DELL Support

[BoatBuoy]

Occasionally someone who's about to buy another computer throws questions out. Just thought I'd share some experiences. <br /><br />I've been having trouble with the CD/DVD drive on my DELL laptop. Last night I spent about 45 min. on the phone to DELL trying to fix it. The tech and I came to the conclusion it must be a hardware problem. <br /><br />Since I'd bought 3-year warranty in 10/2003, he queued up a new drive to be sent to me. When I got off the phone, it was about 8:30. <br /><br />That new drive was sitting on my front porch at 11:30 this morning. The address label said it came from Austin, TX. I'm in TN. 15 hr. later. That's hard to beat. 5 min. to put it in and I'm back in business.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: DELL Support

At my last job we had Dells all over. We had a multitude of problems with them but actually the same problem in every one. The hard drives failed (out of 15 computers I replaced 12) all under service contract but none of the units were close to 3 yrs old. I had replaced 3 mother boards and 4 processer chips. I have to admit that the parts all arrived very timely.<br /><br />I am less than fond of dell but they do make a decent laptop.... as for the desk tops I am not so sure.

 

[Baldguy]

Re: DELL Support

Funny...the dells in our office have a tendancy to hardrive failure as well. Easy to replace, hard to explain to folks that they just lost all the stuff on their drive.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: DELL Support

All the dell inside parts are just the cheapest available from the lowest bidder!

 

[Pony]

Re: DELL Support

I've tried to say that on this forum before......DELL of a few years ago= GREAT.....DELL now and of the last year or so= CRAP, cheap parts, cheap compute. ya get what you pay for

 

[Pony]

Re: DELL Support

Dell has made too many cutbcks since October with service and quality after they missed sales revenue two quarters in a row........they are building with crappy parts etc. Its not real bad yet, but it will be. This is why I say DELL of a few years ago are great. Recent DELLs are garbage, and despite the fact I have two of them, I wouldnt buy another in the desktop form. A laptop maybe.

 

[ZmOz]

Re: DELL Support

Originally posted by Bob_VT:<br /> All the dell inside parts are just the cheapest available from the lowest bidder!

And what computer isn't? Dells have the same memory, processors, and hard drives as Compaq, Sony, HP, Gateway, and everybody else that makes computers. They ALL use the cheapest parts they can find. That's how you make money in 2005. All the other companies have just as many failures as Dell, but none of them are as good about replacing parts. I've spent at least $10,000 on Dell products and will continue to do so. It may be an annoyance to talk to someone in India who doesn't speak english in order to get support, but they never hesitate to send you a brand new part completely free shipped overnight. They even give you a prepaid return label for the bad part...and you don't even have to return it if you don't feel like it. No other company offers that kind of support, period. I've dealt with all the big ones...<br /><br />ANY computer will break down if you run it long enough. 100% of the computers Dell makes will eventually have a failure. 100% of the computers sony makes will have a failure. 100% of the computers HP/compaq make will have a failure. Blaming it on one company is like blaming Chevy because your tires wore out.

 

[BoatBuoy]

Re: DELL Support

The most significant difference in the inside is the system board. DELL's are (or used to be) made by DELL and only DELL. Don't know about them all, but Gateway farmed out their system board mfg. and you never knew when you opened one, what was in there, even like models.<br /><br />As ZmOz said, other components are made by various mgf. DELL nor any other company makes memory chips, disk drives, video chipsets, etc. IBM used to mfg all their stuff, but IBM doesn't even own IBM anymore.

 

[18rabbit]

Re: DELL Support

IBM farmed out the laptop sales/manf/dist to Lenovo, built to IBM spec. Hardware & software support and service is provided by IBM. I just bought one, thanks to a bunch of help from the folks on this forum.