Dell complaints

[raycruddas]

I am at my wits end here. Starting back in May, I ordered a a new adapter for my 5100. The wires leading out of the brick to the laptop broke right outside the brick and rendered it useless for the second time in 2 years.

The adaptor from DELL is the wrong one. I order a #9R733 / #310-2993 and get a #310-1093 / #3K360. Which doesn't work on my Insp.-5100.

What does happens is my battery indicator light turns AMBER as soon as I press the on/off button. It doesn't turn green start to charge the battery like it would normally even before I click it on. After turning it, on it attempts to start up but a loud beep is emitted and a message comes up during the startup on the DOS screen that warns me that
This adapter is not compatible with this computer. The battery WILL NOT be charged and the unit will shut down.
Then it does exactly what it says it will do.

I called DELL and I won't get into the frustration of customer care and coupons that do not work but DELL sent me FOUR units overall of the same wrong adapter (the first was sent back for the credit) each time assuring me that the problem was solved and THIS would be the right one... so now I have three incorrect adapters.

Now this is not the first time this has happened. The exact same thing happend in 2003, the first year I owned the computer. It was rectified after the first ship mistake. Recently, The Tech support fellow I spoke with NEVER heard of this amber light with the error/warning message. So DELL ended up crediting me the amount of the adapter unit and said pretty much, tough luck.

So now I have a laptop with data inside that is not able to power up. I have bought , I admit stupidly and in great desparation on e-bay, two other adapters that I had been assured work with a 5100 (ha!). Well, I know that these little adapters seem to be very fussy as my boss had an Ins.-8200 and the Controller had a insp-5150 ( I think) and none of the three adapters were interchangable (I tried the first time it broke) but all were, I believe, PA-9 family units.

What can I do? I stupidly threw out the original DOA adapter. I wished I had recorded the unit number and spec info from the brick. The Model Number from the three units are PA-1900-05D which I AM SURE is not the number on the right one but again, I can't verify that. This model number, PA-1900-05D, was the one on the very first mis-ship back in 2003. I am quite sure of that.

Unless I am wrong (and remember this scenario has happened before) I believe that the bin in the warehouse for a 310-2993 had been stocked with and continues to be stocked with 310-1093 units.After all they look exactly alike physically and are so very close in model numbers. Any Suggestions on what to do next? I have been down for a while and school is starting soon and we will NEED two computers again.