and is cheaply made. The optical drive is also very cheap and really noisy. I have to say, I am very disappointed in the quality of Dell's work here.
The studio series has a very well documented problem with overheating, but Dell doesn't seem to care. When you call for warranty fixes they send someone out to swap out the motherboard and usually some other random hardware like the processor and heat-sink. However, this does nothing as the poorly designed case and airflow issue still exists. They may also reflash your BIOS with the newest version to help fine tune the fan control, but again, this does nothing as fan is the proverbial tree in the way of a flood river. It may slow some of the rushing water down for a second but will ultimately fail to do anything to prevent the flood.
On a related note, I also have a dual boot install of Ubuntu on this thing and that too freezes from overheating. I've run every Dell diagnostic, etc and everything seems to checkout. It basically just comes down to the fact that this laptop is poorly designed with cheaply made parts and should be recalled and replaced with something better. I personally will never buy another Dell for the rest of my life based solely on how bad my experience with this laptop has been. I'll stick with building my own computers from now on I think. There's nothing better than working away on the laptop to then have it randomly and blue screen on you. And from what I read, I don't get the overheating blue screens nearly as often as some people.
UPDATE - It seems that Dell pretty much stopped supporting this system right out of the gate. The last update to any of the drivers was in 2010 for the most part. Video drivers are awful and even though the hardware manufacture has released many newer version of the drivers, I cannot install them. Dell would need to tune those newer drivers to fit their hardware otherwise the installation fails. And of course, they haven't. Stay clear of anything Dell. They want a premium for their products only to stop supporting you once you've purchased in to the "dude you're gettin' a Dell". There are so many alternatives out there that there is no reason to get a Dell.
