Tech Support Problems- Dell

[Ned Hamford]

In short, anyone ever had or even heard of anyone having the arbitration go well for them?  Stupid shrink wrap contracts...

I spent 2.5 k on a laptop a little more than a year ago.  Problems with the solid state Hard Drive within 3 months that were repaired by software.  3 months ago everything has fallen apart.  OS wouldn't Load, Which led to their techs wiping my HD and everything on it twice.  Then my battery wouldn't charge, which led to their sending me 3 adapters over the course of a month and a half.  3 more wipes of my HD, visiting tech who replaced my Motherboard and battery; said the video card was bad and so was my hardrive; but that the harddrive tests they are running on it arn't meant for solid state drives.  He left with my laptop booting to a grey screen.  5 reboots got me into windows, but with no control of screen brightness [last phone tech got that error during a diag but had expressed hopes it was a mb problem].  Their tech support was closed for the weekend.  Monday, boots up, brightness is adjustable, told tech the problem of the grey screen and brightness, he then plays with my power setting and takes credit for resolving my brightness problem, he then plays with the bios, and now my laptop only boots into the grey screen.  No error message, I can occasionally hear window's loading noises in the background, but 8 attempts at booting = grey screen.  Genius on the phone promises to send me a replacement video card and tells me no way will they replace the hard drive unless they have proven error messages from it during their diag....

Yah; I'm not feeling good faith from these people.  I think my fav moment was when on of their over the phone remote connect techs told me my laptop is a very good laptop with less than 4% of its users ever calling tech support.  Besides making a stink of it on every forum and internet site I come across; any advice?

[Jim147]

What chip you got? They are replacing a bunch of systems with an intel problem. I think it was built in video from what I read.

jim

[Ned Hamford]

What chip you got? They are replacing a bunch of systems with an intel problem. I think it was built in video from what I read.

jim

After 15 reboots, it has loaded into my GUI, hurrah.  I am so not turning it off.
P8700  Core 2 Due 2.53

[TommyGunn]

.....but that the harddrive tests they are running on it arn't meant for solid state drives.

  Are they using computers that have thermionic valves in them?   
I don't understand that term in conjunction with this problem......

[RocketMan]

If the SSD has a standard SATA connection, and if I were the Dell tech, I'd replace it with a standard hard drive and a clean Windows installation.  Then you could try that for awhile to see if some or all of the issues go away.  If they did, then the SSD would likely be the problem.
When properly specified, SSDs work very well in laptops.  But once in awhile you get one that passes QA at the factory and is still a piece of kaka.
A 4% failure/return/problem rate ain't nothin' to be proud of, BTW.

[BMacklem]

Yeah, but he paid for the SSD, not a standard hard drive. unless they were willing to swap out with a standard drive, and give me a full refund on the price difference, then I wouldn't take it (not that they've even offered the option).
At this point, since it's still under warantee, I'd just return the whole thing, and keep the documentation you have showing the kinds of problems you've encountered so far with it.
Usually when I'm dealing with someone with your kinds of problems, I am inclined to think that they're the problem, because no computer could have those kind of problems right off the bat, but if it did, I'd want to do a complete unit swap to keep the customer happy. Dell doesn't seem to want to do that.
Sounds like you got a real lemon though.

EDIT: I just reread it...it's over a year old now, so the warantee might not still be valid (might be on some parts). I dunno. Might be hard to do a complete swap at this point.

[Ned Hamford]

I paid for the 3 year plan.  Its supposed to have next business day on site support, 24/7 phone support.  But, by the service contract, its an 'evolving system,' which now is 18/6 when not 15/5 phone support with techs that have no idea what they are doing.  Every time I've interacted with them in the last 3 months things have gotten worse.  Using remote connects they swap around bios files and drivers whilly nilly, not documenting what they do and then when things stop working entirely they just say time for a wipe and re-install, and then leave me to do all the required updates.  The tech they had onsite to replace the MB forgot to put all the parts back in, putting the cover and starting to seal it 3 times while there were still parts laying on the table [heat sink, video card, fan].  For myself, I keep the windows updates up to date and ditto for the anti-virus [AVG is my favorite].  The only folks messing with it are the Dell techs.

[lee n. field]

The tech they had onsite to replace the MB forgot to put all the parts back in, putting the cover and starting to seal it 3 times while there were still parts laying on the table [heat sink, video card, fan].

There's no jaw-drop emoticon, so I'll use this:  .  Uncompetance.

[never_retreat]

If its under warranty box it up and send it back. Tell them not to return it till it works.
I'm assuming you can live without it, because it has not been working anyway.

[RocketMan]

BMacklem, the relevant part of my post was, "Then you could try that for awhile...".  I was not advocating that Ned keep the standard hard drive permanently, just that it be installed temporarily with a clean O/S install in an attempt to determine whether the SSD was bad.  If it turns out the SSD is faulty, they should replace it with a proven good SSD.
His symptoms sound like they could be caused by hosed driver and system files on the drive.

[Ned Hamford]

Given the quality of techs I've been working with, it wouldn't shock me if the hardware has been fine all along and all problems stem from their techs monkeying around.  Another one is scheduled to come this evening.  From the phone, it sounded like an indian fellow rather than a teenager. 

[Ned Hamford]

Dell just replaced my harddrive, with an empty one.  Loading the OS from their cd and drivers = no wireless and a bevy of other problems I'll be spending some time tonight fixing.

 

And their tech support is down again.

My keyboard makes the wrong symbols appear.  

I think Dell is more about elaborately cruel pranks than service.  

:written from desktop office comp: