Thread: THAT'S IT!

first it was the printer...then OS...then over heating.

now the fucking hard drive crashed in mandi's computer. but wait, it gets better.

sharif, who's credentials are the best i've seen, tested the drive, slaved it, and did smart check. all point to a bad hard drive. yet, Dell says "it's the ZIP drive. it's AGED."

i will never consider a Dell computer for purchase. monitor, but nothing else.

I am soooooo glad I no longer have to work at Dell Tech Support!! BLECH!!!

Good reading related to Hell.

http://www.theinquirer.org/?article=10898

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10867

Our customer support is far from perfect. Sad thing is, we're the best in the industry (compared against other big companies). With as cheap as computers are selling for these days, a single problem will negate 100% of the profit made on selling that machine. Companies are pushing more and more of the support to automated stuff, cheap labor markets, etc. Quality of support and product suffers.

It's sad. I wish that it were different, but given that the vast, vast majority of people buy the machine based on cost, there's not much that can be done. Most people aren't willing to pay a premium for quality and service when buying a commodity product.

Originally posted by TechniKal
Most people aren't willing to pay a premium for quality and service when buying a commodity product.

Apple. My sister's iBook died and Apple took very good care of her, even though it was over a year out of warranty. And my iBook rocks. So stable, so purrty, so nice to use.

we took it by best buy and the guy who helped us was a former employee at Dell. 2hrs later, it was found to be a bad partition. so Dell isn't at fault. however, he did say that the hardrive that was installed was low-end. which was already known. he said a few times that Dell's Tech Support call-center was located in India. i knew that, already, but it reinstated my concern. anywho, oi....what a day. reinstalled XP, and now have to reinstall all the little programs that make everyday life that much easier.

Originally posted by the Inbred
so Dell isn't at fault. however, he did say that the hardrive that was installed was low-end. which was already known

That is a problem with all of the big name brand PC makers. You got to go with brands like Alien, Falcon or some other maker that allows you to choose the parts inside. Better yet build it yourself or have a friend build it for you.

.he said a few times that Dell's Tech Support call-center was located in India. i knew that, already, but it reinstated my concern.

Alot of companies are now doing this.

"giant sucking sound" Ross Perot

you know Alienware is now sold at Best Buy? i saw this badass black case and was like "woah....what is that?!" then i saw the little Alien symbol. thought it was kinda odd.

i have an alienware as a game machine. It blew up. you may get better hard-drives, fans, etc. but the motherboard is made by one of a couple of companies.

Originally posted by the Inbred
we took it by best buy and the guy who helped us was a former employee at Dell. 2hrs later, it was found to be a bad partition. so Dell isn't at fault. however, he did say that the hardrive that was installed was low-end. which was already known. he said a few times that Dell's Tech Support call-center was located in India. i knew that, already, but it reinstated my concern. anywho, oi....what a day. reinstalled XP, and now have to reinstall all the little programs that make everyday life that much easier.

Inbred, I am an engineer in Dell's laptop developmet group. The only thing I can say to ease your concerns about Dell is to reiterate what Technikal has already stated. I stake my personal reputation on the quality of all of Dell's hardware. We as engineers are driven to the upmost of quality standards. As Kyle stated, if there is a single call on the box, we just lost money on it. We do not cut corners on engineering or on our suppliers. We have numerous times chosen a more expensive product or solution to better serve the customer.

As for what the "Best Buy" technition told you - there is NO SUCH THING as a low end hard drive. All hard drives Dell supplies are purchased from one of a very few manufacturers. If it is a laptop hard drive, it is one of two. These hard drives are the best in the business. However, all hard drives crash and develop bad sectors. I have it happen all the time on my systems at work. You only can rely on the tech support to get you through it.

As for our tech support - let the consumer digests and PC World reviews speak for us. Dell has won the Top Customer Support award for something like 14 years running. Now, as a Dell customer (before I worked there) I have had my own personal complaints about our tech support, but it is the best in the industry. Yes, some of our calls are routed to India. You, however, will not no this. You will not be able to detect an accent as we actually train our tech support people over there to speak perfect english. Also, they have the same access to support documents as our American counterparts, so you will not experience an alteration in service if you get routed there.

I personally apologize for the troubles you have experienced with Dell. I recommend that you express your troubles to the support tech that does answer the phone. Believe it or not, we actually listen. Plus, the more that your issue remains unsolved, the higher up the tech level you get and the more likely your issue is to be solved.

Anyways, to each his own, but I will never buy anything other than a Dell. Even when I do leave here.

MB Asus and Abit are the only ones I use. Sometimes it pays to pay a little more. MB is the most critical component in a PC.

Yeah I think Alien might have gone down hill lately. They are trying to compete at price points with dell and such. Invasion of the Aliens for the masses.

Dude your like the company man. No such thing as a low end hard drive Maybe not for laptops but in a desktop. Come on thats just company BS. and as for costomer service.



Dell under attack over Inspiron notebook keyboard

Keyboard problem exercising Inspiron 8500 fingers


By INQUIRER staff: Friday 08 August 2003, 11:12

USERS OF DELL 8500 Inspiron machines have complained bitterly about the quality of the keyboard and the firm now appears to be shipping a new keyboard feel, for customers who ask.
Apparently the problem is a lack of support for the keyboard on the Inspiron 8500, which Dell is addressing by applying a fix for those who complain.

Dell has made an official statement, apparently, which can be read here.

The original complaint started on Dell support forum in a very lengthy 75-page thread. The thread, which has been viewed 12,658 times – was from an irate user who said he spent around $3,500 for a notebook with a keyboard that's no use.

The problems first arose around three months ago, but the fix is only applied if customers complain.

One post claims that the replacement keyboard hasn't been widely publicised because they don't want people panicking. The threads span the whole month of July and are continuing. µ

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10938

You that know will find this strange, but truth be told, my Dell has never given me any issues. I bought a refurb through my sister who works in financing (although I paid cash) and it never really had issues. Keep in mind, tho, that I never was too gung-ho about installing skankware and shit like that. I did the Audiglaxy thing and a few FTP server programs, and, of course, Quake III and other games, but nothing major. Who knows how it runs now as I haven't turned it on since buying my G4 last November

Same story with that compooter, tho. It just runs and doesn't complain. I haven't shut it down for days and only do so for the heck of it. Uptime! Speaking of which, my work computer (an older G4 800 DP) runs for seven days at a time, then I restart at the end of the week and keep it running over the weekend in case I need to do some remote access shit. Excellent stability considering I run two OS environments and some *cough* crappy production software (not Apple mind you), iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, SAP, RMS, and all the other production sofware that I have to use. Not really a power setup, but it hasn't had many issues.

All in all, they don't build em like they used to. That's a FACT. Cheaper parts, flimsy cases, buggy software that was released to keep forecasters happy and all sorts of other politics. Not to mention, tech support for many companies is a LOSING division. I doubt you see any support centers that operate on profit as one phone call costs somewhere in the $40-80 range. Therefore, costs may get cut elsewhere. Bleh. Oh well.

Here's the bottom line - it's not the computer. It's not the operating system. 90% of the computer programs are the things that make your system crash. Don't believe me?

I loaded a Dell notebook with Win 98 to use as a wireless gateway. No other applications loaded. Ran for 2-3 years, 24X7X365.

Most of the SW these days is poorly written, regardless of the platform, and that causes more crashes than anything else, regardless of the platform.

Originally posted by tyger23
As for what the "Best Buy" technition told you - there is NO SUCH THING as a low end hard drive. All hard drives Dell supplies are purchased from one of a very few manufacturers. These hard drives are the best in the business. However, all hard drives crash and develop bad sectors. I have it happen all the time on my systems at work. You only can rely on the tech support to get you through it.

As for our tech support - let the consumer digests and PC World reviews speak for us. Dell has won the Top Customer Support award for something like 14 years running. Now, as a Dell customer (before I worked there) I have had my own personal complaints about our tech support, but it is the best in the industry.

I personally apologize for the troubles you have experienced with Dell. I recommend that you express your troubles to the support tech that does answer the phone. Believe it or not, we actually listen. Plus, the more that your issue remains unsolved, the higher up the tech level you get and the more likely your issue is to be solved.

the hardrive is an IBM. 2yrs old. (coming from Sharif) apparently when the hardrive was released, it was a flop. IBM released some program that was to be run every 2 or 3 days to help dx if the hardrive was about to crash. i won't go into what the BB guy said about how hardrives are purchased. as for Tech Support...we told the lady what was wrong. she started out very helpful, very nice. then she said to power-up and hit control-D. that ran some test. given the results she said "it's the zip drive." after some questioning to the extent of "why the zip drive?" she then went on to say that we needed to re-install ME (XP had been installed). no way we're gonna install that crap. no way we could either, 'cause the comp was booting. went in circles about that. then she said "well i can't troubleshoot unless you re-install ME." then she insisted on it being the zip drive. she wanted mandi to start formatting stuff, but mandi was uneasy about doing that over the phone.

in the end, this really wasn't Dell's fault. just bad luck...so you don't need to appologize. thanks, though.

My brother used to to tech support in Best Buy and I can tell you that if the other techs are as clueless as he was, then I question the level of knowledge that they have.

Years ago when I worked for CDW it was clear that there were two levels of techs and there were only a few good ones and 75% bad ones.

When the sales guy knows more than the techs, there's a problem.

i knew more than one of the sales guys today. i felt special

Originally posted by Austin Bike
Here's the bottom line - it's not the computer. It's not the operating system. 90% of the computer programs are the things that make your system crash.

Damn hardware guys - always blaming the programmers... Just remember, without software, a computer is nothing but a noisy box...

Well you weren't smarter than this sales guy

I'm interviewing sales people and looking for people with a real high technical knowledge (almost support engineers).

All these guys say "oh yeah, I'm real technical" because they are dealing with a sales manager. Then I ask 'em something like "what are the 7 layers in the OSI networking model" and they crack.

The reality is that most of them consider themselves technical because they own it computer. It's sad. I'd give my soul for a sales person that is really technical and can close. Any of you out there?

nah, the customer was like "what does this mean, CF card?" the blue shirt guy (none-computer person) was perplexed. i looked at the product and said "it's compact flash...they're over by the digital cameras."

man, i'm like practically an engineer.