System exchange help

Yeah, you obviously got someone that got some sort of school qualification to become a manager and know absolutely nothing about computers - it happens in the best companies I'm afraid. He is in CYA mode now so you should get a new one with a 780 (since the 580 was top of the range at the time, dumb but this logic has been used in the past!) but who knows, fingers crossed

 

Hopefully it will get sorted out. I give kudos to techs and managers who try their best! Glad to hear about your m18x r 2!

 

Looks like we have this case under control. If anyone else needs help please let me know.

 

I don't know what you did, if anything, but thank you.

I received my specs today:

4700MQ, 8 GB Ram, 765m. I am very happy with this.

Original specs were:

2670QM, 8 GB Ram, 580m.

Despite the issues I dealt with, I am happy that Dell came through and I will be buying a new AW 14 come January.

 

We are glad to be of help!

 

The 765m, is a "little" weaker card then your 580m, I would request a 770m, to remove any doubt about performance.

 

765M is more powerful than a 580m

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-765M-vs-GeForce-GTX-580M

 

765m is better than a 580m. GPU Boss is crap for comparisons. Try Notebookcheck instead - far more detailed. It's more comparable than a 770m would be, but it would remain at his discretion if he wanted to push for a 770m, as there is not too much between the 765m and the 580m - some titles, the 580m does perform better....

But if he's happy.....

 

I'll agree with you in those regards. Also you are right in some aspects one or the other gpu is better. Although, with a 770m there would be no debate.

 

I did try for a 770, but was told that it's not available in that specification. Which, I know isn't true, but I'm not interested in fighting this further. I feel that my replacement is fair though, according to the Terms and Conditions of the Warranty and I am happy with the specs.

I just want to play Assassin's Creed again!

 

Understandable, congrats!

 

I, for one, am pleased that you are pleased!! - any outcome that an individual is happy with is a good one, in my book! - hope you can get back to enjoying your computer as soon as possible, mate.

Regarding the 770m. I think that there have been a few things at play that put a end to that possibility, and primarily that would have been the involvement of the BBB. That might sound odd, but I've been told by 'people in the know' at Dell, that as soon as a BBB claim is filed, Dell revert to extremely strict adherence to their terms of service and warranty. That would mean that they would then look very closely at things, so that you get 'like for like', and unfortunately, that also means that you kind of become 'ineligible' for the kind of crazy bumps that we see being posted about here on NBR.

Still, any result that you can walk away with, that you are pleased with, is a good one!!

 

However, isn't that what this forum wants is a stricter guide line in which our support follows. So we can all expect the same "type" of support from our manufacture. I agree happiness is key in a business deal. Or any deal in that matter, but one thing is for sure when a company services so many customers for a high end product we all deserve some set of guidelines .. Not like what most of us get us just limbo.

 

GTX 765M is about 10-20% slower than GTX 580M. You see GTX 765M beating GTX 580M in some games, but that is because it was tested with a faster CPU, hence getting better results in CPU bound games.

GTX 765M have a memory bandwidth of 64GB/s. (You only get a tiny 128bit bus...)
GTX 580M have a memory bandwidth of 96GB/s (256Bit bus)

Go figure....

 

Exactly, but it's hence " around the same performance " and the 770m would just top it. So that would be out of the question with the BBB Involved.

 

I figured this too, but the real reason I contacted them was how I was flat out ignored for over a week. Anyone I contacted before I contacted the BBB never got back to me after the initial greeting, or had wrong information or told me to wait for my first tech support rep to contact me, which he didn't do until 8 days later.

Which, it kinda sucks because the hope was that sort of behavior would be recognized and mentioned, but all I really got was a "sorry" for it. I did ask for the 770m and mentioned my troubles for it, but initially I wasn't looking for anything out of it, just better communication all around.

I just wanted to know my issue was being taken care of, but I didn't know what was going on most of the time. Even Luis, who supposedly helped me (and if he did I'm thankful for) I didn't know he was doing anything for my case. I am a very patient person as long as I am kept up to date on the situation and I feel like the ball was dropped on the "updating" part.

Totally agree. Even though I am happy with how it turned out, especially considering my initial offer (640m what?) and the BBB contact suddenly turns Dell into Beast Mode makes sense and I can see how they'd want to go by the book, there are others on this forum who contacted the BBB, got a rep and got "more" out of the deal, BBB involved or otherwise.

Which is what I'd like to see, some sort of equality. I've heard it's how you treat the rep, talk to people, and in some cases like the OPs, even manipulation. And again I have nothing against the OP, but my point is we shouldn't have to manipulate to get better service or that extra for our troubles. There shouldn't be troubles in the first place if communication was job one and there was some sort of standard in place, and despite the warranty Terms and Conditions we all know there isn't anything like that whatsoever.

There isn't any bit of transparency, which is unfortunate.

 

Pretty much hit the nail on the head with the above. There cannot possibly be a 'standard' in place that Dell follow regarding replacement specifications, because if there was, there would not be such a wide disparity in resolutions. I know many people will be sick of me saying about my replacement offer, but a 3630qm for a 2960xm and a single 675m for dual 6990m's is NOT anywhere near comparable. I'm sorry, but whomever was dealing with my replacement specification clearly did not know the difference between a computer and a food blender.

It's not like the extended warranties on these machines is cheap - far from it. I took 4 years Complete Care. Was I 'Completely Cared' for? - nope. I consider that to be a breach of my rights under warranty, and Dell just 'extracting the urine'. I still find it unbelievable how on one hand, someone with a 2720qm and 580m Sli can go to a new 18 with Extreme Cpu and 780m Sli, and I on the other hand, take a warranty 'detour' and end up with a far less powerful offer.

Also, contact is key. One thing that I found extremely upsetting, during my ten week haul, was the fact that I had to do the chasing. There was zero sense of urgency or importance, because if there was, it would not have taken Dell three weeks to come back to me with a proposal of a replacement specification.

There needs to be people 'properly trained' in assessing hardware - people that are also empathetic instead of insulting - people that actually give a damn, basically. I spoke to my Dell sales manager (who is a very good friend of many years and he is in India, btw and is very good - so not all outsourced staff are useless LOL) and when I mentioned the name of the Dell Executive Resolutions Team Member that was dealing with my case, he said "Oh, yeah...I used to work with him in Bangalore - he knows nothing about Alienware or hardware" - that, to me is pretty bad....these 'executives' are supposed to be the 'be all and end all' and if they do not know what they are doing, the customer is simply at their unknowledgeable mercy, which is simply not acceptable when paying the kind of prices we pay for these machines and for their warranty.

I feel that Dell needs a structured procedure in place, globally, with people fully trained just for that purpose, to deal with these kind of things....until they do that, many of us will continue to be at the mercy of uneducated, unsympathetic morons. I'd love to jump right back on the Alienware wagon, but the only thing stopping me is the service and support. It scares me that I would possibly be in the same situation again at some point - fighting tooth and nail for service that many other people get without the extreme trauma that many of us have to go through in order to obtain an EQUAL solution.

 

You are correct sir. GTX 765M > GTX 580M > GTX 770M
Each jump represent about 10-20%.

But personally, in my humble opinion, customer should not have to suffer, and should therefor be upgraded to the nearest GPU.

There is about $80 more for the GTX 770M over the 765M looking at the GPU market. You dont cheap out $80 when thats all it takes to make the customer very happy.

I wouldnt put up with a choked out GPU that have a tiny 128bit bus that is incapable of keeping up when you apply more graphical settings or add mods in a game.
The memory bandwidth is the same as GTX 660M, a midrange GPU.

My 10 cents

 

I agree with you that you probably got shafted with your exchange. I also agree on the point that Dell really needs to do a better job communicating status updates. The communication is pretty key since it doesn't cost them anything and probably the number 1 thing that leads to pissed off customers. As a service organization, they also should learn to under promise and over deliver. And at least call back when you say you will.

I also agree that most of the support people really don't give a damn and that's a shame. Maybe turnover is high and and this is like a fast food job over there, but you get better service from the MickeyD's fry guy.

That said, I sorta disagree that we can expect personal concierge service. The price that AW charges is maybe 10% more than a comparable Asus or MSI right? All I hear is support sucks across the board so it's unlikely they can do much to change or need to do much to change when all the laptop vendors suck this bad. Sounds like only Apple does a good job and how much more is a mac compared to a similar specced PC machine? I don't know myself.

As I said before, support tends to be a low end entry level job. Most of the AW reps aren't Alienware interested people and it's just a job. Like most jobs, there is 20% of the people doing 80% of the work so you can see why most just get through their day and eventually gets replaced, etc...

All the Good service people tend to get promoted and don't end up there for long so this is why the support tends to suck. Maybe they need to tie compensation directly to a customer feedback survey...I just don't think there's currently any incentive for them to treat any of us better so they don't. Sorta like the DMV in the United States or the Post Office here, service sucks and the workers simply don't care. I'd had a US Postal guy say to me that he gets paid the same no matter how fast he works so he just takes his time. Simply doesn't care.

Oh well, Dell should fire all the outsourced out country support and rebuild it from scratch. Maybe that's the plan after going private, but more likely, they will try to be more like IBM and just leave the consumer space and get more into services...

As for prices, I don't think prices are that insane even with no discount so it's hard for me to agree that service can be expected to be that much better. The main problem is service sucks across the whole laptop industry and numerous people have already said Dell is the best of the bunch already so I don't know what else they can do.

You just got a bad deal and it may be tied to the previous issues you had and probably a bad case manager, but outside of your case, it sounds like the majority still gets what they want or are happy with so it's just hard to expect any changes at this time with where things are at with the whole industry.

 

And when you wont't put up with something you take action, we can all agree with Dell you cant just lie around and take it. But as said several time some of us have different limits on what we will want to pursue and that's okay.

 

Actually I don't think dell will ever proceduralise replacement policy, or even have a global internal written one. Each region operates on it's own P&L and as such has to be in control of their own costs. Dell may say their laptop warranty is global but just pull up the T's & C's for the complete care (accidental) one. The US one clearly states it can be renewed at any time up to expiry. The UK one specifically excludes this. You can only get CC at the time of purchase and it cannot be extended at all. I know, I tried hard but got the T's&C's sent to me - nope not going to happen.

Now, with replacements, as we all probably know by now, unless there is a local lemon law, they only have to do 'best endeavours' which means keep sending the engineers and parts, or turning it around at the depot, until it gets fixed. And the parts under the contract do not have to be new, only refurb. This is something dell have always done.

In some countries where warranty claims turn up in the last week of coverage they will not even offer CC!

My replacement took less than 24 hours to agree config after they agreed that they wanted to replace it. And don't think this is a goodwill gesture, it is costing them a small fortune every time they send engineers so it is cheaper to cut their losses and send a replacement. It is at this point that being a nice guy will help you get a better machine. If they like you, you are more likely to get a decent offer. P them off and they will barely offer a like-for-like. Which of course angers a lot of people!

The reason that many US customers wait weeks to get an offer is simple. The country is huge and eventually something comparable will turn up in the outlet. Just delay by whatever means, usually by not getting back to you and they get a cheaper option. My guy said (once a replacement was approved) , I'll just have a quick look in the outlet, I don't expect to find an R3 but I have to check. 5 mins on hold and he was back with, 'nope there isn't one so we will build you a new R4!'

next day, all agreed (way better 'for all the problems') and it was with me within 2 weeks.

It's the joys of a company trying to operate on a global level with local profit's being judged by corporate, and I've been in that situation. Very difficult for the staff at the sharp end to understand or comply with!

I'm just about to go through the 'support mill' sometime next week with this one, and I'll post results, hopefully after the event rather that an ongoing rant!

I'd just say be nice and hope, you do not have ANY right to get angry (except on the basis these machines cost a fortune so they should bend over backwards to help us) and claiming your 'rights' to a low level phone jockey is simply going to get you in a dispute loop for ages.

Another thing is these forums. Now people see what others get they think they are entitled to the same. So many E European users screaming for replacements or even on-site, where dell NEVER will send an engineer. They always have an 'out'. 'We have tried to identify the problem with remote support but are unable. It has to come back'. So again, although in high volume countries they send engineers, elsewhere where sales are small, and margins low it will often never happen!

Apologies if I've said this stuff before - goldfish brain!

Edit: Just recently been told by an AU user that they have laws against refurb parts being used to repair equipment purchased new, so AU support calls always result in new parts!

 

So much of that is sadly true....

 

Agreed can we sticky this comment .. Or post it so all can see what support actually means for alienware's to keep people aware? That's my 2 cents.

Sticky the comment made by Micky.

 

Of course I think so too. Unfortunately the mods like to keep stickies to a minimum (logical ) so as you may see they all seem to be mod initiated. Not a complaint in any way, just an observation

 

Have a couple of your posts 'vanished'?

Edit, I think this thread has been moved up a level, so tidying up is probably what happened

I'll bump it a couple of times when I remember but don't want to upset anyone

 

Yeah seems as they have, they should of been combined anyway but I was using tap talk and had no way of editing. XD

 

Well, I thought I'd post here since it's not OT and I hope the OP is Ok with the hijack

Felt well enough to make 'that call' so just got off the phone. First, UK support is now run out of slovakia! I know nothing of their culture so just played it straight and followed instructions to the letter.

Nice efficient guy, went through all the usual, bios update (bit of a prob there since it was in safe mode) but ripping out the NV driver altogether got it into windows and did the bios update. Was all looking good, he wanted to run some tests, and discovered I already had all he needed! Running Heaven 4, all good so he asked me to give it a stress test. Left Heaven4 and after 15 mins, bang, fans as full blast, speaker buzzing. He called me back and asked if he could confirm by checking the reliability monitor. No problem, he saw it and said I'd get a call to replace the vid card tomorrow.

So, we shall see. Of course, he said it might be MB and apologised that it might require another visit, but again, I have enough going on and I'm not going anywhere, so no problem at all! (and that will hit 3+ engineer visits so maybe, just maybe, It might go 'there', but it's not what I really want, just a working gaming rig

 

Good luck with it, Micky :thumbsup: - seems like Dell replace MB's as a standard practice a lot of the time. Hope your issues get fixed, and if not, you should be 'okay' to request that a replacement machine request be considered with the attempts you've had to fix. On a side note, I think a lot of Alienware technical support (for the UK) is based out of Slovakia and the like....sales/customer service for Dell UK tends to be based out of India (Bangalore, Hyderabad etc). At least from my experiences anyway....

 

Guess so, it's that I have always dealt with AW guys out of India, and unlike most I find then reasonable to deal with (although the accent can be a little problematic). My worry was that I have dealt with AW support when in Hungary. Worst ever, with refusing to send an engineer and even refusing support, 'because you have opened it'. Pointed out that this was allowed then he demanded that the original RAM was replaced. It was a 3rd party purchase so I did not have it - 'good bye and thank you for purchasing dell.'

Boy was I spitting blood, needed a strong shot just to be able to talk to my friends.

Edit: And took the machine out to the woods and shot it with an AK47. That relieved some stress!

 

Mickey is right on the spot, every country varies when it comes to support. Dell Australia has the policy to only repair and keep repairing, if system was purchased in another country, unless the tag is properly transferred to dell Australia, which is easier said than done.

On replacement topic, I have seen 3 visits and replacement and I have seen 12+ visits and then replacement. What I understand is, dell Australia works by the policy of same issue being repaired 3 times before automatic replacement. To the point, if same engineer comes 3 times to sort out the same issue, he will automatically ask for replacement system. Never seen or heard about refurbished unit provided during replacement, always new and always better than original.

But Australia has different laws to rest of the world, since jan 2012, statuary warranty has been in enforced, where manufacturers warranty can be 90 days on a tv but if that particular tv was advertised as durable and of quality product then legal warranty can last upto 5yrs and manufacturer/retailer has to provide refund/replacement/repair.

For example a mobile phone costing $1000 should last more than 1year excluding damage/accident/missuse, as such many customers have been able to strong arm apple to get there phones repaired/replaced even after 1st yr of warranty ended, without purchasing additional coverage. If one can strong arm apple, then others do not stand a chance (in my eyes apple is hardest to deal with). Not 100% sure how that affects laptops/desktops, but one can always raise a dispute with tribunal.

Since alienware is considered a premium brand and considered a quality product, then reasonable life expectancy is almost 3-4yrs, as such one can claim this at tribunal and get full refund or repair or replacement well after warranty finishes (assuming 1yr warranty only).

 

@vs3074. Thanks.

Perfect example of what I was saying about local lemon laws. Just about every country that dell does business in has a rider on all warranties. Nothing contained can affect your statutory rights under the law of the land.

The US has some great 'lemon' laws in many States. Built to clamp down on the motor industry where people were expected to put up with fix after fix on a very expensive product. In most cases it works just as well for any 'premium' product. And Dell can only fall back on their 'refurb' clause if it does not conflict with local laws.

Good to know, I never got to your part of the globe

 

"Edit: Just recently been told by an AU user that they have laws against refurb parts being used to repair equipment purchased new, so AU support calls always result in new parts!"

Really! Dell sent out refurbished parts to attempt to repair mine. The packaging was clearly labelled refurbished.. and I was being nosey.

My recent experience with dell and alienware has been very mixed.. and it is relevant to this discussion so I'll summarize

In the space of 3 months, dell sent a tech (from a contractor, no actual dell presence in this city) to attempt repair on my M17X R4 four times. Each time it was damaged or scratched or not screwed together properly.. and by the 3rd time when the problem was finally fixed, even more serious faults were introduced .. I would assume probably from the refurbished parts not actually being in good working order. So what begun as a mildly annoying screen fault ended up with a machine that blue screened and keyboard didnt function properly.

Anyway, I am always highly understanding and polite to service departments (because I used to work in one!) but when the voice on the other end of the phone told me I had to personally deliver my computer to 1 hour drive away to attempt repair #5, because the computer was no longer in premium warranty (the original fault occurred within the warranty period), I lost control. I demanded a replacement computer (rather than yet another incompetent repair by these contractors) for days and was told that the request was rejected over and over.

I called our australian buyers protection 'consumer affairs' and they told me what I'm entitled to. As soon as I mentioned to dell support that I had called them for advice, they fairly quickly approved a full replacement. I didn't even have to argue.

This tells me two things... firstly that dell probably employ people purely to do as much as possible to get out of having to replace the computer even if the time frames and inconvenience are totally unacceptable... and that they know very well that they're violating our rights as consumers, but wont take action until you demonstrate knowledge of rights and laws.

As soon as my case was handed over to the sales team to negotiate replacement, everything was delightful again (like when I first bought the computer). They sent me a spec list, I rejected it based on the GPU and CPU being slower than the original, they quickly came back to me with an upgraded spec list. I agreed and the order was placed.

So.. Dell sales, thumbs up.
Dell support, horrible.
Dell using poorly trained or poorly skilled contractors from another company to carry out repairs? Makes me wonder why I bother having a warranty. Seriously they broke more than they fixed.

In the end I am happy that I'm receiving a new computer which is mildly upgraded. But still a bit bitter about how hard I had to fight to receive adequate service.

Alienware for my next computer purchase? Not sure now. See how the next year goes with my 17.

 

@DrChips,

I believe the AU user has posted in this tread earlier so it might be that there are loopholes in the AU consumer protection, or more likely, as you say, they will try any lower cost option unless you know your rights.

It is disappointing that Dells support for AW seems to have gone over to the mainstream type warranty support where you always have to fight to get resolution. It is kinda understandable in the current economic climate, with PC sales dropping through the floor, and Dell trying to widen the AW market by removing some of the more 'flashy' things so they look more mainstream.

As I have mentioned before, I am not convinced that this is not just the start of a poorer service than we have become accustomed to. Look at the nightmare this poor guy is going through: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/726652-m17x-r3-constant-nvkflt-sys-bsods.html . All sound familiar? If support starts to cut corners then Dell has lost the last advantage they had for me as a customer, time to move on

I was disappointed with the new 17 so never got one, but I watch their owners lounge and it seems dell have been responsive to the initial problems of throttling. A new vBIOS seems to have fixed it for most. Now, I believe a lot of the issues are down to bad factory paste jobs. The guys there seem happy to do their own repastes. Personally, I got dell to sort my R3/580 overheat - new heatsink complete with pads and paste.

As far as I know dell use subcontractors pretty much everywhere. They have the logistics and dells only requirement on them is some factory approved training. In the US and here in the UK I believe Unisys is used. My local engineer is excellent (on first name terms now - probably not a good sign!) and knows his way around the R3 and R4 so it's in bits in minutes

On-site is always going to be a bit of a dice roll and we here at NBR get the complaints, often the same as yours, damaging it more than repairing it. Who knows the hit rate for success. That information will be carefully guarded by Dell.

Did you get a new warranty or just a transfer of the remaining period?

 

Throwing my hat in on this. Have had 2 Alienware 17 and both have had issues. 1st one came with a bad GPU and the 2nd has a bad motherboard. Now I have to wait over a month until the parts get in or for a replacement. What kind of company does this to its customers. I can honestly say Alienware has gone down the tubes as Dell has slowly started to nickel and dime on everything. I feel they are no longer the niche brand they used to be.

 

Thanks for the informative response! I bought some arctic-whatever silver version eleventyfour paste for my R4 but never used it because it ran so nicely already. I will make note to splash some around inside the new 17 when it comes. Don't want any excessive throttling.

Should the recently ordered systems be coming with the new vBIOS or will I have to flash it myself?

I was actually really smug while reading a 780M review earlier tonight... over at anandtech, The alienware R4 with the 7970M was occasionally outperforming the 780M in the MSI laptop thanks to (they claimed) the AW's better cooling and lack of throttling as a result. Little things like that remind me why I went Alienware in the first place. So your mention of throttling on the new ones has me a little concerned.

Anyway, Dell will do what dell want. I'm still 75% impressed by their service. Next day onsite is actually pretty cool... even if they do send morons. hehe

Cheers.

ps. oh, and no, they didn't extend my warranty. Given my computer was unusable for 25% of the warranty period, I probably could have argued this point. I guess its too late now. Anyway I'm not one to complain. Just got a free upgrade.

 

Sadly I'm getting the same impression. I'm starting to wonder if dedicated AW support is now simply the mainstream support answering as AW? They sure are acting like it...

I've been used to Dell supporting over 500 laptops (me being the decision maker ) when I worked in the US, and was surprised that AW support was as good as I got from Dell Business.

We still have at least one AW rep here that can assist with problems, and for US/CA customers, raise support calls. At one time there were at least four including management.

 

If it's a new build then in all probability the new BIOS will be on it. My last one actually came with an unreleased BIOS!

You'll need to trawl through the owners lounge to see the throttling issues but a quick fix is to raise the temperature limit in Afterburner. More of a workaround since temps seem to be in the high 70'sC, but I haven't seen any details of just what dell did with the BIOS, only that it fixed it for most. I also think it happened mainly in benchmark programs that will stress the card to it's limit.

Shame about the warranty, I had a similar amount of downtime and asked. Got a fresh new one including the accidental bit. If they sent to an invoice for tracking have a look through that, you might find the warranty is there

 

Remember as bad as we believe Dell warranty can be at times just try to get a resolution from Asus, HP, or Toshiba,Clevo,or Saga. Either I, friends or family have had problems with all of them. They do not pay shipping either way keep the unit a month or more, return it with same problems. Or void the warranty because consumer opened it up or installed 3rd party parts. Not just void the 3rd party part but the hole warranty mind you. Asus is great for that burned me that way. All in all Dell got service problem? Yes. Do they come to the right conclusion every time? No. Are they still the best warranty out there? Most of the time. Bottom line when I have a system problem with a multi thousand dollar notebook yes I get stressed, I get up set, think of what customer support must go through every day dealing with it. I know they are paid for it but probably not enough. Just my 2cents worth.

 

Good points. I'm sure that other suppliers are far more difficult to deal with, but then again they are quite a bit cheaper. For fun I built a Shenker 17, Sli 770's, 120hz display, 2xSSD's and 1xHDD, yada, yada and over £1K cheaper than the nearest AW I could build - but of course RTB for problems.

 

So despite them saying my warranty would carry over from my original purchase, the order says this:

1 Yr ProSupport: Next Business Day Onsite Service 1
ProSupport: 7x24 Technical Support & Assistance: 1Yr 1
# Limited Warranty: Initial Year (NBD) 1
# Limited Warranty: Initial Year (POW) 1

Maybe you're right and they threw a new warranty in.

This may also tie in with something the service guy told me. He said according to AU law, replacement parts must be covered with a fresh warranty. So even if the laptop warranty expire for example, if the screen is only 6 months old since replacement, it is still warrantied.

And given this computer is about 100 replacement parts (haha).. maybe they are forced by law to refresh the warranty period. It may have just been their standard procedure for international service to tell me original warranty applies only.

Maybe I'll call them after some time and clarify if it is still under warranty.

 

After you receive it check the service tag on your account it will display the warranty on the system.

 

Yup, I thought that was the way it was being done. Actually easier for them than all the work involved with a service transfer. When it's an outlet machine the same happens on the ones I have seen.

When you get it you can just use the service tag on support.dell.com to see the status and coverage.

I don't know what 'POW is but it could be the Complete Care component or some AU offering?

 

POW = parts only warranty, I imagine....or it could be Batman speak for 'here's your warranty - Pow!'

 

HaHa, like it!

That makes sense as a breakdown item - thanks.

 

Just thought I'd post an update to this necro'd thread.

Seems that Dell still are giving the support I expect and reports of it's demise are premature