Support Pain

I recently (late February) purchased a Dell 1720. I was happy to have it arrive just a couple of weeks ago. Since then I've only been able to use it for a few days.

Literally three days after it arrived, it died. I opened up the lid and Windows had frozen. I turned it off and tried to turn it back on. The caps lock LED flashed for about 20 seconds and the power LED would stay on as well during those 20 seconds. The screen wouldn't turn on. I couldn't hear any fans turning on.

That sucked, but I wasn't too worried as I bought a two year warranty with CompleteCare/Accidental Damage (or whatever its called) and next day service.

I called up tech support. I spent alot of time explaining the only thing happening when turning on my laptop was a flashing caps lock LED and a power light. They had me take out my memory and re-insert it. I had to make sure my laptop was plugged in via the wall and then only powered by the battery. Pretty standard stuff for a tech call, but very time consuming as I had to keep repeating the caps lock LED flashing bit. I eventually was told they would give me an exchange since it was nearly brand new or they could send a tech out. The tech was the faster option so I chose that. I was a little frustrated as I was told I wouldn't get it fixed the next day, because they have to ship the part. I'm not sure why they couldn't use overnight shipping to fulfill their obligations. I was told they would be coming out in the afternoon on the coming Monday. That call took place last Thursday.

Fast forward to Monday and the tech is coming out. He calls in the morning 9 or 10ish and asking if he can come fix it within the next hour. That didn't work for me so I asked for 4pm. He complained about how large his coverage area is and how hard it would be etc. That sucks, but not my problem. He then suggested a much earlier time around lunch which still wouldn't work for me. I have an 8-5 type job and was already losing at minimum an hour of work that day to accomodate this. He relents and says he'll do 4pm.

I'm almost home and it's 3:50. I get a call from him saying he'll be running 10 minutes late or so. He doesn't show up until just after 4:30. He sat in his truck for a while before coming in. When I met him at the door I was very surprised. His clothes didn't look clean. He was twitching and had sores on his hands. At this point I was wondering if I should even let him come inside. I really wanted my laptop to work though so I let him come inside.

I set him down at the kitchen table and let him do his thing. I didn't watch super closely, but was observing. It would take him multiple tries to get a piece of the laptop apart. Then he might put that part back in and take out another part. As he was taking it apart he broke the PCMCIA ejector button. It wouldn't stay locked in when depressed. He ignored trying to fix it and continued on.

Finally he got to where he could take out the motherboard and replace it. I should have watched closer because I now suspect he didn't put the heatsink and heat pipe back on correctly. As he re-assembled the laptop he got to the PCMCIA card ejector button again. He fooled with it for a minute and then ignored it again, continuing to put everything together.

One of the final (if not final) pieces he tried putting back on the laptop was the plastic cover above the keyboard and below the LCD hinges. He snapped part of it back in, but couldn't get the right hand side to snap in. A component was above the height of the chassis. He kept pushing harder and harder trying to get it to snap in and push the component down. At the time I was thankful he didn't break anything worse. He couldn't get it to snap-in and gave up on it. I'm not sure he was aware I was watching off and on to what he was doing, because when he called me over and asked me what the problem was and to try logging on to Windows, he neither mentioned the ejector nor the bulge.

I was very surprised he asked me what the problem was as that would seem to be the first question someone should asking. It was also surprising because I told tech support while I was on the phone with them many times what the problem was.

At this point I was very frustrated and wanted him out of my house. I told him it was good enough that the laptop turned on and I could see the Windows logon screen and that he can leave now. He was unhappy that I wouldn't try logging on and told me I needed to. I repeated what I said previously, only to get more talk about how he can understand I'm not happy with Dell, but he's not Dell, etc. One and a half hours since arriving he was fortunately packing up his equipment and leaving.

The laptop at this point worked. I could logon and was able to run programs. I was tired of messing with the laptop. I waited until the next day to call support about the broken ejector and bulge.

The next day, Tuesday, I got home from work and hoped to play one game before I called support (definetly not looking forward to calling them again). While playing the game it seemed a bit slower than I previously noticed on the few days my laptop had worked. After 30 minutes of play time it crashed. Not just the game, but Windows entirely. The screen froze in place. Ctrl + Alt + Del did nothing. I turned off the computer and tried to turn it on. The hard drive activity LED came on and then disappeared. The fans turned on and then off. Nothing else happened.

I called tech support and explained what happened. I said I wouldn't accept another tech coming out after the first one turned out to be less than helpful. I explained the new problem and the new defects. I told them I wanted a new laptop shipped to me and then I could ship them the broken one back. I've done that many times for my work and have come to accept that as a standard practice. Everytime I mentioned thats how I wanted to proceed he would ask me a troubleshooting question. Then I would say one or multiples of: "the last tech was unpresentable and broke the laptop worse. I won't accept another coming out.", "enough of my time has been wasted by Dell I need something soon that works", etc.

Eventually the tech got his manager who told me they would be escalating my problem higher up. He only did that after trying again to get me to do more troubleshooting. I was to get a call from the escalation people within 48 hours.

Today I got the call from the escalation person and he tried yet again to get me to troubleshooting and try for getting a tech to come out. I had to yet again repeat the same things over and over. He finally relented and agreed to send me a new laptop with a return shipping box for my broken one.

Now I'm waiting to get my new, new (hopefully working) laptop. After paying Dell to provide me with a new laptop and next day support; I still have nothing, but a broken laptop.

 

Reading stories like this makes me glad I went with PowerNotebooks.com

US-based support that responds quickly and is helpful.

 

There is always the option of making a friend in your companies IT dept that would handle the repair for you... That kind of became a great high school job for me... Friends would break something or their parents and they knew i could do any fixing they needed or if parts were to be replaced i'd do it for them. I would never let some random tech lay his grubby hands on my 1705 unless i was standing then next to him.

 

I work in IT. I don't want to fix laptop motherboards in my spare time so I can have a working computer. I was hoping purchasing the extra support agreements would keep that from happening.

My previous laptop was a Dell and the tech I had come out to fix something on it was competent, quick, and presentable. I'm very unhappy with my support from Dell this time and the amount of time and energy spent to try and get something that might work is silly.