Simone noted the humor/frustration level I was having with Dell this week at work. Of course, anytime I mention “Dell” around her she shakes her head in disgust, so perhaps she’s not exactly the most objective observer. :)
What happened was, at work this week one of the newish Dell PCs started making a high-pitched spinning/whining noise. At first I thought it was a fan, so I opened up the box, eliminated the fans as a source of noise, and quickly concluded it was the hard drive. Sounds emanating from the hard drive are, generally, a Bad Thing. And sure enough, when I tried to boot the machine up again in order to copy the data to the network (most of the user data is already on the network, except for a few things like email and some accounting data), I got the Windows blue screen and problems booting.
So I got the person set up with a temporary PC (an older one), pulled the hard drive, and called Dell.
(Let me disclaim in advance that in fact all the people I talked to at Dell were very professional and helpful, and the overall service they performed was very good. It just turned into a minor comedy of errors.)
First of all, the machine’s out of warranty; it was purchased one year and one month ago. Of course! Even assuming I’d bought the one-year service plan warranty with it, it still wouldn’t matter.
Nearly 45 minutes later, after talking to three different people (a woman from India; some fellow with an unidentifiable accent in Tech Support; and a woman from Roseburg, Oregon in Sales), I was finally able to get the order placed for a new hard drive that matched the specs of the machine and drive in question: 80GB Ultra ATA, IDE interface. Pay attention, that’s an important detail.
They tell me that yes, even though I ordered the drive with Next Day delivery, it still may not even ship out until Friday the 14th. That’s fine, I say, just get it here ASAP. And guess what? They surprise me by delivering the hard drive the very next day! Woo-hoo!
Open the package, mount the drive into the PC chassis, go to plug everything in… and it’s the wrong type of drive. They sent me an 80GB Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive, which is incompatible with the IDE interface in this computer.
So there’s not much else to do but get on the phone with Dell again, spending exactly 31 minutes on the phone this time (our office telephones have a call timer). I spoke with the Customer Service department (again a woman from India, as near as I can figure), got the return processed (UPS would pick it up in the next three days), then transferred to Sales, where I made sure to order exactly the right type of hard drive. I hope. This was Thursday.
The new drive hasn’t arrived yet, so the speedy Next Day delivery that accompanied the first hard drive hasn’t recurred. Hopefully Monday? But, the UPS guy did pick up the return Friday morning, so that’s something.
Simone did warn me.
Comments
5 responses to “Dell computer fun”
As well she should have and you SO should have known better – Dell or any other yahoo out there – pssht they ain’t gonna fix it!
Been there, which is why I don’t recommend ANYBODY buy dell. On top of their ineptitude when it comes to part orders (I usually don’t order parts from them if the system’s out of warranty — too expensive), they use proprietary power supplies and motherboards. While the difference is subtle, don’t EVER try to plug a standard power supply into a Dell PC, as they’re pinned slightly different. You can rework the power supply wiring to power the dell motherboard (and this is all assuming you can even fit the off-the-shelf power supply in the case — they mount things funky there as well), but it’s far too much trouble for what it’s worth.
And with sites like newegg.com, you can build a better computer than what you can get from Dell for the same price. I just built a kick ass system for a friend of mine that will smack the pants off any equivalent $600 dell (granted, I’m using her existing Windows XP license, since I’m replacing her old computer, so that’s part of the savings right there).
But if you want pre-built, I’ve had great luck with HP’s business offerings, and I’ve heard good things about visionman.com and visioncomputers.com (similar name, but two different companies).
Heheheh … seriously, Jon. Listen to your friends, man.
Dell sucks. (How you can sit on the phone with customer service for 45 minutes, and still say that "the overall service they performed was very good" is seriously beyond me … 😉
HP is the way to go. (I own two Compaqs – an older desktop and a new laptop), plus of course The (custom-built) Beast Jake created for me. All of them have been very, very good to me.
On the Bright Side: Faulty Technology is Good for You.
Ah – it didn’t take the hyperlink …
Here’s the link for the Faulty Technology bit: http://www.onthebrightside.net/articles/faulty_technology.html
it’s actually called the window’s blue screen of death 🙂