Slashdot Mirror
Do Manufacturers Adequately Support Their Products?
Chris Edwards asks: "I've been having quite a few problems with Dell support recently, and would like to ask the Slashdot community a question. To what extent should computer manufacturers support their product? I own a Dell Inspiron 7500
laptop, which has been plagued with problems since the day I purchased it.
The Inspiron 7k series were the first from Dell to take advantage of the new
15"/15.4" screens that had become available. They made one very tiny
mistake; they didn't change the hinges to support these gigantic LCDs. The
hinges on my laptop have broken four times since I purchased it two years ago. To put this into perspective: 8% of the time that I've owned my laptop, it's been in for repair. Should Dell just replace the laptop? Their support department doesn't think so; what do you think?" Dell isn't the only guilty party here. I'm sure you all have had your share of hardware support stories, the recent Ask Slashdot on IBM Deskstars is another example of this. Which manufacturers have a real bad track record of this kind of behavior?
then they need to support it, thats what warranties are for, if its a mistake because of improper use then the user should be stuck with the promblem... in your case it needs to be replaced
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
How do they owe you a new one? What they may owe you is to fix the design flaw by correcting it, instead of just putting back the new hinges that will break. You paid for a laptop, and you've had the better part of two years to use it, I don't think you can reasonably think you deserve a brand new laptop because you may treat the hinges a bit harder then the next person.
I doubt the tech people you talk to even have the ability to replace the laptop.
You ask to speak to a supervisor, if that person can't help, they must have a customer relations or complaint group you can place a formal complaint with. I'm sure the superivisor can point you in that direction.
Now I've got an Inspiron 7000 - even older than the one you have! - and the hinges on mine have never gone... I've had it for nearly 3 years, and I use it every day. I've found the best way of dealing with the hinge issue is to tighten up the hinge screws regularly.
My real problem with it is that it is *so* fscking heavy to lug about every day! Other than that, its been a great little(!) machine.
Nope.
My car has spent two of the eight months I've owned it in the shop. The valve in my shower keeps having its seals go bad. Microsoft.
The examples go on and on and on about people either selling defective products, or not admitting and properly fixing existing problems. Companies need to respect their customers, and in the case of things like my car, so do sellers and service people.
Worst example I can think of was an old Q-phone I had. The plastic case at the hinge broke six times in two years. I owned seven Q-phones in two years, every time I had to go to the hassle of exchanging it, and reprogramming all my phone numbers in it. Their solution was eventually to stop replacing the phone and to take my clip away (which was the primary feature that led to me buying the phone).
I am sure that Dell did not do the proper R&D and quality assurance prior to the product shipping. We have seen this time and again in a market as accelerated as computers or electronics. The problem arises when you get poor service from a "quality" vendor like Dell. I remember the hullabaloo that occurred when Apple began charging for all of their tech support.
I think companies are willing to sacrifice our hard earned trust for a few quarters of additional profitiblility. Sad but true.
Genreally makes quality, linux friendly laptops, but if it ever needs service watch out! Getting ahold of someone capable or willing to solve your problem is an excercise in futility (atleast in regard to my Libreto 110CT).
Dell has been good to me, just make sure you're talking to the right people, and yes, they should offer a different laptop at a reduced price, and then refund you if they actually alter the design of the laptop you have. (that is sensible, no?)
I have a watercooling kit on my dimension 8100, sprung a leak, and they replaced all parts, I told them the epoxy from the geforce3 dripped onto the other components and now my computer won't start, they mailed all replacements out overnight =) dell rocks!
http://www.brianisapimp.com/dellpics/
"When all the buildings fall, pimpin still gone stand tall" - Ricky D
eMachines cuts the majority of their expenses on systems by trimming support to the bone. You get a whole year to call them, but once you call them, you only have fifteen days of technical support. The modems in their systems are particularly ESD sensitive and go out pretty often, and the PSUs they use aren't really capable of supporting any additional hardware you might put in the machine. Naturally, eMachines doesn't care - They just wanna sell rock-bottom priced computers, and leave the retailers holding the bag on support. Compaq's generally pretty bad too, at least in the personal/home office market. Even on the retail support lines, I've had to wait upwards of an hour for a single simple stupid question that three technicians in a row couldn't answer for me. Despite me apparent and informed knowledge of the matter at hand, they all proceeded to go down their binder-list of stupid end-user questions like "Is it turned on?" when I was just trying to find out how to bypass a BIOS lockout password someone had set on a particular display laptop model...Furthermore, their solutions to common OS and application problems seems to be to send out a technician to install a new mobo/CPU...like that's gonna fix anything... The problem is that standardizing technical proficiency in support lines is difficult to maintain and also more expensive than hiring monkeys with strict problem resolution guidelines. Thankfully, the support agency I work for is much more lenient - After spending a few months on first-line support and fixing the majority of user problems at my level with my own brain (Not the policy-procedure guidelines), they gave me a raise and moved me to second-level support. I have to do a bit more work, but it's less tedious, and I can still surf /. all day. :-)
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
i've had a different experience with the inspiron 7500. my company bought 5 inspiron 7500's about 2 years ago; so far, we haven't had any trouble with any of the hinges, and i don't think we have any real complaints period (i'm writing this from an inspiron 7500).
all that to say - your pattern of experience may be isolated. if so, you can't blame dell for acting the way they have. of course, i may be one of the lucky ones...
Creative Labs has crappy driver support. Where are the XP drivers? Its a sound card monopoly.
My father-in-law bought a brand new gigahertz desktop from CompUSA about 3 months ago. When he had it for a month, it started acting up.
He had a virus. I removed it for him and every thing was fine.
A few days later it started acting up again. He called HP customer support who told him it was the virus and that he had to use the restored CD (lose all data, etc.).
That didn't work.
He took it back to CompUSA. They told him it NEEDED A CLEANING! So for $10 they cleaned it.
That didn't work. He took it back. They looked at it again and realized there were hardware problems. They wanted to charge him over $100 to look at it and about $200 to fix it even though he paid for a 3-year service warranty on it. He pitched a fit and they decided to only charge him $35.
It sat at the CompUSA store for about a month before they finally decided to ship it to HP. And that's where the situation sits now.
I don't know what HP will do, but it will be very hard for them top the service offered by CompUSA.
(By the way, I tried to convince him not to buy a computer there, but to no avail.)
-- yawn. --
I've got a HP PhotoSmart negative scanner.
First of all, you can't download any drivers from their site. (I could order the CD and get it via the post).
Secondly, the software won't work with Windows NT/2000/XP or MacOS.
Thirdly, it works perfect with SANE.
But seriously, I think its a bad thing if companies don't make their drivers available online. There's just no excuse for it nowadays - especially if the product is obsolete!
-- sigs are like parking spaces - all the good ones are occupied
I've been working in the computer industry since 1994 and the most amazing aspect to me has always been the ridiculously low level of product quality. Can you imagine if a car company or appliance manufacturer had the same lemon rate as computers? They would be sued into oblivion.
The computer industry, as a whole, has some of the the highest, if not the highest return rates of their products. To add insult to injury, they also have THE ABSOLUTE WORST customer service of any industry on the planet. Put those two factors together, and you have the current situation.
But since computers have become a necessity, we have to deal with all the crap. When someone asks me, "What is the best computer?" I always give them the same response: none.
They ALL suck. And they really do. Some suck less, but there isn't a name brand system I think is good, in the strict sense of the word.
It's probably the fault of the demand for cheaper computers while companies need to turn big profits. How do you do that? Dirt cheap, poorly designed, low-quality parts and big reductions of those expensive tech support reps.
The last computer system I recommended was a Digital, and we all know what happened to them. They built high-quality, durable, but expensive systems, and went the way of the Dodo as a result.
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
I used to work for a computer manufacturer. I did tech support, repairs, upgrades, so if a problem was occuring, I'd see it and deal with it.
Our policy was that if a PC came in that had been in 3 times for the same problem, and our repairs had not yet solved the problem OR if a PC kept having continuous hardware related problems, we'd replace the computer from the bottom up.
Satisfied customer able to have their REVENUE GENERATING *note emphasis* computer back in hand was more important to the company than the cost of a replacement PC (which was not cheap!). Dell, Gateway, etc., probably won't do this because your computer is not directly generating revenue for your company. Yes, you use it to do your job which in turn helps the cause, but the system I outlined above was for Telco systems that brought in a constant stream of dollars.
In my opinion, yes, Dell ought to replace it OR offer a 100% guaranteed (field tested) FIX. You have documented a continuing problem that they have failed to solve. Will they do it, doubt it.
Seems the GripeLine on Infoworld made mention of this. What used to be sterling support has been turned into a nightmare. Of course I think part of the problem is a "It's not my problem" mentality between the hardware and software manufacturers. Microsoft won't support OEM licenses, and the manufacturers are getting inundated with problems Microsoft won't touch.
If you have a warranty on something and it breaks or does not hold up to the specs it was designed for at purchase, then hold the company up to their end of the warranty. You may have to go through some loopholes, but ultimately it is their responsibility to satisfy you as a customer with the product you purchased.
If the company won't comply with the details of their warranty to give you a quality product, then you need to contact the attorney general and follow legal procedures. In some cases, this will lead to a ruling by a court. Don't be afraid to hold the company to their end of the fine print.
On a side note, don't buy personal computers from Compaq. They have very poor customer support. Not only do their PCs suck (personal opinion), but they charge you for every possible detail when it comes time for them to fix a problem with their product (fact, not an opinion).
I could also tack on Voicestream. Their cell phone service is horrible. The billing department has screwed up over 3 times in the past year, the "customer care" department never follows up on things I request, and their internal communications is slow and unreliable.
endRant
That's Mr. Eradicator to you.
trance-port
Why the fuck did you add a water-cooling kit to your laptop???
Do you carry a fucking fishtank around wherever you take your (supposedly portable) laptop?
If you don't like Dell's service,next time buy from another company... Of course, when you are dealing with a company with significant market power (like DELL or Microsoft), I guess you really can't. I guess we are all screwed.
The intersting bit is the support contract. We seldom use it. Typically, our own Computing Services techs are modifying units when they come in the door (some of our labs need zip drives, but the administration doesn't purchace them... so we add them on site. As an example). But the other factor has been response time. Even though we have a support contract, it's simply easier to say "We can fix this. Fix it now and send the broken part back to Gateway."
So how good is the support when we really need it? I have no idea... Computing Services answer to my problems with the Dell on my desk has largely been "You shouldn't be trying to do that anyway so it's not really a problem..." Ah well... that's another can of worms...
If I can't see it in Lynx I'm not interested.
'Does the sun rise in the East?' /try/ to make Ask Slashdot something more useful than a banner-selling rantfest.
C'mon, Cliff... please at least
IAAL,BIANLY
It would not even cost you anything, since we have something called a 'Small Claims court' which deals with consumer disputes such as this.
I don't know if you have such a thing over there. Another angle to try would be the credit card company. In the UK, the credit card company is jointly liable for anything you purchase with it. So there is another avenue to explore.
Finally, how the hell can they claim that a laptop display with three or less broken pixels is 'acceptable' ? You can bet that Michael Dell's laptop screen has all its pixels functioning.
As in all things, the squeaky gear gets the grease, so complain, complain loudly, complain often. Make it cost-ineffective for them to mess you around.
To what extent should a product be supported? I think the fact that someone can seriously ask that question makes a statement about the mindset of the computer industry when it comes to backing up their products. This has been said time and time again; in no other industry do people accept such high product failure rates! I think it's really that simple. That something is expensive doesn't mean it shouldn't be expected to work almost perfectly (perhaps just the opposite). Companies must take whatever steps are necessary to completely alleviate problems with their products within any time period they've specified. If a laptop has a 1-year warranty and the customer has a problem in that year which the company can't get figured out in a week, they shouldn't be able to say "replacing the motherboard is too expensive so we can't help you." And if they're having a lot of problems like that crop up and they're losing money because they have to replace so many motherboards, they shouldn't be allowed to screw customers; it's their suppliers' fault, sue them. Bottom line: there is no accountability for lousy products in the computer industry, and that needs to change.
Manufacturers do everything they can to not support your product. Saves money. I worked for a Gateway phone support outsourcer for a year. The only times I recall having callers tell me I was really doing a wonderful job of helping them was when I was blurring the edges or straight out breaking the rules that had been handed down from on high. Gateway's replacement warranty is 30 days, no exceptions. Not to say that I didn't blur that line more than a few times. I don't know if it's true for all companies, but at least at Gateway no one department knew what another was doing. I had the power to replace parts, but only by going through a seperate order entry department. If they didn't like the way I filled out a form, it got kicked back to me... that's if they were kind enough not to just bury it. I'll NEVER buy a system from a big corporation. They're far too big to give a damn or even notice who they step on.
I didn't realize there was a bug in the notebook until after the 60 day return policy. It was very hard to prove that something was actually wrong with the notebook -- I thought it was me not hitting the keys hard enough.
The thing is, Dell knew about the problem long before I purchased the notebook. I sent my notebook in three times specifically to fix this problem. The first two times they simply flashed the BIOS with a new version, which didn't fix the problem. On the third time, they did change the window where it ignored the characters from a half second down to a quarter of a second.
Ultimately, after a lot of frusteration, I was simply out the $2000 I spent on the notebook. I never could use it for anything.
I heard stories about a big company that had thousands of these lemons; Dell wasn't willing to refund their money or fix their problem, either. I never heard what the end result was. I think this is why they refused to refund my purchase -- they would have had to refund a lot of people's money, which would have had a huge effect on their bottom line.
A while back, my family purchased a Dell desktop... quite a ways back, actually; it was a p200. Anywho, we shelled out quite a bit of cash (to the tune of $600) for a 17" monitor, which, eventually, started having yellowing problems. The yellowing problems where the pure blue color stops showing up on the screen, so the screen appears yellow. The ones well known on older Macs.
Of course, this was after the warranty expired... But, when I looked in Dell's support forums, I saw quite a few people with the same problem we had. Quite clearly, there was some defect with this line of monitor.
We still used the monitor for a few years, since we couldn't really afford to replace it. We found that a good *WHACK!* to the monitor often cleared up the problem. Eventually, we got a cheap replacement monitor at around $100, one with about the same specs. (But to the tune of four years later)
Recently, I took out this monitor and started using it again. Lo and behold, it works fine now! Odd... I in fact use it on my other machine.
Oh well, enough ranting on my part. ^_^
We purchased quite a number of machines from them. Just recently we called for support, since they let all their good people go, they couldn't help us and basically said..heres your money back from the support you paid. Go bother someone else.
I think the time has expired in your case, but you could contact your state's better business buro and find out if the lemon law covers those type defects (and the exact time frame you have to file
a complaint). Usually it's if the product is in for repair for the same problem 3 times in a given period of time, you're entitled to a new product... again I don't know the restraints on this.
This isn't the place to ask your question.
Like the last askslashdot, all your gonna get is IANAL.
Read your warrenty, see what you can do. If you have trouble, talk to an attorney.
Talking directly to customer support isn't gonna get you anywhere, unless you speak directly to the customer support manager. Their answer is as far as your gonna get without some legal backup.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Hi my business partener and I both have had Inspiron 7000s for about two and a half years, have lugged them about all over the place, got them covered in Coca cola, beer, ash, even mud and have never had a single problem with the hinges.
I have had problems with the CD drive, dodgy connection. I bought the latop in the UK and lugged it to Spain, it went wrong and I phoned Dell in Spain and the next day a guy came out and replaced the dual CD-Floppy unit - he even had a handle on Linux too!
The CD has gone wrong again, and this time it was out of guarantee, so I was f****d! However some jiggery-pokery and a bit of cleaning sorted it out.
Other than this, professionally I always use Dell kit as I've generally found their tech support to be excellent, their kit pretty reliable and their hardware configurations to be pretty damn compatible, both with NT and Linux. I've probably purchase hundreds of Dells, from desktops, laptops to high-end 6500 series Power Edge servers and generally (when compared to Compaq for example) have had only about 5 really fail in any disastorous way.
I'm a incurable Dell fan and that's all there is to it. And thankyouverymuch, I'll do my own Linux laptop installs. - actually there's a gripe, their Red Hat Linux 7.x installs a god awful from my experience! Installing GNOME on a 1U rack-mount web appliance with all services fully on - I mean honestly!
I've only had a few run in's with manufacturer support but each time this is what I got: Call the Manufacturer about X hardware problem, they tell me to take it up with where I bought it. I call up where I bought it about X hardware problem and they say, take it up with the manufacturer. And usually somewhere along the line they try to blame it on software or me. This game of cat and mouse usually goes on untill I give up or get very angry on the phone.
Snoozer.
This sounds like a design flaw in the hardware. As I understand it you soulds be entitled to your money back.
...
I am not sure of the law over there , but he in Ireland a good has to be of "merchantable quality"... and a laptop with the wrong type of hinges , doesn't sound like that
Cruise TT
My company uses Dell's Poweredge hardware in our data center. Since we'd spent a lot of money on server stuff, we were able to get a discount on things like laptops and desktops. We were using Toshiba laptops and a mix of desktops before.
Within a year of using Dell's laptops, we were back to being mostly Toshiba. I was one of the few who got stuck with an Inspiron 3800 that's on a long term lease. I'm constantly having functional problems with it (serial port is unusable, external floppy corrupts data, etc) as well as general hardware issues (fan is making a horrible dying noise, battery life is roughly an hour, case is generally shoddy). I guess I can't complain too much though.. at least it doesn't power cycle if I pick it up wrong (like the first TiBooks).
The desktops were better, but not by much. We got those way in advance of the laptops, and I ran Mandrake on mine for a long time. The only problem was with the IDE implementation.. if I went to rip a CD, it would hang my system. Still pretty lame.
Actually I work for Compaq....
Currently as a first level tech support, moving into a junior network admin in a few months once I finish my programming course.
But as far as bios passwords, techs at compaq are not allowed to tell you that you need to jump the cmos battery to remove it, we are required to tell you to take the system to an Authorized service center (ASC) and have it taken care of *At YOUR expence*, and you need your reciept for most reputable centers to clear a bios password for you, especially on a laptop.
If you have a presario desktop I would suggest hitting whatever the prompt is for open case then 420, that directs you to Site 42/47 in Ottawa Canada, we are the only site with centralized resources (corp intranet, and net access) and we have the top first call resolution in North America, we have also be the top Compaq call center for 3 years.
To the extent that it's profitable in the long term to do so, of course. Duh, welcome to business management 101.
I had a problem with a few years ago. The vendor I purchased from refused to support me because I re-installed windows, and M$ refused to support the issue because it was OEM. What was even more infuriating was that I had taken the suspect box into the manufacturer who correctly identified the problem and said "no biggie, it'll just take five minutes". 5 Minutes later the tech walked back out and said "did you re-install windows?" when I said yes he said "Well, for a $50 servicing fee + $25/hour we'll reinstall windows and then you can have tech support back".
The funny part is that when I told M$ about this they sent me to pay per incedent support and solved the problem over the phone in 10 min for $35... M$ was CHEAPER!
If I can't see it in Lynx I'm not interested.
All companies have "lemons". This kind of thing just happens. I worked as a tech a few years ago on lots of different equipment. The few examples that I can think of are:
Apple. There were a few "known problems" on the 15" and 17" monitors. Apple actually extended the warranty period on these devices so customers had a chance to get them fixed.
HP. There was a "known problem" with some rollers in the top tray on the original Laserjet 4 series. HP extended the warranty on this one too (though not very long).
Companies seem to realize when they have a defective design, just usually don't admit it.
Being an ex-Gateway phone support lead I know a bit about this. Normally there is a procedure list and when things of the same sort (like broken hinges) damage happen repeatedly we are to replace the product.
Mostly though this only deals with electronic components and not things like hinges. Reason being that it is difficult to gauge weather or not it was due to manufacturing failure or to misuse (yes laptops are rugged but your not supposed to be throwing it around the room).
Though I can attest to the issue that is seen here as Dell has been notorious for their bad hinges (broken hinges on a CPt and a Insperion).
The really bad part about it is with the economy as it is the first thing companies begin todo is trim support. Remember when most computers came with a 3 year guarantee and now you have to pay for that sort of thing. I'm sure they have new policies in place that make getting replacement hardware more difficult as a 'cost cutting measure'
"Don't mess with him, he taunts the happy fun ball."
Some vendors support end users very well, Compaq comes to mind, as I have several Compaq machines and if I have problems they fix them. HP on the other hand is a pain in the buttocks to get repair on their stuff. I have since stopped buying HP stuff, but with the merger, who knows?
IBM is great on support. Dell, has been helpful when I needed help, even replacing a front of a server that I dropped a monitor on, for free. I did pay over 3500 buckaroos for this one, so they might as well replace it for free...or risk pissing me off...like Sears, Roebuck and Company did YEARS ago. What evre did happen to Roebuck anyway? We need a poll that can be used to show how the various manufacturers perform servicewise.
It seems kind of funny that your hinge broke 3 times and somehow all three times the display ended up a 90deg to the rest of the box... I've got a Latutude C800, which is built on the same chasis and havent hadn't noticed any hinge problems, except that they have a tenancy to loosten up after 6-8 months of daily use... All I did was put a little bit of locktite on them and I havent had any problems in over a year now...
Though I'm sure your specific experience was different, my experience with Dell support was nothing less than amazing. My CD-ROM broke one night at 2am. I called, spoke with a person that was able to appreciate that I wasn't a complete idiot, and received a replacement and a free return shipping label an box in just over 24 hours. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a major computer manufacturer that has as highly rated support as Dell.
I think I'll stop here.
...but Dell. I have yet to run into trouble with ANY product I've had from them.
... ye gods... I think we have about 60 workstations. And each and every one, they had it fixed quick, no questions, no issues.
I'm sure someone has had issue with them. But let's see... I've had one of the drives fail on a Dell PowerEdge 6300, called them at 4:30pm on Monday and had the replacement drive at 10am Tuesday. Recently had the keyboard fail on a Dell Inspiron notebook, called at 9:30am and had a tech here at 1pm (fixed and tested). Had a drive fail on a workstation, not even one of their fancy ones, and they didn't even ask for the dead drive back... Just sent me a new one.
Now, I know, that's 4 machines, that may sound like alot. But we're talking about one drive from one machine in a group of 10 PowerEdge servers and 3 external arrays cranking out 24/7, one keyboard out of 12 laptops (in the hands of sales weasels, no less...), and one drive out of
To top that off, I have this service plan for 3 years, and we didn't pay any extra for it. I dunno, there are certainly more cool and/or less expensive computers out there, but I can't think of any that can offer that level of service or commitment.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
On top of that, we've had Latitudes (same series) that just die. One day : blam! No force on Earth can get the suckers to turn on. Fortunately for us, we chose the Next Business Day complete care policy. Since Dell has been called out around 100 times (at a guess) for 60 units in the last 18 months, I'm guessing that it's not a winning profit situation for them. :-)
That said, I'm pretty sure their repair techs are recycling motherboards that get pulled out of broken units, so they're not exactly helping the situation.
-EvilMagnus
Their whole support model is a WOMBAT, because with the money they're spending putting you off, they could have covered the COGS on the lemon laptop.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
Sounds to me like you're the one with the (1) obsession with homosexuality and (2) hangup therewith.
Sounds like you've got a personal problem you should go somewhere else and sort out.
Sun Microsystems has some of the best support around. When I have problems with Sun hardware, I call them and tell the what part I need replaced. Then they send the replacement, I send back the old stuff, and swap the parts myself. If I can't handle a problem, they send a tech out within 24 hours to troubleshoot and fix the problem. And this is all under standard warranty; with a nice service contract you can get two hour turnaround on five year old hardware.
True Story...
t ml
A little while back, my old flatbed scanner quit working. It had had heavy use, and was several months out of warranty, so I figured it was a write-off.
I did my research and tried to pick the best USB scanner out there in terms of price, features, and reliability. I ended up with an Acer 640U flatbed scanner. It's a nice scanner, and works preotty well. It's advertised to work with Windows 9x, 2000, MacOS, and Linux, if I remember correctly.
Well, I work under W2k for the great deal of my multimedia and graphics tasks. Just after a fresh install of the Operating System, the scanner works like a champ. However, after more than a little bit of use, the driver starts malfunctioning. Obviously a DLL conflict or something similar, right?
Well, a quick call to Acer to try to track down the conflict let me know that I was not privaleged to phone support any more because my product was out of warranty. Do they offer per-incident pricing for phone support?
http://www.acercm.com/support/technical_support.h
Apparently not. Even if they did, I could probably spend less on a brand new scanner than I could on 1 or 2 hours of support calls.
I resorted to newsgroup and messageboard searches for problems like mine, but couldn't really find any. I'm certain we've all had problems like this before, right? Where we are absolutely the onle ones to have them?
So, after a while, I tried emailing Acer's support like the page linked above suggests. I included detailed system specs including hardware specs, OS installed, a fairly comprehensive list of software installed, error codes and anything else I could think of. I specifically stated in the email that I thought that my problem was being caused no doubt by a software conflict, and asked for help tracking down the conflict.
The reply I received was along the lines of:
"Apparently there is a software conflict between the Acer driver and software applications installed on your system if your scanner will work with other computers. You should try to track down this conflict and uninstall the confilicting software."
This is adding insult to injury in my opinion. Either the support staffer who answered my mail was so untrained as to be useless, which is a real possibility in any support staff, or he or she didn't care, or had been instructed not to provide specific help to email support problems. So, despite the fact that the Acer scanner is actually a very good scanner, the software can't be trusted to keep working, and Acer's support of that software is in no way useful.
Sorry guys. Next time, I'll buy the Agfa Scanner.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Apple is terrible. Yes, they do recalls.. but I believe that is only on products that recieve media attention.
The old powerbooks are currently getting an upgrade of their power cords from their faulty ones.. to ones that are just as faulty.
I say this because I have a pismo with the "yo-yo" power adapter, and it became frayed. If you look on the internet, every one of the replacements is on backorder almost _everywhere_. The one apple shipped is bad and they won't replace them.
I am now paying $90 for an after-market power adapter that hopefully does not have this problem.
In general apple's support isn't very good, I also had to call them regarding a problem with my screen. It seems they put the chasis on my screen too tight and it caused (slight) screen damage.. was it replaced? no.
Desktop computers that come already put together with software installed are only for sale to the masses. If you know more about computers than the average person there is no reason for you not to build your own computer. Not only do you get to personalize your computer's configuration, but you will get a faster computer for less money.
Now as for the issue of support. With a Dell if anything goes wrong you have to call dell and talk for hours and hours and not get anything done. If you built your own computer you have seperate manufacturer's warranties for the different parts. This would seem like trouble at first, but actually it's great. You recognize which part is not functioning properly and you get it replaced. It gets replaced because there simply is no other option. What's creative going to do if your sound blaster doesn't work? Give you a new one. it's great, especially with people like Plextor and such. This is besides the fact that the computer is infinitely less likely to have problems because it was put together by you, and not a robot at dell.
Of course you bought a laptop, so this doesn't apply. However for laptops I reccomend sony vaio. They cost a lot of money though.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Dell had a hardware problem with Lattitude CPi laptops where the original clasps that held the notebooks closed would snap off. They made a very cheap change in the laptop carrying cases (most breakages occurred while users were traveling) and when that didn't work, they took the extra expense to design a replacement clasp that was metal with a metal mounting plate. Problem solved.
Like any company, Dell needs to make a profit to keep its investors happy, keep the production going, and stay operational. It sounds like they haven't reached a point yet where your type of laptop failure has forced them to make the retro changes to the hinges to keep customers happy. Maybe there just aren't enough complaints, or maybe the cost of doing it right is higher than giving you temporary replacements until the laptop's useful life is over (if you were a corporation that would be within the next year).
If I were you, I would talk to a manager within support, give him a list of the ticket numbers you've had dealing with this situation over the years, and suggest he might want to reference this type of failure with this model and see if it's a widely known problem. Dell wants customer experience to be positive, so you come back and buy more Dells (worked on me, I've owned 6 now). Also, ask if there are any replacement hinges that are reinforced, possibly from newer model laptops, that might work as a replacement and lower the overhead on their support group handling this persistent failure.
If you don't get satisfaction from the Support center, ask for a consumer relations/customer relations address, and write (snailmail) a letter detailing your issue. I'm certain Dell will make you happy.
i bought a new dell laptop, uppon arival had a bad keyboard. When the tech came out to fix it (mind you i recieved it and 1 hour later called in a ticket) the replaced it with a keboard that was clearly labeled referbished. what kind of crap am i paying for. they told me that the buy it in bulk and that once they take it out of the box and individually pack it that they have to label it referb. I do not hink i believe that. whats to say it is old crap
Our company had over 7000 of the CPx units and they kept repeatedly breaking. The buttons for the trackpoint repeadedly fell off and the motherboard would fail in such a manner that would cause some keys not to work (not to mention the other problems). Then they recalled all of the batteries because of possibly issues with starting on fire. Last January, 900 of the 7000 units needed service - many of them more than once. Since it was costing Dell $150 - $200 for on site service (depending on the provider) on *top* of the parts in question, they finally broke down and decided to replace all 7000 units with Latitude C600s which are a much better PC. Bottom line was that they were lemons. Call Dell and demand satisfaction (have your glove handy). If none is achieved, visit the BBB Online and let them know what you are going through.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
No really, they do.
Wait wait, that's just because I was in late last night trying to get one of their machines to boot correctly (I couldn't).
We had a problem with one of their servers earlier in the year, where one of the hard drives goes bad. (fair enough, it happens, 'tis why God made RAID-5) Though upon getting a replacement drive, that one as well keeled over and died, and sure enough it appeared as though the backplane/connector had problems more than the drives.
We called up Dell. They insisted on sending a technician out to fix the problem, instead of an exchange. We used another machine to replace the server easily enough, and a few days later the Dell guy shows up.
2 hours later he says he's done, and sure enough the server recognises and even uses the drive in slot #2. *yay*
Well that server was redeployed after a bit of burn in. Last night the server did not reboot after a patch update yay Microsoft
I've not had much time to look at the machine, but not only did the machine keel over and die, but it apparently managed to correctly write out GARBAGE to the RAID-5 array before it did.
You can guess who I'll be talking with today, and you can also guess who's sending me a new machine.
The company I work for has 4 Inspiron 7000s, they are all like that. They suck bigtime.
Doesn't anyone trust hardware manufacturers anymore?
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Ask yourself this: what influenced your purchase?
I'm betting that it was specification (as you said, it was a new model) and probably price.
I'll further bet that you didn't consider reliability (of that specific product, as it was new) or Dell's customer support or returns policy.
As long as we keep buying the cheapest, flashiest products, not the products made by the most reliable manufacturers, we're sending a clear message to them, and they will act on that message.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
me:"couldnt you guys call me when you're ready"
them: "then you might steal the computer"
me: "what are you talkign about, just call me when you're ready to fix it."
them: "people do that and steal computers from us"
this went on for a quite a while, i got frustrated and did the work myself, what a buncha of fucks
________________________________________________
In dealing with Dell in the past, I've noticed their support and customer service SUCK! They have "Service Tags" they use to keep track of your PC. I called with my service tag and described my PC in great detail. It's a compact little thing that will NOT hold a standard CD-Rom drive. I wanted to be absolutely sure my company ordered the correct drives to fit in this thin slot. I don't think they listened to anything I said, and we ended up with the wrong CD-Rom's. It took a lot of complaining, but we finally got the issue corrected.
Other companies I've dealt with have been eager to help and/or correct any problems, even if it meant sending out a new item and allowing me to wait and send the old one back in the box the new one comes in. Usually, they'll even include a shipping label so I don't even have to pay for postage on their deficient product. Others have told me they have bad experiences with the same companies I have good experiences with, so keep looking. I'm not afraid to use the, "I've spent $X here in the last month and if you want to see any more of my business..." routine.
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
Your question basically boils down to crisis management. Does Dell think it can manage this problem quietly without having to recall the product (or the part)?
I'm in a similar situation with my wife's `97 Dodge Neon. It started leaking oil a few days ago, so I took it to a mechanic. He told me the Neons have a terrible reputation for head gasket failure (ahh! $500 to fix that!). So, what do I do? Turn to google, of course, and found my way to neons.org. There I learned that the head gasket design is faulty and that Chrysler has even issued a new part to fix it. But did they recall it?? Nope. I learned from the neons.org site that they have a "good-will" extended warranty and will pay for most of the repairs (charge $100 deductable). You have no way of knowing this though unless you learn it from a third party.
So, I'm in the same situation here. Do I demand they pay for all of the repairs? Should they recall the part for the millions of Neons (and other models with similar problems) around the nation? I don't know. It's embarrasing to recall a part, but it's more embarrasing when everyone eventually finds you that you should have. It's up to the customers to have sites like neons.org to keep these companies honest.
-- Grow up and use mutt.
Despite me apparent and informed knowledge of the matter at hand
I spent almost a year working as a phone jockey in a Verizon InfoPlead ("You'll beg us to make it stop!") DSL support call center. In that time I did not have a _single_ customer willing to admit that they did not have extensive knowledge of computers that clearly exceeded my own.
Is it possible you knew more than the poor drone on the other end of the phone? Yes. But is it also possible that he was just following procedure because 90% of the people calling and throwing buzzwords don't know what the fuck they're talking about? Also yes.
--saint
(Incidentally, check out vcw4ever.tripod.com for one of my old co-worker's takes on the Verizon experience.)
The question is, could Dell have forseen this problem when they designed the laptop. That's a hard question to answer, and in fact may never be answered. If they could have, then I think they have more responsibility. If not, they still have some, but much less since they used the best practices available at the time.
That said, of more interest to me is the remedy. To get use out of the laptop for 2 years (well, 92% of the time) and then want them to replace it is just crazy. Also, to expect them to keep repairing it (now that the problem is known) is also crazy. I think the best thing for Dell and for you is for them to offer a steep discount on a new laptop provided you trade in your old one so they never have to deal with it again.
This horrible piece of modem was nothing but a nightmare. But the problems I had with it don't even come close to IBM's support for it. Let me break down the last phone call conversation to them so you know what I mean (Keep in mind I waited 3 hours on the phone, on hold): "Hi, I'm calling to get support for my MWave modem" "We no longer support that product" --- *CLICK* Now if that isnt just the poster child for bad support, I dont know what is
Yeah, that must have cost them a bundle, but look at the good PR they get from it.
Best Slashdot Co
I should have posted this under the gripes about the Deskstars - I have had incredible support from Big Blue in the past.
I used to own a PS/1 back in the day - all 33 screaming mhz of it.
It developed a fault with the monitor.
I took it back to them, 9 months into my 12 month warranty period.
Without asking any questions, and without even bothering to switch it on, they handed me a new monitor of the same type.
There was obviously a problem with these monitors, because about 6 months later, the same thing happened and the new monitor died on me.
So I took it back to them, and braced myself for a fight - I was now technically a few months out of warranty for my system.
I explained this to them, and they didn't hesitate - they simply handed me a new monitor that went on working forever.
Now, instead of saying - "IBM junk died on me" I say "IBM looked after me when I had a problem"
YMMV
I've generally had GREAT experience with HP - the machine I bought ~8 years ago still has tons of info on the website, including technical info and drivers! As for components, well, it's 8 years old, nobody even makes SIMMS anymore!
And then my beloved Aptiva. Ah yes, while working for Big Blue I was suckered into buying one of these black beauties for a discount. The first 2 things I did was realize how AWFUL the sound and video cards really were. The website? What a joke, only 2 years old and there is nary a piece of useful info.
In general I've heard good things about Dell, although I suspect that every manufacturer has their glitches. I tend to think that after 2 years of use, requesting a replacement is a bit absurd...
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
Dell has always been good at practicing what they preach, good customer service and tech support. But ... getting them to replace a faulty part or component is like pulling teeth. When a certain OS was released in 1998, it had an undesirable effect upon my sound card's joystick port, namely it wouldn't work anymore, at all. The same thing happened to a friend of mine and many many people I read on new's groups and lists. Sufficed to say, the sound card was under warranty along with the rest of the computer and I certainly wasn't going to eat the cost of replacing it. After all, OS upgrades are an inevitable part of any computer's life. Your problem sounds like a serious design flaw and my intention would be to insist upon complete and total satisfaction. You paid for the laptop and it doesn't seem unreasonable to want to guarantee that it will work after it goes out of warranty. IMHO.
The secret is to buy only "corporate" products. Of course you will overpay, but that's where the support costs come from. Person I worked for at previous job gave me this tip.
We used to buy Optiplex desktops. Only 2 or 3 prblems in a year. Good machines. If you called tech support the secret was to run the diagnostics CD if you think it's a bad part. Otherwise you have to explanin the problem in a way that would prevent you from running the diagnostics CD. Right before I left we started purchasing their workstations. Forgot the model name. One of the first I screwed up the CD burner with a firmware upgrade. They came out with no problems and even called me to make an appointment. These machines cost $500 more than a similar home configuration so you get what you pay for.
Same thing with laptops. For good support you have to get the latitude. I've had a user break his. Clear case of something not covered by warranty. Called tech support. I said I had no idea how it happened and that the user just gave it to me like this. Dell was out there the next day. Again latitudes cost more, but you get what you pay for.
If you are sick of the machine being away from you why send it for repair?
Its obvious they can't fix the problem so why send it for repair?
I know what my answer to giving you a new one after two years would be, a big fat NO!
After the first couple of times it broke, I would have tried for a new one, if they didn't give me it I suppose I would cry on for a while and then write it off and not buy from them again.
You could always hook a monitor up to it and use it as a desktop machine.
I don't see your reasoning sending it back four times when you know whats going to happen as soon as you start using it again.
just my 2 pence
When I worked for Motorola, everyone in my workgroup was issued a Dell Lattitude CPi with a docking station. We had all kinds of problems with these machines. Mine went through two power supplies and then a new motherboard. One of our managers and my tech lead both lost hard drives, and there were several screen failures.
Ironically, the only one that worked right was the most abused. Its user dropped it, tossed it, and frequently carried it as checked baggage on America West.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Every person I know that has ever bought a gateway pc has had something go wrong with it within a month. My friend had to have his cdrom drive replaced, a neighbour had to have a modem replaced & I had to have the motherboard replaced. Funnily, after that there have never been any problems with the pc's
If it's too difficult, I can't understand it !
I've got a 7500 through work that I've had for over a year. The only thing that's broken on it is the right internal speaker. I've never had any other problems with it.
The case I have for it is quite big and padded. Your case is probably the culprit. Get a Port case with the air-filled chambers.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
Firstly of course they *should* replace it, its a flawed design.
Whether they are under any obligatino to replace it depends on where you live.
In the UK under the Sale of Goods Act, if a product is sent back for a warranty repair for the same reason on 3 separate occasions then the supplier is obliged to replace it with a completley new product or an equivalent model, or to refund the purchase price (and the customer can choose which option, not the vendor)
You should check with trading standards in your area.
First they don't (or at least didn't) design or manufacture notebooks. Therefore notebook support is not at the same level as the other products.
:-(
Second, Dell used to very much pride itself on customer service. Dell happily took significant losses on a given system (like replacing an entire system with a newer model a year or two after the initial purchase) regularly.
Then the "Customer Experience" initiative happend, and support when to shit. I don't know what the exact cause was, but they happened at the exact same time. Interestingly, the stock basically stopped growing a couple of months later. I hung around for another year/year and a half, but it got so bad I just quit. (I worked in the server department and it came to a point where the way I learned of the existance of a new, shipping product is when a customer called in with a broken one.)
Notice on the recent commerical with the "cool kid" trying to talk the nerdy kid's mom into buying a Dell he says something like "no one has won more awards for quality support in the last five years." because the rate of these awards has slowed considerably. Dell support isn't really number one any more, it's number two, like all the rest.
I guess I shouldn't be saying all this, I still have an ass load of stock that isn't doing squat
-Peter
I also experienced many problems with my CPx. Loud whirring from the hard drive, periodic freezes, keys not working and on and on. As well the hard drive almost never shuts down, even though RAM is plentiful.
The same laptop as this guy: http://shane.mcwhorter.org/sound/CanonLaptop.wav It was in the shop (via FedEx) 50% of the first year, forcing me to buy CompUSA's extended warranty (which is insurance handled by a chain of third parties). Right after that first year, they removed any trace that they ever made computers from thier web site. Replaced: Screen twice (bad pixels) CPU twice Power module twice Motherboad three times Battery twice The fundamental problem with laptops is you can't replace only a part of it yourself with another manufacturer's part if you think the design is flawed. In the end of the day, it was a bad power module that got so hot it fried everything. I never got my money back and my warranty expired leaving me with a bad laptop and no support.
You pay for the 3 year warranty.
Micron service and support for their PCs has always been absolutely incredible. I've purchased about a dozen PCs from them over the last 6 years, mostly becuase of the support that I received early on when a couple of machines had issues. They have never been difficult to work with, contact or resolve problems through. This may be why MicronPC is having problems and is being (has been?) sold.
Honestly, I have called so many other support lines and just wanted to crawl through the phone line to throttle the person at the other side...assuming there is a person there. MicronPC: "Your blue gun is out on your monitor? 17"? That'll ship out tomorrow with a return UPS label." Seriously.
For the sake of balance: HP printer and scanner support is horrible. Sony CD-ROM support is worse than a joke (1.5 month return time). If Comtrade still exists they are all that is evil in the world. ATT@Home customer service is actually a level of hell, thinly veiled. Diamond MM is slow, and I have mixed feelings on Dell. They seem to get the job done, but it is a little more painful that Micron.
-Rothfuss
I've had a complete nightmare having a Dell laptops that I ordered delivered to me. I ordered the laptop over the phone. At that time, I had a horrible address which was:
6 New Court,
New Court Road.
The laptop never came. For ages, nobody at Dell would return my calls. Eventually I got throught and they said that they had already delivered it. They had sent it to 6 New Court Road, which was a kind of pawnbrokers. It was a very rough street and there was no point in going to ask them for it back. Dell blamed the mistake on me at first, and then I talked to another sales rep. and they let slip that they had had the correct address all along and that there had been a screw-up.
After complaining a lot, they agreed to send another laptop. Guess what? They sent it to 6 New Court Road again. Luckily they weren't in to collect it. After telling Dell once again my correct address, they made a third attempt. They delivered it to 6 New Court Road, of course.
I only got it because I happened to be looking out of the window when the FedEx van came, so I could shout to the guy that he was delivering to the wrong address.
It was an expensive laptop paid for with my own money, and the whole thing was a complete nightmare. Especially grating was being accused (twice) of lying by Dell sales reps.
I'm sure their warranty says, "fix or replace at our discretion".
I've had several sounds card die within the 1 year warrnaty and then the refurb they send dies within a year as well but they don't support the replacement card.
I buy a lot of them too. I've tried switching to other brands such as diamond but other companies always seem to go under and then I get near 0 product support.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Who fucking cares about your trivial problems? Ask the the families of the WTC dead.
They don't give a fuck about your candy ass whining.
Thanks, Slashdot, for the best belly-laugh I've had all morning.
It was literally in the shop for two years out of best buy's 4 year warranty.
Neither cannon or best buy would replace it. I didn't buy anything from best buy for several years. I would have banned them for life but sometimes they have good deals. I'll never purchase their extended warranty again, that's for sure.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I have to answer emails and write all day
This is almost exactly what I would have said. Try it on another computer. Reinstall the software/driver. Reinstall the OS. Read this FAQ.
A support person can't spend all day wondering if Joe or Sally has utility X, application Y and that's causing driver Z to malfunction. Products are simply too inexpensive to warrant this kind of individual attention on support. Everyone seems to want to pay nothing for hardware - the support is going to suffer as the margins go down. Especially with disposable items like scanners.
I've had a Thinkpad sent back to IBM 8 times. After that I got another model which caught on fire. Its replacement had 4 different MWave modem/DAA failures. Finally it was just stolen. They were nothing if not persistant. Of course it didn't do me very much good.
Over the years there are the boxes that had persistant quality control problems which could not be easily fixed and/or required changes that were pretty exotic:
AST - BIOS replacement
SBC - replace MoBo twice
Gateway - power supply (2x), Wren7 drive (2x)
Compaq notebook - system board
ALR - power supply, MoBo
HP (PC) - SIMMs - replaced 5x in 3 different machines, keyboards replaced in 3 different machines.
But for hands down crappy service you have to talk to a software company. Solaris support once told me and I quote: "Oh that patch is on the web somewhere. CLICK." Oracle VARs - Silver level support would decide which problems they were going to help with and which they couldn't be bothered with after they asked you questions about something for a half hour.
They all pretty much suck. Of course wouldn't the nbest thing to have happen is for it not to break?
I've used this particular model (Insp 7500) w/ the 15" display for 18 months, and have had absolutely no problems with it (especially not with the hinges, which are still tight, even with that mammoth flatscreen mounted on 'em.
Not that I'm suggesting that there aren't design flaws which probabilistically increase the chances of failure of the hinges...
The problem as I see it is: How easy is it to suggest that the problem lies with Dell, and not with your usage? Do you open it carefully, either from the top center or by holding both corners, or do you insist on lifting a single corner? If you're doing the latter, you can expect much more trouble than just with the hinges...
Really, though, Dell would have the best idea as to whether the problem is a design flaw (as countless other users would be screaming at them), and while I'm not suggesting that they'd volunteer that information, they may well know that the problem is how you're using it, which might be why they're reluctant to help you.
Cause dude, if yours it the only one that keeps breaking, at it breaks 6 times a year, the problem might be with your clunky hamfists.
I've worked in internal IT Help Desk support for a mid sized company with 2000+ employees all using Dell laptops and desktops for 4 years now. I've seen lots of Dell hardware problems, specifically with the backlight in the laptop LCDs. I have NEVER failed to get parts replaced the next day following my call to tech. support. I've sometimes had to follow the dummy-mode step-by-step guide to plugging the machine in, but I've ALWAYS gotten parts replaced and the machine properly functioning in one business day (per our warranty terms). We have a few Compaq desktops, and I've been able to place trouble-tickets online and get resolution quickly too. Others have told me that they can't get satisfaction, but I just don't understand. I hope your luck will change. Oh...and as for the Inspiron 7500...YES the hinges I've seen do wear out easily, but DAMN...that's one great LCD you got there!!!!
I worked for a place that was basically a dell shop during a Y2K rollout. I've seen them replace laptops piece by piece shipping each part by UPS and *still* not have the machine work. These weren't two year old machines either. They were brand new machines, right out of the box. It's Dell's policy on returns that sucks. I think the guy has every right to a new laptop as a replacement for the flawed one. The more we settle for bad service the worse service we'll get.
I have had a similar experience with Viewsonic. I bought a G810 monitor about a year ago. About a month after I bought it, it would only display a thin vertical line up the middle of the screen. I had to send it back at my expense ($60+) and they repaired it and sent it back at their expense. It worked for about 2 months and the same thing happened. In the end it happened 4 times. Each time I asked for a new monitor and each time they said that it was repairable. I had already spent $240+ in shipping costs and was not happy the 5th time I had to send it back.
Luckly the monitor was destroyed in shipping when they sent it back to me. They send me a new one and I have not had a problem since. Seems to me both Viewsonic and I could have save a lot of time and money had they just replaced it after the second failure like I had asked.
Sometimes these companies can't see past the immediate costs of replacement to the long term savings if they did not have to repeatedly repair equipment.
They charge you for tech support. It's tough to find phone numbers.
I found a serious bug in their software and they tried to charge me so I could tell them about it.
I'll never buy one of their products again.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I have a Dell 7000 at home and I like it.
It also uses the 15" display but I never had the hinches break or anything like that, but who knows, maybe they decided to make them thinner on the 7500.
Yet, it wasn't without problems.
On the first Dell I got the Keyboard stopped working after two days. They wanted me to ship my unit back to get it repaired. After making clear that I am pissed, that this is a one week old computer I got a replacement within 24 hours (nice). I transplanted my HDD and thought I was off for good now, only to realize 3 days later that the HDD died on me. Luckily I hadn't returned the old one yet put the original HDD in and everything worked fine.
6 Months later the DVD ROM went. It couldn't read the DVDs anymore but CDs were fine. I had moved to Europe at that time and when I called Dell they told me I am out of luck because Dell Europe has nothing to do with Dell US, my warranty didn't cover it (great), so I lived with a defective DVD ROM.
6 months later I moved to Canada, and 2 months after that the Drive stopped working alltogether. Again I was calling Dell and I heard the same story: Dell Canada has nothing to do with Dell US. Again I raised hell, escalated it and they finally agreed to send me a replacement (I have to say the Dell Canada people were very nice and helpful).
A week later I had a new DVD ROM, only problem: Instead of sending me a "swap" unit together with the Floppy drive attached to it, they only sent me the DVD ROM drive. Fine, no problem, unscrew everything, reassemble it, done. When I called them back and asked them why they did this they told me that this was the wrong part, usually they send out complete units for customer maintenance, but apparantly a technician was supposed to do the swap for me. Oh well, no harm done.
A month after that the Display went, or better the lower third of it. Same thing again, calling Dell explaining why an AMERICAN Notebook needs service in Canada, no problem this time. They have a technican call me.
A week later (some scheduling conflicts on my end) the guy drove up to work and replaced the display in the office.
So: Even though I had some bad experience with Dell and it's international Support, in the end I could get what I needed.
Would I buy another one? Yes, because Dell isn't worse or better than anyone else.
Michael
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
In my opinion, there are steps to follow in regards to Quality of Service Issues:
1) Contact the Vendor
2) Contact the Better Business Bureau to file a Complaint against the Organization
3) Contact a Consumer Avenger, such as Silverman from CityTV in Toronto, ON - Canada
If you can't get the service you want by dealing directly with the company who provided the product, take it to the next step... all Governments should have departments available for Consumer Complaints.
In Canada, if you contact the Business Bureau with a complaint, they will notify the organization in question, and if there are enough complaints, they will elevate it to a Ministry level if needed.
Here in California, if you have a piece of consumer electronic equipment fixed more than three times for the same problem the manufacturer has to replace it. I'm not sure if thats still the case.
As far as Dell support goes, it's getting worse. It seems that support across the board has declined. As revenue drops, so does support, quality etc. There are times I don't mind writing checks for support contracts.
How the hell is this a Troll? Its Damn funny!!!
That was Monday. Tuesday Airborne Express shows up with a box. I signed for it. Opened it up and inside was foam packaging for my TiPB and a Return Airborne Express slip. So I put the PB in it and called Airborne Express. They were back an hour later and picked up the box and shipped it to apple. (This is all at apples Expense) So. I send it out Tuesday. On Thursday my Powerbook is back in my hands and in Primo condition.... How cool is that?
I said it once, I'll say it again. Apple Rocks. If you think otherwise... You most likely haven't used one.
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
my roommate has an alienware computer and it has fried its mobo twice (that being a hardware issue i believe, and not alienware's fault)
the first time, they sent him a new one and the comp was back up in days.
this second time, it's been three weeks now and he still hasn't seen the board. it's "not in stock"...
What's turboing you may ask? Turbing is, the actions of a customer who goes around the normal technical support process by contacting a senior person in the chain of command.
I'd recommend you check out The Art of Turboing.
Matt
I'm typing on a 7500 right now. It's been 100% since purchasing it some 18 months ago. It gets used everyday, carted from work to home, hoiked around the office for net diags,etc.
I'm guessing the screws holding your hinges on were working loose - putting unreasonable stress on the screen fixings. Remove the far left and far right rubber bungs at the top of the base unit. Remove the screws underneath and unclip the covers (they're clipped in from the back). Then tighten the securing screws - might be worth putting some locknut on?
Top machine - An Inspiron 8500 is top of my shopping list when replacement time comes around.
I looked at the pictures, and I think it looks better that way. If you can extend the cable, you could put a little mounting bracket on the back of the screen, and hang it on the wall. I've always hated using laptops since they aren't ergonomically correct. A keyboard should be almost in your lap, while the monitor should be at eye level. You could also use one of the stands that holds collector Elvis plates.
Back to an ontopic post, I'll give you the standard IANAL, but I would think that they would be liable for known manufacturing defects, but, the warranty probably stipulates that it can be repaired or replaced, but Dell gets to decide which. If they don't replace it, and they've fixed it 4 times, maybe they don't have a solution, aside from having an engineer figure something out. And then actually having the parts manufactured would be fairly cost prohibitive. So it's cheaper to screw you over than to give you a new computer.
BTW, I'm curious as to where and when exactly the hinges just broke. There's no closeup pictures. You're not just being too rough with it are ya?
I am guessing that if he had just purchased it off of eBay, or from BestBuy, he wouldn't have gotten that kind of service. He bought it through our company's PC purchase plan, and we buy a lot of systems. Maybe it is because of that, maybe he just got lucky.
Maybe companies got tired of people trying to rip them off, and they only really listen to those who can afford to pay for the service plan.
Fight the monopoly , fight the DMCA - Tshirts from poundingsand.com
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I bought my Dell Inspiron 4000 almost exactly 1 year ago, and since then I've had 2 support incidences with it. Both times, Dell responded magnificently in some ways, but not in others. This doesn't mean that I'm a no-holds-barred Dell booster now, but perhaps there is another dimension to the situation that needs to be considered. Let's look at the incidences...
The first was (is) that my LCD screen decided that it likes to rest against my keyboard and nipple-mouse. This is an engineering defect. After 6 months, my panel looking like someone attacked it violently with steel wool, I finally got up the nerve to approach them with the issue. With essentially zero hassle, the tech support guy on the Dell support phone line told me that they'd send me a new screen (and a technician to install it.) The guy came 2 days later, and it was fixed in 90 minutes. Verdict: They did a great job in support, but I wish their engineering wasn't so sucky in the first place that it had to be looked after this way. The technician told me that he'd get in touch with "people on his end" to figure out how to make it so that the screen wouldn't rest on my keyboard anymore. I never heard back from him. (Since then I've done myself some minor case mods that seem to help.)
The second time, my floppy drive got crushed by good old United baggage handling. (They lost my luggage, too. But that's another story...) I told Dell, and they had a new floppy drive to me the next day. Verdict: Great work on getting the drive to me so fast, Dell, but you _told_ me that it would take 2-3 days for it to arrive. So I just lucked out that I was home when the UPS guy arrived.
So, it looks to me like they're good at doing things that involve product and fit within existing policies, but not so good with things that involve processes, or involve colouring outside of policy lines.
Cheers,
Richard
(As an aside, I had an 8 week game of run-around tag with Dell sales at around the same time that leaves me wondering exactly what's their major genetic damage. It'll be quite a while before I buy from them again.)
(As another aside, I spent about 30 of those 90 minutes with the tech support guy who gave me a new LCD panel explaining to him how to set up a dual-boot Linux system. He really wants to get into Linux. :-) )
Assuming that you have a Dell customer number, they have a seperate phone number for business support. I've had a number of problems that have come up in the 250+ Dells my company has at this site, and have never had a problem. As long as you tell them you're in the IT department and have followed their procedures for checking systems prior to calling (even if it isn't true) they will almost always fix the problem immediately and without a fuss.
Depends on which store. I bought an iBook from one store only to get home open it up andd find that it was a previously opened box that was disguised as new, that several pixels on the screen were bad and that it was the only one they had. So I had to go to another CompUSA on about 20 miles away. This second CompUSA had a new assistant manager who appologized, gave me a free case and a replacement for the ibook as well as a discount on the 3 year warranty. Note that usually the three year warranty they offer is a one-time replacement warranty. They don't have to fix your machine but they should replace it with one of the same model and if that model is no longer available you are supposed to get the next model up that they have in stock.
About six months ago, when my last employer went titsup.com, I had the opportunity to buy my brand-new totally maxed out Dell laptop from the company for about 20 cents on the dollar.
The machine had been purchased with one of those pricey Dell on-site same-day-service warranties . Since the video card seemed to be giving me problems, and the laptop cover was slightly warped, I decided that I should transfer the warranty to myself -- post-haste... When I had first purchased the laptop on the company account, Dell had bollocksed the order...multiple times . Despite the fact that my company had purchased hundreds of Dell machines, and despite the fact that Dell was one of our company's major sources of venture capital, orders were always being botched.
The order for my laptop had been lost 3 times. An entire month passed before I finally received it. When it arrived, the video didn't work, but nobody at Dell support had any idea what the problem was . Our head of MIS suggested that I send it back and get another -- but I doubted that our company would last long enough for me to ever see it.
So, I was not looking forward to transferring the warranty.
When I called Dell to find out about the transfer, I was told that they had a transfer ownership page on their website that would automate the process. Sure enough, they did.
I filled out all the spaces on the transfer form and hit the submit button. A message appeared stating that I would get a confirmation email within twenty-four hours. Guess what. I got nothing.
Rather than spend another hour on the phone with Dell support, I decided to fill the form out again...and again. I submitted the form from Windows, Mac, and Linux machines...using different browsers. All of this took but a few minutes. Far less than it would have taken for me to get a live human being at Dell support. I even toyed with the idea of writing a quick perl script to do it continuously.
Another 24 hours and no confirmation.
So I called Dell support.
No one had any ability to confirm whether any human or machine had received my request. I was told that the only way to transfer ownership was via the web page. Several Dell employees even filled out the form themselves.
On the third call to Dell support, I was informed that it would take 3-4 weeks to transfer ownership, and that Dell would have to contact my former employer to verify the sale. I told them that my employer had ceased business and had disconnected their phones. No one offered a solution.
PART TWO, HOW I GOT GOOD SERVICE FROM DELL!
I decided to use a trick that I employed when I needed to get the CDROM on my powerbook replaced...
I scoured the web for three phone numbers which you won't find on their website:
1)Dell's Public Relations Dept.
2)Dell's Marketing Dept.
3)Dell's Legal Dept.
I called the public relations office first, and stated:
Hello, this is (linearb) calling from Austin, Texas. I'm getting ready to launch a massive interactive Dell complaint site on the web. Rather than wait for you to contact me, asking what it would take to get me to stop, I'm giving you the opportunity to stop me from putting the site up in the first place. All you have to do is solve a simple problem - I want the ownership of my laptop transferred. I do not want to be put on hold. I want someone to contact me who can solve this problem. And I want it solved in the next few days.
The woman on the phone was very polite and sympathetic. I assured her that none of my frustration was directed at her, and thanked her for taking my call. Seriously, it's important to separate individuals from the company they work for. When a company has massive problems, most of the employees know it. Despite that, many still do the best they can.
I was assured that I would get a return call within 2 days.
Sure enough, I recieved a call...from a total mean bitch on wheels. She told me that there was nothing wrong with the website, and that I simply had to fill in the form properly, and that I would receive a confirmation within 24 hours. I gave her the name of several Dell employees who had filled out the form themselves a week previously, but no confirmation was ever recieved.
I asked her why Dell had no internal way of tracking whether the transfer process had been initiated. She said they did. I said "prove it." She had no answer.
I told the woman that all I wanted was a printed confirmation that ownership had been transferred to me. She said that she would do it personally, and gave me her phone number.
A day later, she called me back stating that the ownership had been transferred. I said that was good, but I still wanted a written confirmation stating such. She said she would send me an email.
I tried to get her to admit that the web interface didn't work, but she refused to do so. She didn't even apologize for my inconvenience in the matter. However, the woman obviously had the juice to solve my problem quickly.
So, as a service to you dear readers of Geek Austin, I'm going to save you the trouble I had to go through. If you have a real problem, I suggest that you just call this woman directly. She may be arrogant, curt, and totally unsympathetic; but she clearly has the juice to solve your problem.
Margaret Coca
margaret_coca@dell.com
1-800-624-9897
1-512-338-4400
LinearB http://geekaustin.org
I purchased a Dell Inspiron 8000 (at the time the top of the line) at the end of Jan 2001. I have owned it for approx. 8 months. For four of those months it has not been working correctly.
I have had the following parts replaced:
--1, HD
--2, motherboards
--2, CDRWs
--1, Screen (the same on that the poster has)
--2, keyboards
For the last two months I have not even been able to get the thing to boot, or (on the rare occasions that it does boot) the keyboard to work so I can log in.
Finally, Dell said that they will replace it, but then they said that it would take 2 months to get me a new laptop. I went from tech support to customer service and had a new I8100, with a bigger HD, better video card, and faster processor at my house a week later.
The moral of this story is to buy IBM or apple, or at least to go directly to customer service and not to technical support.
Dell has gotten too big for their britches.
They USED to have the best service in the industry. I recently had to cancel credit card charges from them becuase they sent me the wrong monitor, and I couldn't reach them by phone or e-mail. Thier phone system hung up on me after 20 minutes, and they refused to answer e-mail which they acknowledged recieving.
Thank god for American Express. We shall see if Dell will answer to them.
-Jeff
so cant use my account cuz we arent sposed to tal about t but most of the tme you call any tech support at all for a major company you get one of me. m sttng n a cube n Hollywood Calforna and answer the phone "than you for callng AT&T Worldnet Servce .... etc etc."
thats just me there are guys downstars answerng for Drect TV couple of fnancal frms and most notably ATT@home. the thng s we (the guys answerng the phones) really no nothng of the ATT or anythng we get two wes tranng on "ths s a modem" and how to be nce to customers and then the stc us on the phone.
some of the guys here dont even own computers and they have to help lttle old lades through regstry fxes on shay 95 boxes t the most pathetc thng.
anyway dont now how far up the ladder you have to go to get to actual Company employees but odds are REAL good the 1st (and prob 2nd) lne of people u contact at the toll free number wor for a subcontractor (chec out http://teletech.com/home.htm as a prme example)and have very lttle leeway wth what they can do. They are a sub contractor and the clent sets the rules.
had to be an AC m at my worstaton and we arent allowed to tal bout ths. when you as we wll gve no ndcaton that we are not wth the company you called. had hours of tranng on just how to avod sayng that was emplyed by someone other than ATT. yes they are not manufacterers per se but the bg companes use our company to.
The real question is: why do computer vendors, as a class, treat consumers so much worse than other vendors... and get away with it?
My GE dishwasher has an 800 number attached to it... when it was ten years old I had a problem with a small plastic part that broke... my fault. I called them about it, they took the call without saying "Oh, it's too much trouble for you to try to order such a small part, we'll just send you a new one free." Which they did.
When my daughter was in a university dorm, she ordered some clothing from L. L. Bean via UPS. She never received it. When she traced it through UPS they said they had left it at the front desk, had obtained someone's ILLEGIBLE signature, and insisted they'd followed their own rules and, therefore, would not do anything about it. So she called L. L Bean back, and L. L. Bean said, "Oh, we're sorry that happened, no problem, we'll just send you another." Which they did.
How do computer vendors manage to get away with restocking fees, and refusing to acknowledge defects even when the bulletin boards are awash with them, and refusing to take support calls after 90 days unless you agree to have your credit card charged $40, and so forth and so on...
I had problems with a 17 inch monitor that i use for work. Dell sends refurbs for warranty replacements. After the _5th_ time, and a bunch of complaining, i got them to replace (over 1 year after i bought it) the 17 inch with a brand new 19 inch of MUCH better quality.
My suggestion: be Very persistant.
Yes, if they think they can recoup r&d costs
... in this case MIDI and pro audio, OpCode
no if they can't
yeah, okay, so that's sweeping generality, but lets look at a company that manufacters goods for a niche market
A quick look at the icons next to their products and what's missing ? Linux. Why ? Two reasons. Currently there aren't alot of studios gone tux. Second, there isn't alot of software out there to make use of it.
PC's had the same problem for the longest time in the same market. It wasn't until MusicQuest, who is ironically now owned by OpCode, decided to provide a professional class MIDI card back in the late 80's. It not only put their company on the map, but caused compeitors, such as Voyetra to open up their drivers and code libraries.
What's different now ? MusicQuest was a young, hungry two man operation back then.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
The bargain basement mentality that stores like K-Mart, Wal-Mart and Target impose upon us is to blame for people looking for a bargain. The problem is that the crap you end up getting makes the experience of using it unenjoyable. I never liked cooking until I started getting quality equipment. The difference the quality has made in how enjoyable the experience is has really opened my eyes. I almost never buy anything at the bargain basement stores now.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Speaking from experience, I had to tech support Dell for quite a while (not that bad of a job... well actually it sucked big time) Regardless I know for a fact that Dell tries. they sit thier techs through long training sesions, audit thier logs, and so on. They also support any system they ever made for as long as that system still has it's parts in it. Trust me I had to help someone out with thier 486 about a year ago. The support only covers replacement parts for a warrenty length, and that's where a lot of the issues come from, people don't read it! Sheesh.
Now since Dell actually really really wants you the user to be happy with thier little box and recomend it to all your friends and praise Dell etc etc, why the heck do people still have bad expereiences with thier tech support?
Well aside from people misunderstanding the warenty issue, the big problem is that Dell doesn't do thier own tech support! It is mainly outsourced to call centers nationwide run by other companies, thus the support is compromised by secondary factors: Dell wants to make money-> they want you to be happy with the support you get. Outsource company wants to make money-> wants to get you off the phones ASAP (they get paided by a mondo complicated formula involving number of calls and minutes spent per call) Dell only pays the company for the first X minutes of the tech call so after that time is up the techie's boss starts screaming at them to "dump the caller"
This leaves the tech in a real bad spot, they have to make Dell happy (they look at the logs)by providing good lengthy tech support, and they have to make the outsource company happy by making the calls as short as possible. Yuck! Oh, and most of the outsorce companies maintain a "no supervisor" policy. IE supervisors play tech weenie and will only answer policy questions, you want tech support, talk with the tech!
The last thing with Dell is that they don't like to admit "issues" with thier gear. Even if something fails consistantly they won't ever issue a recall/know issue. I stand corrected, while I was teching for Dell there was _one_ and only one know issue. There was a fan issue with one of the dimension descktops when it first came out, the fan was way to noisy, so they made availible a fan, with a in person tech to install the blasted thing to all the owners of the system. That is the only "known issue" i can remember Dell admiting (although they and everyone else had some problems with the early 1+gig chips catching fire)
blehg
Kenwood makes crappy CD-ROM drives. I've had two drives (one RMA) still doesn't work very well.
My experience with Dell hardware and support has been horrible. Granted we have our Dell server hardware working pretty well now, it was a rough road to get there. But for certain their support continues to be horrible.
Our mess started with PowerEdge 6300's and the PowerVault 201S. This is back when 36 GB SCSI from IBM had just been available for a short time. We ordered a couple of those and happily set it up using the PowerVault's backplane split to increase our overall bandwidth between the PowerVault and the PowerEdge system. And it worked great, but only for a short time. Then it would lock the whole server up.
We called Dell's server support and jumped through hoop after hoop, replacing drives, PERC2 controller cards, mainboards, backplanes, split-modules...pretty much everything, only to end up still having the same problem. Firmware and drivers were all at the latest revision approved by Dell.
After being on the phone with them for nearly 2 weeks and even having their contracted technicians out on two occasions, it was down the the wire where my project NEEDED this storage space online right away! They still had no solution, and would not yet consider just taking the servers back and refunding our cost.
After a lot of thought, there was one thing that the technicians had not tried, so finally taking matters back into my own hands...I reconnected the PowerVault unit as to not split the backplane. Viola...worked fine and still does to date. I had mentioned trying this on two occcasions for the technicians contracted from Dell to try. They believed that the split-backplace configuration should have worked, so they never would try running it not split.
Granted this is not a perfect solution because Dell never actually solved the problem and did not give us the ideal configuration that we wanted. But yet it worked well enough.
OK...this is the funny but really angering part. I kid you not, OVER ONE YEAR after all this happened Dell's server techs call me out of the blue. They ask me first if I had gotten my split-backplane problem taken care of? I couldn't help but be sarcastic while informing them that was over a YEAR ago! They apologized and told me what the problem was. Their engineers apparently had just recently found that during the first runs of the backplane split modules for the PowerVault 200 and 201 had a hairline crack in the board that prevented the module from working correctly. ONE YEAR to find that out!!!
Since then we have not purchased Dell server hardware again. We have had great support from Compaq instead, and with our supplier we also have a better price for the hardware we get.
As to the workstation and notebook issues that started this discussion, the organization that I work for buys a lot of Dell. We have had problems with their Workstation series and Optiplex series, usually with video drivers and such. We've always had to get drivers right from Intel and ATI to get anything to work because the Dell drivers don't seem to work with NT4's sp6a.
The little sub-desktop Optiplex Pentium III 733 machines (their cheap... and companies liek cheap no matter how well they work) overheat all the time. They suck.
Well, anyway...that is my experience. I have another friend that swears by them, has never had any major problems, and support has been good to him. Of course he is not working with their high-end stuff though. Anyway...for what it is worth...there you go.
I just got a Dell Inspiron 4000 a month and a half ago and haven't really been at all satisfied with their support. When the laptop first arrived, the lid latch was broken. After paying to have it shipped overnight, I was overnighting it back on the first day. I had to talk to Customer Service and not Support, but they refunded me the difference between ground and next day shipping. Sent it out on a Thursday, came back on Monday. Latch now worked, but now then area of the display below the latch (on the LCD) was warped so it was always pure white. I held on to it a few days so I could actually get some use out of it, and noticed that there was this high-pitched squealing / crackling noise coming from under the F9 key when you moved the mouse, or anything of the screen was changing (like an animated banner ad). I went back and forth with email support for a couple of weeks, he'd say "the hard drive makes noise". I'd say it does it on the BIOS screen with no hard drive, remember?". He'd say "There is a fan on the processor. That is what you're hearing. Run the diagnostics and listen to the fan". I'd say "It's not the fan, which whirrrrs, this is a sound like feedback wheeeeee-crrrrr, rememeber?". He'd say "it's probably a ground loop, bad wiring at your office". I'd say "it does it on both battery and AC, remember?". He'd say "It is probably the hard drive, they can be noisy". And the whole process would go round and round again. Each time he emailed me, he made it seem like it was his first message to me, completely disregarding the quoted replies in the email message.
So I went to DellTalk, the online support forums. I explained my problem and what I've tried. Got replies back from several technicians who told me all the same things the email guy did. One DellTech even said "What you're hearing is crosstalk from the IDE bus coming out of the speakers, which is normal for a notebook". After I explained that was impossible since the speakers are located elsewhere, I asked when it became normal for a notebook to have audible crosstalk coming from its speakers. Not normal for any of my previous 5 laptops.
Finally I went back to phone support. I got to run through the standard rigor-morah about what operating system I used (Linux and Win2k) and how Linux wasn't supported. I got to run the diagnostics disk, which to my knowledge does not test to see if the machine is making any unusual noise. Of course, the diagnostics passed, there was nothing wrong with my machine. It took some convincing, but the machine got another overnight flight to "the depot" to replace the motherboard. Got it back, same noise.
The problem with many companies today is that they do not make the equipment they sell. An undisclosed company makes Dell's laptops for them and Dell just sells them and supports them. I couldn't possibly expect that the yokel that sold me my television could actually repair it, why do these companies like Dell think they can? Short of swapping out every part one at a time, like my mechanic does, they don't have any understanding of what they're selling. I'm curious how many times they'll replace the motherboard on this machine before they start to think, "Maybe we should start holding our manufacturers to a bit higher standards".
Most unbeleivably annoying, condescending salesman I've ever met. And then, the manager was just as bad. I was trying to buy a Viao without their incredibly expensive warranty, and boy, they just wouldn't have it!
Luckily I eventually got a ThinkPad which rocks.
I WAS successful in convincing friends not to buy there though.
Yeah! I'm gonna head fuck your ass. Open up cockboy and take my purple head :D
Lemme guess, this guy buys a Dell because they are the cheapest out there...and bitches because they suck? Hel-lo?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I've got the one with the 15.3" screen (1280x1024). It's not the highest resolution you can get on a laptop, but I've not seen any other with a larger physical screen. This machine (I'm typing on it now!) is my primary work machine; I use it all day every day at work, and at home in the evenings (ie: I'm packing it up and moving it twice a day). I've had it a year and a half, and I'm extremely happy with it. I've found it to be quite rugged, except for the thingy you push get get PCMCIA cards out. I've certainly had no hinge problems.
A friend had the 7000 (15" screen, 1024x768), and had no problems with the screen/hinge either. His keyboard stopped working properly at one point, but it got sent back and fixed under warranty, and has been fine since then.
Bear one thing in mind: Dell does not make these laptops. Have a look at HP's, and you'll notice they're pretty much identical. They're not made by HP either, but by some company in the far east somewhere.
-- Steve
From my experience, if you have a problem with a product initially, the best policy is to not try to work with the company to get your product in working order. Your best policy is to be a jackass, and immediately tell them that it's completely unacceptable and you won't wait for your unit to be repaired, and demand a refund ASAP.
A couple years back I ordered a Compaq that you could customize online. I think I've repressed everything that went wrong with it... the video card immediately crapped out and the machine had to be sent in to the shop for a couple weeks, then it became apparent that they never did have all the correct drivers installed, some other problems ensued, they sent out a repairperson a couple different times. In total I spent many many hours on the phone with tech support, and it never did work right. Finally after a couple months time I told them I was going to return it. They didn't want to take it back. After I made it clear that the machine had never worked in the first place and that I'd been running through all these hoops with their tech support trying to make it work they relented and took it back. And now, of course, even if they made the best machines in the world, I'd find it very hard to ever buy a Compaq again.
Anyway, my point is, don't let them try to make it right. The clock is ticking once you get the product. Take your product back just as soon as you suspect something is wrong. I would be shocked if you could get a refund after two years.
-- dR.fuZZo
My company has about 20 laptops from Dell, and they keep getting repaired. This is for all kind of models and it has been the case for years.
Before we used to have IBMs, never got a problem with those. And I have heard the same complaint from other people (in different companies) who had to switch from IBM to Dell.
My conclusion? You get what you pay for. Dell are cheaper but they are crap!
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
to continue the recent series of "ask slashdot" questions, i propose the following :
"waaaah waaahh wwaaaah sob waaahhh waaaaaaah sob sob waaaaah waaaah?"
I totally agree about Dell Inspirons being total crap. After my workplace had 6 of them with the hinge problem and then 3 more bugger up on the power switch, ALL of the Dells were returned. Dell lost quite a bit O'business there.
OTOH, The -best- technical support I *ever* had came from the folks of 3Ware. It was nice talking to a tech-support person who knew what they were saying and getting questions answered, instead of someone just reading you a book, then e-mailing you answers to your questions via email 5 days later. I even got passed to a Real Live Engineer when the tech support person was stumped on a question. Kudos to them!
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Recently we switched from Dell to building our own machines here, as Dell service in Canada is terrible. We have had to wait weeks for new hard drives, only to have to return them ... memory replacements have all been with refurbished memory that was non-functional ... and phone support is painful. Additionally, we have found Dell hardware is completly mediocre, with at least one edge component (HD, CDRom, floppy, monitors) failing within a year ... and performance is below average as the machines tend to be behind technologically (slower busses, etc.). For the premium price, you get marginal support, hardware, and performance.
mx
From my experiences Gateway has so much trouble it's not even funny. A client of mine has 4 Gateway PCs, over the last 2yrs I've had to get at least 6 replacement parts. I have had them send me defective replacement parts TWICE! Once a bad motherboard, yesterday a bad harddrive! Very frusterating to say the least.
Ian
i've been having the same problem. first time, there was also a 1 inch wide line of green stuck pixels, and then the hinge broke, so i sent it in. it appears to have been only fixed cosmetically, and it broke again quite soon.
they're usually pretty good about taking it back, but the case is fucked. they should just take all the internals out and put it in a new one.
At my old job I had a Dell Inspirion 7000. It was a decent laptop. Then one day the ethernet card refused to work after rebooting. It did that both under winblows and linux. Typically in those cases I have found that the hardware is hosed. So began my month of dealing with Dell's "award winning" tech support. Personally whoever gave them that award totally overlooked the unix vendors. I've had far less headache dealing with either HP or Sun for support. HP was a hassle since they refused to believe their hardware was at fault, so you always had to open the call as software, then get the software guy to agree with you, get transferred to the hardware guy, who wanted the part's serial number before sending the field guy out for support. Sun on the other hand, sent the guy with the part without the hassle. Soooo needless to say I was expecting this sort of support out of Dell.
Wow was I mistaken. Each time I called them it was at least a 4 hour session, with vast stretches of time being placed on hold, or sitting in some call queue. Nevermind I have already determined it was the ethernet card that was having trouble. The tech I spoke with insisted on following his script in front of him. "Have you re-installed windows?" He about went nuts when I mentioned the system was a dual boot system. Pretty much his answer was reinstall with windows only and call back. *click* Nice.
Called back, waited in phone queues some more, got another guy who went through same script. This time I didn't mention Linux. He arranged to have the laptop shipped to them to be fixed. But I was to keep all peripherals, HD, ethernet card and so on. Humm, why is the laptop going back and not the broken ethernet? *shrug* Back it went. Two weeks later I got it back. This time the LCD wouldn't work. Swell. Back in the phone queues, and another 4 hours blown. Shipped laptop back again.
Two weeks later, got the laptop back...this time the keyboard didn't fully work, and other wacky problems. 4 more hours on the phone and shipped it back again.
Another two weeks, laptop arrives, finally works again. But original problem still exists. Called Dell again. Waited in phone queue for a few more hours, got a guy, who pretty much was telling me to ship the laptop back to them again. *sigh* I told him that wasn't the problem, it was the bloody ethernet card--ship me a new one. Put me on hold. Came back and said he couldn't do that. Told him I'm sure he can swap the ethernet card. Back on hold. Came back and wanted *my* credit card number to charge me for the card, and then refund *my* credit card when they recieved the old one. Told him that was unacceptiable, as this was *work's* laptop. Back on hold. Came back and said that's all he could do. Asked for his boss. Back on hold. Came back and said sure, we'll send you the card, as long as you ship back the old one. Like I wanted to keep a broken ethernet card....right.
Needless to say, because of their lousy tech support, I will not buy a Dell system for myself, let alone recommend it to anyone. That and I also saw the two other Inspirion 7000's that work bought at the same time as mine have many many more problems than mine ever did. I was lucky in that I got the good one of the batch.
"If you insist on using Windoze you're on your own."
I have run into the a similar problem with Dell's tech support. My parents just gave me one of their old laptops to do development on, and yes, it is out of warranty. However, I upgraded the machine to a new OS and it stopped supporting an extra battery that I had for it. So I contacted their tech support.
The person contacted me back and pointed me to a BIOS update to use in Win95 (I was running Win98SE on the machine), and thinking that updating a BIOS is just the same as on a desktop, I ran the util. Lo and behold, it fried the BIOS and the computer now refuses to boot. (My guess is that the BIOS update util had something tweaked for the specific OS, and the update util didn't work correctly in Win98).
Anyways, I contacted Dell support again, and told the guy what happened, he told me to use a different BIOS update utility (this one was for Win98), but didn't understand that my computer refused to even acknowledge the BIOS its self anymore and needed to have the chip replaced.
I emailed him back about the discrepency between the emails, noted that yes, a BIOS update shouldn't be dependent on the OS involved, HOWEVER, when I used the first util he directed me to (and in his first response he said he totally understood my email) it ruined my BIOS and the computer wasn't functional anymore. He then said that I could send the computer in for repairs and since it wasn't under warranty, it'd cost $900 to repair. (the computer is probably worth $300, citing EBay auctions). I coughed and said no, this was their issue since they misdirected me to a wrong utility and it had ruined my computer, it didn't matter if it was under warranty or not.
I keep emailing them at least 3 times a week forwarding my last response, and they don't answer back anymore. I'm wondering if there are many others in this predicament, many enough to where we can slap a class action for undersupporting their products?
We received venture captial about a year ago, we decided to buy "real" machines so we went with Sun. Six out of the Nine items we purchase were broken coming out of the box or died within the first week. We had one 420 that had the back panel bashed in without having the cardboard box it was shipped in being damaged. That means it was dropped at Sun, then put into the box, then shipped to us.
Also, Sun has a cache problem on some of their Ultra2 chip which can reboot when the machine is stressed. We suffered through this too.
And for their service contract, it now costs us $3000 per 9.1G Seagate drives if they need to replace a bad drive. Er, highway robbery? We can't replace it with the same drive from BestBuy (same drive, just $200) or we break our service contact. Sun is insisting that we upgrade the drives although nothing is wrong with them. Of course we would have to buy them through Sun. So that's more of our money that goes to Sun for no improvement to our system.
Sun is a good company if you have a staff that have never seen the inside of a computer before. Beyond that, they are over-rate and expensive. They have gotten big because they sell a Unix hardware/software solution and because they will nickle and dime you to death. Once they have you, you have to obey they wishes or they will hit you with outragous service contract prices.
I'd go with OEM'd standard equipment over Sun any day.
I worked on Dell's Tempest Twister 3200/3500's. Bezel issues were always inherent. Cracks, all sort of mayhem. Dell has design flaws with the 7000 series, I remember quite well. Just remember that when you speak to a Dell technical rep, it's someone working for Stream (now owned by solectron), NOT DELL. Your computer is also serviced by Solectron, NOT DELL. Just an FYI.
I've worked at one or two jobs where they told me I could move on into Programming or other interesting areas after I've worked at Tech Support for a while and maybe gotten some certifications. I hope this uy has something in writing or he may be stuck in tech support for longer than he thinks.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
That said, in every state (and Dell has a business presence in every state which is why they always have to charge sales tax) there is an implied warranty of merchantability that comes into effect as soon as the sale is completed. This warranty is in addition to any written warranty from Dell. Under the federal Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act, for consumer sales, sellers are not allowed to disclaim this warranty.
The warranty essentially requires that the product you buy be of average fair quality. Four broken sets of hinges is not "average fair quality" IMHO. Additionally, in many, if not most, states there are consumer protection statutes that provide for up to 3X your damages (cost of the computer) plus attorneys fees.
Finally, in some states (Massachusetts is one) for sales to consumers the CONSUMER has the option of demanding a repair, replacement or a refund. Most written warranties state that it is the manufacturer's option to repair or replace.
Hope this gives you some information you can use and I wish you luck.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Some time ago I bought an IBM z50 zub notebook. Since they dont sell these pupies in Europe I bought it new unopened on Ebay.
One day while I was using it, for no apperent reason, the screeen went black.
F**k! I said and, turned it around, restarted, removed baterys etc, etc. Then it sudenly started to operate.
Puh!
A few months later it happened again... it went black. From there on I havnt seen a sgin of life from it. (despite turning around and shaking it)
I called IBM tech-support and spoke to a verry nice and polite man and was told that I should return it with my reciept or guarantuee note
Okey I said and hung up.
3h later I had still not found the guarantee note I know I got when I bought it...
Now what? I havn't had time to call them again but I assume they politely will say... "Oh I am so sorry we canot fix it without that little pice of paper" Is there a way around such things? It sure is obvius it is an IBM machine.
Tim
Question authorities
I'm a gadget fool and I got a Dimension 8100 with the P4 the weekend they came out. I paid 2000 basically to say that I got a P4. I'll never buy Dell again. I got a lousy vid card, TNT2 64 a soundblaster Value, Windows ME(They would NOT install Linux), and with a 1 year nbd and 3 years tech support, they've not done a thing to help me out. The PC makers wonder why they can't keep business. It's because people are sick of the high prices for lousy equipment. I tell everyon I know to go local and I even pick up some business myself. Once I needed to know the keystroke to reset the BIOS (dell proprietary) and they said they wouldn't support it because my modem wasn't Dell Hardware. I didn't even want their help. The prices they charge for a winmodem is outrageous. 50 for a soft-modem! They've lost their perspective. Dell claims that they are the best beause they have custom systems. They're systems are no more customizable than DEC back in the win95 craze.
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
The situation is much different today. Returning any merchandise often incurs a 15% restocking fee, forcing more people into exchanges. Manufactures have reduced return windows from 30-60 days to 7-14 days. All too often, defects appear soon after the return period expires, forcing consumers to use the generally inadequate warranty policy. This then involves a large number of lengthy phone calls, which result in even longer waits as the manufacturer refuses to staff the call center at adequate levels. Customer satisfaction is further eroded, ultimately resulting in silly question being asked on Slashdot.
My experience with custom build computer shops is even worse. They, in general, will not admit fault, resulting in the endless replacement of individual components. I something is crap; I just want to return it.
Seems that Dell 8000 laptops may have a design flaw as well. Myself as well as numerous other people have had the backlights fail (flicker, go out all together, dim, etc..) on brand new 8000s within 6 months of purchase. I'm afraid to send my laptop into repair because I depend on it on a daily basis and they're not clear on how long the turnaround is.
I think they should have a program like car dealerships where you get a "loaner" whenever you have to send it in for repairs!
My 2 cents.
--Bob
I've worked for one of the largest direct mail computer resellers in the US and if I remember correctly Dell contracts out to IBM for service and support on their server line. I know this has nothing to do with their laptops, but it goes to show what market segment they pay more attention to.
We have a few dozens of these Dell 7500, and the screens indeed have lots of problems. In our case the service is faster , but still a problem. Part of the problem here is they don't correct the model. They prefer investing in the next model.
But another part may run quite deep. Let's give it a try:
There is a reluctance to pay for service , while there is a willingness to pay for the technology.
Technology is overrated and will solve all. You can see it in the approach of terrorism too. People? we'll try some new surveillance servers and screens.
And war. With cobra helicopters that are as much a danger to those who fly them as to their targets. That's not a coincidence, it's a distorted set of priorities. Or maybe not from those who make them. These things do sell.
Not exactly the same, but overlapping.
Look at people buying video recorders. The more features the better. Then afterwards, only the kids can use the recorder. Who buys a recorder that does less, but is simple enough to actually get used? Who makes it? The blindness is similar.
You can see it in healthcare too(or general quality of life). How are we going to raise average health? why, by creating new drugs and new machines. That's not where the big difference will come from.
Who cares if his life is 10 years longer thanks to new nano machinery, if he has to spend it stuck away in an old man home, not being allowed to die. Or if he doesn't dare to go out of the door after dark. I bet you're already thinking how technology can help there. Well, it can. But it's a bad aim.
I think many companies don't offer expensive fast and good service because the market is too small.
And they are right most of the time.
And again, admittedly, technology can help here too.
Something tells me there are management books about this. Buy this laptop! Now even newer! and more technology too!
Hm, it's got my attention allright.
Go to http://forums.infoworld.com and choose Ed Foster's Gripe Line. His column this week was about Dell service -- for years ranked the best in the business, but now, apparently, just rank.
One theory being advanced for this: Michael Dell said the company would make its dividend projections "no matter what." Does "no matter what" mean gutting the support staff to achieve a paper profit?
Anyway, I had a Dell long ago (an i386 laptop). Service was superb. But from what I've heard this year, I wouldn't touch Dell again.
I've had this type of problem with a samsung monitor I recently bought for my desktop in my office.
I was using a 15" AOC monitor that had seen better days so I decided that weekend, to go out and buy a 19" monitor. I went to best buy and looked through the monitors and decided that the Samsung had the best picture and features of all of them. I purchased the monitor and took it home. I was very happy with the product... for 1 week. Exactly 1 week after I bought it, the monitor began flashing white every couple hours. The next day the focus and size controls would randomly go out of sync every couple of minutes. I called up samsung and described my problem, and they said: "uh oh", yes thats right. I've never heard those words come out of a tech's mouth, but he said "uh oh... It sounds like its broken, you should take it back to best buy." So I was angry, and not able to work on my computer for the lack of a monitor (allready gotten rid of the 6 yr old 15"), I took it back (100 mile round trip) to best buy, and you know what happened??!! They didn't have any other 19" monitors in stock!! ARGHHHH!!!! Not to mention no other store in my town had 19" monitors in stock (they all had to be special ordered, because 19" monitors are not in high demand)!!! So I went back to my office, monitorless, and had to find a friend to borrow a monitor. I am now looking for a good monitor to buy on pricewatch.
Overall BestBuy and Samsung have left a very bad impression on me, and they don't even seem to care. I can tell you one thing for sure. I'll never buy anything from Samsung or BestBuy again.
I find that most often I end up learning from necessity, rather than for enjoyment.
This singular example is unfair to Dell. True, this model seems to have a design flaw. However, many other support organizations would probably blame this problem on user error, and make you eat the cost of replacement.
Dell has already spent lots o' money on you. Replacing this 2-year-old machine with a new one is out of the question. Just be glad they did what they did, and be more careful with those hinges.
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!) Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)
sulli
RTFJ.
I too have an Inspiron 7500. One of the hinges on mine also broke. Dell's support was pretty good - they sent Airborne Express over, took my laptop for free, replaced the hinges, and had it back to me in a few days.
I now treat these hinges like glass and the computer is only semi-portable (being stupidly heavy to begin with, and now I know about the hinge thing...Dell's discussion pages are litered with "bad hinges" posts).
It seems to me though, with the price of flying these things in and fixing them over the three years that they are warranteed, it has got to be cheaper to invest in a big box of solid steel hinges so that they only have to get fixed once and not over and over again (it is not like the extra weight of good metal hinges will make this thing any less portable.)
I don't think that Dell owes you a new computer, but they certainly do owe you better hinges, and either way you...and a whole lot of other people who are lugging Inspirons around today, will probably think twice about getting you next laptop from Dell.
lemon law
I've seen plenty of laptops with this problem, Dell, Compaq and others. Most manufacturers will not fix the chassis. Compaq considers the hinges part of the case and as far as they are concerned, that's cosmetic. I've dealt with angry customers about this and quite frankly, I agree with them.
Ok... I think it started with the Savage3D and continued through to the Savage2000 chipset. S3(now Sonic Blue) had a reputation for making claims for their products, but never releasing drivers that supported those claims. I, personally, had a Diamond Stealth III with a Savage4 Pro+ chip on board. S3 released drivers pretty much when they felt like it, and never enabled quite a few features that were announced and were on the box for the card. The Savage2000 promised hardware T&L, but shipped with it disabled in the drivers. When they finally enabled it, it proved to be similar to the S3Virge (decelerates 3D!!!). S3 never fixed any of their products and has stopped supporting all of 'em.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
dunno. i had a 2 toshibas from my company and they both were smashed in the rough handling at trade shows.on the toher hand my panasonic toughbook has taken rain, snow, falls onto concrete and 3 years worth of trade shows and it keeps on ticking.
of course having a titanium case, cushion damped drive and mobo and being built to military grade specs helps.
While I like the way IBM supports os/2, they are worse than useless for hardware. I bought a Home and Away modem/Ethernet card years ago. Under IBM's -own OS-, the Ethernet was not supported though the box said it was. When I called to ask about it, they said "Oh, well, that's part of the LAN group. They do support, at $150/incident". I pointed out that I could buy a new Xircom ethernet card for a lot less than that - and it had os/2 support.
There was some muttering and a promise, never fulfilled, to 'get back to you'.
Quel waste de time. I don't buy IBM hardware any more.
Except for their old heavy keyboards, which are cool.
Dell farm out their product support to a support company called Stream (www.stream.com). :) a real BOFH....
The UK/IRL is handled from Derry, N.Ireland and the NL from Kabelweg, Amsterdam.
Having worked on the Dell support line with Stream for over 3 years, i can safely they're the biggest heap of shite. Previously, all the top-notch Stream support techs were assigned to the Dell support contract - now they've actually hired the ex-cleaning crew!
I left the company over 12 months ago, disgusted by the absolute tech-illiterate personnel they would hire - warm bodies were all that were required. Here in the UK, they hired people on unemployment benefit and paid the an extra pittance (about $50 per month) on top of their unemployment benefit. These tossers had no choice - either show up for the work you're assigned, or lose your employment benefit. I was handling 2nd and 3rd level queries (aftsr 18 months on the front desk). The questions asked by the front-liners were f******g unbelievable! I've sinced moved into a contracting net-ops position for another non-IT company - yessss!
It's true about the corporate quality laptops - solid machines.
Dell themselves supported the crown jewels (optiplexes/servers/workstations), the cabbages (disparaging name for Stream support) support the home/personal ranges, but this has now changed - farmed out again
One of the front-lin.ers (a tech i greatly admired for his IT knowledge and skill) was shafted by Stream managment and left. He's now an IT manager for a major UK financial company and takes great please in slowly roasting the Dell support staff over lack of IT knowledge on the helpdesk
I know this proly has been said already, I work in retail currently while attending college, but it seems a lot of companies are getting rid of their 800 number (HP, Compaq, Lexmark) HP going as far as to provide a 90 limited warranty on a $3000 computer, not that I think HP's are bad. I think this is proly because of the number of people asking what this button does, or how to work it. Anyway, there are companies out there you can buy services from Assurant Group( http://www.fwsc.com/ ) and Warrantech( http://www.warrantech.com/cindex.html )
Anyway, that's my $.02
-Peverbian
Dell support was rated the highest among the "computer mills" (gateway, dell, etc.) in Consumer Reports. Given that, I recommended to my father to buy his first desktop computer from them last Christmas.
How was I to know that they'd stop answering the phone? Literally.
My dad has 15 hours of hold time documented and never spoke to a real person. THREE certified letters to Michael Dell with no response, and is obviously not very happy.
Neither am I because I didn't really want to be his support hotline for this new PC.
I would have a lot of trouble recommending Dell to anyone again.
"Sometimes I don't know my own strength"
I have had a inspiron 7000 REFURB w/ the 15" display going for going on 3 years now, and I haven't broken ONE hinge...
What the HELL are you doing to them?
As for supporting the product, it sounds to me like that's exactly what they are doing: Fixing your broken hinges...
You'll never get a recall, because it's not a safety issue.
Personally, I think you're just angling for a new laptop...
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
My employer has recently purchased several thousand Dell C600 laptops. We quickly found out that if you slip even a small printer into the case on top of the laptop, the resulting pressure breaks the LCD screen. Even putting a mouse on top of the screen and allowing a stack of books to be placed on top of the laptop case can break the screen. (I've seen the first example several times, the second example once.)
Dell's response? "That's customer abuse. It's not covered. Pay us $600 and we'll send someone out to fix it."
Moral of the story? Before deciding on a big purchase, let a few users lug potential equipment around for a few days. You'll be surprised what breaks.
If they want to hang on to their customers, they'll support their product. If they could care less they don't. Dell sucks, as my girlfriend has had lots of problems with her Dell laptop's display dying constantly. And I bet Gateway wouldn't like all the holes I've cut in there computer case. I think it's safe to say, that the bigger the company, the crappier the support. Cisco is probably a shining example of an oxymoron in this industry, but it holds true for most big companies. It's a trade off that in America is commonplace. Smaller size = greater quality = more pricey, Bigger size = less quality = cheaper prices. It all boils down to the kind of quality you expect, and what you're willing to pay to achieve that level of quality.
I recently bought an ECS K7VZA 3.0 mainboard, Win2k and XP won't install, neither will Linux, 2k reboots the machine right after the setup program finishes loading the initial set of drivers. ECS support has never once returned my call and ive called 3 times in the past 2 weeks.
BTW, does anyone know of my problem? I need help.
For years the computer industry has been a highly competitive one, where price is king. This often requires a company to use equipment they would not ordinarily use so that they can compete. This also means that this "substandard" equipment will fail and there will be no money for the company to make good on repairs. We, as consumers, are to blame for this, we have forgotten the old adage, "You get what you pay for". I for one would like to see this state of affairs change, but until we are willing to pay for quality and support, we have nothing more with which to look forward.
And guess what that Microsoft 'tech' you spoke
to is a third party supplier who is about as connected to MS as you are.
You can see this in their solution database, not so often now but many used to add things like "Microsoft told us" or "Microsoft doesn't know". I think they updated their filter scripts after that.
In the end, we gave up. Sony sucks, their customer service sucks, their product (at least the Vaio) sucks, and I for one will NEVER buy another Sony product as long as I live.
Kickstart
I purchased an HP external (USB) CD burner earlier this year. The burner could read CD's just fine but could not burn a CD to save it's life. I made sure all the settings on my PC were optimum for burning a CD, no luck. It always failed 30 seconds or so into burning a disk with the same error "unknown error". I returned the drive and got another. Same problem. I phoned HP (at my expense, no toll free number) and they basically went through everything I had done already. They told me I had bad CD's (They don't like Imation, only HP CD-R's). I replaced them. On the next call they started questioning my PC, and insisted they didn't support Windows ME. I had to actually refer the tech to the webpage that stated that they DID support ME for this device.
Then they found out I built my system myself, and they promptly blamed my system. They basically told me I was on my own and there wasn't anything they could do. They said the device was fine, my PC was at fault. My return period at the store had expired, plus I didn't want to return the same device twice, but I had been completely screwed by HP so I called the store manager and told him exactly what happened. He couldn't give me a refund, but gave me store credit, and said that HP devices account for a striking majority of their returned PC components.
I swapped it for a new Yahama drive and it worked from day one (imagine that). When I told the story to a few of my coworkers, I learned that that one of them has the same HP CD burner and they've never been able to get it to work, and another has an HP printer that failed shortly after she purchased it.
With shoddy products and shoddy support, how does a company like this even stay in business?
I don't know if this applies everywhere but I believe there are lemon laws for most communities on computer hardware... Some say three repairs on the same sub-system constitutes a lemon... etc... I think that's the last line of defense... In the past year I've had 3 major pieces of hardware fail and only two replaced. One of them was a 75GXP Deskstar... The threat of bad publicity doesn't even whip these folks into shape anymore...
I've had 3 hardware problems with my Dell laptop. Phone wait ~45-60 minutes. Knowledge of staff on the phone: ~0. Knowledge of on-site tech: 0.
My best phone call with Dell went like this:
me: I have next day support, and I've been waiting for 5 days. Don't you think it's a problem?
tech: uh...
me: what happens when Dell doesn't honor their support agreement?
tech hangs up
Infoworld and others have been slamming Dell lately. It's about time!
American Power Conversions (APC) has an awesome hardware support department and turn around time. We deal with them VERY often since we sell one with almost every PC and security panel we offload. I've had my share of stuff from them go bad (mostly batteries dying off prematurely), but they handle everything quite well.
As for *bad* hardware, we used to sell tons and tons of Acer monitors with our systems. For whatever reason the guns seem to go bad in them painfully fast, usually gifting you with a urine-tinted screen. I've probably seen 8-9 of them go in the time I've worked here (3 years(ish)).
They're not the best in replacing them without complaints, either.
A while ago, dell support was top notch, a few years im talking.. From what I can see, dell has found a new outsource partner to do the support for dell (its very common in the support industry) and they probably found the cheapest outfit, one that does not have time to train properly, track issues, etc. I bought a dell computer a while ago, im happy with it, im just glad i haven't had to call them up for anything. I work in a call center that does support for games. A lot of times, I wont send someone to gateway/hp/dell/compaq to get a driver update, because those guys do not really know how to properly install a video driver lets say, and I have to go back and do it right. A lot of times the OEM's just say to use yer restore disk, and that will fix ya up.. but you lose all yer data. Another example is if you were to go buy a new gateway computer, with an AMD processor above 1ghz, with an Nvidia Geforce card. You will find that a lot of games will lock up when you run it on this machine out of the box. The reason why is that they had enabled fast writes on the agp bus with the viagart.vxd file (via driver for agp). I have fixed numerous problems just by unchecking that file from msconfig. I let gateway know that they had this problem, found some links from cnet about the problem, but they refuse to do anything about it. Ah well, building machines is much better anyway.. the only reason i got my dell is because my friend got one with a 19inch monitor, without having to pay anything up front, so I got one.. Almost 3 years later and im still sending damn checks to Dell for the thing.
I knew a guy in high school who bought an old PowerBook. He fried a chipset accidentally by bending a couple external connectors until they touched. Apple fixed it in a week (even overnighted it). Then he decided to do it again to see what would happen. He kept doing it and sent it to Apple for repairs enough times that they gave him a brand new laptop. This was just after they had introduced the iBooks and discontinued older models. So he got a new iBook for repeatedly frying the old laptop with a design flaw. What an ass.
It seems that premium products carry higher levels of tech support. I've called tech support on HP Pavillions and Dell Dimensions and waited for hours to talk to someone. Yet when I've called for support on HP Vectras and Kayaks, and Dell Optiplex and Poweredge machines, a capable tech was on the line in about 5 minutes.
Customer loyalty is more important for high end corporate stuff. Yet with consumer level products, it's cheaper to piss off the customer than to provide adequate support.
Its not dells fault that most people dont care to pay more for service and thus so little money is available for it. The fact is we all as a whole decide how much service we all get and we chose very little service because over the whole computers dont need servicing.
Its like old tvs used to always come with expensive service contracts because people paid for them expected them and used them AND paid for using them.
Same with old washers and refrigerators. They made more money and you spent more money on SERVICE then on the product itself.
Now few ever care to repair a part in a puter past 6 months.
If the keyboard goes then get your arse to the local mart and buy a new one for all of 5 bucks.
Mouse goes? You can get a better one for 10 bucks.
Hd acting bad.... you can get one 4x as big for 79.99;/
Monitor getting old... well you can get a bigger one cheaper.
psu getting cranky? Get a 300 watt new one for 5 bucks.
Floppy acting up? Get one for 5 bucks.
cd rom acting bad replace it with a dvd player for 39.95 thats faster and better.
Now laptops are different but then thats why you buy them differently and you PAY for the service contract and you buy from a company that provides not the cheapest product but the most relable one.
The world is full of all manner of products it jsut happens to be that alot of people go for cheap stuff over quality. Mostly because most people are cheapskates.
Your problem is that the response to your complaint is being decided by a low-wage hourly employee in the "customer service" department who doesn't have the authority to do anything other than RMA & repair.
File a complaint with your local Better Business Bureau. The BBB doesn't judge complaints; all they do is record that a complaint was made, notify the company that a complaint was made, and then record whether you say that the complaint was resolved to your satisfaction. Its relatively easy, and the complaint will reach someone at Dell with the authority and motivation to make things right.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I can not emphasize the importance of documentation when it comes to dealing with product issues. If you have a new car problem, you document every single conversation that you have with the mechanic and the dealer. If you have new appliances problems, document every single trouble call. Nothing will straighten up the supervisor (or the lawyer, depending on how far you are going) 's tie more than a well documented case of every single call and conversation, regarding who you had talked to, what they had suggested, and what the outcome was. You take that to the BBB and things will get rolling and you will have your fixes in no time.
For everyone who posted saying that the manufacturer bears no responsibility for this type of dain-bramaged design flaw. This must be America, no one takes pride or responsibility in their work anymore. That's why folks in other country don't buy crap from the USA - because we don't take pride in our products. General pervasive issues (design flaws) such as these are very indicative of a company that has absolutely no clue about what they are shooting out the front door (or back door, for that matter). It tells us that they don't have a good design process, that the engineers don't talk to the manufacturer's very well, that they didn't test marketed the product properly. It tells me that they were in a big rush to punch things out and everyone in the company are simply pushing papers around to get it out the door.
Last note, Americans are so eager to buy up all of the crap from other countries. Did you know that they only ship all of their 2nd rate stuff that didn't pass their inspections. Why? Because they know that Americans have been lacking the eye for true quality (comes only from pride in your work) that we would eat up all sorts of 2nd rate stuff that they scrap up from the bottom of the barrel.
Manufactuerers should not be expected to support their products after the warranty has run out, however, if the problem is something that was widespread and a design or production defect, then they should cover the cost of repairs no matter what, since they essentially gave the customer a failure waiting to happen.
The iMac would be a good example of this. Random and widespread analog video board failures plagued the first generation of iMacs. This caused DOA machines and computers that would completely fail within 2 years - as mine did. Even though "The Green Light Of Death" hit machine after machine after machine, the only thing Apple did was have the part in question replaced with a part that apparently was of the same design - resulting in some people claiming they had to go back time and time again.
Did Apple care? Ummm.....welll....there was a technote on the subject. But it said that if it was out of the (short) warranty period a user would have to have the work done themselves. At a cost of $300, or so. And with people saying they had to do this numerous times in a row, I was not particularly inclined to spend the money.
Sure, my machine was out of warranty, if there was some random fluke and some random bit of hardware failed, I would grumble, but not expect anything from Apple. However, I believe my machine suffered from a defect, one that Apple was aware of and chose not to remedy. The hardware was destined to fail, and I believe they had sufficent evidence to realize this.
I can appreciate your side of the problem: it probably sucks to bring in your laptop for repairs and having to wait for [days|weeks|months] to get it back. But as far as I can see, Dell is fulfilling it's obligations by replacing the hinges during the warranty period free of charge: carry-in warranty is simple: you send the faulty device, they fix and send back. It's the easiest and cheapest for them (even if they do pay for transport & packaging) - but that's reflected in the pricing of the setup you bought.
The optional support packs (e.g.: Next Businessday On-site) are well worth the extra money: if you have a problem, within a few days at most there's a Dell repair engineer at your place with spare parts. Time needed: 30 minutes.
Asking for a replacement is really out of the question because:
The unit is two years old - nearly antique.
The hinges are a very minor part of the machine.
If the demand's there (Dell always looses on repairs) it could well be that newer hinges are retrofitted to your model of laptop. We have had laptops where the CPU-shield/cooler was replaced with a newer model, because the CPU got loose a lot in a specific Lattitude model; same goes for the lip (?) to keep the laptop closed which kept breaking - a newer more sturdy replacement was retrofitted without a problem.
I can imagine that it's far from optimal in your case, but Dell support is imho not too shabby - even in your case: other manufacturers could've called it "misusing the unit", and do zilch.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
[Zappa]
I agree that Dell support sucks. I used to work for a large company that had one of Dell's 'preferred' support dealies... you know, where you have a shorter wait time and presumably better techs? Yeah, in theory. The reality was, I'd usually have a shorter wait time, but the people I got on the phone were so dumb, one would think they had just evolved out of living in the trees as recently as that morning. They were just as bad as the first-line Script Monkeys who do ISP support-- no capability for independent thought, just follow the script.
Needless to say, this used to drive me nuts as a very busy, seasoned support tech who couldn't just say, "Such-and-such a part is bad. As per my company's agreement with Dell, send a tech out to replace it." Oh, no, I had to sit there, wasting my valuable time, support calls piling up, going through the sacred script until this person finally agreed with my original assessment and booked a tech. After the first call went like that, subsequent calls went like this.
~Philly
Just to pick a nit (and clear up a common misunderstanding): you do not need a license to own or drive a car. You need a license to drive a car on a public highway. You don't need a license (or tags/registration, for that matter) to operate a motor vehicle on private land -- farms and racetracks, for example. This is why you never see license plates on racecars.
Of course, a vehicle that you can't take out of the driveway is basically useless for most people.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Or, at least some of them anyway. I got this information of the Linux Kernel mailing list. Of course, the sales people won't admit that they don't actually manufacture the notebooks. One even told me that she say the manufacturing plant. I beleive that she was confusing assembling (like attaching the screens & installing hard drives) with makinng the unit.
My 5000e arrived with a non-functional display. I spent the most aggravating day of my life with their support/service personnel. I will never buy another Dell machine again.
I'm not down with Dell customer support either. I have a machine that was clearly having hardware issues (the CD-ROM drive kept ejecting and closing, to the point where you couldn't use the machine at all.) Unplug the drive, and it works fine.
Dell refused to support it because I had installed Windows 2000 over the Windows ME that shipped with it. The only way to get support was to uninstall Windows 2000 and re-install Windows ME, even though Dell supports Windows 2000 on that model. They simply don't support it unless you bought it from them, EVEN IF IT'S HARDWARE!!!
Granted, this is in their agreement, but who reads that stuff. I should be able to install whatever software I want, including OS, without losing my hardware support. That's a load of cr@p.
1 / a happy customer will speak about it to 2 of his friends
2 / an unhappy customer will speak with 8-10 of its relatives (computer guys don't have 10 friends 8)
Well, what happen when a full batch is faulty and delivered to a company ?
We had 12 Dell servers delivered, same construction batch, same faulty Mobo...
Good point, they changed them all within 5 days...
which is good...
but delivering a 12 servers all faulty says much for pre tests... and this is bad
I've had various issues with my ThinkPad 570, the most notable being a white screen when the LCD powered up. The issue has plagued a fair number of users, but for me IBM has been extremely helpful (and fast) in repairing the issue. IBM is not like Dell.
Dell wouldn't support Windows 2000 on my sister's laptop because I didn't buy Windows 2000 from them. Yes, it is supported by Dell but only if you buy from Dell. IBM doesn't really care what you run on the laptop, they just can't provide support if you run Linux/BSD/etc. If it's a hardware problem they will fix it no matter what sofware you run.
I may still have the problem with my ThinkPad in the future, but I am extremely pleased with the support IBM has given me. A happy customer is a good thing. Maybe Dell doesn't understand that (or maybe their bottom line can't afford it). Personally, I think it's laughable that Dell has "won awards" for it's support.
I bought a used HP camera and had the same experience. They'll gladly ship me a CD, for a fee, but I don't have a credit card anyway. I bought the camera in cash and now I can't get drivers for it.
My HP CD-writer was even worse. Not only were there no drives, but they couldn't agree on whether it was capable of burning CD-Text information. Ahead, makers of Nero, insisted that the 7200 drive could do it, with the most recent drivers. HP denied the capability and the existence of any such drivers.
My GF's HP desktop came with a crappy Winmodem. No big deal that it was a Winmodem, she runs Windows and has CPU cycles to spare. But the line side of the modem's electronics wouldn't make a connection over her phone line, where my laptop's modem did just fine. HP blamed the telco, the telco blamed the computer. HP refused to exchange the modem for one that functioned as advertised.
Needless to say, whenever anyone near me talks about purchasing a [camera, scanner, computer, printer, toothbrush], I warn them severely against going with HP.
My experience with Panasonic has been better. I bought a used Toughbook and had some questions about drivers, system behavior, BIOS updates, and so on. I received a prompt and polite email back within 6 hours, containing concise answers to every one of my questions, and they didn't even care when or where I'd purchased the machine. I'll be a repeat Panasonic customer, for sure.
Video drivers are even worse. The last video card I owned with truly stable drivers was my Trident VESA Local Bus card that ran in my 486. Virtual screen, rock solid drivers, and simple installation. Every PCI or, heaven forbid, AGP card I've tried since then has had serious stability issues, and it's been nearly impossible to remove the drivers when switching to a different card. No more Matroxes or Diamonds for me.
no.
next question.
I had problems with my Thinkpad a21p's NIC. It would randomly seize up and drop me from the network. After returning it twice for repair and then running into more problems I became a hardass and demanded that it be declared a lemmon and switched for a new machine. It wasn't easy, but after much arguing on the phone I was given a Thinkpad a22p with a faster processor and a CDR thrown in for free.
I've played with Dell laptops and they feel cheap. Always buy thinkpad they are built to last and the support is much better. The extra $$$ are worth it.
Well, after reading this I thought I would share my experiences about Dell. The company I work for is contracted to provide 400 desktops/laptops per year. They decided that Dell OptiPlex GX1's and GX100's (Celerons) would be the best bet. Not bad systems really, when you look at performance vs. price you really are getting a deal and the people who work with them don't complain since they used to have NEC 386's and HP 486's. Plus, they now had 17" ViewSonic/NEC monitors and speakers built into them to attach to the sound cards.
So probably about 2 years into the purchasing of these machines we start getting tons of hard drive failures. They never came with a warning; it was like boom drive is gone. For some reason we have a network that no one ever uses, so drives were getting sent out to get data recovered. So we start calling Dell, we've got 20 drives (Western Digital & Quantum) that fail with the drive testing utility made by Western Digital off their site. They decide they want us test again, on the phone, every drive with the same utility. You could physically hear the drive arm hitting the platters and motors grinding and crap. So we flat out refuse, tell them we've already done the same thing. They refuse to replace without doing this. So we eventually go through this dozen of times, and finally get a logical tech on the phone that replaces all 20 in one swoop. No credit card needed just sends an Airborne Express Overnight package with all 20 with a return label (paid by Dell) for the broken ones.
We go through this month after month. Summer comes along in year 3 and we get an intern and temp hired on to do nothing but call Dell and get these drives replaced. We eventually find out that Dell had a recall on these drives but we were never informed of it. When we mention this they think we are crazy and making it up. Anyway, the intern gets new drives in...installs them and reboots one of the PC's. Low and behold, it boots to a Windows 98 desktop. Now, thinking this is crazy she starts looking around on it to see if the config we use. Nope. Instead we got a hard drive from someone else's PC that had been remanufactured in some way. They didn't even bother to wipe the thing.
We called Dell about it, they apologized. We were really ticked off because we had drives with sensitive info we couldn't wipe because of problems with them...but someone else might be getting them. From there on out, we bulk tape erased them and drove a nail through them so they couldn't remanufacture them. Fixed that problem.
Now, I've dealt with Dell on server hardware problems and you couldn't ask for better service. Never question my technical ability to diagnose the problem...much like Cisco. Dell just doesn't care about the desktop/laptop side.
I could write a book about Dell and there service, both good and bad...but IMHO build your own PC's. You'll save in the long run.
"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." ~ Emo Phillips
The city of East Detroit finally changed its name to Eastpointe, when the residents got sick of having their TAX FORMS delivered to Detroit instead. The school district is still called ED of course, giving rise (ha!) to all sorts of Viagra jokes.
Large computer manufacturers have an interesting problem. I bet that the majority of problems people call Dell about could be fixed with an automated response such as "Is it turned on?" or "Are you -still- using the cdrom as a coaster? I thought we told you not to do that."
;)
The real problem only arises for the smaller percentage of people who actually have a problem that needs support.
I'd consider myself a technically proficient person, but I'd hate to work for Dell Support. What a waste of time it would be for me. I'm sure this is why they keep a full staff of trained monkeys to do it, since keeping good techies on would cost quite a bit.
I don't know.. I think the problems with support are annoying on both ends.. not just yours but Dell's too.
Just today we received a Inspiron 8100 back with the hinges replaced and it was sent out Monday afternoon... great turnaround time. We had the same results with another 8100 a few months ago.
Now admittedly this doesn't say much for the initial quality but the servicing is good. We've had monitor problems also (21" Trinitrons) and they send a new one the next day. This is all in a small company without any fancy support contracts.
------
Objects in Mirror are Losing!
As Intel Consumer Electronics learned, poorly manufactured products, and even more poorly supported products will drive you out of the market.
I had the unfortunate opporunity to buy some "advanced" H.323 business-class software and cameras (read: expensive) from Intel about 3-4 years ago, but was very poorly supported, and relied on a message board to resolve issues. in the end, many people ended up having the same problems with these units, Intel board moderators could not (and would not) answer cries for help, and eventually, the board was shut down. And this was on Intel's own support site. In teh end, Intel suckered PictureTel into buying the "rights" to support the cameras, but gave them no technical assitance, documents, etc.
I pleaded to Intel to open their specs for their now non-supported-but-expensive hardware we were all stuck with. I explained to them that it was the least they could do for their customers, as we could probably write drivers and anything else we needed for ourselves. In the end, this fell on deaf ears, and these expensive hardware units are in the closet, unusable, collecting dust.
I think hardware manufacturers have a responsibility to open the specs up to systems they no longer support, so that others may pick up where they left off. Intel learned that the hard way, and were driven out of the consumer electronics market altogether.
-----------
Silicon Ghetto, Chicago, Il 60623
My folks bought an IBM-built K6 desktop a few years back. They knew I could build one for them for a couple hundred less, but not being tech-savvy they thought that going with a big name like IBM would offer them a good product and good support.
Wrong. The basic design of the motherboard ended up causing endless problems, but none severe and verifiable enough to warrant a complete replacement.
For one thing, the IDE signalling appeared to be very sensitive to errors/interferance: if the CDROM was thrashing on a CD it would often lock up the entire system. This was a known problem with a similar model, but IBM never officially recognized it as a defect on my parents' machine.
More irritating and subtle were all those random reboots, corruption, etc, that resulted from the general flakiness of the system. Think "old packard bell" and you know what I am talking about.
Had the CDROM, memory replaced, still intermittently broken. They still have this computer because it is now out of warranty and they don't have the $600 to get a new machine, not to mention that they are bitter about the whole mess with IBM.
IMHO, IBM should have just given them a new machine, because the quality level on the one they sold was what I would expect from a bargain basement Chinese reseller, not IBM. It's certainly soured my feelings about the company.
The original article indicated that the hinges have broke several times within 2 years. If the warranty is for only 1 year, as I suppose, then I don't think Dell has any obligation to the poster. If, however, the defects occurred before the warranty expired, and if they were repaired, then some companies will extend the warranty period.
For instance, I had an old Thinkpad 560 laptop. Loved it, but the case cracked a little bit while under warranty. No problem, just called IBM. They sent a prepaid mailer to my office, I stuck the thing in and had a fixed machine a few weeks later, all done under warranty. I was further informed that whenever IBM services a machine they extend whatever warranty period remains by another 3 months. Anyways, I had a couple of other problems in it while still under warranty and IBM never gave me a problem - always fixing it with little hassle to me, and always extending the warranty period a little bit more.
Of course, once my computer broke outside of the warranty period, they wouldn't fix it under warranty, but as far as I was concerned their obligation to me was 100% discharged.
On June 11th I picked up a Compact 1700 laptop at Best Buy. I had special ordered it through them because of the sales pitch they gave on their warrentee policy. On August 17 the hard drive failed when I was on travel. The local Best Buy store said it would take six weeks to fix and I'd have to return to that store to pick up the computer. I waited until I returned home and took it in to the local Best Buy. They had a two week backlog at their service center. (Don't be fooled by the repair counter in the store. They'll send your computer off to a contracted repair depot.) I finally got it back on October 19th. They let the computer sit in their repair depot for almost three weeks before someone decided to ship it back to Compaq. Then Compaq had to ship it back to the repair center and the repair center had to send it back to the store. The first time it was returned it had some sort of solution smeared all over the LCD. They couldn't remove it at the store so it was shipped back to the repair center.
In the mean time I had to make other arrangement for a computer system. I asked that they refund my money since it had been such a rediculous amount of time for a simple hard drive replacement. No such luck. Best Buy NEVER makes refunds. This is corporate policy. I talked with several "executive assistance" to the CEO of the company.
In researching the company (to find the name of the CEO) I noticed that Microsoft made a $200M "investment" in Best Buy recently. Ever see any Linux based computer systems in Best Buy? Think there is a connection? Perhaps the FTC or the DoJ should be investigating the vertical channel ownership of Microsoft. The large movie studios were forced to sell all of theaters in the 1950s because they had control over too much control over the market.
I don't know how many of you people know this but there was a Computer Lemon Law that was proposed for Pennsylvania. For more information on it and for a lawyer to help you for free just go to www.lemonlaw.com. They should be able to get this guy a new laptop or his money back....provided he's in the right area.
My reasoning for this was that while they may say "business addresses only," it's easy to bring a laptop to the office. A field person may not be able to do anything to fix a laptop, but the other comfort is that in theory at least it gives you more leverage if there is a problem and you have to push for a resolution - if it's a continuing problem, there's the implied threat that you'll keep calling and they'll have to keep sending someone out. Eventually the third-party company that they contract with for field service may start giving them flack because of all the calls, and if you get the same field service person regularly they may have more clout with the manufacturer's tech support. Besides, the cost increase isn't that much, maybe a couple hundred dollars that spread over the life of the machine is insignificant compared to the cost of sending it away for weeks.
One thing I have learned though: when buying a laptop, find out what it takes to remove the HD so you can yank it (at least to make a backup) before sending the machine in. I've heard enough horror stories from people whose systems died, they couldn't extract data & didn't have a good backup, they sent it in for service and got it back with the drive restored to the original shipping configuration.
fencepost
just a little off
I have had my 7500 just over 2 years now and i have had to replace the keyboard, mouse, modem, network card, lcd, hinges(twice), DVD/Floppy Drive (3 times at least), and the hard drive. My motherboard was suppose to get replaced over a week and a half ago but the technician just seems that he can not get a hold of me at work when I am sitting at my desk most of the time.
I have talked to Dell about replacing my laptop because I am dissatisfied about the reliablity of the machine and they said that they need to review the history of problems with the machine.
No wonder the 7500 was only up for sale on their site for a short amount of time.
Check out Compter Lemon Law for info about getting a replacement.
My Latitude CPx has had the following replaced in the past six months: two motherboards, two keyboards, a CD-ROM, a battery, a power supply; and the display hinges are getting pretty loose and sloppy, I expect them to go before too long. Best thing I ever did was get the next-business-day on-side service contract (extended warrantees normally being a ripoff, this one is essential with the flakey Dell Laptops).
I will never buy another Dell Laptop. Toshiba it is, from now on...
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
from any computer manufacturer.
This only applies to Windows machines.
Call tech support and ask them to help you turn off ACPI steering. If they will not do it, it's time to find a new company to buy computers from.
Companies that will not help with this (from personal experience, mileage may vary.)
Gateway
Dell
Compaq
HP
Micron
I considered getting a Gateway a couple of years ago. I was on the edge of purchasing it before it was revealed that installing Linux would void the warranty. The sales rep either didn't know, or didn't want to tell me. When I told him I had been told that, he first denied it, and then said he'd check it out. Finally he admitted it was true.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This is kinda long, but I thought you might enjoy this little exchange
8 176_eng_man.html
8 176_eng_man.html
8 176_eng_man.html
between me and Hewlett-Packard customer support. It gets funner as you
get further down. The last line is almost too funny to be true.
I bought an HP Deskjet printer. It came with a hardcopy "Quick Reference"
guide, which made reference to a more complete "User's Guide", which was
nowhere to be found. It also came with an on-line "Quick Help" when the
software was installed. I went to HP's customer support web site to ask
about the "User's Guide". The following is from my entry in their web
submission form. The subsequent email conversation was edited for formatting
and to remove superfluous boilerplate.
CV> problem_description : Page 3 of Quick Ref Guide refers to page 6 for
CV> opening up the on-line User's Guide, but page 6 says to run the CD-ROM
CV> setup program and select "View User's Guide". But there is no "View
CV> User's Guide" on the main HP Deskjet install screen. So, the problem is
CV> that I can't find the full User's Guide. The only available on-line
CV> documentation is the "Quick Help". Where is the full User's Guide?
And HP's reply:
HP> Thank you for contacting HP's Customer Care e-mail support.
HP>
HP> I understand that you need user manual for your HP Deskjet 960Cse
HP> printer.
HP>
HP> The user manuals are provided on the HP web site. Please click on the
HP> link given below to download the user manual.
HP>
HP> http://www.hp.com/cposupport/manindex/hpdeskjet92
HP>
HP>
HP> Best regards,
HP> Alex
HP> HP Customer Solutions Team
CV> Hello-
CV> Thank you for providing me with the link to the documentation page at
CV> HP's web site. Unfortunately, I checked that page and the only documents
CV> available are:
CV> 1) Windows XP Update Guide
CV> 2) Quick Reference Guide (hardcopy of which came with the printer and
CV> referred me to the User's Guide)
CV> 3) Quick Help (which is installed locally from the CD-ROM included with
CV> the printer).
CV>
CV> The Quick Reference guide distinguishes the "User's Guide" from the
CV> "Quick Help" and the "Quick Reference Guide". So apparently there is a
CV> document called the "User's Guide" which I have yet to be able to
locate.
CV> It is not included in hardcopy format, it is not installed from the
CV> CD-ROM, and it is not on the Website. Have I missed anything?
CV>
CV> thanks,
CV> Chris Volpe
HP> Thank you for contacting HP's Customer Care e-mail support.
HP>
HP> I understand that you have an issue with the users guide for the
HP> printer.
HP>
HP> To download the manual, please go to the link below.
HP>
HP> http://www.hp.com/cposupport/manindex/hpdeskjet92
HP>
HP> On the web page, right click on "HP Deskjet 990C, 980C, and 960C
HP> Printers - (Multiple Languages) Quick Reference Guide" and select " save
HP> target as" option from the list to proceed with the downloading of the
HP> manual.
HP>
HP> Best regards,
HP> Alex
HP> HP Customer Solutions Team
CV> Alex-
CV>
CV> Thank you again for your reply. For the third time, I feel the need to
CV> point out that the information at that site is NOT WHAT I'M LOOKING
CV> FOR. As I already stated, I have the Quick Reference Guide. It came
CV> with the printer. It came in hardcopy form, and is identical to the
CV> Quick Reference Guide that you advised me to download from the web
CV> site. But the Quick Reference Guide is DIFFERENT FROM the User's
CV> Guide. The Quick Reference Guide, on page 3, draws a distinction
CV> between itself and the User's Guide. There's a table on page 3 that
CV> tells what documentation to consult in order to obtain certain
CV> kinds of information. The second row in that table refers to the
CV> "User's Guide". The third row in that table refers to the "Quick
CV> Reference Guide". And the fourth row in the table points to the
CV> "Windows Network Guide". I already have both the Quick Reference
CV> Guide and the Windows Network Guide. But the elusive User's Guide
CV> is nowhere to be found. It was not included with the printer, and
CV> it is not available for download from the web page you pointed me
CV> to. I would be most grateful if you would help me find the USER'S
CV> GUIDE. Not the Quick Reference Guide, which I already have, but the
CV> USER'S GUIDE. I look forward to hearing from you, and I hope that
CV> this time I have adequately and clearly explained the problem.
CV> Thank you very much in advance for your help.
CV>
CV> Sincerely,
CV>
CV> Christopher Volpe
HP> Hello Christopher,
HP>
HP> Thank you for contacting HP's Customer Care e-mail support.
HP>
HP> I understand that you have an issue with the users guide for the
HP> printer.
HP>
HP> To download the manual, please go to the link below.
HP>
HP> http://www.hp.com/cposupport/manindex/hpdeskjet92
HP>
HP> On the web page, right click on "HP Deskjet 990C, 980C, and 960C
HP> Printers - (Multiple Languages) Quick Reference Guide" and select " save
HP> target as" option from the list to proceed with the downloading of the
HP> manual
HP>
HP> In the U.S.
HP> -----------
HP> To order User's Guides, contact HP Parts Direct Ordering at
HP> 800-227-8164.
HP>
HP> Best regards,
HP> Alex
HP> HP Customer Solutions Team
CV> Alex-
CV> Could you please pass my support request on to someone else who is
CV> willing to read my message and understand, as I have stated three
CV> times already, that I do not need the Quick Reference Guide, which you
CV> persistently advise me to download? I'm sure there must be someone
CV> there who is willing to take the time to understand the issue and not
CV> keep sending me the same response. Thanks very much.
CV>
CV> -Chris
HP> Hello Christopher,
HP>
HP> Thank you for contacting HP's Customer Care e-mail support.
HP>
HP> I understand that you require the full User's Guide for your DJ 960Cse
HP> printer.
HP>
HP> I would like to inform you that the full version of the User's Guide for
HP> your printer is not available. The only manuals available for your
HP> printer are the Quick Help and the Quick Reference Guide. For further
HP> assistance or more information, I suggest you contact HP Phone Support.
HP>
HP> It is HP's goal to assist customers as quickly and as efficiently as
HP> possible. It sometimes is much easier to resolve the issue when
HP> talking live with a technician. The phone number in the US is
HP> 208-323-2551. Business hours are Monday through Friday from 6:00 a.m. to
HP> 10:00 p.m. MT and Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.MT.
HP>
HP> Other HP Customer Care phone numbers can be found in your User's Guide
When I read that last sentence, I nearly fell out of my chair.
-Chris
As I see it, there are two problems with support.
:P)
#1. Supporting your product costs something solid, money. It costs money RIGHT NOW. What do they get in return? Ethereal "customer satisfaction". In the long run, the lack of satisfaction will cost them, but not THIS QUARTER, BECAUSE WE HAVE TO MAKE OUR EARNINGS ESTIMATES THIS QUARTER! AIEEE!
#2. Tech support jobs don't normally pay much over minimum wage. The guy on the other end of the phone is only slightly more qualified than a McDonalds worker, and oftentimes the McDonalds worker has more social skills. (for the record, I've done tech support for many years
Thank you drive through.
So far replaced:
MB
Display
CDR
Keyboard
less than 6 months old
It was all on site repair but I just dread the day something fails and I'm left without a machine because they sold me a lemon.
and it's an attempt to make support centers run better. Not really a fix for crappy engineering but it's a better process to get the problem fixed. Read up here
This is answered by things like Microsoft cancelling service pack 7 for nt, which is a needed roll-up. It's vendors forcing you to upgrade to a new product rather than fixing the bugs in the old one. This relates back to previous /. posts. Software is an interesting industry and bad software makes money and sells. If software makers could charge thousands for the software we might actually see a single product that only went to 1.2 or whatever version was necessary to iron out all the bugs.
We're in a disposable society and often products are released cheaply and engineered poorly, because when it breaks... you'll just go buy the newest model rather than fix the old one. So hardware and software, and other goods are going the way of cheap stuff.
Read The Fscking Warranty
Its very simple, the company you buy product X from is only liable for what is in their warranty. Buyer beware.
This is why I almost always buy the product with the best warranty. The better the warranty is the greater the companies confidince that they aren't selling you crap. The real trick is deciding which warranty is best. There are a lot of car comercials these days for cars with 10 year 100,000 mile warranties on them, but if you read them they only cover certain parts of the car. Doorhandle falls off? To bad. Its not in the warranty.
So quit yer whining and read the warranty before you buy something.
Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
An 8x4x32 CD-RW that was bundled with burning software (adaptec) that didn't support the drive. Why on earth would you bundle software that doesn't support your product? I'll never know. After 2 hours of trying to find any info about the drive I gave up and downloaded Nero, which worked flawlessly as usual.
A Mini-DV Camcorder. I can't get it to communicate through firewire because I have no drivers for it. The only thing on the CD is some crappy editing software and USB drivers. The USB works, but it won't allow me to transfer clips longer than 30 seconds, which is probably good since a 30 second clip takes just under an hour to transfer. There are no firewire drivers to be found anywhere for the camcorder I have. I tried talking to customer support about it, but I couldn't seem to get through to an actual person.
Finally, the old dotmatrix printer that payroll is printed on at my company. This is my one success story with Panasonic, actually. I had no problem finding info about the printer online, and the info page had a link to their ftp site. not actually a link to the driver, mind you, just to the top-level directory. It took me about an hour to find the actual driver I was looking for. Too bad it wasn't actually for my printer (at least, that's what win2k told me). Another half hour on hold finally put me in tough with a tech support rep who informed me that Panasonic only supports Canadians. (He didn't actually say that, but that's the only place I could find useful information and drivers that worked.)
So, Panasonic gets my vote for the worst product support of any company in the world.
IBM has always been great though, in fact the IBM hard drive story refered to above is not about bad customer support. If you actually read it (Cliff) IBM's support was pretty good, and there is no mention that they were difficult to deal with or reluctant to send a replacement. I was going to link to my theory on what was really going on, but my comment seems to have been removed. But here's another one that I think is plausible. My comment was basically that if you keep replacing the part and it keeps failing, then the failure is being caused by something else, and I presented some personal experiences to back up my assesment.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Even if they replaced your Inspiron with a new one, it would probably have the same hinge design, therefore the same problem, right?
The Dell Inspirons always looked a little flimsy to me. Great hi-res displays, but flimsy. I had a Lattitude CP for quite a while; it worked long enough to be not worth fixing when it finally died.
Some of my colleagues had Sony Vaios that could not be upgraded to Win2K because of something in BIOS or hardware drivers. That's the worst support nightmare I have seen in a while.
I like the IBM Thinkpad "T" series.
I had a Sony Viao, and it had a problem similar to that described on the dell here, but worse. It had the 15" display, and very tight hinges, to the point that I could see the screen ripple every time I opened or closed it. 3 weeks after I got it, I opened it one day to find the screen had fractured. On contacting Sony I was informed that they do not cover displays in their warrenty, despite not saying that in their warrenty. Eventually I took them to small claims court and the case was ruled in my favor, but one shouldn't have to do that to get what should have been taken care of as soon as I called. After fairly thurough seaching, I found that this was fairly normal for Sony. I currently own a Dell Inspiron 5000e, which has worked fine, but I'm glad to hear that they will at least fix problems even if they don't want to replace the whole machine.
I am trying to resolve this issue with Dell right now. I've been talking with them for over a week, and I'm still waiting for them to call me back.
I have a three year extended warranty, so you'd thing they would take care of this problem. What I'm getting though is, "Sorry sir, our records indicate you don't have a warranty, and we won't fix the problem".
I can fax them the invoice but they don't want to see it.
Well, it look like I am an exception but I had very good experience with Dell support. Two years back, I was a tech monkey for a school board. We had a lot of abused hardware under warranty. When I needed a replacement, I gaved them a call, gaved them my support code (a sticker on the back of the machine with a 5 character code) and request a replacement. They shipped me a replacement overnight and I shipped them back the defective part in the same packaging. That's all. Ho, I don't remember to have been on hold for more than 10 minutes, too.
I had similar experience with Compaq in a subsequent job, and with IBM in my current one.
Maybe it is because we where a big customer (a few dozens machine a year), or because we are in Canada. I don't know. But considering my experience I always recommend brand name (Dell/IBM/Compaq/HP) to business. I must not be the only one !
:wq
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I must say I was never impressed with Dell's laptops.
They're heavy, the keyboard is not insulated from the inside, they break often, and it takes forever to have them repaired. Two Dell laptops I know of people using have been like this.
And after that we see Micheal Dell's interviews saying how they are leaders on the laptop market...
I used to administer a school district with a few hundred Dell machines.
They'd always come out the next day, replacing parts and what not. Never had a complaint.
Probably the only company I could bitch about would be Compaq. Servers and desktops.
I've worked with both the retail (Presario/Inspiron) and business (Armada/ProLiant/Deskpro) lines of computer from both Compaq and Dell and the two product types may as well have different brand names on them.
In any case where a company has both retail and business lines of system the quality of the product and the support is different. The consumer Best Buy boxes are fragile, difficult to upgrade and poorly supported. The business class systems that you cannot buy at CompUSA or Best Buy like the Armadas are excellent machines. I got my company to standardise on Compaq Armadas, but I wouldn't wish a Presario on my worst enemy.
The same goes with the Inspirons, which is what my company was using. Fragile and with lots of cheap and futzy hardware with strange driver requirements. But the Dell business class laptops seem to be just fine.
This seems to be a truism for alll the manufacturers, IBM, Compaq, Dell, and HP are all like this. I think the consumer boxes are just a case of selling the consumer on the specs for as low a price as possible. The average retail customer is not smart enough to realize that there is a good reason that two computers with the same specs on paper have different prices.
DICTIONARY: The act, state, or operation of supporting, upholding, or sustaining.
VENDORS: The act, state, or operation of not pissing customers off too much, so they don't go to the competition.
PROBLEM: The competition has learned, the don't need to be better, only as good as the next guy.
Here are my pet peeves:
CELL PHONE SERVICE: Currently using Sprint. half of my calls are dropped (and I am tired of calling, holding on line for 10 minutes to get a credit). I called several times to tell them how bad the service is, and I get the standard answer, re-program the phone and I am 1.2 miles from the tower. Well, I don't care if I have a cell tower up my rear end, the service sucks and I am in the process of changing 3 phones over to Cingular. The sad part is, I know it's going to be just as bad.
COMPUTERS: I have no problem. I build my own and I like to use quality parts (insert YOUR fav vendor). Occasionally I get a bad one, get it replaced and I am generally happy.
OS: I am using Linux and BSD. I'm happy since I keep finding new features. Windows, gotta use it for work and I am way beyond getting upset about it (though I still hate it).
CARS: You drive your car every day. Then you hear a noise. Take it to the dealer, they test drive it and tell you there is nothing wrong. If there would be nothing wrong, you would not have gone out of your way to go there to begin with. Down the road, warranty barely expired, noise can all of a sudden be heard by the dealer and it costs 500 bucks.
WOMEN: Don't get me started. I am still looking for that nymphomaniac.
I also bought an Inspiron 7500 because of the huge screen. My hinges have broken 3 times since March of 2000. On one of these occasions, Dell's parts department sent the wrong hinge three times. I had an unportable portable computer for around 3 weeks.
The worst thing of all is that Dell is content to keep replacing the hinges with the same cheap pot metal, instead of using steel like they should have in the first place.
"Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists."
And the higher-end retail outlet [read higher priced] you get it from, the easier it is to get satisfaction.
...
I have friends(?) who get all their stuff from high end retail...then, when they are tired of the item, they just return it. I've seen them do this with..
1) stained couches ["It's not very comfortable"]
2) baby stroller/pram with 2.5 years of kid goo stuck on it.["The wheels are wobbley"]
3) Dining room set, 2 years old["I'm just not happy with it"]
I could go on and on, but I think my boss is watching...
In fact, I've seen him return stuff he never even got from the store! They've done this from DC to California; Maine to Florida...
And it's not like they need the money either, well into 7 fig net worth
So, next time, get a laptop from Saks Fifth Avenue...then after about 11 months start practicing phrases like "It just doesn't go with my decore..."
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
My Vaio (the fat purple one: PCG-FX190K) has been great! The 1400x1050 display looks great, six-hour life (with two batteries) is a joy. Only issues were: it's expensive, and I got laid off the next week
Once I had a minor cdrom issue. They give you tech support via a chat client! Obvious, yes, but it worked great!
Don't automanufacturers have to recall their product when it fails? I know there are safety recalls there which (may not) apply here... but aren't there also recalls when a given part is failing across the board on things? Also... don't some states have lemon laws? Do these just apply to autos? Should they maybe apply to computers?
-jbn
Ho, I don't remember to have been on hold for more than 10 minutes, too.
Shut yo mouth!
"I'd give my right arm to be in Def Leppard."
-- Andy Partridge
We just bought a $10K server from Dell, with massive raid array, boatloads of memory, multiprocessor and a DLT1 tape unit. So far the server seems OK, but the tape unit was DOA right out of the box. It took almost a week to get them to send us a replacement tape unit, and upon opening the box, it was labelled "REFURBISHED" bigger than Dallas right on the top of the unit. We did not buy a "refurbished" tape drive, we paid for a "new" one. If this is typical of the way Dell treats its customers, then I'll never purchase another machine from them. Makes you wonder what they're smoking down there in Austin to think they can get away with such ill behavior, especially considering that it's a buyers' market right now.
I find it interesting that many people who complain about hardware issues seem to have some component that was just released or is a new feature. Most often they have bought something that is brand new and probably isn't ready for prime time.
For instance, in this case, Chris bought a laptop that contained a larger screeen. Dell was probably rushing to release a product with this new screen size, just for the sake of being one of the first to have it.
If you need to rely on something, spend your hard earned money on a platform that has a proven track record. This will give the manufacturer time to work out the kinks and get the support staff up to speed. Otherwise you may be nothing more than a beta tester. Having the biggest IBM Deskstar or Inspiron screen isn't always what it seems.
A Umax PowerMac clone, and hard drives. Well ok thats more than two physical things, but you get the idea.
Before I started using linux I had one of the very early Umax Mac clones, and the thing was constantly crashing, and ocasionally not booting. Umax sent a guy out three times till they got it right. Twice with new processors, and once with a whole new mobo (It was the board that was bad btw). At the time I lived in Ames Iowa, there nearest tech was in DesMoines, and thats a hour drive each way. Considering I got the computer on clearence, Umax actually spent more money supporting the product, then I did buying it. THAT is good support. Even though they should have listened and replaced the mobo like I suggested the first time...but I digress.
The other has been hard drives. When I was at school and had a few drives fail on me. I looked up the rma number on the websites, and every manufaturer I tried replaced every drive I claimed was deffective (they all were deffective btw). Maxtors, Western Digitals, Samsungs. And most of the drives were no longer in production when I returned them (remember the bigfoot drives anyone?)
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
Don't buy from the Apple web store. Not only you get to pay state tax no matter where you live despite the ban on internet sales taxes, but you'll get bad service with support people telling you that it's their policy to not replace a laptop (if you read the fine print on their web site, it says that they can replace one "at their discretion").
Apple has screwed us out of a one-week old laptop for an entire month. It went like this: I called their tech support because the laptop crashed during boot with an airport card installed. After making me do all sorts of tests for an hour and reinstalling the OS, they told me to take it to an Apple Authorized Service provider. Ensues a game of phone tag where Apple blames me for taking the laptop there (!), then blames the service provider, and the local service provider (the only one in town) says (pick one at random): a) they're waiting on a part from Apple, b) the laptop has been sent to Apple, c) invent some lie. At one point nobody knew where the laptop was! After replacing the entire guts of the laptop and making me lose half my hair, they find that it was the airport card that was responsible...
I have had many problems with my current Dell as well. It started out with the video card, the keyboard and the mouse dying. After sending it in to be repaired it was sent back with the wrong video card. I once again sent it back, and found out later in the week that it was sent to the wrong address. It then took them a month to sort out the mess and get my notebook back to me. Now the harddrive is starting to make wierd noises and the ball bearings in the fans sound as if they will give out shortly! Perhapes if a maufacturer could build a decent product they would not have to spend so much time repairing it. It might also help if they could ship the damn things to the correct place as well. As to should they give me a new system. For all the crap I have put up with ( I have owned the computer for 3 months and only had it in my hands for just under 2 months ) I think that that is the least they could do.
1. They don't really want to replace stuff, and will dodge the issue for as long as possible. You must be persistent. Don't let them hang up on you until the issue is resolved. In my case, it was a bad memory chip, and I had to demand to speak to a manager just to get them to send me a replacement. Yell, kick, and scream if necessary. If you're under warranty, they have to help you eventually.
2. Most of the tech support people are quite clueless and non-technical. (ironic, no?) So if step #1 fails, you can simply convince them that something ELSE is wrong. Invent some kind of severe hardware problem that would force them to replace the entire unit. As they run through their textbook list of tests, make up some symptoms that are consistent with your imaginary problem, and after a bit more kicking and screaming, you should have a brand new system.
Where I used to work we bought 25 Brand new Dell Dimension PC for a computer Lab. After we Distributed the Image around the Machines, we found that one of the machines had a bad Video card. I spend a Whole day to get Dell to send me a card to replace the bad one.
Here is what I found out. There are Two Dell Tech Support Centers. one for Home and Small Business Support and one for Gov, Edu and large business. Here is my experience with Both of them.
Called Home Support (denoted as HS)
Me: We bought 25 machines from you but are having a problem with one machine, We installed Windows 2000 on this machine but it is giving us some wierd lines in the bios screen and the computer is freezing at bootup
HS: Ok
Me: I have narrowed it down to the video Card. I have spapped the video card from the machine which has the problem with one from a good working machine. the problem machine is now working but the one I swapped it with is doing the same thing as the problem machine. So I need a new video Card for this machine
HS: Ok I need you to check to see if the monitor is plugged in.
Me: Huh. It is plugged in.
HS: is the light on in front of the monitor
Me: Yes
HS: Ok. I want you to go into windows and...
Me: I cant get into windows, the system crashes before then
HS: OK. I want you to restart the machine and press F8
Me:(I know he thinks it's win98 at this point but I follow him anyway) Ok
HS: I want you to select Safe Mode Command Prompt Only
Me: the system froze up at the windows 2000 screen.
HS: it shouldn't have dont that, it should have gone to the command prompt
Me: Windows 2000 doesn't have dos like win98 used to.
HS: Can you give me the Serial No of the monitor
Me: it's and the monitor is working fine on another system.
HS: well. from what you are telling me. it looks like you have a video problem. your going to have to ship the machine back to us for repair
Me: wait a second. we have had four brands of machines here and when a component goes bad we never had to send it in
HS: Well Think of it as a Car. the Car Dealership doesn't send you a new engine. they want you to bring the car in so they can fix the engine.
Me: yes, but you don't understand, we ARE the car dealer! Look. just give me the government and education no.
HS:
Me: ok bye
GS:thank you for calling Dell.
Called Gov and Edu Support (denoted as GS)
Me: We bought 25 machines from you but are having a problem with one machine, We installed Windows 2000 on this machine but it is giving us some wierd lines in the bios screen and the computer is freezing at bootup
GS: Ok
Me: I have narrowed it down to the video Card. I have spapped the video card from the machine which has the problem with one from a good working machine. the problem machine is now working but the one I swapped it with is doing the same thing as the problem machine. So I need a new video Card for this machine
GS: will send you a card right away. do you need a tech to install it for you
Me: Nope
GS: thank you for calling Dell.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
i had a deskstar75GXP that failed, i got an RMA sent the drive back received a new one in 2 weeks not bad for a low margin product. The big problem with PC's is the Dell mentality and that alone. Companies like Apple, IBM, HP, and DEC(before compaq) are now forced to fight it out for lowest price highest margin product which allows little money for support and quality control. companies are forced into making poor products to compete with companies like dell who are trying to save money by using fewer screws in a design. As far as I am concerned competition is good as long as quality stays but it has not been. This is why I say we boycott dell for ruining the pc industry.
"To what extent should computer manufacturers support their product?"
as much as they feel like. you don't HAVE to buy their stuff do you.
Refurbed Inspiron 3800
4 months old:CD-ROM keeps poping open spontaneously. I email Dell and get an auto reply so I follow its instruction for further help. No further help arrive. Wash rinse repeat the above two more times. Same results. Called Dell. Had a new CD-ROM arrive the next day with box to ship old one back.
6 months old:LCD develops anoying discolored 'thumbprint' thing. Emailed Dell twice just as above. No email responce. Called Dell. 18 hours later a technician was replacing the LCD in my home.
7 months old: HDD crashes. Same email thing...surely they have the system fixed by now...nope. Call Dell. Tech has me run a diagnostic which fails. New HDD arrives next day with prepaid box to send old HDD back (no PCMCIA->IDE adapter to transfer any salvageable data to new drive though....I specifically requested this from the phone answerer that cussed her husband and complained about needing to leave while I was[n't] on hold...very unprofessoinable).
So Dell hardware has sucks, support has been OK but thier email support is a joke.
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
The guy said it was "plagued with problems since the day [I] bought it".
He had that day, plus 29 more days, to return the laptop for a full refund. Instead he chose to keep it and whine about it.
I've had the misfortune of dealing with HP computer support twice this past month for 2 seperate incidents, both of which would be funny if they weren't so frustrating (ie had happened to someone else).
In the first case, dealing with a 18 month old computer, HP shipped the wrong set of restore disks. Of course, each set of restore disks is somehow keyed to only work with one specific model, so the disks I have don't work. I call HP support and they happily tell me that it's not their POLICY to replace media after 90 days. Even after trying to reason with them this was their screw up asking if they didn't feel it was ludicrous to expect users to format their drives and totally reinstall the software (all within 90 days) to test recovery disks?
My second call, that I made just this morning was even worse. A company that I support went out and bought 2 new HPs with XP on them. Due to user incompatibility they quickly asked me to remove XP and put win98 on them so they'd be in line with the rest of the network here. I called because 98 wasn't able to identify the onboard soundchip and was (again cheerfully) told that by removing XP I'd voided my warantee and it was no longer their problem.
My question ( did say I had a similar question) was- Isn't this a dangerous trend, that computer manufacturers are starting to regard their product as appliances, with no user servicable software parts?
I had a very similar experience. My powerbook was failing, I called Applecare. They said they thought it was the 3rd party RAM I had installed, that I should take it out and see if the problem recurs and call them back. I took it out, the problem recurred, I called them back, and they overnighted me a box and overnight return slip. No arguments, no problems. I sent it to them on monday afternoon at 4pm. I got it back wednesday at 9:05am. All the Apple people were knowledgable and helpful.
When I buy a computer, I expect it to work correctly. If things happen like "the hinge keeps breaking", I expect the manufacturer to do whatever it takes to make it right for me, even if that means giving me a brand-new top-of-the-line laptop a year later. If the company takes care of me properly, they get a loyal customer in return, and I tell my friends. Apple did well by me. So, I stick with them.
One of the guys I work with here had some serious troubles with his work laptop. The service guy came in six or seven times within a couple of weeks. The first problem he had was his display didn't work. Then they came and fixed that and something else went wrong. After all of these service trips, his system ended up in a state where it wouldn't even recognize the hard drive and wouldn't boot.
*After* replacing everything but the case, they finally decided to ship a new (read: refurbished) laptop to him. It remains to be seen whether this one is any better.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
I work in a corporate environment, not a school situation - but we have similar experiences with Dell support. We always buy the 3 year extended warranty because we want the 24 hour parts replacement when something breaks. The on-site service portion is usless though. I wish they'd let us buy parts replacement without on-site and save some money, but it seems to be bundled together in an "all or nothing" package.
When I've let the on-site people show up, it typically takes 1-2 days longer than if I just have Dell ship me the part. They always get things mixed up or claim Dell didn't give them the part, while Dell says they did. Then it takes them a day or two to straighten it all out and show up at our door.
Worse yet, some of the service techs they send out obviously have little experience. I often have them comment "Wow, I've never seen Windows NT running before. How do you like that?" and "Umm, I'm not quite sure why this hard drive isn't detecting...." It doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
In the 21st century land of the mega-corps, it's all about a [non-accountable] executive climbing one more rung up the bloody corporate ladder, to grab another 10% of stock options.
This does not breed quality.
A small owner/operator knows he cannot screw over his customers and stay in business.
As far as lappys go.. who buys most of them? Oh, thats the [non-accountable] executive climbing one more rung up the bloody corporate ladder; and whose manufacturing most of them? why it's the [non-accountable] executive climbing one more rung up the bloody corporate ladder.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
I had a Dimension XPSD 233 that had the mother board go in it. they were quick to respond to the first call but after installing the mother board I found that it had also fried the video card. They left me hanging for three weeks while they tried to find the same model card. After several calls I finally got them to send me a different model card, but it was a major hassle.
On the other side though I have had the computer for 4yrs and it still runs. There customer service may suck but they make the best computers out there.
So we called Dell Support. We told the firs person about the symptoms, and he decided to send us a new MOBO. Ok, I didn't think that was the problem, but ok. Once we got it, we swapped it out and yep, same problem.
So we call back. This time, the tech support guy's reccomendation, and I quote, "I suggest you get a shotgun, point it at the computer, and fire. That ought to get rid of the problem." I immediately asked for his supervisor, and rumor has it, he was fired.
After next getting sent a new processor (after i told them I thought it was in the power supply), and determining that that wasn't the problem either (and having them send us 4 bios versions to try), they finally sent us a new power supply like i asked each time, and viola! It worked perfectly.
The moral of this story is, don't always trust Dell support, unless you want bullet holes in your computer. MORONS
today is spelling optional day.
VA Linux was the best hardware experience I ever had. In fact, it was so good, I feel kind of bad about it. I had "software problems" that were more a result of my ineptitude rather than a misconfiguration on their part. They spent over 10 hours of support calls on their dime basically teaching me the in's and out's of various configurations. I only had one serious hardware problem with my Full-on 2200. A Corsaire 512meg pc 100 stick was fairly shitay. They had it replaced with in 36 hours of the diagnosis. I was sorry to see them leave the hardware business. I wonder if they provided that much non-hardware support to every one who purchased equipment from them.
If you see the Buddha walking down the road, run him over.
No Dell doesn't really support them, that is also farmed out. The email support (and most telephone also) now comes from India.
I have an Inspiron 4000, 700Mhz 14" screen. I've had the screen replaced twice because it just went dead. Also the external power supply was over heating and had to be replaced.
But my real beef is this. I bought an Inspiron 4000 because they are identical to the Dell Latitude C600 (same motherboard) that we used at work (the c600's were about 800$ more though). And I wanted a home/work laptop. Well although they are identical, they hacked the bios to make it incompatable with Latitude port replicators or docking stations. You get an error that says "unsupported port replicator" I checked the specs on the inspiron version and they are the same, same 3com 3c905c nic card. They also charge 300$ for the latitude version and $200 for the inspiron version.
Referred a co-worker to Dell last month. Upon delivery, the DVD-CD burner did no burning. Dell's only answer was to have the box shipped back and it would be returned in 10-14 days. They refused to send working drive that I could have replaced in 5 minutes...nice.
It's been over 10 days and still no word from Dell. He's called several times only to be put on hold for 20 minutes at a pop...
I've had the same 7500 for 2 years, and now I've got an 8000. Neither a problem with either.
At least in Massachusetts I know that you are allowed to bring a lawyer. However the system is designed so that having a lawyer isn't a great advantage. They try to cut down on the legal mumbo-jumbo and technicalities that are common in real litigation. You are allowed to present your case in plain English, without knowing tons of legalese.
Massachusetts has a consumer protection law (MGL c. 93A) that outlines how you may take a merchant to small claims. The process is specifically designed to allow consumers to resolve problems with businesses.
I just ordered an audigy yesterday.
Hopefully Creative labs will support this product better. Actually, I don't even need support, I just need the card not to go bad for 2-3 years.
Has anyone else had a high failure rate with CL cards?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I purchased a top o' the line Gateway(PII 450/128MB/13GB/Voodoo2/CDRW/DVD) 3 years ago, and purchased the in home service and an extended warranty. Everything was fine for the first 6 months - I could burn a cd w/ photoshop open, or recording something in Cooledit w/out a hitch. Overnight the RW was suddenly plagued w/ buffer underrun and calibration errors. This happened even when NOTHING else was running, and the IDE was all config'd correctly. Gateway said I needed to reinstall windows, and wipe the drive - I said noway because I had 4GB of portfolio work left to burn to CD, and I knew it was a Hardware issue. Since the first time this has happened, my computer has been in and out of repair - I've had the RW replaced 4 times, the hard drive twice, accussed of lying about why I wouldn't why to erase my drive(I've never heard of a 450MB photoshop file, so they must not exist), and Gateway has never once honored the in home service - I had to practically beg them just to replace the defective drives, let alone have someone come out and replace them. In short, they suck ass, and I'd like nothing better than to drop a disemboweled cow carcasss in front of A Gateway Country Store.
No wonder the expensive things stopped working some time later...
It's pretty clear that providing decent support is a good way to bankrupt your company.
Assume about 5% of machines have a problem. Average support is perhaps $300. (Tech support on an hourly basis is *incredibly* expensive when you factor everything in. The tech guy is pretty much the cheapest thing. Add in the cost of part, shipping, paperwork, etc.)
Well, the profit margin on a computer might be (after all costs) $30. It comes down to the fact that as soon as you provide decent tech support, every call probably costs you the profit you earned on 10 machines!
If you never have the unhappy customers buy a machine again, you lose 5% of your customers. On the other hand, you're gaining from the 5% of people who bought from other companies and didn't get decent tech support.
You *might* gain an extra few percent from people who've heard that you have good support, but in all likelihood, many of them will require tech support, (which is why they want to use you) in which case you lose your shirt again.
If you raise your margins so that you can provide decent support, then you lose sales massively. The market is almost entirely price bound. There is no equivalent of BMW or other names that "mean quality" that people are willing to pay for (despite what Apple would desperately hope for).
Somebody claimed that Dell's support has gone through the floor. But killing decent support is what has enabled them to lower the price of their machines and kill the competition.
Of course, with razor margins they can't afford to replace a defective machine. Their only choices are to
(1) Raise their prices so they can afford to replace mechines with design defects (= backruptcy),
(2) Innovate only incredibly slowly so they can catch any possible design defects (= backruptcy), or
(3) stiff you.
The only way a company can afford to provide support is to make it a seperate chargeable item. That way the profits on the support contracts can pay for actually providing decent support.
Same with dealers. Any dealer that actually had a large enough margin to provide service or support went bankrupt 10 years ago.
Of course, the only thing that can reverse this is laws to avoid it. Unfortunately, local (i.e. state) laws don't work. Local shops go under as customers buy from states without the laws in order to get a better price.
In other words, don't expect decent support any time soon.
One of the reasons tech support sucks the big one is outsourcing of this service. Stream International currently holds the contract for several of the big pc mfgs, Dell and HP to name two. I think everyone already knows that Stream is a joke. Even better, they are now employing high school students part-time, and paying less than $10/hr. So go figure...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I purchased Quantex systems (They're out of business now; otherwise I would strongly recommend you buy from them) until I became skilled enough to build my own. A 100MHz Pentium, and a 350MHz Pentium II system. Both systems have had things fail in them...I believe it was a CPU fan, hard drive, power supply, and a monitor that was in the process of dying. Every time, it took less than an hour on tech support to have a new part or tech sent out in two days to be replaced. Support actually knew what a computer was, and were always friendly. They had a strict policy of "we do not give supervisors" but the one time it was necessary, the line tech had enough authority to resolve it himself.
Unfortunately, they went out of business. Their order-tracking system was relatively poorly designed, and in the end, $1.2M of cross-shipped equipment was outstanding. The dying monitor I had replaced had a "one-month" extension on returning it placed due to my busy schedule. Five months later (Yes I know.....) they still hadn't charged me. Next thing I know, they're out of business. The monitor did die eventually, but it took a while.
Too bad really; they were probably the best supported OEM I've ever dealt with.
JKoebel
Here's a tip to get good tech support: Lie your freaking head off.
Don't get all technical on tech support people, it's not worth the effort. If something isn't working right, tell them it ain't working at all. If they tell you do do something to get them off the phone, say you already did.
It's been working well for me for over a decade - I rarely have to deal with all their crap.
Press any key to continue, any other key to quit.
The problems I already have with this "expensive equipment" is:
I went to Compaq support a dozen times, I had to wait for 8months (!!) before I could get a fix on this laptop. Not only that though I asked for a replacement or another model because my trust in this model is gone-for-ever.
I live in Europe (Belgium) and the current date I am still working with this laptop I have bought for more than 6500US$.
I can pay "more" for another model, that's the agreement between Compaq and me. Currently; one of the hinges is broken again and the second one will follow very soon because of lack of support on the other side.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
IANAL, so I'll not weigh in with more opinions on the particulars of this case.
What I will say is that, as a computer parts, peripherals, and software consumer, product support is incredibly poor. I recall downloading drivers for my Creative Labs soundcard and having said download render my system non-bootable. E-mails to tech support went unanswered for two weeks. How did I get a response? Started a script that e-mailed them once per minute. "I must assume that your e-mail is not working..."
Calls to my cable modem provider, Cox Communications of Fairfax, VA, are answered by incompetents, disconnected, or just result in a fast busy. When an HP CD writer failed, HP wanted me to dial a 900 number for "tech support" when all I wanted to know was where to send it for repairs (they cost more at the time than now). I tried calling Microsoft to report a bug in IE6. They wanted to charge me to take the call! What a racket: Put in thousands of annoying bugs and then charge people who try to report them!
The software industry has become incredibly arrogant. They sell you a "license" and disavow all responsibility for making the package work. Tech support often costs money -- even when the problem is the publisher's fault. They seem to feel that taking your call at all is doing you a tremendous favor and think nothing of leaving you on hold for half-an-hour while playing you pre-recorded lies about "unusually heavy call volumes" (for the last year and it's still "unusual") or how "important your call is" (if it was so damned important, why don't you hire enough people to answer the phones?).
I can only hope that the downturn in computer-related purchases will make them hungrier for sales and more responsive to customer needs.
Every time one of our fleet of laptops break, we call Dell and the following day a technician comes with spare parts and performs repairs on site. Sometimes it's not perfect, but most of the time I consider this a very adequate service.
Laptops have a very hard life if they are really used as they were meant to. Things *will* break from time to time. Do not ever consider buying a laptop without all the support contract you can buy. And having spare laptops to use while broken ones are under repair is also a good idea. Having an extra 5% of your fleet as spares is what I recommand based on my past three years of experience.
I don't know if the technology is different now, but not-too-long-ago I know some computer companies required a screen to have two or three dead pixels in an area about the size of a quarter before they would replace it. It's not easy to make a fully functioning LCD screen.
First off, just to stay on-thread, yes, I think Dell should replace the laptop AND redesign the hinges.
To continue: This problem is not by any means limited to computer hardware. I'm seeing it rampant throughout the electronics field, particularly in test equipment. Example: About two years ago, Tektronix made one of the stupidest decisions ever: They discontinued their entire line of analog oscilloscopes.
Anyone who's been into EE for any length of time will be the first to tell you that digital o-scopes, by their very nature, have inherent limitations that make them unsuitable for some tasks, and that these same tasks will be better served by using an analog 'scope. Tektronix, though, doesn't seem to agree with this.
To make matters worse, Tek, like HP (I -loathe- their new name of "Agilent"), now drops ALL support -- even down to tech manuals! -- for any of their hardware that's over ten years old.
I can understand dropping some spare parts and such, but MANUALS? The most important information needed to keep a useful device alive? Tektronix used to have a whole fleet of the best frelling hardware engineers and technical writers on the planet, and this quality showed in their stuff, all the time.
Now, though, you're lucky if you get even a simple cal procedure in one of their "service" manuals, let alone anything really useful like schematics or parts lists.
Anyway... a friend of mine and I were talking about this a few nights back, and our thought is that Tek, HP, and other test gear makers do this because they know darn good and well that the older stuff is often much better built than their newer hardware, and they don't want the old stuff competing with their new offerings.
My response is simple: Build the new stuff to be just as good as the old, and you won't have a problem. But no, it cuts into their short-term profits.
Dell is no different. Having had personal (and unfortunate) experience with the flimsy notebook systems they're turning out these days, I'm not in the least surprised they're balking at supporting their new lemons.
Good luck with your fight. I know it's not much help, but you've got plenty of company!
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
apple screwed me over with my powerbook 400 G3 that i bought a year and a half ago... basically, about a hundred or so of these laptops have faulty upper RAM slots, which apple refuses to acknowledge. if they run under OS 9, then there isn't much crashing. but when X is installed, it crashes all the time. apple refuses to repair though, it sucks.
anybody with a troll name is doomed to have such bad karma to post @ 0 or -1.... i am one of the few, the proud... THE TROLLS!
For IBM 75GXP & 60GXP hdd's both IBM and Dell have :)
.. I smell a weirdo conspiracy here .. IBM added some heavyweight code worth almost an entire floppy that could detect if the machine is one of the IBM PC's officially supported by the software :)
a Drive Fitness Test and firmware update available
for download. Both obviously use the same software
developed by IBM. However, there are a few differences in packaging
Dell's package fits on one floppy, and it seems to have resurrected my dead
DTLA-307030. (no indication of firmware actually patched, though and it had to erase the whole drive)
IBM's package on the other hand took 2 floppies and never even detected 2 of such drives in the commodity PC I ran it on.
so
This isn't really ranting about Manufactuers, but retailers. I bought a laptop from best buy (with a 3 year warranty) a while back, It broke 4 times in 8 months, so by the lemon law, BB had to replace it. On my 2nd one, it had broken twice, but on the 3th, BB pulled the "customer abuse" thing on me, and promptly voided my warranty. I took it to a local shop to see how much it would cost and here is what the guy saw when he opened it up:
6 screws were missing; 2 were rolling around in the motherboard
The heat shield was cracked
The crack in the heat shield was covered up in masking tape
The AC power slot was melted off
I did not open up the laptop; the highly trained technicians were the only ones who did that. I am now in the process of sueing (sp?) them.
-Anonymous Coward
AKA Kaikaithekai
Could you back this up?
Also, how long does this warranty apply?
My company bought about 15 of the inspiron 7000's several years ago, and had some problems with the hinges. We gradually replaced them with 7500, of which ALL of them have had hinge problems. We have since tried the 8000's, which still seem very flimsy, but we are now evaluating machines from HP and Gateway. We are also buying machines from some small Linux vendor, since Dell is no longer supporting linux.
When the HP 7100 2x CDR/RW drive came out, I ponied up $400 for one. 11 months later, it started giving buffer underrun errors within the first few seconds of burning any CD. I put it in other computers, reformatted, tried everything - no dice. So I called HP.
They made me spend 2 hours on the phone (long distance on my tab) troubleshooting it. They didn't care that I had already tried everything they proposed, they wanted me to try it while I was on the phone with them. So I did. They then asked me to do something and, if it didn't work, call them back the next day. I did, and when I called them back, they made me go through the whole 2 hour phone conversation again, retrying everything I'd done the previous day! When I voiced my objection, I was told that the drive would absolutely not be replaced unless I did this.
So, 4 hours and $40 worth of phone calls later, they gave me an RAM number and replaced the drive. The new drive arrived and lasted a mere 4 months before dying the same death. I spoke with coworkers who had the SAME problem with the SAME drive. This time, HP flat out refused to replace the drive. They said my warranty had expired. (Apparently, you don't get another warranty with a new drive) I believe this particular model of drive, or a certain batch of them, had this as a problem and I believe HP knew it. I made dozens of phone calls, wrote letters, and talked to dozens of people online who also had the problem with their 7100.
When I muttered something about a class action lawsuit, HP changed their mind and decided to replace my drive. I told them that I absolutely would not accept another 7100 and demanded they send the 8100, their (at the time) flagship 4x burner. They did so. I've had that 8100 for the past 3 years and it's still working flawlessly to this day.
HP products are usually great, but I'm really put off by their customer service methods. It seems they would rather fight with every customer and treat them like bargain hunting thieves than show a little respect. I'm glad they finally came through for me, but I shouldn't have had to fight with and threaten them over it.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
MOD this up. Funny.
Their support is absolutely terrible. I think these two messages illustrate my point very well:
Essentially, the problem here was that I wanted to get 5.1 Dolby Digital output. The problem, as I discovered in spite of Geoffrey's confused ramblings, was that the card is just not capable of this in most situations. It has an AC-3 decoder but not an encoder...so you can use the Dolby Digital output only from DVDs. And then not under Windows 2000, because of driver problems. Their newest driver claims to fix the problem but doesn't.
I've still got the card...using the analog outputs, I can get it to output real applications (WinDVD, Counterstrike) 5.1 almost. The center channel only works in Creative's speaker test application. It pretty much has to be a driver problem, but try getting them to admit that, I dare you...
Creative sucks.
Perhaps this was the correct answer after all. The fact is, he said that he had problems with it from the day he got it. Since Dell has a 30-day money back guarantee, I'm left to wonder why he didn't return it and just order a new one, either from Dell or another vendor. If I had difficulties with a brand new laptop within a week of taking it out of the box, it'd get sent home for a refund in a heartbeat, rather than my keeping it and perhaps running afoul of bad technical support.
Virg
I would have to agree that lying helps. Of course, I have an anecdotal story, that has lies, truths, and other such things in it - but turned out great all the same...
I purchased a Fujix P-401 video projector at a swap meet a while back. I picked it up for $250.00 (this projector is the cheesiest vid projector one can buy - NTSC, size of video tape, 320x200 res - ack - but I wanted something to play with), and the dealer (who dealt in used vid equipment) told me it worked. I got it home, and let it sit for a few weeks - then tried it out. It mostly worked, but half the screen was snowy, right down the middle. I figured it was a bad LCD or driver chip, or a loose connector. What happened next is where the fun began.
I decided first to check it myself, to see if anything obvious was happenning - I tried reseating connectors, etc - no dice. So I figured I would send it in to Fuji...
Now, Fuji hasn't made this projector in about 10 years. So, I didn't think they would do anything for free. But, I had an ace up my sleeve, so to speak: in the packaging that came with the projector, I had the instruction manual, as well as the 1 year warantee card - but not just the warantee card - but the one for me, _and_ the one for the retailer!!! Both were new and _blank_!!! A little searching, and I found that the address had since changed for it to be mailed to. So, I called Fuji up, asked about sending it to the new address - they said fine. So I did.
A few weeks later, I checked back and asked if they had gotten my warantee card - they said yes. I told them about my problem - and they said to send it in, but include a copy of the receipt, and to hell with the warantee info - I thought "Oh crap, they will know that the dealer who sold it to me is not an authorised Fuji dealer!" - but I had put that down on the warantee card, so I figured, "What the hell?" and sent the projector and the copy of the warantee and receipt to them.
I called about a week later after I had confirmed it had arrived at their location, and asked what was happenning. They had gotten it, and would work on it shortly. I called again a few days later - and the person on the phone actually said something about "Fuji not making that projector for a long time" - but didn't go any further with the thought - here she had my warantee, receipt, etc - all in "new" condition - she wondered how I bought it - I played dumb, and, well, it worked...
A couple of weeks later I got the projector back - in perfect condition. They cleaned it, put a new light in, put in a new LCD and driver chip - and it works fine! No charge, nada!!!
Talk about great support!
So, you see - I lied, a bit - but at the same time I was telling the truth. Since the warantee reg was NEVER sent in, or marked in any way - who is to really say I didn't buy it "new" on the day I did - maybe it was hidden in the back of a warehouse somewhere. Fuji could have easily denied me my support, just on the ludicrousness of the whole situation, if someone had thought about it good and hard - but they came through anyway!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
InfoWorld recently published a relevant article on this subject. It discusses the decline of Dell's support.
Check out Chad's News
Iomega used to have the worst support. I have not called them is several years so I don't know if they still suck. Does anyone remember 'the click of death'? There was a class action lawsuit because of it.
Caller: My drive makes this funny clicking noise when I put a disk in. None of my disks are readable anymore.
Support: Your disks must have gone bad. Buy new ones to replace them.
Repeat ad infinitum.
I called support for a bad Jaz drive once. After the tech asked the first question. I gave him the old, "I've tried this, that, the other variation, and everything in between. Send me a replcement." He put me on hold for a minute to talk to his manager and then gave me the RMA.
I once asked an Iomega rep at a trade show if they understood how bad a name the 'Clik drive' was for an Iomega product. They changed the name to HipZip several months later.
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
A grammar and spell checker(which you clearly need!)
My other sig is extremely clever...
I just want to know, so I don't make the mistake of buying anything from that manufacturer ever. Two out of eight months? Completely insane.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
The computer industry does have high return rates, but is it because of shoddy hardware quality? I'm not so sure. I suspect it's that computers are still complex and finicky devices, and that a lot of people get them home and get quickly frustrated with the annoyances and complexity. I don't doubt that hardware plays a part there, but I suspect that software is a far bigger contributor to that problem.
As for poor customer service: I'll admit PC service can be pretty lame, but the absolute worst of any industry? Not in my experience. Compared to, say, the phone and cable companies in most cities I've lived in, to say nothing of auto-repair shops, computer hardware companies are shining paragons of virtue when it comes to customer service. (OK, I'm exagerrating a little bit, but seriously -- when I've needed hardware support it's usually been at least minimally adequate. Again, software support is another story.)
I'll also concede that the PC retail business is outrageously bad. Then again, the last time I bought a PC that wasn't mail-order was probably in 1984, so maybe that's why I've managed to avoid some of these hassles.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Title Says it All
This is not a big PitA if you get the pad BEFORE you start the call, and given the reality of Tech Support it will help you get resolution a lot faster, especially once you have to escalate to supervisor. Remember that most escalations are result of STUBBORN PEBKAC. By reading this off, you will convince the supervisor that you have a real problem, not that you are just being a jerk.
I bought a laptop, gateway 2150 from costco 6 months ago, the battery went after 3 months, they replaced it no hassle. now windows XP comes along and the sound card, sb esonique pci 64, doesnt work, gateway sais that my laptop is quote:
'legacy hardware and no longer supported'
PIII-650
196mb ram
10g HD
14" Active TFT
DVD
its not top notch, but it aint legacy hardware.
Chris Lee
lee@mediawaveonline.com
One metric I have applied to companies to see how customer service oriented they are is to compare the response times of their telephone numbers for sales and service. 99% of the time, most companies answer sales phone lines immediately to within a minute, whereas tech support lines generally put you on hold forever. When I see this at a company, it makes me realize there are only two logical conclusions:
1) Hardly anyone buys the product, and the very few that do have so many problems as to clog up the support lines... that would indicate a horrificly bad product...
or
2) The company only cares about selling the product, and not at all about supporting it after sale. Because of this they adequately staff their sales lines and grossly understaff their support lines.
You state thaT 8% of the time its been broken yet you think dell should replace it - if it was 80% id agree with you but i dont think any company would replace it on those grounds.
I would also like to make a point on the Dell notbooks and the inspron 7000 in partuicular - we are a Dell house (Dell desktops, notebooks and servers) and i have some 25 Inspiron 7000's we bought for pur field staff - they were a departure from our normal purchases of Latitude laptops and were for a specific need. I have to take task to the bad hinges comment - in 2 years we have had exaclty 2 failures in hinges and both of them were related to usage - the users were being way too rough on the screens.
Im not Defending Dell - i have had my share of problems with the gear but i would point out that in an evironment of approx 1500 machines or varying ages our failure rate is less than 5% for entire life of warranty and the MOST common fauilure is keyboards (replaced next day under warrant no questions asked) and HDD's in the final year of their 3 year lifecycle (Quautum particularly) The gear in general is well built and designed.
Ive supported sites with Compaq, HP, IBM and Gateway equipment - here are some of my opinions on their service from this experience.
Compaq - Great servers - lousy desktops - forget the notebooks - they give lousy service unless you buy everything from them and the Armada series laptops failed by just looking at them - their tech support sucks as well BTW
HP - Great servers, OK Desktops - never used laptops - good service but a little slow - the gear is generally well built but they dont guarantee product lines for more than 6 months (VERY important when building a standard evironment)
IBM - Ok servers, OK desktops, Generally Good Laptops - the service is fairly good and rapid to respons, the gear is nothing special (generic 3 com, IBM hdd etc) but its ok
Gateway - YUCK dont even touch them - our failure rate on delivery was huge, their warranty sucked, 2 machines of the same model bought on the same day could have 2 different network cards or vidoe cards - all in all im not surprised they are going broke.
I like Dell despite the frustrations - i'm writing this on a Dell Latitude C800 and i have a CSR400 at home which i own, they arent perfect but compared to others they are not bad
DISCLAIMER : this is CORPORATE service i'm talking about - i build my own home stuff so i have no idea that they are like for home users
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
I have a 3year complete care warrenty (anything happens, they'll fix it -- unless they see hammer marks ;)).
I payed $6000CDN for the laptop (around $4000US at the time)
I would appreciate it if you email Dell support, expressing your opinions on this issue.
Thank you very much for your reply's. I'll take all of them into consideration in my next phone call to Dell :).
---
Chris Edwards
Co-Founder
PocketMatrix.com
The next best card to a creative labs was probably the Diamond MX300 but Diamond is gone and the support for the card is terrible.
I read a recent review on Tom's Hardware and they had some suggestions but none of them compared in price to the low end audigy it seemed.
I'm not sure Turtle Beach will be in business much longer and it was phillips first try at a sound card so that seemed risky.
Hercules has quality products but their price just isn't as cheap as CL.
Any others that are worth considering?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
they said TFB the would fix prob but not refund or replace with one that worked sent it a way to fix screen flickering >5 times with 1 month turn arounds in first year.
I agree. I worked at one of the biggest bases (computer-wise) doing hardware support for a large government organization (HINT: Semper Fi!). We serviced everything under the sun (hehe - including Sun) and ran into every bizzare-ass situation with hardware imaginable.
Consistantly, one vendor was head and shoulders above the rest - Dell. We dealt with all the vendors on a daily basis and the only one we could depend on for outstanding and timely service every time was Dell. I really am *very* surprised by the submitter's problem. I've always built my own systems but I tell everyone that if I ever had to buy a pre-built, the only company I would ever consider was Dell. That's the result of my experiences. Compaq, OTOH, can burn a slow, painful death in the depths of Hell. Just my two cents...
-Legion
The customers were pretty tickled when I had them open the "About" box so they could see the name of the guy they were talking to.
I didn't write most of WSI's products, but I wrote some of them from scratch, and upgraded all of them
When I was a system software engineer at Apple, I missed my experience with tech support, and advocated that each system software engineer spend a week a year on the tech support hotline. This wasn't too enthusiastically received.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
I could understand a simple problem like this being ignored, but at least twice now Dell has had to recall it's products because they SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST. First it was their monitors. I had bought 50, 5 of which did turn themselves into a chared pile within 6 months. Then another 6 months afterwords they recalled te monitors. Like I'd keep around monitor carcasses to return. Up until that point, they continued to deny the problem. What's funnier, a few months later they recalled some laptops for the same problem.
I don't know about any of you, but my home is people-less for several hours every day. If I had a monitor or Laptop burst into flames, my house would be a pile of ash, and nobody would suspect a computer defect-just chock it up to electrical wiring...
I'm laying off Dells, permanently... And that's even if they build devices that will cure all disease. Their track record is very shady.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I have owned several Gateway computers in my life, and as a result will never buy a Gateway product again. I have only had 3 major problems with their products, however they are more than enough reason not to buy Gateway. 1. My first gateway computer - Don't remember the actual product name, but it was a tower pentium-133. The major problem I had with this computer was the cramped case design. The design was so tight that one of the 5 1/4 inch drive bays was useless. The CPU was right behind the drive bay, preventing any real full sized 5 1/4 inch device from sliding all the way back. Naturally I called gateway service to fix the problem, which brings me to the #2 reason for not buying gateway. 2. Customer Service - If you don't mind waiting on hold for over an hour, than Gateway is your company! After painfully waiting to speak to someone about my dilemna I finally got somebody with a pulse. The woman informed me that there was nothing she could to because naturally this wasn't a real problem and was in my head. She didn't seem to understand that I had purchased a product which advertised a specific number of 5 1/4 inch drive bays and had an unusable drive bay. The only thing I asked for was a new case. A new case would cost the consumer about 75$, which means gateway would probably pay considerably less. I can't believe this company wouldn't send me a new one. I informed the woman that the case design was poor and must have been designed by a retard. She told me I was entitled to my opinion but that I was wrong. Had she been in front of me I think I would have rung her neck. 3. My 3rd and final problem (Because I don't buy gateway anymore) is with a newer model gateway. Again, I'm not sure of the actual product name, but it is a Gateway Mini-Tower 700Mhz, Intel or Celeron. Anyway, Again the case design is extremely cramped, but low and behold there is practicly no ventilation inside the case. There is a fan with a plastic duct coming off of the power supply which blows directly on the CPU. This appears to be the only fan in the computer. There are no fans sucking air in or out of the outside. There may possibly be a fan inside the power supply, but I question that. The power supply is also only a 200W power supply, rather than a typical 300W power supply (Go Gateway!). Gateway even went a step further. There are ventialation holes on the actual case to go to the outside, but wait a minute, there is a solid metal plate bolted over it to cover it up. Not only did they not put a fan there, they covered it up so a cool breeze wouldn't even cool down my CPU. Conclusion, Gateway doesn't give a shit about supporting their products. Once they have your money, guess what, your shit out of luck. I can't stand corporations that ignore the customer. Without us, they wouldn't have a profit margin. Yet, in their eyes, there are so many consumers, who gives a shit if they lose a couple to bad support, there are plenty of other cusomers and plenty of money to be spent on advertising. Anyway, I hope you will all join in with me in not ever buying anoter gateway product again. Do what I do now, buy seperate parts and assemble your own computer. Its a little more frustrating, and sometime a tad more expensive, but you get the satisfaction of knowing that any poor assembly is your fault, not somebody elses. You are also in a much better position to fix these small problems. I'm sure gateway would not have supported my old computers had I bought a new case for them, just another way for the piece of shit company to save a buck and screw the consumer. Sincerely, Patrick Byrnes
sony is a pain in the ass when you send something into repair under warranty. 6-9 weeks is the minimum for everything. but i like their philosophy - i sent in a minidisc walkman for repair, it had a hinge problem. they simply took the entire mechanism out, and put in a new one, keeping the old shell.
voila! all fixed, all good.
now why can't computer companies do that?
Sadly, my experience is similar. While I've bought truckloads of other brands, my one Gateway experience taught me to steer clear of them. They literally waited until the warranty expired before responding to an 11-month old request for technical support!
Gigabyte (the motherboard manufacturer) is pretty horrible when it comes to standing by their products as well... Through an AMD Channel program, I purchased an AMD Athlon 650 MHz and an AMD-750 based motherboard, the Gigabyte GA-7IX, for $200 US (remember, this is like a month after the original Athlon debuted. Sweet deal back then, though AMD.com was slashdotted 100x over for Channel people ordering this...)... To this day there is no version of a BIOS available on Gigabyte's site that will:
a) NOT disable the L2 cache.
b) Allow me to use the Power button on my keyboard.
These are both features that work alternately with different versions of the BIOS. The latest BIOS for my motherboard is F4a, which is still beta. Has been since I got it over a year ago.
yes! i paid for 2 years extended warranty for my phillips tv i bought from best buy (they charged something like a third of the price of the tv) now on sept 1st i lost the lower portion of the tv and these best buy morons have been trying to repair it till date (oct 24th) trying all sorts of antics ... wrong replacement board, no showup etc., now is there a way i can smash these mafa's into getting the tv right and for all the lost jerry springer shows ... + the added charges for net usage !!!
... i bought another tv in the meantime .... :9(
...
i'm just pissed off by these money suckers who can't get a thing right
anyway life sucks with best buys
anyone else got who milked these suckers ???
Hey, as my subject indicates. I was just recently laid off from Gateway. Having worked in the technical support department, I have worked on a lot of Laptops. They are not usually replaced until you have been serviced plenty of times. It does help to write the CEO. And no email. Write, Write, Write!!! Type a letter, hand-write, everyday. Explain everything in detail and how you simply believe the issue would be resolved by replacement. Don't give in until your satisfied.
Companies don't support their products well because support doesn't bring in revenue or increase profits.
Because of that problem, it should be a federal law that as long as a company still exists, it must provide complete support for any product it ever made that is still being sold as new, factory-sealed units at retail, even if the company has stopped manufacturing that product.
In other words, under this federal law, I (as an unwitting consumer) wouldn't be screwed if I bought a shrink-wrapped Voodoo3 card at CompUSA, because nVidia would be required to be writing drivers and providing complete support for that card. Only when all the retail inventory was gone would they be relieved of those responsibilities. And hell, that's the way it ought to be--when you purchase a product, you're not just purchasing a shrink-wrapped material object; you're purchasing the support that goes with it.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
Most likely the same unnamed company.
My organization recently purchased a large number of Dell Poweredge servers. The contract gives us 3 years of next business day on-site parts and labor. If something goes wrong with one of the machines, I sure do expect to get the above mentioned service or we'll never buy a single thing from Dell again, not even a mousepad.
My recent experience with tech support was with HP printer division. Basically they told me that they can't help me troubleshoot the printer unless I had a Windows box. Also, they told me right away that they can't help me with Linux or Unix printing problems. Only Windows and only if we used HP's drivers, not the default MS drivers. I wonder what about HP-UX customers?
...develop broken hinges, battery covers, and keyboard mounts. Guess this keeps the product moving, but it also teaches me a lesson about the failure rates permitted by Dell manufacturing. By comparison, my Hitachi has stayed in perfect condition for four years and counting.
Product support does not generate revenue for most companies, so why should they invest in making it good?
Federal law needs to require a company to fully support any product that it still sells through retail.
Example: nVidia should be required by law to fully support the Voodoo3 since you can still purchase new ones at various retail stores. If they aren't willing to fully support the product, then they should immediately have any outstanding inventory pulled from retail, and any retailer who sells the product anyway should be punished.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
I had an Inspiron 7000 with chronic hinge problems and mine was replaced with a new computer. Your mileage may vary, of course. The trick is to keep escalating your case until you get some satisfaction.
-AC
About two years ago I pulled a stint on PC Support for a large company with about 500 people on site.
:-(
We had a raft of Compaq PCs, and each month at least one blew a drive. It was terrible.
Eventually we dumped the rest of the Compaqs on-site and switched to a different first-tier manufacturer. With the new supplier, we had the usual random problems, but 95% of the time they showed up in the build process -- not 7-12 months later in front of the customer, and never one component so consistently.
We had no problems with our Proliants, but the desktops just wouldn't keep running. No wonder Compaq's in such dire shape.
OH SH%T! You got me. Good hack around the URL filter. Now please die.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Okay... what you say might be true and I'm not on a quest to build up Dell here, but I have some questions...
1) Why didn't you test the first few you imaged, instead of doing all 100 & then saying "Oh shit, they're all jacked up!"?
2) We received Dell Premier Support, the same support that all businesses, school, and government institutions receive. Don't believe me? Go to Dell's Support Page and see how they're classified.
3) Regardless of that, we were covered under the support contract that came with the system that is separate from your status. It is determined by the contract under which you bought the system.
4) Furthermore, you imaged the disks from their original configs. Why should Dell have to reinstall Windows becuase you guys messed up? If the disks went physically bad, then they should replace them per the purchase service agreement. Otherwise, every OEM in the world will tell you to take a flying leap, unless you have a special clause in your contract.
5) Of course Dell's buying parts from IBM! They primarily build systems. For example, they buy memory from Siemens, HDD's from Maxtor, CD-ROM's from LG, etc. So again, your statement has no relevance that I can see.
6) Finally, I'm sorry, but I usually have trouble listening to ancedotal information from AC's. Why don't you log in? It's not like you were posting flamebait or offtopic, just incorrect information.
If you feel anything I said is wrong or being mis-percieved, feel free to correct me. Thanks.
I did use one, buddy. The 5300cs. Crashed 10 times a day. Swapped the motherboard (it was recalled). Still crashed 10 times a day. Upgraded my OS. Still crashed ten times a day. No, i wasn't running weird extensions or anything, it would crash constantly on a stock install + netscape or IE.
I spent $2600 on that piece of crap and replaced it within a year... not with an Apple, of course. Too bad because I love working under MacOS, but Apple lost a customer for life with that machine.
We thank you for your post. Due to overwhelming response, your post will be answered in the order received. Thank you for using Slashdot.
I had a 7500 w/15" screen for a couple of years at work. When I left that job, I bought a refurbished one to replace it. It was "sick" on arrival (automagic/unrequested/random "shutdown"), but they sent a tech to my home and promptly fixed it. Since then, its been fine.
Heavy, yes. But I can deal with it. That hi-res screen and 7 hour battery life is pretty nice.
That's a nice list, but what companies WILL help you with this without some sort of extra support contract like advanced software support?
It assembles.
In any case, I own a small manufacturing company and we aren't liable for what we manufacture because we didn't design the product that we build. So who does the design (i.e. responsible for the liability) of Dell products should be your query? Dell, I think.
IANAL but I am a businessman; Dell owes you a fix or replacement of your laptop.
I really don't want to say who I work for (doing tech support for major cowpany) but I do have a few comments on things....
First off, these major manufacturers have gotten SO BIG that they cannot come even close to monitoring and maintaining quality. My company has some in-house call centers and also outsources to about 6 different call centers (some I believe are run by Sykes *cough*joke joke).
Anyways, I'm a pretty knowledgeable guy. I don't need to look step-by-step through the diagnostic troubleshooting lists (although they consider it the Bible in our place) and I like to think that I bring a lot of common sense to the table too. I can say, however, that the majority of customers I deal with that have dealt with an outsource tech have been d|cked over majorly. What really scares me is that I'm seeing a trend of internal new-hires that isn't any better.
It's to the point that they will basically hire anyone that can give superior customer service, can type & browse webpages for answers. I mean you can't hire someone with an awful attitude, but they have tried so hard to move us from a tech support line (actually fixing machines, what a concept) to a damage control line. I mean if you have to call in 5 times just to get video drivers downloaded, there are some definite weak links in there.
Also remember there are some decent people working tech support (believe me we do actually exist). I'm sure folks that visit this board don't expect a company to do things like help them clean viruses off the machine, help you make all kinds of custom settings if you put linux on a machine intended for Win9x or replace an entire system when just a hard drive goes bad after a year.
I'm not saying that we are not responsible for anything.... believe me I'm actually a little quick on the trigger for Replacement parts sometimes, but if it needs rpl'd, I'll replace it w/ no questions asked.
The main thing to remember is these companies get so big and out of control, there's no such thing as consistent GOOD tech support anymore. If you can obviously tell that one technician absolutely knows nothing, tell them you have to leave then call in again. Sure, that's not acceptable, I don't like it better than anyone else, but it's the best thing to do.
I could talk all night long on this stuff, hehe.....
mooooooooooooooooooo
As a customer service representative I deal with things like what we are discussing here every day. I support multiple devices on a multitude of different (windows) operating systems. The Products that I support cost anywhere from $150-$700. I absolutely HATE the fact that people believe that we "read the answer from a list." My trainer who was a DAMN good trainer taught me what I needed to know about being good to the customer - the "warm and fuzzy." Side of customer support. I find that the most difficult part of my job. Those people who believe that "the squeaky wheel gets the oil" are *stupid* Sure..whine a bit, cuss a lot, ask to talk to my supervisor if you want, BUT I can tell you flat out that my supervisor stands behind my technical and customer service decisions 100%. He has no more options to give you than I do.(sarcasm) Sure, talk to the tech agent on the phone until he isn't giving you what you want - what you really need is to talk to a supervisor they have all the power in the whole of the company to deal with, they can pull a printer out of their ass *just like that*, the agent on the phone has NO options but that supervisor can do it all for you (/sarcasm)
Lets not forget the fun Out Of Warranty customers that just shined up their fancy new scanner and then threw it off the computer desk:
...what? whats that you say? out of warranty... no support.. but damn it.. its broke you damnwell better repair or replace it for me.. better yet.. I've had this thing for well unto seven years its BRAND NEW, I want a BRAND NEW PRODUCT...gimme your supervisor
Nothing makes me hit my mute switch faster than a moron such as above. "one in a million" you say. I say.. daily.. about 7 of them, half of my calls for the day is someone who didn't read their warranty information. Its no longer the consumers duty to figure out what they are purchasing. Trust me, the warranty should be a large part of your decision, it provides the doorway to the services that you may need in the future.
Another point I would like to make: This isn't the federal goverment or wellfare.. there aren't any free rides. The company I work for.. is just that a COMPANY we look to make money, from my point of view we NEVER sacrifice a customer unless the customer makes themselves expendable. We support it for a year or two. We fix your issues when it is within the scope of the warranty.
The company who I work for, who I have seen get slammed in the comments section here is very good at what they do. *I* am proud of the service I give every day. *I* am proud to be an agent for my company.
I have an Inspiron 7500 with a 15.4" screen, and have had it for over a year. No problems what so ever, of course I don't drop it or carry it by the screen....I use the laptop the way it was designed to be used.
4 hinges are a lot to go through. You should look at how you are handling your laptop before you criticize Dell. If you take it into enviroments it wasnt designed for, expect failures. Buy a Panasonic ToughBook, they are designed to be beat on.
www.atacomm.com - The Leader in VoIP Product Distributi
My experience with a relative who owns a Dell desktop, and knows nothing about computers: Problem with the operating system? (Win98), Dell says: Format drive, reinstall. Double clicking on any file, any extension, and all opened by Winzip? Format drive, reinstall. Some other problem, format drive, reinstall. Computer has had Windows reinstalled on it at least 5 times, with loss of user data each time. Dell's answer to every problem, "You have a virus. Format drive, reinstall Windows" (recovery disks lost long time ago, using Windows 98 CD now). Getting so fed up with this bull that when I have time, I will install Linux. They only use computer for Internet, and very light word processing. Games may be a major problem though. They're switching to DSL, so winmodem will no longer be a problem. Other than that, scanner will be the only other hangup.
I, too, bought a Dell Inspiron 7500. Fortunately I invested in the extended warranty. That was the best thing I did! The machine has been repaired more times than I can remember, mainly for the hinge problem (8 times in 2 years) and it has also had 3 screens, 1 motherbaoard, a disk and 2x256Mb memory cards exchanged. Dell were very helpful, but it was the machine design that was flawed in that the aluminium hinges could not take the stress of the heavy screen. I wrote to Michael Dell and this provoked a more helpful reponse with a named member of support staff. I was even given extra memory and a CD-RW drive, but the hinges kept on breaking - on one occasion only 2 weeks after they had been replaced. Dell finally conceeded defeat with it and last month they sent me a brand new Inspiron 8100. This machine seems fine, but I have some niggles with its design, too. Keep nagging - Dell will respond in the end!
M$ refused to support their NT as it was installed by Dell, but even after I bought a standalone, they would not support it [because it was an upgrade?]; and Dell hadn't a _clue_ where to start.
How's that supposed to work?
Regards, timf.
I bought a Winbook XL3 in Feb of 2000. By June it was starting to show stress cracks around the hinges, over the PC card slot bays. The upper clamshell that wraps the screen begain splitting along the hinge line. The mouse buttons were also flakey. I started using an external mouse.
During the last ten days of the one year warranty I sent the unit back. They fixed the cracked plastic but the mouse button was still bad. That was Feb 2001. Now it is October - the cracks are starting to show again and the mouse button is still does not work reliably.
By next summer I expect to buy a replacement unit. It won't be a WinBook and from the looks of other messages here - it won't be a Dell either.
Sony VIAO anyone?
I do not know where you hail from, but in the vast majority of the world, especially in Virginia, acquiring a motor vehicle license is just slightly harder than maintain a pulse and breathing fairly regularly. It is of absolutely now value in determining that someone is capable of operating and maintaining a vehicle without causes severe damage to it.
I really doubt that this is the case anywhere outside North America. In the UK, for example, you have to sit an (admittedly fairly easy) exam, then pass a half-hour test driving on normal roads, with the tester present. The route for the test is not pre-arranged, they can take you anywhere feasible during the test.
It is so hard to pass the test that some people fail many times (I passed first time, of course), and some were paying friends to sit the test for them - one of the reasons why we now have photos on our driving licences over here.
I have no doubt that it is the same high standard in most of Western Europe.
India, China (lots of people there) I don't know about. But we in the UK laugh at the incredibly easy US driving test.
(When I hire a car in the US, the Avis employees laugh when they see that my licence expires in 2037 - when I am 60.)
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
I again think i may be the exception but i fried my motherboard a couple months ago in my Dell Dimension and within a week (it was over a long weekend) i had a new one and was able to get back up and running. I was on hold for less than 30 minutes.
OTOH, my roomate has an HP Pavilion and has had no end of problems with it. The biggest difference? He gets put on hold for hours but its not a 1-800 call so he's paying long distance charges THE WHOLE TIME. Dell has a handy 1-800 number, and if you dont call during peak call times, you can get through pretty quickly.
YMMV of course, but for me, dell support rules
|---------------|
practically an AC
I had the same problems with the hinges, but was
smart enough to purchase the next business day, on site, repair service. I've gone through 3
keyboards, 3 hard disks, and about 6 hinge
replacements before they put a stop on my account,
claiming that their costs in repairing were exceeding the original cost of the unit -- so
they gave me a mid-range Inspiron 8000 (but
still quite an improvement, overall) replacement.
They gave me a month to transfer over all my
7500 stuff and ship it back. The new Insp came
w/WinME. And though I use Linux as my primary
OS, I keep Windows around for compat. The WinME
was a plague. Crashed more often, software
incompat's all over the place. Called microsoft
about Installation support for a new product. They couldn't fix it and turned it over to 2nd level support staff. 2nd level said that internally, their team tried winME but went back to win98SE because of reliability problems. He claims winXP is better than either of them in terms of reliability. I'm concerned about more
compat problems and invasion of privacy, loss of
control over my computer with a winXP upgrade --
for example WinME wouldn't let you delete various
files -- it would automatically restore them in
real time if they were deleted -- even if you
didn't want them. You couldn't kill the service
that did the restoring -- it would immediately respawn. I finally went back to win98 as a
'fresh' install -- lost my registry, and it was
a nightmare. All, of course, unsupported by
Dell or MS. In fact Dell sucks at SW support. They only support installation and only within the first 30 days of service -- even though I had a 3 year support contract (only applies to HW).
What I learned: Always buy next day on site service. Buy a new computer when the old contract
expires and sell the old one on ebay or whatever.
The hinges are better on the 8000, but they still
aren't as strong as I'd like. Have had it since
August and they've already got some 'play' in them.
Instead of using hinges tubes that go all the way
across, they use stubs that only connect at
the outside edges. Another big quality issue
(the whole thing is OEM'ed from a 3rd party in
China -- Dell just label's them) is the use of
cast-iron (soft) metal for the bases in the
computer that the screws screw into. Also
a problem is that the screws are *tiny*. Maybe
3/32 - 1/16th thick. The heads were often
breaking off leaving the screws in the base --
which meant the whole base had to be replaced.
I suggested quality improvements *many* times over
the life of my 7500.
I think your problem is that you aren't costing them enough -- since you have to send it in, it
doesn't require them near as much money per/repair.
Of course, I was told by different people different stories -- like I was special in having
so many 7500 problems, but some told the truth
that it was just bad construction.
Good luck -- and maybe verbal persistence along with letters to the BBB might get you some
response. If that doesn't work, try to upgrade
your service contract. And if they won't, use
the problems you have had as leverage to buy
a new one -- with an onsite service contract.
-l
As a former field tech for a Dell Service Provider I can honestly tell you this. If you get a dell and it breaks, it's going to stay broke for the rest of it's life. They (dell) sell 2 kinds of machines, the kind that work all the time with minimal difficulty (approx. 90 percent), and the kind that never work right no matter what you do(the remaining 10-ish percent). The trick to getting your laptop replaced is simple. Stop dealing with level 1 support. Talk to dude's boss, then talk to that guy's boss and so on and so forth until you wind up with Micheal Dell's secretary explaining that they can't send you a replacement any faster than overnight (unless you live near Austin). I've stopped having support issues because I've developed the inherent ability to be a 'problem user'. You have to raise hell on the phone, and offer coffee to the guys(or girls) that actually come out to fix your junk. The problem isn't poor customer support, it's a lack of customer created motivation for the support teams.
the answer is NO and the reason is - because they don't have to.
Look at nearly every other industry in the US - they are held to either federal quality/safety standards, or are reviewed by independent consumer advocacy groups (like Consumer's Union).
So far, in my estimation, Consumer's Union has done a piss-poor job of reviewing computer hardware and software, and has been way too soft on an industry charging exhorbitant fees for what is essentially useless garbage.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
really, I think that 99% of the support problems out there could be solved if companies were more open and not so paranoid about protecting their IP or "image".
At some point about 10 years ago - companies started to be afraid to list "known issues" of their products, or give users a database of problems to search.
Novell used to have a Support Encyclopedia. I don't know if they still do - but it used to be a great tool for finding problems. If you had a problem, it was usually documented in there, and a patch was usually available. The encyclopedia was updated quarterly, available on CD in a format that was searchable. Not just searchable, it had a totally great search engine that could find just about anything.
In comparison, online search engines in general today, from Microsoft to Apple - SUCK for finding information on problems.
Over the years - Novell started clamping down on the information more and more, and NSE became more of a big glob of marketing goo. And Microsoft's counterpart TechNet came out - and it was 99% marketing crap from the getgo, and remains as such today. Companies began to be afraid to even use the word "bug" because of it's negative connotations. So they used words like "problem" or "issue" - and guess what happened to those words? Now THEY have negative connotations. I've got news for you - it's a negative thing!
But being truthful and forthcoming to your customers is a POSITIVE thing. And the people who support these products, who are not PAID by the vendor to support them - appreciated this information.
I support products that run on Windows. A good 50-75% of my support issues are actually Windows problems. Either problems with the OS - or problems caused by something endemic to Windows - usually, a poorly-documented function where a programmer expected a certain behavior - and something unexpected happened in certain circumstances that wasn't documented, or was documented but not clearly explained.
Lately, I have noticed an iron curtain being erected with regard to product's internal information. So now, when you support a product that runs on a given platform, and something strange happens, it's anybody's guess what the fucking problem is. We're troubleshooting black boxes now. So all vendors support pretty much flies blind.
The latest example of this - where I'm deriving most of my current wrath from - is a DELL RAID driver. A customer has an older version - and Dell strongly recommends that customers upgrade. But do they have a list of specific changes from one version of this RAID driver to another? Hell no. So how do I know if this customer's problem might be related to behavior that they fixed in the later RAID driver? How do I justify to my customer that they should upgrade the driver, and do their own internal testing on a third-party product?
Our QA tests with the latest driver. The older driver isn't even immediately available. So in order to try to duplicate this customer's problem, I've got to get ahold of the hardware, back-rev the driver, set up the customer's environment, install our software and hope I can reproduce the problem so all this effort was worth my time.
All because the customer won't update their driver.
All because FUCKING DELL won't give out information on the problems they fixed, or why a customer should upgrade. They simply expect everyone to always run the latest driver.
Other examples of sucky support information - my DSL provider, PacBell - they'll waste HOURS of their own technician's time before they'll admit to a problem that they knew was happening up front.
Another Example - Apple's Support message boards. Used to be a great place to look for information from other peopl who were having problems. Now they've handed it over to the marketing people, and it's absolutely useless. Any problems people run into get censored off the board, so it's not really searchable - plus you have to jump through registration hoops, and their board's response time is 10 times slower than it used to be.
Personally - I find vendors who are open and forthcoming with information to be FAR more attractive than a vendor that claims to have a perfect product. Software and Hardware break in the real world, and the extent to which customers have to rely on their support people is determined by how much the vendor empowers it's customers to resolve issues on their own.
If a vendor clamps down on information - customers have to rely on the support services, which are typically for-pay, and in the fact that vendors will often have to waive support fees when it's apparent that it's their product that is broken, or in the event that the customer is a huge and valuable account - support is still not a money-making venture. And the end result is a frustrated customer who paid lots of money for a product that didn't work, and can't be made to work without paying more money, and there's no guarantee that paying more money will make the product work.
So why do you think people are afraid to spend money on software and computers? Why has the industry slowed down? Why don't people trust technology?
Because of the opacity of the products. Because of the influence of timid marketing and legal people in the major computer industry corporations.
If they'd just hand the reigns back to the people that CREATED this industry in the first place (the engineers) - this problem would be fixed.
But no - nobody wants to show their dirty laundry.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
i found the last line to be quite enjoyable. What is more commical is that they keep missing the final punch. oh well...btw i saw that you were pleased w/ the printer. saying something is good constitutes bad mouthing?
Sometimes the caffiene simply doesnt help.