Workstation motherboards failing right after warranty expires
Hardware fleets experience sudden, identical motherboard failures right after warranties expire, while manufacturers refuse to investigate root causes or provide support. This leaves administrators stuck with dead systems and no recourse from account managers.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Paying out of pocket for individual motherboard replacements
- 2Running fixed wire testing and installing power loggers to check building power
- 3Trying RAM reseating and power drains
- 4Attempting BIOS recovery tricks or CMOS battery replacements
- 5troubleshooting extensively and replacing components independently
- 6cannibalizing other machines to test hardware
- 7digging up old invoices for proof of purchase
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“So ... I need a sense check guys I've got 72 Dell Precision 5820s about 4 and a half years old, just out of their 4 year warranty. Last week 15 of them failed to POST out of nowhere.”source ↗
“So now I'm sat on 26 dead desktops out of an order of 72 - all identical failures. Account manager says nothing they can do.. no warranty tech support won't even investigate root cause.”source ↗
“Someone help! TLDR: bunch of precision 5820s simultaneously killed their motherboards and Dell are like huh cool.”source ↗
“I hate dealing with Dell and HP but my experience with HP support is typically worse”source ↗
“Instead of going over the basics and agreeing it needed to be sent in for repair, HP wanted to troubleshoot every little thing with me before taking action.”source ↗
“HP didn't want to just ship us a hard drive. They want to send a technician on site to swap out the hard drive.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5How to diagnose an intermittent equipment problem that only happened once
- 6Why do appliance warranty repairs take weeks or months?
- 10Why does a new engine part break right after expensive dealership repairs?
- 16Why are equipment service bills so expensive for minor fixes?
- 3How to handle labor costs when a warranty replaces a water heater
- 23How to handle international returns when a seller claims item was fine