Good old Dell support.

**pmeswani** · 10 April 2009, 22:31

Originally posted by minestrone View Post

Made a few comments on here in the last few months about having to send my laptop back but finally got round to it today.

2 faults, screen is blotchy and video card keeps dropping every hour and screen goes blank for 15 seconds. So we go through to India. Conversation went like this...

"Hi I have 2 faults one is that my screen is blotchy and the other is that screen crashes every hour"

"does it happen on the hour?"

"no it is random"

Next 10 minutes I have to reassure him that it is not the screensaver nor a specific application. Then we go through a diagnostic on the PC to fault find the crashing I say what about the blotchy screen.

"OK Kill the diagnostic I have to fault find the blotchy screen first"

"Can we not just keep running this first, I don't think the screen is a software fault or a hardware fault, I just think it is a poor quality individual screen from a manufacturing process"

Next 10 minutes I have to argue with him what software, hardware and manufacturing is. Eventually the diagnostics give me an error on the LCD which I never expected so he agrees to replace the LCD. He then says..

"OK we will take the PC back and change the LCD and wipe the hard drive and rebuild it with Windows"

"You will do no such %$^$ing thing!!!"

"but it is a driver fault and that is why we have to rebuild the machine"

"the driver is up to date"

They are sending someone round next week to replace the screen and he is going to call me back on Monday to see if the screen has blanked out again in which case he might send round a video card as well.

Imagine you put your developer machine into get a screen fix and then wiped the drive!! Not sure I will use DELL again.

Get someone to build you a standby system, transfer all your files across and hope for the best.

**jmo21** · 11 April 2009, 09:05

is it an XPS M1330?

**minestrone** · 11 April 2009, 09:34

Studio 15

**gingerjedi** · 11 April 2009, 10:47

They must have different levels of support for corporate and home users, whenever I ring for my end client as soon as I give them the asset tag they transfer the call to a UK based technician.

They also use a 3rd party to swap screens and hard drives within 24 hours, I’ve had to ring them maybe 30 times and never had an issue.

**jmo21** · 11 April 2009, 12:15

my XPS had problems with the display similar to what you described.

They first of all replaced the screen twice, then the entire motherboard, before they finally gave in to my demands of a brand new laptop

all fixes were onsite at work so it wasn't too big a deal, but I found them terrible to deal with.

**minestrone** · 11 April 2009, 12:30

Originally posted by jmo21 View Post

my XPS had problems with the display similar to what you described.

They first of all replaced the screen twice, then the entire motherboard, before they finally gave in to my demands of a brand new laptop

all fixes were onsite at work so it wasn't too big a deal, but I found them terrible to deal with.

They are total idiots, they speak to you like a double glazing salesman speaks to a pensioner. The guy was trying to tell me that a monitor defect could cause a driver error.

I believe that the studio is pretty much a rebranded XPS line so they probably share much of the same internals.

**jmo21** · 11 April 2009, 14:47

aye, at one point, between the first and 2nd call out's, the muppet on the phone said to me "ok I'm going to get you to open up the laptop now"

I said no, I'm not going to do that, I'm not an engineer, I don't have the tools etc.

after I finished speaking, he continued on, "so if you just unscrew the panel"....

At that point I got REALLY annoyed.

One of the engineers that came out (from 3rd party company) said all they were dealing with at that time was faulty XPS with issues exactly the same as mine (this was July 08)

Since that incident and a similar experience with BT's indian call centre, I push to escalate to a manager as soon as they annoy me, or prove to be talking rubbish.

**minestrone** · 11 April 2009, 16:51

When he remoted in to my machine, which really I was not happy about, to download the driver which were already up to date he was giving it..

"So have you considered buying a new laptop from dell?"

"well if you fix this laptop I might consider it"

"OK, can I have someone to call you back betweeen 4 and 5 today?"

"no you cannot"

"OK"

5 mins later

"I have set up a call from one of my team to call you about new laptops sir"

"well I will not pick it up I am not interested"

"ok"

5 mins later

"I give you my email address now and when you want to buy these laptops you can give me a mail"

Pretty much everything I got was DELL in the last 10 years but I am through with them. Service aimed at the average punter in the street and when they get someone who knows something about computers they just start spouting mince.

**minestrone** · 13 April 2009, 10:52

Originally posted by jmo21 View Post

They first of all replaced the screen twice, then the entire motherboard, before they finally gave in to my demands of a brand new laptop

They have now agreed to replace the motherboard and the screen. Looks like the same issues.

Good old Dell support.