Hmm, always a dark lining to every silver cloud!
cnnfn.com
Company says up to 400,000 defective
memory chips could plague notebooks
March 09, 2000: 2:52 p.m. ET
AUSTIN (AP) - Dell Computer Corp. is warning as many as 400,000 notebook
computer customers that their machines may contain defective memory chips.
The Round-Rock, Texas-based computer maker this week sent a letter to Latitude
and Inspiron customers who purchased notebooks shipped between Feb. 1 and
Nov. 20, 1999, said Dell spokesman Rob Crawley.
Corporate clients that may have purchased multiple machines were notified by
Dell account executives, who will set up meetings with those customers to explain
the possible problem and solutions, he said.
"It's a proactive effort to make sure that customers don't have a bad experience,"
Crawley said Thursday.
The problem was discovered after Dell analyzed a string of customer service calls
reporting similar trouble: system hang-ups, or computers that freeze, causing a loss
or corruption of data.
Pinning down the defective memory as the cause was hard to do because there
are several different reasons systems get hung up and the problem does not
always surface right away, Crawley said.
Dell shipped about 1.3 million Latitude and Inspiron portables last year. About
400,000 of them, or 48 percent, were shipped during the period the defective
memory was installed, Crawley said.
Memory from other manufacturers was also used from February to November, so
not every unit sold at that time will be affected, he said.
"There is a potential for hysteria to set in," Crawley cautioned, saying that
customers who may have the defective memory should use a diagnostic diskette
sent with the letter or download the program from Dell's Web site to test their
notebooks.
If the diagnostic test shows faulty memory, Dell (DELL: Research, Estimates) will
ship new memory overnight, or consumers can send their notebooks back to Dell
for memory replacement at the company's expense.
Finding the potential customers affected is not a problem, because Dell ships its
computers directly to customers. But the company won't know exactly how many
customers are affected until all of the units have been checked, Crawley said.
It's not clear yet exactly how much fixing the memory problem will cost the nation's
No. 1 personal computer maker, which has reaped $25.3 billion in revenue over the
past four quarters.
"It's a nit to Dell in terms of any impact to Dell's bottom line," Crawley said.
Affected models include the Latitude CPiA, CPiR, CPt, CPx and CS and Inspiron
3500, 3700, 7000 and 7500. |
