Digital Home Thoughts: My Squealing Dell XPS M1330 Notebook 'Working as Designed' According to Dell Technician

Last August, almost a year ago, I purchased a Dell XPS M1330 notebook. I was really excited when I got it, which was good because I paid $2736 for it and expected it to last me for at least two years. I sprung for the extended warranty, and got every option there was on the laptop. For the most part, I've been quite happy with it over the past year - there have been a few glitches here and there, but no really serious problems. I sent it back for cosmetic repair last month - the top part of the screen bezel (the black bar where the webcam is) rubs on the bottom part (near the trackpad) and as a result it gets scratched. This is just bad design by Dell, and after talking to a tech I convinced him it should be repaired. They repaired it, but it's starting to scratch again - I need to get some small and thin rubber "feet" (those little nubs) to put on the top part of the screen to stop it from happening again.

The more serious issue though is the squealing (or whining) sound I hear when I connect it to power. It's intermittent, so it comes and goes, but when it's happening the notebook is frustrating to be around. There are 500+ search results on Google for "M1330 squealing", so I know I'm not alone. I've wondered about this issue in the past, so today I decided to call Dell and find out what the issue is, and if there's a known fix for it. The answer I got back really surprised me: "Jay", the technician (badge # 160882, Case # 617611296), informed me that this sound was the slot-loading optical drive. I asked him how that could be since the laptop was closed, in sleep mode, and there was no disk in the optical drive. He explained that the issue was highly technical, but that all notebooks with slot-loading optical drives would have the same problem. I was rather suspicious of this, asking him if Dell's new Studio laptops all had this problem, and he said he didn't know. I informed him that while this is the first slot-loading laptop I've owned, I've been near many a Macbook and I've never heard this sound. He insisted, and this is a direct quote, that my XPS M1330 was "working as designed".

I pushed back on this issue with him for a few minutes, but he was absolutely adamant that this behaviour was normal for any laptop with a slot-loading drive. I refuse to believe that's true. Any XPS M1330 or M1550 owners out there seeing this issue, and did you manager to convince Dell to fix it for you?