I sold a 6 year-old Dell XPS laptop on eBay for $230 and I was about to ship it out so I fired it up to verify it still runs and to download the latest Windows Updates. The stupid thing wouldn't give any audio output.



4 hours later I have a Toshiba driver in this Dell laptop, and the headphone and microphone jacks won't work but the speakers give sounds again, and I have sent the winning bidder a question asking whether they want a refund, or a partial refund and a partially-working computer. The problem? The "smart" headphone jack has a switch that goes flaky. Dell doesn't sell the part, so it's a MOTHERBOARD replacement to fix it right. Boo.

 

Play with the headphone jacks. Its just a switch or continuity check. Get some alcohol and a qtip up in there with no power applied. Shake out the laptop and Make a test puddle of alcohol so you can see when it dries.

 

If it were mine and/or I cared about the computer I'd just open it and fix it with a close-enough jack replacement. Come to think of it, it wouldn't surprise me if it's just a cold solder joint that needs a quick touch-up. Right now I'm only in it $0 plus as much time as it took to install Windows and drivers while other things were going on, plus the time last night I spent because it was a personal challenge.



eta: I did fiddle with the headphone jack. It's broken enough not even to work intermittently.

 

certain number of those xps laptops have the defective 512MB Nvidia GPU in it..resulting in bricked laptops unless the gpu is replaced.

almost bought a used one on craigslist for $70



great fun for a used gaming laptop but nervous on buying a replacement gpu for $250 and not knowing if it's a brand new defective gpu.

 

It was not just a 512MiB setup, and not just the XPS line. NVidia made a poor material selection for the die bonding on a few gozillion video processors, and they will all eventually fail, including the ones installed as replacement chips to "fix" bad video on "repaired" computers. They picked a 'glue' that will melt at juuuust over what their drivers allow the system to consider normal operating temperature. The system heats too much, then the GPU literally comes apart and stops giving video. Some laptop manufacturers recalled and fixed these under warranty, but they will all fail again. There were various BIOS patches that ran the system fans constantly to try to keep the damage from happening, but it is a guaranteed failure in the long run. This was a HUGE problem for a few laptop makers and there are lots of hurt feelings toward HP in particular, as they really could have handled the debacle better from a customer service standpoint.



The nice thing is, it is typically <$100 to have fixed as good as new if you really like your laptop.

 

the infamous "OVEN MOD" to reflow the soldier, many have had success..only for it to be problematic a month or 2 later



my inspiron 6400 has the old 128mb ATI mobility radeon x1300 GPU..still going strong at settings at max with a targus cooling fan tray, plays NOLF 2 & DOOM 3 very well.