My experience with Dell

OK, I read all the time about people having bad experiences with Dell and their technical support, so I figured that I would share with you the issues / resolutions that I am having at present time.

At time of writing the Dell technician has been requested, I am hoping to get a call early next week to arrange a time / date and I will update this as the process goes on.

I have been the proud owner of maybe 20 or 30 laptops. Most end up going to charity when I'm done with them, because I can't be bothered with selling them and I'm the sort of person who regularly donates to charity anyway.

At present, I have 3 laptops. A Macbook air that to be honest only gets brought out for trips abroad, a Sager 8660 which lives at my girlfriends & an Inspiron 1545 which comes back and forth to work with me. What can I say, she loves the Sager and I love her more than I love the Sager

Anyway, overall I've had a great experience with my Inspiron. Delivery was prompt within 2 weeks (a week earlier than the estimated shipping date), the build quality and lack of bloatware really impressed me considering the price of the machine. The spec I went with was:

P8600 - 2.4GHz 3MB L2 Cache 1066MHz FSB
4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM (2x2GB)
1366x768 WLED display
160GB 5400RPM HDD (which I upgraded myself to a 320GB 7200RPM)
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 (256MB GDDR3 VRAM)
Intel 5100 wireless
Blu-Ray ROM / CD+DVD RW

OK, so this is perhaps one of the more expensive setups for the Inspiron 1545, but it was still cheaper than any other machine I could find available in the United Kingdom at around the same specification.

Now 2 months in I noticed a cluster of maybe 4 or 5 dead pixels all located top right hand side of the display. This did not particularly bother me as I plug into an external display both at home and at work, so I let it slide. Another month passes and I was using my laptop on the way to a client visit and noticed that there were an additional 5 or 6 dead pixels in various areas of the screen. At this point I decided that was more than enough for a replacement.

At the same time I found my optical drive was struggling to read DVDs that could be read in my external optical drive, and reading blu-ray discs was simply not happening at all.

I spoke with two different technicians on Dell chat. The first advised me that I could not have my display fixed, but went about trying to get me to install new codecs and then a new media player to fix my optical drive issue. Suffice to say that I did not bother doing this as my optical drive could not even read data discs, so new codecs were not going to fix anything.

The second technician pretty much repeated everything the first one had said.

I was almost at the point of saying, meh, I'm not really that fussed. I mean I do nearly always use external displays and external optical drives. I however gave it one last shot with live chat.

Wow, what a difference a good dell technical rep makes. We went through some pre-boot diagnostics and after spending 20 or 30 minutes talking with the rep, they had requested a technician be sent out (I have onsite warranty as it was on promotion) with a new optical drive. I asked about the new 1600x900 display and said if I paid the difference, would they replace with that instead. Shocked when after waiting just 5 minutes the rep said yes, we placed the order at cost price (£27 versus the Dell upgrade price of £95) and I've recieved confirmations etc and now sent payment for this.

The tech rep was very knowledgable, couldn't understand why the previous reps has said what they did, or asked me to do what they had done. We even started up a little bit of a conversation whilst awaiting responses from their team leader regarding the upgrade.

Now I'm not going to sit here and say everything has gone well, because there is still time for things to go pear shaped. However, thus far this last Dell rep has changed my perception of their support staff. Sure, the rest of them didn't know what they were talking about, and ideally you'd speak to the one I spoke to first time round without having to go round the houses 3 times. It does look promising so far though.

Now I've dealt with customer service from many other laptop manufacturers in my life. So far the best one was Sony, but then with the high price tag on their systems and their additional warranties, you'd be darned well annoyed if it wasn't top notch. I'm sure Apple would be fine, but I've never had to speak to them yet (touch wood). However, Dell are certainly not the worst by a long shot.

Anyway, just thought I would share this with you all; I will update as and when I get further through this process. Hopefully it all goes well.

Regards

 

Fragilexx,

Do you know what the part number on that lcd is?

I'd like to find one and replace my lcd with that one.

 

Unfortunately not; on the order confirmation it has a part number but the description is out of warranty repair. I queried this with them but this was the only way they could give me the upgrade at cost price because technically I don't think they are supposed to do that.

 

fleabay, search Dell Model ### LCD screen. If regualar should cost $120 or lower. LED $200+

 

Nope, did a search and can't find one.

Can find lots of the 1366x768 display, but none of the 1600x900.

Give it a little time though and these will no doubt appear though

 

Glad to hear it's going well so far, Fragile. *Knock on wood*

It really is all about who you talk to. It's sad, yes, but the truth is that you can ask three Dell reps the same thing and get three different answers. The good part about this is that if one rep says no to a repair or replacement, odds are still pretty good that another one will agree. The downside is that they don't all agree to begin with. There just isn't much continuity.

 

Hey, just had everything setup on the Dell site now; you know how it takes a day or so. The part is listed as below:

MT6KG : LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY..., 15.6, HDF+, LIGHT EMITTING DIODE..., TLF, V2, LGP

Don't know if that is any use to you at all?

Regards

 

Thanks for looking, but no love when I do a search.

 

Congrats on the smooth sailing for the most part. I mostly had the same experience, some techs I talked even just hung up on me when they "supposingly" went to go arrange for a replacement laptop. But some were actually really competent and actively made it their problem to help me receive a laptop in new condition. Tell us how it goes.

 

Well, the tech is coming out to my office tomorrow afternoon. They would have come sooner, but I was in meetings & interviews for most of the week.

Crossed fingers this goes ok.

Funny though, two of my dead pixels look like they were not completely dead, but just stuck, and have nearly resumed operation. One, the red isn't working though. Meh, doesn't matter, I should hopefully this time tomorrow be letting you know how it went on my 1600x900 display, touch wood.

 

Ah ha, the first hiccup. Engineer called this morning to let me know he was going to be here this afternoon. Then about 15 minutes later another Dell call advised that they were out of stock of an item and would send the technician on Monday instead. Minor hiccup, irritation level very small. Let's see if it stays this way

However, I must say that thus far the service has been pretty good. OK, so a part is out of stock, but they phoned me promptly to let me know, and they remained polite over the telephone. I'm finding it difficult to fault Dell at the moment.

 

Yeah, you can't really blame them for an unforeseen stock shortage. I guess you can blame all the customers who ordered that part.

 

Yup, and even if I did, a days delay is hardly going to hurt massively. So I can't play blu-ray discs and have to put up with a few dead pixels for the weekend I'm pretty sure I'll live

 

OK, so to finish this off. Zero problems except the one business day delay for out of stock.

The guy turns up, a little late, but her turns up. 40 minutes later he is on his way, having fitted the new display and Blu-ray drive. Tested both, they work perfectly. Old display was an LG, and the new one is an AUO. No issue with colours or anything, and much prefer the 1600x900 over the 1366x768.

So there you have it. Not all Dell technical problems go belly up. I'm a happy bunny

 

Yay, I have a guy coming over sometime soon to replace my screen bezel and palm rest. Hopefully, it'll go as smoothly as yours.

 

Crossed fingers

 

I just wish more people would report success stories more often so we don't get the impression that their service is horrible

 

I should probably also give credit where and when credit is due.

I'll try to keep it short, but here goes:

20 months or so ago i bought an XPS M1710 - for the first 9 months it worked flawlessly until suddenly i started getting overheating issues.

called Dell Technical Support and had a guy come out and replace the parts that was failing. A couple of weeks later, same story...etc etc..had a lot of frustrations due to broken promises by Technical Support, but after 3 months of having 3 major repairs done i asked customer service to extend my warranty on the laptop - which they promptly did. 1 year extra.

Ok, goes a bit downhill from there, but at least i was covered by warranty.

so, a total of 6 months later i've had a total of:

7 technicians out to replace the same parts over and over again.
my laptop spent 9 days at a Dell lab here in Perth to figure out what the problem was (faulty motherboard that time).

Then, 1 1/2 month later it starts again and i'm naturally getting a bit frustrated - after a lengthy discussion with an XPS Resolution Specialist i managed to convince them to actually replace the whole unit - was promised a refurb XPS M1710.

3 weeks later i come home to a VERY, VERY pleasant email - due to part and unit shortage Dell was cancelling the XPS M1710 replacement..first i was shocked, then angry and then went into denial.

My temper was nearly exploding when another email arrived with the specificaitons of the NEW laptop i'd be getting...it was, an Alienware M17x.

Needless to say, i was stoked - i had a long wait but it arrived last week!!

So, even though i stuck it out - went through hell and back, Dell ultimately did bring me WAY back over on their side again..they did the right thing (and beyond??) by me..

So, @Streetmagus, how's that for a success story?

 

Damm, I've never heard of them doing that before. Good for you on sticking through that mess. Most people I think would have just thrown up their hands, screamed at a tech, and swore never to buy dell again.

 

I think the key to working with Dell is to realise that it's a BIG company and chances are that you're a faceless number on a support screen.

Once you're at the stage where you honestly think to just throw up your hands take a time out...in many cases the technician on the other end is just as frustrated..imagine trouble shooting a PC problem over the phone? i don't know how often i've had relatives and/or friends calling me with obscure problems like "when i click this, it crashes"..9/10 times i end the call and drive over.

also, even though Dell is represented by their onsite technicians, which are outsourced companies, they have little to no control over how they run their business...yeah, screaming at Dell over the phone might make you feel better, but in the long run it doesn't really solve anything.

It's also important that you give Dell every opportunity (within reason of course) to try to fix the problem - that would possibly also include waiting a bit longer (yes, it's frustrating at times, we're only human afterall) for parts to arrive etc.

I admit, i was at the "f-this" stage more than once as my frustration built..but i think it's was more because i've never had this experience from Dell before - i've literally ordered millions of dollars worth of Dell hardware over the past 8-10 years for corporations and i would never have recommended it unless i knew them to be quality gear.

I even entered into "i'll never buy Dell again" stage - but again, i figured that i'd only be spiting my nose, so i relaxed, took the trantic deep breath and went back at it again.

 

Troubleshooting over the phone is actually very easy to be honest, and they do have the option of taking control of your computer via remote connection for some problems.

Some technicians care, some don't. It is the way of the world. In every office of any medium to large sized company around the world, you will have those that don't pull their weight and those that appear to have the strength of ten tigers.

The trick is, as you say CSharp, to take a deep breath and remember that you can always hang up / end the chat session and try again with another rep.

 

Sounds good man. I'd always heard of Dell/Alienware's service being absolutely TERRIBLE. Glad that you didn't get the short end of the stick

 

My old Studio 1535 was certainly not without its share of problems; namely, the DVD drive eject button would repeatedly fail to function. Dell attempted to fix this through several replacements of the touch-sensitive media panel, the DVD drive itself, and even the motherboard. And of course, there were also the standard software solutions, including reinstalling Vista no less than four times.

After several months of this, I submitted an Unresolved Issues form about it and got a reply from a resolution specialist, who told me to ship the laptop to their repair depot for inspection and attempted repair, even though I had the on-site repair service. I was a little frustrated at this point, but I figured it was better not to argue. So, I sent the laptop in, and received it back two weeks later with a note saying that they had replaced the optical drive and media panel and after "extensive testing", everything was determined to be in perfect working order.

So, I open up the laptop, which, to my dismay, had several new scratches around the palmrest and display bezel, and fired it up. It worked, and the DVD drive appeared to eject normally. I thought that it was the end of my issues, and I would worry about the scratched plastics later. But not even an hour into my first boot, the DVD eject function failed on me again. Some extensive testing there, Dell.

I got back on the line with the resolution specialist I'd been in contact with, who told me that there was nothing more that they could do, so I would be getting a replacement system. He just said it would be the exact same system that I had, which meant another identically configured Studio 1535. I thanked him for his help and his time, and basically just sat on my hands for the three weeks it would take my replacement laptop to arrive.

I was quite pleasantly surprised when it turned out this "identical system" was actually a newer Studio 1555, with a few nice upgrades. It included a better ATi graphics card, faster processor, LED display, subwoofer, and 9 cell battery, none of which were on my old 1535. It was a refurbished system, but if it weren't for the green sticker that denoted it as such, I would never have been able to tell the difference from a brand new system; the glossy Black Chainlink lid was flawless, as was the the 720p display panel.

To this day, I am quite satisfied with the 1555; I have not had one single issue worth calling Dell about *knock on wood*.

Just like any other company, Dell customer service has its ups and downs. Sometimes it's just a matter of to whom you talk.

 

Well, my tech came yesterday promptly at 12. Only took him 30 minutes to take the entire notebook apart, then to replace the palm rest. Not a very talkative guy, but he knew what he was doing. I'm pretty happy with the result, though he couldn't give me extra rubber bumpers. I might have to submit a seperate request to dell asking for some since mine "fell off."

Though, I asked the tech about this and he showed me that there's really not much room to put bumpers on the top. So how did you do this John? Your bumpers looks huge!

 

When I sent mines in I got it back with nasty fingerprint marks all over the keyboard. Least they could do is wash their hands before they operate on someones pc.

 

I had this experience earlier this month when I ordered my e4300. c/p from the e4300 owners thread:

", I got my laptop on thurs after ordering late on monday night, so that was good. Problem is, the hinge is broken! There is also a chip on the top left of the screen, and where the cam would be is loose and cracks. It looks like someone droped the notebook .

So, I'm on the support line right now and they gave me an option to return + refund, or replace. The replace option might take as long as 15 business days, and the refund option is problematic since I'll lose out on my 20% coupon.

Instead I asked if they could send a tech out to replace the loose hinge and screen housing and they said that was fine. So far I've been impressed with my CSR, she was very helpful. Hopefully this gets resolved soon! Its thurs now, looks like a tech will be out at my place either monday or tues. Wish me luck! "

then on FRIDAY the tech makes it out to my house. Wow.

"more updates:

so, a tech came out to my place this afternoon (!) with the replacement parts. I'm totally not impressed that I was given a laptop with a broken hinge, however I am redic impressed that I ordered the laptop on mon night, got the laptop thurs at 2:00, realized the problem and was on the phone with a CSR by 3, and by 1:00 on friday the tech was at my house with the parts.

You can't knock the customer service I guess (now if they could just NOT send broken laptops out).

My tech guy was great. I was an idiot and only identified the problem on the hinge, but also a small part of the intergrated palm rest needs to be replaced (its the small plastic "nub" that sits next to the hinge that was broken), so he didnt have that part. On the plus side he did get me more parts to replace some cosmetic marks (tiny) on the back as well and they should all be here by monday. So thats cool.

Not only that but the guy inspired a lot of confidence. He mentioned the motherboard issues before I did and said I should be alright with the one I have (if not he said they could replace it in 3 days or less if it ever did start locking up). He was quick, efficient, and def new what he was doing. No chance of missed screws here. I've done a considerable amount of work on desktops and this guy was def a pro.

hopefully after monday I won't have to do this again, however this was my first experience with Dell CSR and Techs and they've all been great. I'd recomend Dell again in a heartbeat. This says a lot considering they sent me a BROKEN laptop! $99 dollars for the 3 year NBD upgrade is a small price to pay for 3 years of peace of mind. "



So, not only was it 24 hour service (or would have been if I had identified the problem a little better), but he fixed the comsmetic stuff as well. I gotta say as an end note my tech was pretty much amazing. He even tested some connections on a dead gateway laptop motherboard for me before he left (I needed to see where the short was). I liked him so much I tried to tip him but he wouldn't take it.

The CSR followed up everyday with an e-mail and afterwards with e-mails and phone calls. I have to admit, I was impressed.

Great tech guy, great CSR, great experience.

Now if DELL would only check their referb laptops for obvious things like being dropped...