More Dell woes
I guess when it rains it pours. I’ve previously chronicled the saga of my neighbor Jerry’s Dimension 4100, whose case fan has failed and can’t be replaced. Yesterday, he called me to tell me that his just-over-a-year-old Dimension 4600 won’t start.
We hauled the PC over to my office, where I plugged it in and took a look. Yep, it’s dead, Jim. I made the obligatory call to Dell’s support line, where I spent 15 minutes on hold before a cheerful tech told me that Jerry’s account was from the Large Systems division. Ha! While I was on hold waiting for those techs to pick up, I surfed over to the Dell Community Forum. And wonder of wonders, I read this thread, and this one, and then hit the mother lode on this one.
In short, lots of people have been complaining about a sudden rash of power supply failures in the Dimension 4600 line, typically just after the one-year anniversary. After I read through all the threads, I decided not to waste any more time waiting for a tech to pick up and tell me the computer was out of warranty. Instead, I’m heading for CompUSA to pick up a generic power supply and swap it with the defective one.
I’ll give kudos to Dell for having a Community Forum, but it’s a double-edged sword. This is one of three problems I’ve experienced with Dell products and support in recent months, and thanks to the forums I’ve learned that I’m not alone. Unfortunately, Dell doesn’t seem to have invested any energy in capturing the feedback on these forums to identify and fix common problems. I can only imagine how annoyed and angry their customers are who are getting the run-around from a support tech and don’t realize that there’s a place to share information and horror stories with other customers.
In general, I think Dell makes good, solid computers, but their support is troublesome. If you’re a Dell customer, do yourself a favor and start in the message boards the next time you have a problem. You might save yourself a lot of pointless aggravation.
Update: Yep, the new power supply fixed the problem.
Update: I’ve closed the comments on this post. They’re now read-only. A lot of people are asking for detailed help with their computers that I can’t offer, and the comments section isn’t really set up to work like a bulletin board or forum. A better suggestion is to go to the Dell forums.
Thanks for all the great feedback. – Ed Bott, February 2006
I just had a power supply failure in my Dimension 4600, about 11 months after purchase. What I wonder is: does the replacement supply have the same defect?
The rumors I’ve heard are that the problem is caused by a thermal relay. I suspect the problem is due to overloading of the 250W power supply. If you’re willing to put up with the aggravation of getting a spare part from Dell, by all means have them ship it to you. It will probably work for another 11 months.
I would recommend purchasing a 300W or higher rated PS and installing it yourself. Changing the Dimension 4600 power supply is very simple. It took me about five minutes…
Funny- my 4600 just won’t turn on after coming back from thanksgiving trip also, it’s just past the 1 year mark, but I did myself a favor and emailed them a related issue before the support anniversary passed, so it’s actually covered. i’ll let you know what Dell ends up doing. it all started by not goig into standby mode- it would just *poof* shut off fast & hard.
Interesting! I was also going out of town for several days over Thanksgiving so I turned my Dimension 4600 off. Got home and tried turning it on today. Nothing. I’m guessing the power supply is messed up, even though I still get a green light on the mobo when system is plugged in. Nothing at all happens when power switch is pushed. I’ll try switching out the PS and see what happens. Rrrrrr.
Regarding replacing power supply of Dell Dimension 4600, looks like pinout of PS1 for standard power supplies has a -5V pin, but Dell power supply does not have this. Ed, you said you replaced your power supply, did you have to do anything special? Or did a standard power supply work OK? Do you recall the one you ended up using? Thanks!
I used a generic 300W ATX power supply from CompUSA. It worked just fine and took about 5 minutes to install. Other folks posting on the Dell forums had similar experiences.
Exact same thing happened to me. Returned from a Thanksgiving trip to find my 4600 would not start up. Got the green light on the motherboard but nothing else. Just purchased an ATX power supply today and will try to install it tonight. Hope that does the trick……weird how this seems so common.
This is UNbelievable. My PS started acting up while I was on the phone with the Dell rep working on another problem. They asked if I wanted to purchase an extended warranty because mine was up in 8 days. Of course, being the IT guru that I am, I declined. Guess what happened 9 days later? Yup, the PS went bad. It’s been a month because I was out of town, but I plan to take your advice and purchase my own PS tonight. Thanks…
I went to CompUSA last night. Got the Mad Dog 450W supply that was only 29.00 after $50 rebate. Sale ends soon so all you folks who got home from vacation and had a dead power supply should act now!
Anyway, hooked it up and all is good now. Thanks Ed!
Only found this site by accident, but am mighty glad I did. I bought a Dim-4600 in March this year, and then treated myself to some new goodies last week to add desktop video editing capability to it. Of course, after reading all this, the next stop is NewEgg or the like to shop for a power supply.
Oh Man! I’m a lucky one too. Sounds like the majority of issues come from the PSU, but from the several different threads I’ve read it sounds like there can be other issues. Just bought my 4600 in August this year, definately getting the extended warrenty. I upgraded my video card and was having instability issues then realized it was a whimpy 250watt PSU, which led me here. This is disheartening, I’ve always heard good things about Dell, sounds like they’ve got to do some explaining. This should not go unanswered by them.
I CAN’T believe the number of individuals that are having the exact same issue, within the exact same time-frame (13months)! Tom K, you’ve been the only one that has mentioned the issue with going to stand-by(mine powers off, then quickly back on and off again). Have you replaced the PS yet-and was it the fix? I haven’t replaced either the PS or the MOBO (Dell’s recommendation) yet, as I’m up and running (for the moment)
My problem with my dimension 2350 is almost similar, my computer turns on but when I am at the point of clicking on NAME, it turns off.Thanks……..
Well, I went to Best Buy and purchased a generic 300W ATX PS and put it in. I’m back up and everything works well. That was an easy and relatively inexpesive fix, $50.00, but it still shouldn’t be happening as often as we are reading here. For other Dimension 4600 users, just prior to mine dying, it used to rev like someone easing on and off of a throttle. Vrooom, vrooom, vrooom,… Beware.
Bought my Dell Dimension 4600 1 year ago. Only bought the 1 year onsite warranty. Today the computer will not power on. My 1 year onsite warranty EXPIRED 1 WEEK AGO. Glad I found this thread. Guess I’m off to the computer store to buy a new PS. Thought Dell was a better company than this. Think long and hard about buying a Dell computer, and if you do, BUY AT LEAST 2 YEAR WARRANTY!
Yep, same problem. 4600, turned off one day, and it wouldn’t turn on. Mine actually made it to month 14, but I never turned it off before, I just rebooted when necessary. New 300w CompUSA power supply fixed it.
Add me to the list. Mine lasted 13 months. The Dell tech I talked told me it was the MoBo too so it’s clear they don’t have a clue about this. Searching around today and found this thread. I’m off to Compusa tonight.
#$%@!#$ DELL!!!! I made 1 year and 2 weeks when mine went out. I quess the $100 bucks I saved by going with the 1 year warranty will go towards a new power supply.
PS. If anyone is thinking of a class action lawsuit, count me in.
Add one more to the list. My Dell 4600 was purchased 12/9/03. No power on 12/22/04. And, I also only had a one year warranty.
i too bought a 4600 12/9/03 and it died on 12/19/04 i read the forum all the time so i knew what it was and of course 1 only had the 1 yr warranty. just for the hell of it i called dell and bitched and moaned and after an hour and a half i got my power supply in reality i could have gone to comp usa bought a power supply installed it in that time but it was the principle of it