I bought a Dell Inspiron M5040 from my daughter when she lost her job. Put Mint 17 on it and have been surprised and pleased how well it works. Snappy. I a SSD in it and it comess out of hibernation very quickly. Everything works. I know in the past Dell has supported Linux and from what I have seen it is still working well.

I know Lenovos worked well with Linux when IBM had them. Do not know about now.

I would Google the make and model along with distro and see if others are complaining or looking for help.