m17x r3 saga....

It's one of those things you read about on here and think to yourself "that's terrible" or "this guy/gal has got to be exaggerating" Well after a little over one month I can officially say I am not a fan of Dell customer support. Last month while playing warcraft I got a dreaded BSOD. First time ever on any computer! Was hoping it would be a one time deal, unfortunately that was not the case. It happened a few more times while gaming and once while watching some netflix. So I called support to help me fix this issue. They "took control" of my laptop and tried to figure it out. That first time it was "must be an OS issue" So I redid my win 7 install. It was fine for about 2 days then bam, another BSOD. The next few days/week are all jumbled together. From "losing connection" after an hour on the phone with a rep and then not having them call me back to watching them redownload every driver for the pc 5 times. To having them completely shut off my intel hd graphics to changing my bios configuration back and forth 6 times. 1 rep did this, another rep then swapped it back....it was messy.

Finally after about 2 weeks my screen just went freaking black. Like hey it's shut off black. They then decided my graphics card (580) was dying so they ordered one and had a tech sent out. The day before the tech got here the laptop face planted and upon trying to restart it I got 6 or 7 beeps, whichever one confirms a graphics card death. So I thought to myself "ok awesome it is this piece they gonna fix it for me then im set!" Tech comes out swaps out the graphics card, boots into bios to turn on intel card for me. reboots and bam black screen pc wont do ANYTHING. Tech is confused, im confused dell support is also confused. So they tell me repair depot is going to be the answer.

I send it off to the depot and get it back 5 days later. Here is an interesting side story about my fedex guy. I received my laptop at 1220pm. Sign for it bring it in the house open it up and am instantly perplexed that the pc isnt in the foam envelope that it shipped with, it is sitting on top of it. No biggie case looks fine! Open it up hit the power button, and am instantly hit with the warning screen that my pc suffered an unexpected shut down, how would i like to proceed. Still being positive I thought maybe in a rush to get it shipped to me they just hard powered it down and that was that. 10 minutes after using it to browse the internet, I get another BSOD. Outraged. So I get it back on get into event viewer and am very surprised to see that at 11:30am that day (50 minutes before I signed for it) my laptop had another critical shutdown. Checked out my internet history and sure as hell, there is a history at that same time on chrome. UN FREAKING REAL. Yes fed ex corporate was called.

So back to the computer, its having the same issues it was before the black screen of death started happening. I call dell support and they instantly suggest it must be the "new graphics card", oh before I forget the depot replaced my MOBO. I went off on this guy, I said you mean to tell me the graphics card you sent me thats supposed to be brand new is the problem now? He recanted and then sent me up the chain to someone else. The new guy suggested it had to be my old power supply so he sent me a 330w power supply and I recieved that 2 days ago. Since then I have had 3 more blue screens. -__- I called tonight and got a guy that ran some more tests (same old tests) and I said to him in the middle of it "When are you guys going to actually do something to fix this problem" He muttered something and I just dropped it. It's not like im mad at these reps I'm just mad overall at the situation and lack of one rep knowing another rep did. By the end of the phone call tonight I have a case number and am waiting on a "area managers approval" for sending me a replacement laptop (with equal specs)

No idea if Id get an r3 or an r4 I just want something equal to what I paid for power wise. I have an i7 2760 and the 580m. if they gave me an r4 what would be equal to that in your guys opinion. At any rate I guess this "area manager" could always deny it as well, I'll find out on tuesday.

the saga continues!

 

Very interesting story, I hope all is resolved for you.

 

Jeez, yeah I played phone tag with the standard techs, not with any issues though, I was trying to obtain an 680m card for my R3 laptop. After being tossed around I finally got Advanced/Gaming department of Alienware, they immediately said I'm not the usual customer, gave me the low down on what would happen and what wouldn't be covered by my warranty and sold me the video card.

If only the first 3 reps I spoke to just sent me to that department, I'd be happy.

You can call these guys, Idk if you spoke to any of them, I spoke with an Anbres Delgado, his e-mail is [email protected] if you wanna hit him up, also, the direct department contact line is 1-(877) 330-9732, maybe you can just see if you spoke with them, hopefully they will be as cool with you as they were with me.

I wasn't happy with the first 3 guys, but these guys that were in this department of only 20 men, lmfao, made my day, sold me the card for 560 and sent EVERYTHING with it, including heat sink, fan, bracket, all the bits, beautiful.

If it helps, this was the only department I spoke with where I could actually hear other people talking and working in the background of their phones, lmfao.

 

I had a similar experience with my last laptop (M1530), it unfortunately left a very bad impression on me...........hence the new Sager in my sig instead of an Alienware. Dell's warranty may be the "golden standard" in the industry, but the customer service is barely a shadow of what it used to be..........

I eventually got my computer replaced with an XPS-15 through complete care, it took well over 2 months and countless phones calls/emails. In the end was the price premium worth it? Not in the least.......for me anyway.

I did actually want to give Dell another shot at my business when I was looking for a new laptop a couple months back, but upon speaking with their customer service trying to "build" a laptop it was blatantly obvious that things have only gotten worse.

 

well my case was approved for an exchange. They are looking for one with matching specs now and if one cannot be found they will give me an upgrade. I just want one that works!