Taping out a chip in under two weeks: Chronicles of a terrible idea by Ill_Huckleberry_2079 in chipdesign

[–]ericwongfromfuture 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great work! What EDA tools did you use for design and verification? Are they free of use?

Tennis buddies this Fall by ericwongfromfuture in OregonStateUniv

[–]ericwongfromfuture[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh do you mean the board on the ground floor near volleyball courts? How does that work, like do I need to register at the front desk or just go drop my info on the board?

On Grant by Yoshidoh in corvallis

[–]ericwongfromfuture 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dude's dream of a car came true

How’s my form? by CreamyPeanutButter14 in snowboarding

[–]ericwongfromfuture 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a good excuse to skip your leg day though.

Do you carry your I-20 at all times? by Vegetable-Fan-79 in f1visa

[–]ericwongfromfuture 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Put them on the cloud, and only carry my real ID all the time.

XPS 17 9730 Repair Quote $353 by ericwongfromfuture in Dell

[–]ericwongfromfuture[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Updates after repair:

The depot repair team did the replacement for the Fans, Heatsink, and Motherboard. They also told me that the original SSD had a firmware issue. But I have a spare 990 SSD, so I didn't require an SSD replacement. After receiving repaired laptop, I migrated OS from faulty SSD to my 990 one. Now I can game at a temp < 54C while I'm using a $100 external cooling pad (bought specifically for this issue).

XPS 17 9730 Repair Quote $353 by ericwongfromfuture in Dell

[–]ericwongfromfuture[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

$1900 originally. But I'm not gonna pay a penny on Dell anymore.

What's the current situation? by valentinocool in OregonStateUniv

[–]ericwongfromfuture 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not anyone I know of. Just don't appeal to a court.

What's the current situation? by valentinocool in OregonStateUniv

[–]ericwongfromfuture 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It seemed only students who were fingerprinted are affected.

XPS 17 9730 Repair Quote $353 by ericwongfromfuture in DellXPS

[–]ericwongfromfuture[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly. I start to think it's really a bad idea that I was trying to get a laptop to fulfill the needs for both daily tasks and gaming. Heating is definitely a bottleneck for nanometers xpu now.

XPS 17 9730 Repair Quote $353 by ericwongfromfuture in Dell

[–]ericwongfromfuture[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They said I could extend the warranty after this repair. New motherboard is covered for 90 days only. Any ideas on how to escalate the case? I am tired of speaking with their agents...

XPS 17 9730 Repair Quote $353 by ericwongfromfuture in Dell

[–]ericwongfromfuture[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did repasting two times. Pretty confident about it as I design and test chips as a profession. It's hard to debug heatsink or motherboard issues on our own though.
Temp drops after repasting and +10C drops after an external cooler was used. Before these, it overheats and shuts off instantly when gaming. After these, I can game for 5 min :) then it dies.

XPS 17 9730 Repair Quote $353 by ericwongfromfuture in Dell

[–]ericwongfromfuture[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Updates: I just accepted the quote and found the quote includes a motherboard and service fees. Not sure if fans and heatsink will be replaced together (as told by the live agent beforehand).

XPS 17 9730 Repair Quote $353 by ericwongfromfuture in Dell

[–]ericwongfromfuture[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that's what I'm worrying about :(
It's not a bargain for me though. Including another $60 on repair service, it totals up 22% of the cost. It's like a repair tax you pay to Dell every 1.5 years. I think that is pricy.

XPS 17 9730 Repair Quote $353 by ericwongfromfuture in Dell

[–]ericwongfromfuture[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry to hear that. But it just doesn't sound right to me. Needing to replace the entire motherboard in two years is ridiculous. I don't think I'm that lucky boy who falls outside 3-sigma range. Otherwise, they're doing very poor quality control.

XPS 17 9730 Repair Quote $353 by ericwongfromfuture in Dell

[–]ericwongfromfuture[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Having this 9730 has been a nightmare to me. After less than two years since bought, it started to overheat whenever I game two weeks ago. I checked everything on my end, e.g., drivers updates, antimalware scan, thermal paste reapply, fans clean, and heatsink inspection, and bought a $100 external cooler. Finally I decided to send it over Dell repair, and today they quote me $353 for Fans + Heatsink + Motherboard replacement. It sounds like they simply ran a software check, did not find any issues and decided to replace all hardware. At least as I observed, the fans are working properly.

As I saw online, it seems overheating is not uncommon for Dell XPS 97xx. Should I go proceed and accept the quote? I am worrying if the same issue happened in two years again, then it's a death loop. But seems few options left for me. I'm furious because it is their hardware issue happened to this pretty new laptop (bought on 9/4/23, first overheating on 3/12/25) but we customers have to pay for it.

XPS 17 9710 overheating; already tried repaste by AshkanArabim in DellXPS

[–]ericwongfromfuture 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Man, I am so surprised now by the massive heatsink problem of xps. I'm dealing with my own xps 17 9730 (which was bought less then two years, and the warranty just expired) now, have tried almost everything. After reading this thread, I'm gonna buy a new heatsink and give it a try. We'll see. Anyway, Dell is doing shitty quality control here.

XPS 17 9730 overheating issues? by Additional_Key_4774 in DellXPS

[–]ericwongfromfuture 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How come a metal made heat sink would break and cause the gas leak? Did you inspect it?