4th Repair Inc due to Nightmare Tech. & possible replacement

So after the 3rd breakdown, I payed for an on-site repair service (£29). This was the 3rd service on the Laptop and he was coming out to replace the Master GPU Fan + Mobo. This time however, it was a different tech. Turns out there were two techs in the area. So he went about stripping the PC down to it's chasis and what I saw what just nightmarish.

First, I asked if he had serviced one of these before, he said he had MANY times. Now comes the nightmare and his show of knowledge and skill; He threw, no exaggeration, yes THREW most of the parts across the table including memory and GPUs as well touched their circuit boards. No slow and steady for this guy, he just ripped it apart the fastest I've ever seen in my life. (5 Minutes) and then pulled the new Mobo out and touched every inch of it like he was buttering bread; touched the circuit boards and clipped things in super rough like he didn't give a banana about it and then put it all back together, stuffed the CF cables in and everything as well as the ribbon cables into their slots.

He put the computer back together, and by some feat of idiocy, forgot that the CMOS battery from the last mobo was still in there. So he tore it down AGAIN, removed the old CMOS battery and then managed, again by some feat, to get the new CMOS battery stuck between the chassis and the Mobo. After some elbow he ripped the CMOS battery from the chassis/mobo base and placed into it's slot accordingly. He then left all happy thinking he did a great job, he booted the system up, typed in the service tag into the BIOS and then let the PC boot, restarted it and then left it and went to go "repair" other PCs. I started playing Sniper Ghost Warrior I still had my mouse USB DCs, no matter where they were plugged into the laptop. They either went off or became unresponsive for a few seconds. The turning off required a reconnect which as you can imagine in an FPS, is extremely un-necessary and game killing so to speak.

I then called Dell tech up again and informed that I still had this long PC hang, and USB issue. To which the tech replied; "But we just replaced the Motherboard..." in which I responded by "Yes it was replaced but the tech wasn't exactly what I would have called a tech. He wasn't careful and went about it like he was buttering bread mate." The tech then said the USB issue would be down to the Mobo but he also asked me to run a AW Diag. Test via the resource CD.

I ran the test for 2 hours only to get ELEVEN GPU related errors (Re-occuring included) related to displaying the graphics on screen. 2 USB errors and finally 4 HDD errors (Was using their HDD for this test for results). So I phoned them up again and told them that I had received 16 errors to which the tech requested the error codes. I told all 11 of the codes to him and the amount of times they displayed. He then went to discuss this with his colleague and came back to say "This is a software related issue" when the Diag. is strictly a hardware test for faulty parts. He then said that these were user generated error codes (The GPU specifically) and that they were non-conclusive and they would like to take the laptop back to depot. I told them that I would run some non-interactive tests instead then.

I did manage to get the Esca. Team's email and also Dell top dog's email in the UK which was promising. But I will be asking for a Tech to be sent out, if i don't get a replacement this time, because I don't believe I got a tech, just some guy with tools and the parts to be honest. And I was charged £29 for that "Tech".

I am pretty sure I am eligible for a replacement certainly? Especially after the same parts are up for replacement; fans and soon to be the Mobo. I could either call in and get lucky with a phone guy sending this to Esca. Team or just email them + Dell top dog. Or maybe I could do all of those.

Opinions my friends? I do hope I'm not being difficult about this :S

 

I would think your up for a replacement. Id email the transcript of the repair and any conversation you deem useful via phone to dell.

Personally if it was me and dell sent a repair guy, Id video the repair work done so theres no way they could bs me later.

Personal experiance of getting my replacement m17xr3 for my m15xr3 has made me so careful now with dell.

 

I've had techs like this before and I've called them out on it in my house and at the office. Do not be afraid to call a tech out on how he is repairing your machine. It's YOUR investment and money he is mistreating, do not be afraid to call them out on it.

On a side note, they wanted me to send my machine off to depot because a tech stripped my cpu heat sink screws, I refused. I got the same run around you did. So I contacted dell on twitter. Msg @dellcares on twitter.

Hopefully they can help you as they did me. My M15x was recently replaced with a m17x r3.

 

Excellent its nice to see people with me on this. Question; What is a transcript? (>.<)

But yea I am on to Dell at the mo. Will try to finish this tomorrow and secure a replacement system because the instability of this is... lack of word to describe this in the dictionary.

 

Transcript - Written record of a conversation via email/msg or phone.

Basically a written record of a conversation.

 

Ah I see thanks Should have guessed that... lol

Cheers buds! I'll keep it updated.