Customer: Dell Denies Speaker Repair Under Warranty, Blames VLC 526
An anonymous reader writes "VLC is incapable of increasing the actual power past 100%, all that is being done is the waveform is being modified to be louder within the allowed constraints. But, that didn't stop Dell from denying warranty service for speaker damage if the popular VLC Media Player is installed on a Dell laptop. Also we got a report that service was denied because KMPlayer was installed on a laptop. The warranty remains valid on the other parts of the laptop. VLC player developer [Jean-Baptiste Kempf] denied the issue with VLC and further claimed that the player cannot be used to damage speakers. How can I convince Dell to replace my laptop speaker which is still in warranty? Or class action is only my option?"
Force them to warrenty whole unit.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Force them to warrenty whole unit.. (Score:5, Funny)
look, you're not fooling anyone. they stopped selling blanket warrantys years ago.
Re:Force them to warrenty whole unit.. (Score:5, Interesting)
And they're not fooling anyone either.
If there is software that can damage those speakers in the manner that Dell's trying to claim, it fails upon UCC 2-314 and UCC 2-315 out of box.
Per Mangusson-Moss, it's not legally possible for them to claim that their warranty is voided just because there is a piece of software put onto the machine because they didn't limit their warranty in this case in writing (and if they did put it in a fine-print manner, few would buy and they'd be in deep trouble with the Texas and other States Deceptive Trade Practices Act for doing so- because it's something that is deemed unconscionable (In fact, the TDTPA has the act in question as a laundry-list item for the law...it's illegal out of box...)) and therefore, they have to PROVE (not just CLAIM) that it was the software in question for Mangusson-Moss to NOT apply here, that they did something deliberate to damage the product. Because of the explanation from one of the VLC crowd on the forum pretty much shoots that out of the water (Not realistically possible to damage the speakers unless the speakers were substandard or defective...), the Warranty STANDS. At this point, Dell has one of three options allowed them by the Uniform Commercial Code: Fix, Replace, or Refund. Seriously.
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And one should design for those limits instead of falling back on "it's the software"- it's a brown paper bag moment to have breakable parts like that exposed in the firmware so that drivers or applications can break things.
I don't know about you, but I've spent decades making sure on digital designs and the like you CAN'T do that sort of thing. I can't be the ONLY one doing it- and it wasn't acceptable then for those items (they got REPLACED on the spot...) and it's not acceptable now (and it's illegal, p
Re:Force them to warrenty whole unit.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The old 68000 processor (of Apple Macintosh fame) had an instruction that would turn the address and data buses into high-speed counters for diagnostic purposes. Unfortunately, this instruction could also overheat the chip if ran for too long.
User's dubbed the assembly mnemonic as: HCF, Halt and Catch Fire!
Re:Force them to warrenty whole unit.. (Score:5, Interesting)
It should be impossible for software to damage modern hardware. Full stop...
I'm not so sure about that, especially considering the way speakers cool themselves. If you crank the volume up to the point where you're essentially sending constant, large square waves to the speaker, you're literally telling the speaker, "OK, move all of the way in and stay there for a while. Now, move very quickly all of the way out and stay there for a while." The voice coil of a speaker is cooled by the speaker moving in and out and *not* staying in one place; it is a fundamental assumption that all speakers (that I know of) rely on. If you pump a ton of power into the voice coil and force the speaker to stay relatively stationary, expect a failure: the shielding around the voice coil will deteriorate and you will end up with a short circuit. So while VLC cannot send more than 100% power, it can cause the speaker to operate in such a fashion that is unintended and dangerous to the life of the speaker.
Your solution may be that, "the voice coil should be designed to withstand this sort of [ab]use." But that is purely ideological and will likely lead to increased costs for manufacturers; it may also yield less powerful or inferior sound reproduction systems. I'm not sure what the consequences of such a mandate would be, but I'm almost certain neither of us would care for them.
To be clear though, I am not saying that Dell should void the warranty over this, only that the belief that "it should be impossible for software to damage modern hardware" is likely flawed.
Re:Force them to warrenty whole unit.. (Score:4, Insightful)
They absolutely should design for that. For example, by putting a capacitor in series with the coil (common practice) to reject anything too close to DC. It would cost a whole penny. If anything, it would improve the quality of the sound by not allowing infrasonics to sap amplifier power (these are laptop speakers, not sub-woofers).
The old Apple ][ had a push-pull speaker. You could go from full push to full pull by toggling a bit register. Nothing you could do in software would damage it including driving it at ultrasonic frequency with a variable duty cycle to generate a somewhat scratchy digital audio output.
When speaker and amp are paired in an integrated unit, they should absolutely be matched so that the speakers cannot be burned out.
As a side note, vlc outputting above 100% is nothing like a low frequency squarewave. It is very much like what is done in a 'hot mix' on a CD, so if vlc can burn out the speaker, so can playing a modern CD.
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I never said it was like a low frequency square wave. And it's not really like a "hot mix"; it takes that to an extreme (but, let's face it, hot mixes are all ready pretty extreme). The point is, the closer you get to square wave range, 1) the more potential for damage exists, 2) the worse things sound. Perhaps the best example as to what I'm referring to is taking a CD produced 20 or 30 years ago, put it in a high powered sound system and crank it up towards the upper limits of the sound system[1]. Now, ta
Re:Force them to warrenty whole unit.. (Score:5, Funny)
What do you mean, "find a way"?
It's a Dell. It's going to fail during the warranty period without requiring any shenanigans from the poster.
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Re:Force them to warrenty whole unit.. (Score:5, Informative)
Ex Dell grunt here. They fucked me and my town over, and are fucking over shareholders by going Private (the first thing they did when they no longer had to answer public questions was to outsource a bunch of jobs to themselves, the same thing they did to fuck my town over), so let me tell you how to fuck back.
Escalate to a manager. The managers almost always capitulate. Doubly so if you keep calling back and keep escalating. Typically they bump you to a "resolution manager" which is just a Tier 2 tech with a very specifically worded title (Resolution Manager - see, they're MANAGERS) to prevent you from having to escalate directly to someone in charge. Escalate again, and you'll get a real manager.
If you have a sales rep working with you, contact them directly. The sales reps will give you what you want to shut you up. If your employer or school has a Dell contract, THEIR sales rep can usually help - contact your IT staff or University's IT staff and see if they can help you. I replaced many a laptop part I shouldn't have because it was one of my contact's "boss's laptop" and they totally needed me to save them. And some universities are on a "just give the fuckers what they want" basis - the assclowns at Quinnipiac were the worst for this.
Email support may be a better route - email support is usually handled by more advanced techs, often by people in the US or Canada.
Don't threaten legal action directly, they have policies in place that basically say to end the call and blacklist you if you do.
If you manage to get the idiots in consumer (India) annoyed enough at you they'll punt you over to their Pro Support for business just to be rid of you, who will capitulate if they can. It depends on the mood of the managers, they're not SUPPOSED to be working on non Pro Support systems. Unless they're workstations, because the Workstation customers usually can't deal with India.
It's entirely possible the script has been updated to try and fuck you over if you ever use non-standard software on the PC, since Dell is bleeding money and can't afford to honor their warranties anymore. Keep fighting. You paid for that warranty and you're literally owed replacement speakers.
Re:Force them to warrenty whole unit.. (Score:5, Insightful)
And you forgot the most important piece of advice: Don't buy a Dell next time!
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Well I do have to admit that when I took my Mac into the shop the guy at the Genius Bar didn't even blink when I told him it was running Linux. So none of this "you are running the wrong software" shenanigans there.
On the other hand, that's the only brand name machine I've never needed to get warranty work done on.
Then buy a mac (Score:3)
but what if you want a usable keyboard and mouse?
Apple keyboards are some of the best around.
You can use any USB mouse with a Mac, but the laptop trackpads actually work extremely well unlike any mouse replacement I have ever used on a PC laptop. They work so well, that along with my external keyboard I use an external trackpad with the mac. Gestures are way better than a scroll-wheel.
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Non-standard software? WTF is that? (Score:3)
It's entirely possible the script has been updated to try and fuck you over if you ever use non-standard software on the PC
What exactly is "non-standard software"? It's a general purpose computer so there is no such thing as non-standard applications unless we are talking complete operating system change.
Re:Force them to warrenty whole unit.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well you are getting warmer.(Well warmer than any of the other posts I've read yet)
There are only two ways to destroy a speaker.
Overpowering (99%+ of cases), and Mechanical failure due to cone overextension.
Speakers are rated in Watts (RMS) and appear like a resistor that varies a bit with frequency.
If you take a 1W(RMS) speaker and match it to a 1W(RMS) amplifier, there is still a chance you can damage the speaker by overdriving it with a square wave which has 1.4 times the energy of a sine wave.
Thus because VLC has 200% volume function, you could take a peaklimited song and clip it from a 'sine' to a 'square' wave and damage the speaker. Unlikely, but possible and good engineer would take this into account when designing the system.
Small Claims (Score:5, Informative)
IANAL, but your first path for court action is small claims, not a class action.
Re:Small Claims (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Small Claims + Other Options (Score:5, Interesting)
Ask Dell what the cost of the repairs are then fill in small claims court for that amount.
Some other things you might do are:
1. Complain to BBB
2. Talk to your credit card company you have have additional warranty service under them.
3. Email CEO. michael@dell.com & link to Slashdot story
4. Nuke option. Have Slashdot email CEO michael@dell.com
(Would we crash their email server?)
Re:Small Claims + Other Options (Score:5, Insightful)
Would we crash their email server? (Score:3, Insightful)
(Would we crash their email server?)
Not after the beta
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IANAL, but your first path for court action is small claims, not a class action.
OK, but to make the true claim of Unfair competition, and ANTICOMPETITIVE BEHAVIOR against open source software (VLC product), in favor of Dell Partners' products, a small claims action is not going to fit the bill.
This should be the American People VS Dell, for half a billion dollars.
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He doesn't want to sue dell for unfairly treating VLC, he just wants his speaker repaired without obvious bullshit excuses.
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It's not a 20 cent part, it's a $500 laptop. Those are the damages. Dell is refusing to honor it's warranty and it's legal obligations on the entire product as a unit. The cost to replace the entire laptop is the damages. You can also add some extra costs for the overhead of the replacement.
The cost of the non-user-serviceable part is not the damages. It's not even the total damages if you just want to fixate on the single failed part.
Re:Small Claims (Score:4, Informative)
It's very unlikely that a court would decide it on that basis. Plugging in an external speaker isn't remedying the defect any more than Ford offering you a bus pass if your car breaks under warranty. Additionally, having someone other than dell replace the broken component would void your warranty which means it is a valid remedy (given that the warranty is a considerable part of the value of a device bought with one).
As with anything it's worth consulting in person with someone who has relevant legal knowledge before doing anything involving a court.
And your response to the original issue was analogous to suggesting that an appropriate remedy would be buying some duct tape and taping it up after every fill so I wouldn't get up on too high a horse in your position.
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That's hardly a reasonable workaround for a laptop computer.
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I'd say that being able to carry it around without attachments is primary functionality for a laptop.
If Dell were to pay for the repair and carry out the repair by just sending an external USB speaker, would you say they've honored the warranty?
If your car's windows spontaneously shattered during warranty, and you got a couple of helmets as a replacement, would you be okay with that?
Definitely Small Claims and/or BBB. (Score:5, Interesting)
Another friend had a HTC One phone whose screen popped and shattered while he was browsing twitter. HTC refused the replacement despite being a month old, claiming he dropped it. After filing a Better Business Bureau complaint, they replaced it under warranty.
Either way, something like that will get someone's eye and hopefully the original poster will be happy. The bigger problem is that this is a thing Dell will break a warranty over, which is ridiculous.
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After doing the same demo a hundred times, I opened the screen of a brand new laptop to show a client. It cracked right before the client's eyes.
Asus replaced the screen on the laptop, with some difficulty, but they did replace it. Never underestimate the potential for a latent stress fracture.
bad engineering? (Score:2, Informative)
Any decent hardware engineer would not put out electronics for mass production that can be destroyed by software. Hopefully an EE from Levono or HP will reverse engineer the circuit and determine if the is bad engineering and put all of the information on the web. This may be the only way to get Dell to put out quality (or at least not defective) products into the marketplace.
Re:bad engineering? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure Dell doesn't design the actual circuits on their boards, they just pick a chipset and ship off the parts list to their builder in Shenzhen or wherever. I'm willing to bet there was a mismatch between what the speaker could handle and what the audio chipset puts out. Some engineer somewhere cut a corner and didn't test it, and of course at build time all they check for is that sound is produced (this is Dell, not Apple; they don't care if it's great audio quality, just that it works long enough to make it into the shipping box).
That's all supposition on my part of course, but I'd put money on it being a mismatched speaker and chipset.
Re:bad engineering? (Score:5, Interesting)
Having literally seen a brick received in a Dell laptop box, instead of the purchased laptop, I'm thinking you're expecting too much of Dell's Q/A process.
(note: the 3 other boxes contained actual laptops.)
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Why would they?
Nobody buys a Dell machine for the quality, so why bother trying to provide better quality than the cheapest possible?
Re:bad engineering? (Score:4, Interesting)
Can you cite references for this? I thought Dell in particular pawned off this type of work to their system builders in China. Dell still designs the look and feel of their machines and decides which parts go in, but the actual circuit board design is done further down the chain. At least, that's what I've always understood. Here's my source reference, btw:
http://www.xoticpc.com/laptop-... [xoticpc.com]
Re:bad engineering? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it is compromise engineering. Which is OK for a lot of consumer electronics. For example, most laptops won't have enough cooling to dissipate full load heat at maximum rated temperature. This isn't a design flaw, it is a compromise to allow the designer to get more peak performance out of the laptop(or more peak volume in a movie, for example). It is the same with, say gmail. Do you really think google could have supplied every user 1Gb of mail space at launch?
I personally don't do this sort of engineering, but I can see the reasoning. And if you are trying to push high volumes out of your laptop speaker, you probably should be carrying external speakers. There are physical limitations to systems designed to be portable.
Re:bad engineering? (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble is that the audio chipset hardware is by design meant to output arbitrary waveforms, including squarewaves, which is what VLC produces in the most extreme form of clipping.
A wave file can hold the very same signal.
Neither the user nor software is responsible for trying to figure out what waveforms are a problem on a system where the built in amp can destroy the built in speaker. It's the responsibility of the maker to limit the output of their own amp so that it doesn't cause damage. They put the amp in there in the first place. There's nothing about putting in a proper amp that in any way would affect portability.
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Dell has a long and well documented history of poor quality products and even worse customer service. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that they used the cheapest, shittiest speakers possible, and, due to their shit quality, cannot handle the power output of the laptop's amplifier when driven at high volume.
Also, the article mentions setting VLC's volume to 200%. This was changed some time ago (version 2.0 I think) and VLC only goes up to a maximum of 125% now.
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Well, I sued... (Score:5, Informative)
So to keep,a long story short, I had to sue Dell over a overheating Alienware M11x GAMING notebook.
I had a friendly but non helpful support case with Dell and a short also friendly but also non helpful discussion afterwards. Then I sued.
I won.
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Two options (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Buy Dell Laptop
2. Do first-use OS initialization, power down, remove HDD, store away in a safe place
3. Add new harddrive, install OS of choice
4. If at any time you have warranty service needs, swap original HDD back in
Option The Second:
1. Don't buy Dell
.
Here's some options... (Score:3, Insightful)
1) for class action you would need other people who had the same problem.
2) Go see a lawyer and bring the warranty service contract. You can take them to small claims court and possibly get a judgement simply because they aren't likely to show. Just keep track of your lawyer's billing rates, and the filing fees for small claims because you're going to need that info when comparing your time, effort and money against option #4 I list below.
3) Build a time machine and then go back in time and tell yourself to return the laptop for warranty service, and when they ask what's wrong, say "the speaker quit working, I have no idea why"
4) Or the real thing you can do hit a pillow and get the anger out. Then grumble about Dell to your friends and let them pat you on the shoulder. Then buy a pair of external speakers that aren't shitty, and don't stop worrying about small potatoes. Really man, it sucks to get screwed on a fine line of a warranty issue.. we've all been there. Let it go.
physcial damage (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what VLC player is, but any laptop that allows its speakers to be damage by software has a design flaw. Why is it that companies will try their damnedest to screw their customers over until publicly shamed with a bad-pr article like this?
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Agreed. A computer should be able to perform any sequence of instructions the user can come up with. Otherwise it is not functioning as advertised.
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Agreed. A computer should be able to perform any sequence of instructions the user can come up with.
What about the sequences of instructions that relate to the system BIOS or add-in card/peripheral components' EEPROM or flash ROM, and allow you to zero it, or flash it with bits of your choice?
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That particular sequence of instructions should zero the EEPROM of flash ROM or flash it with bits of my choice.
It should not, however, blow up the speaker or do anything else it wasn't supposed to be able to do.
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I don't know what VLC player is
Well, this is the Internet. You could easily find out.
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Actually almost any speaker can be damaged by overdriving it for long periods of time. Laptops are particularly vulnerable because they have small speakers trying to make a lot of noise.
Having said that my money would be on Dell just trying to get out of the warranty.
Re:physcial damage (Score:4, Interesting)
Which is why when you design a system with an integrated audio system (like, say, a laptop) you have to match the components. The last stage of amplification should never send a signal to the speakers that they cant handle, regardless of input.
This sounds to me like a design defect.
Re:physcial damage (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't practical. Speakers can handle far more of a reasonable signal than a horribly clipped almost square wave. While a "normal" audio signal will be converted to transducer movement, a square wave will end up being dissipated primarily as heat in the driver coil. Speakers can handle normal overload far better than they can handle severe clipping. It's easier to destroy a 500W speaker with a 30W amp driven to clipping than with a 1000W amp driven to make the peaks push your threshold of pain.
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Playing a youtube video with some heavily compressed sound could do the same thing.
They got nothing... (Score:2)
A "clipped" audio signal is still a valid signal (Score:5, Informative)
That's the beauty of a digital signal: You simply can't put in a stronger signal than the bits allow. Yes, a "clipped" signal has high energy harmonics, but the same harmonics could be encoded right in the audio source signal without additional player amplification. For example, using mp3gain to set a high gain on any MP3 file will cause the decoder to happily produce a clipped time domain signal. Even Windows Media Player will play it clipped. Designing an audio system such that it can't handle any signal you could put in a WAV file is just idiotic. Such penny-pinching certainly isn't the user's fault and would not void legally mandated warranties. Dell can of course exclude anything they like from a voluntary warranty, if they make it clear upfront what is excluded.
Re:A "clipped" audio signal is still a valid signa (Score:5, Interesting)
"Because the clipped waveform has more area underneath it than the smaller unclipped waveform, the amplifier produces more power than its rated (sine wave) output when it is clipping. This extra power can damage any part of the loudspeaker, including the woofer, or the tweeter, by causing over-excursion, or by overheating the voice coil. It may cause damage to the amplifier's power supply or simply blow a fuse."
The digital signal obviously has to be converted to analog at some point, so I believe this is what Dell is talking about.
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That may very well be the case (it is), but it doesn't change the fact that Dell had a responsibility to ensure that its speakers aren't capable of producing a sound that would cause them to damage themselves. Dell should have simply dialed back the amplifier, such that ANY signal produced by the computer would be below the rated maximum. Given that Dell has full control over the amount of power being used to drive the speakers, they have no excuse for throwing too much at them.
Re:A "clipped" audio signal is still a valid signa (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a little bit short-sighted.
Without knowing the nature of the failure, it's impossible to say what the problem actually is. Were the loudspeakers destroyed through mechanical stress or thermal stress?
Limiting the power output of an amplifier for the purpose of preventing loudspeaker damage is not a trivial thing to do.
In terms of damage, loudspeakers don't care (within reason and obvious mechanical limits) about instantaneous power. They care about long-term heating.
If you just clip the signal, you generate an approximation of a squarewave (which loudspeakers hate): This reduces peak power (which isn't normally a problem), and increases average power (which is always a problem), and reduces cooling, AND it sounds terrible (though some listeners seem to not care). Clipping, therefore, at any stage -- including within software (ala VLC), or even during the recording process -- is a problem.
If you add a simple limiter, you've got the same problems all over again, although with less harmonic distortion: Peak power goes down, but average power stays high. Voice coils cook.
If you add a complicated multiband limiter that understands heating, you might have a shot at solving it, but you're into real money in engineering dollars and DSP parts....over some $.50 laptop speakers.
That all said, companies have been selling and folks have been buying integrated audio systems for well over half a decade. If this is 1949 and I crank up my RCA tube set so I can listen to music in the garden and cook the loudspeaker, that's my fault -- not RCA's fault. The best I can hope is that RCA is willing to sell me a replacement speaker at a reasonable price.
Same with a 1980s Fisher "rack system," or a wall full of modern Krell and Martin Logan gear. Or any random boombox. And, I dare say, a laptop.
It is traditionally the job of the listener to ensure that an audio system is performing within its limitations, and not the job of the audio system to protect itself from the listener.
If I crank VLC up to 120 or 200% or whatever the maximum is, and it starts clipping samples and generating square waves, and I turn the other volume controls up so I can hear that distorted drone over the drone of my hot tub, and something breaks...gosh, I guess I'm going to say that it was my own fault for not hearing the plain and obvious distortion that was occurring, and you know, just turn things down. Just as with any other audio system, big or small.
Back to legal stuff: The Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act does not protect consumers from their own stupidity. If I drop my Jeep down a 4-foot embankment and break a front control arm, that's my own dumb fault -- it's certainly not the manufacturer's fault for failing to ensure that I would be unable to perform such maneuvers in MY Jeep (yes, emphasis: If I owned a Jeep, it would be MINE).
HOWEVER, what MMWA does do is ensure that if the manufacturer suspects that a failure is due to end-user modification, that the the onus is on the manufacturer to prove that this is the case. I can be rock-crawling in my Jeep with its trick aftermarket suspension, and if the engine dies from a broken pushrod, it's the manufacturer's responsibility to prove that it's either not a warranted fault OR that my modifications caused the pushrod to break.
Likewise, the onus is on Dell to prove that some software (such as VLC) caused the failure...or that the speakers aren't warranted to begin with due to signs of abuse. Dismissing a warranty claim out-of-hand because of the software installed on a computer, or the shocks on a Jeep (even IF it might be the case that the software did in fact cause the problem, as VLC might be capable of doing) is illegal in all 50 states.
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Sounding like crap has never stopped record companies before. It's the loudness war [wikipedia.org].
Thus, there's little VLC can do as the signal is already compressed up the wazoo.
VLC does not access the speakers directly (Score:5, Insightful)
..it uses Windows system calls which then call the sound driver
If the damage was caused by software, it's clearly the fault of the driver
VLC is too far up the stack to cause anything abnormal
Already in the law. (Score:5, Informative)
Warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty.[7] This is commonly referred to as the "tie-in sales" provisions,[8] and is frequently mentioned in the context of third-party computer parts, such as memory and hard drives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
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If that's true then a call to your friendly Attorney General's office should fix things right up.
Just don't do it (Score:2)
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Task all CPU cores and all GPU shader units at the same time and many laptops will overheat.
That's a defective product. The CPU and GPU units are engineered for a certain thermal capacity, and the product would be advertised as containing these CPUs and GPUs that have a certain number of cores, frequency, etc; the laptop itself must be engineered to handle them at full load, or apply a thermal limiting technology, otherwise the overheat condition when it occurs is a hardware product defect that
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Please tell me if you know how to circumvent this problem.
A circuit to detect the clipped audio pattern or dangerous vibration pattern and shut off power to the speaker, or power limit it.
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You can put a temperature protection on the voice coils, you can measure the power in the signal and reduce volume (either on the digital or the analogue side).
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Of Course you can use VLC for this. (Score:3)
You can damage speakers by putting too much sound through them. I do not know why there are not more safeguards, but this happens (at least for normal stereo system speakers).
So any program that allows you to increase the original file volume would only help you do this. Based on what I have seen with the quality of dell laptops, it probably is possible to break the speakers by pumping too much noise out of them, and using VLC to up the file volume could help you do this.
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yeah but for normal stereo system speakers (detached ones, not ones built into a boom box) you're also running an amp that provides high-watt power to them. the speakers are rated for a certain power, and you could attach an amp that provides too much power. If the hardware stack is ok, eg. the max amp output matches the max speaker input, then you should be able to turn the amp up to 11 with no problems.
separately, what does everybody mean about VLC doing clipping of the waveform for movies? I don't unders
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VLC, and many other programs, give you the option to crank the volume up to 20 or so, well past the normal maximum. Now it can't actually push the hardware past 100%, so what it does instead is amplify the sound wave data before passing it to the audio system.
Basically all the quiet parts get made as loud as the normal parts would be, the normal parts get as loud as the loud parts were, and the loudest parts... can't get much louder because they're already near the maximum volume. Any time the amplified s
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I do not know why there are not more safeguards
Probably because the safeguards would have to be part of the analog amplification circuit, and anything extra that you put there will potentially hamper sound quality.
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Re:Of Course you can use VLC for this. (Score:4, Interesting)
And yes, they do this to cut costs, but they should be calculating warranty costs into it when they decide whether skimping is cost effective. Looks to me like they skipped that step and now want to disclaim their warranty. I get that they are putting out cheap crap because that is what customers demand but I dont think that gives them any legal grounds to deny the warranty.
back that train up (Score:2)
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remember the commercials, dude you got a dell! that guy was funny.
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The correct answer is: why the hell did you buy a Dell, you idiot? Buy a real laptop! The best 5 with the lowest defects are Asus, MSI, Toshiba, Samsung, Sony and they also have the highest rated support quality.
Apple. Best quality and best support.
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You can destroy two Dell laptops, buy a third and still spend less than a single Apple laptop.
Devil's advocate (Score:2, Interesting)
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Running DC through a speaker is practically impossible with any halfway decent implemented amp (even the all-in-one chips you buy for these purposes have such protection). Good individual speakers will have a protection circuit as well. Heck, a simple condenser would do the trick (given these tin sheets don't produce any worthwhile sound anyway). This is simply an issue of using sub-par speakers, mismatched to the power output of the miniature amp, not enough cooling for the amp (depending on what the issue
loudness war! (Score:2)
If dell's speakers are damaged by playing clipped audio, couldn't the same damage be caused by playing a poorly-mastered CD?
eg: http://mastering-media.blogspo... [blogspot.com]
Cinema speakers can be damaged too (Score:5, Interesting)
You would think that cinema speakers (those big honkin' speakers that sit behind the screen at the movie theatre - mine are about about six feet tall but there are many larger than that) would be impervious to damage but some movies occasionally overdrive the speakers to a point that the drivers are damaged. The most recent one that I'm aware of is Paranormal Activity 2: The Marked Ones, where there was 7 seconds of high pitched buzzing on reel 4 that could destroy the speakers.
Here is an email from Paramount that describes the problem:
QUOTE:
Dear Projectionist,
Paramount has had reports of speaker damage from some theatres playing PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES. In several cases we have been able to research, the volume had been turned up to high levels at patronsâ(TM) requests.
We are currently working to get information on speaker/amplifier brand and model to see if any particular combination of hardware might be more susceptible to damage. At this time, most of the damaged speakers have been identified as JBL model 4632â(TM)s, but this is preliminary data.
We are also working on an audio patch which may lessen the potential for damage.
For the time being, please do not set your volume at a high level on this film.
Thank you for your cooperation.
END OF QUOTE
Technicolor sent out a new soundtrack for that movie without the 7 seconds of buzzing and as far as I know that solved the problem.
The point here is that even high-end cinema audio systems can be damaged by a poorly engineered soundtrack, so I'm not surprised to find that the speakers in a cheap laptop could be damaged the same way.
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A big difference is that those are speakers with separate woofers and tweeters. A typical audio signal has the vast majority of the acoustic signal in the low frequencies, so a loudspeaker capable of handling 100 W could have 90 W for the woofer and 10 W for
I tip the repairguy. (Score:5, Interesting)
I always include a $20.00 and a note when I send a laptop in for repair. In the note I explain exactly what I'd like done. Always works with Lenovo.
Too much amplifier... (Score:2)
...kills woofers.
Not enough amplifier kills tweeters, because clipping produces high-frequency (as in higher than you can hear) square waves and the tweeters cannot respond to that high a frequency and so the energy is turned into heat instead of air movement and it burns out their voice coils.
Maybe that's what Dell is trying to say happened here.
If I were a lawyer (Score:2)
Email the company's lawyer (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously.
The people who advocate small claims are half right. In many states, you have to send a demand letter before you can do that anyway.
Some idiots will say to email the CEO, but if you're lucky, that will just get down to the lawyer, and the lawyer will already be miffed because you've piled more work on him from above. Better to go straight to the lawyer.
I have had several successes, some quite large, and no failures, with the following strategy:
1) Try sincerely to resolve it through normal channels, as you apparently have.
2) Document how that didn't work. If you don't have good documentation, do (1) again.
3) Find the attorney or registered agent's email address. I have never had a problem doing this, but I'm pretty good at the google-fu. Good starting points for names are corporate bios, 10K filings at the SEC, and the Secretary of State's office (which might require a phone call). Since Dell is in Texas, they are required to have a registered agent with the Texas Secretary of state. I live in Texas, and I got Fry's registered agent's name from the Texas Secretary of State when I had an issue with them.
4) Send the attorney an email POLITELY explaining exactly what happened, and what needs to happen to make you a happy camper. Give them two deadlines. The first one should be about two weeks out to let the legal department research the problem on their end. The second one, at the end of the email, goes something like this:
"Please acknowledge receipt of this email within three days to save me the time and expense of sending a registered letter."
A registered letter is exactly what you need to do, in most cases, to put them on notice before you file in small claims. So this sentence puts them on notice that you are preparing to legally put them on notice, and since your speaker repair is way cheaper than dealing with you in court (you're not claiming the bad speaker damaged your hearing, or lost you business when the presentation went awry, are you?), they should be more than happy to do that.
One purpose of the letter that cannot be stressed enough is that you are not arguing with the lawyer. You are essentially presenting the same case that you would present in court. Your letter should be polite, without speling or grandmar erors, and compelling. Do not attempt lawyerese, because that is not required or even encouraged in small claims court. Just write it in plain English. You are not arguing with the lawyer, but you are showing him that you will present yourself well in court, and after expending time and money to defend, he will stand a good chance of losing.
Some options . . . (Score:3)
One option is what you did here on /. . . . but in a planned campaign that includes getting the VLC org on your side.
Another is civil (small claims) court. No lawyer necessary and guaranteed to cost Dell more than you if they fight it. You are very likely to get a judgement on your side if Dell doesn't send a representative. You can have oodles of fun serving the judgement on Dell. I have gone to civil court twice and both times the judge was very good.
In Alberta: http://www.albertacourts.ab.ca... [albertacourts.ab.ca]
A bit of a windmill tilt since after all is said and done you could easily replace the speakers yourself for much less.
Your local state/provincial/federal government is bound to have a consumer affairs section which has an interest in making sure businesses treat consumers fairly. You could look into that.
Finally, go around the service desk if you can. See if you can make contact with someone other than a scripted service droid.
I had an HP inkjet that would not pick up paper no matter what I did. I had several trouble calls in with them while it was under warranty but nothing helped so I tossed the offender into the closet and got on with my life. About a year later (outside of the warranty) I happened to read online about a service kit from HP that would cure the problem. Free under warranty. Called HP up and you know they said too bad, so sad, your warranty has expired. They would sell the kit for $40 bucks plus shipping. Half the cost of the printer. I protested about my trouble calls and they said the tickets were no longer in the system.
On the off chance, I sent an email explaining my situation to the HP CEO as firstname.lastname@hp.com. Expecting nothing, I was floored when the next day I received a response from HP apologizing for the situation and that a kit plus a set of ink cartridges were being shipped to me.
I am sure that the email did not go to the CEO of the time (uh, about 8 yrs ago so ...) but someone read the mail and dealt with it.
Nice, but I wasted at least 40 hours on the issue. Wayyyyyyyyyyy more value than the printer. I shudda just thrown the darn thing out at the first sign of trouble.
How upset are you? How much are you prepared to put into it.
Have fun.
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Fuck lawyers, if you lose you're out a fuckton of money ... if you lose in small claims court you're just out some time and a small fee.
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Do you realize that the "fuck beta" comments are already much more annoying than the actual beta?
Fuck "fuck beta" comments.
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The reason I'm going to leave /. is the fuck beta comments, not the beta itself.
This is almost as bad as the reddit /r/atheism crap from a while ago.
Re:Join the slashdot farewell: (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't speak for this old timer. Stop bloody ruining every thread with your immature anti-beta posts.
Beta is not ruining my time on Slashdot, YOU ARE!
Send your feedback via the email they they have provided and leave it at that. If they do not listen to your feedback, then feel free to vote with your feet, but stop ruining the site for everybody else.
ps. Why hide behind anonymity?
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Seriously, posting anti-beta threads on EVERY post is just annoying everyone else. I would guess that they have read your immature posts already?
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I've been a user since 1996-1997. Fuck Beta. The most obvious thing is they don't seem to give a shit about our feelings. I'm sorry you are getting annoyed, but it won't be long before we won't have to worry about anything in the comments, because there won't be any comments any more. It's like sitting with a dying relative. You see death coming, but there really isn't anything that is going to stop it. Sucks, but Fuck Beta.
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Maybe I'm missing something but isn't the entire point of the fuckbeta campaign to ruin the experience of coming here, to demonstrate to the idiots in charge of Slashdot that their website is worthless without our cooperative participation and contributions? By doing your best to quell our political dissent it could be said that it is you who are collaborating with Dice to flush our mutually favorite website down the toilet of corporate mediocrity.
The one last desperate chance we have to save this site (suc
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I call this bullcrap. All music nowadays is already compressed to death.
Not everyone listens to the shit music produced in the last few years.
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Unless you have the actual CD's or records from atleast three decades ago, chances are you are listening to compressed music.
Current distribution (either physical or digital) of old music is compessed as well.
As far as I know, only classical music and a tiny fraction of jazz recordings are still distributed with minimal or no compression.
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It would be expensive to use components that can always handle the worst case for long times.
Exactly.
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Whoever posts stories, comments, moderates or meta-moderates the coming week using the classic Slashdot interface is a hypocrite.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
If the comment sections of the articles look alive and well by next Monday, this will mean that the community chose Beta.
No, all it'll mean is that people continued to post. It won't tell you why. Personally I'm planning to post twice as much next week just to spite this self-appointed over-inflated self-righteous crusaders-for-galactic-justice brigade.