Dell complaints

[Geordo]

haha. well. first post on here, but nice to see dell sucks so much that there is a forum dedicated to their sucking. anyways. to my issues. like i said, 1st gen dell xps 'gaming laptop' with the p4 3.4ghz cpu 1g pc3200 ram 100 gb hard drive, radeon 9800pro video card. and the massive 150w power adapter (doubles as a heater)
my issues. well. i installed after some 3rd party video card drivers to run games a little nicer. worked great. then my laptop stopped recognizing my video card.
then. my laptop popped and wouldn't start. (about a year ago) ordered a new a/c adapter, didn;t fix the problem. i did figure out how to wiggle the a/c jack (note: using the new a/c adapter i don't remember if the old one would work at all) and make my laptop boot up. but if i looked at my laptop funny, ran any heavy programs or if i moved my LAPTOP, it would shut off abruptly, and require some wiggling. so i sucked it up, and just used it as a desktop computer. now yesterday, it made an even meaner popping sound, and wiggling will not save it.
things maybe note worthy, the a/c adapter seems to short out when i plug it into the a/c jack, even with a dead laptop, the light turns out, and i need to unplug it for a few seconds, the plug it back in, to get the light on again.
i've ordered a new a/c jack off ebay, and i'm going to wing it and try to solder it in myself (i'm a plumber/handyman, i figure i can figure it out, and i refuse to put any more money into my craptop.
oh oh oh. My laptop was $3700 new, and with dell's *wonderful* financing, i'll have paid about $6000 when my contract is up, next year. any and all input would be greatly appreciated. and if no one at all has any ideas, any ideas what i could turn my $4000 paper weight into?

[incident_man]

Sounds awfully similar to my experience with the '5160 I used to have, except for the installing new video drivers/video card bit. Tell me, did the notebook ever have issues with intermittent battery charging while plugged into AC, or spontaneously switching from AC to battery while connected to the wall socket? Did the cooling fan always or very frequently run at full speed once the system was started up? If that is the case, it may be deeper than just the power jack. There were big overheating problems with the other Pentium 4-based notebooks released at the same time, especially with the '1150, '5100, '5150, and '5160. Although DHell never admitted any problems and never would, I believe the issue was poor design. A lot of these systems had the overheating/power jack issues within about 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 years of purchase. I had the motherboard (and the power jack with it) replaced 3 times because of the power jack bit and it happened yet again; I even went so far as to replace the power adapter, no dice. I ended up getting the '5160 exchanged for an E1505 and haven't had any problems since. This next part is obvious, but worth stating: If you end up getting it running again, reinstall the correct video drivers off of the video card vendor web site or the disk you got with the system (if the web site no longer has the correct driver) and see if everything works as usual....if it does, then the video issue is most likely caused by the 3rd-party driver.
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[Geordo]

awesome! thanks for the feedback.

well, i have had problems with it overheating, and actually had the fans/hd replaced once when i sent it away due to overheating issues (forgot to mention), but at that time, my heat sinks by the two accessible fans looked like they had filters.

yeah, i'll switch 'er back to stock video drivers if i get back to a running xps.
I've already mentioned i have a new a/c jack coming, so i'll try that, but i'm wondering where i can get new heat sink contacts (i know on desktops there's just special grease that works), and what else i can do aside from cleaning the piss out of the little rads, and new heat sinks thingers.

also, what are the chances wither of my power supplies are going to be alive, i can get a multi-meter, etc. if there's any way to test it and all that good stuff. anyways, just as before, thanks for any and all advice...