I have kept quiet about my exchange because I don't want to bring the wrath down upon me of people thinking I am trying to pull one over on dell. However, I now feel the need to vent a little.
I received my 1710 about a year ago. It originally shipped with the basic card but I upgraded through dell, having their techs come out and do the install, to a 7900GTX 512 MB. I was assured many times through the process that the upgraded card would fall under my complete care warranty should something go wrong.
Well something went wrong, 1.5 years later I have suffered from many heat issues and they have replaced the exact same 7900 card TWICE!! Then we had an accident with my dog and a glass of Ice Tea. Needless to say the laptop is non-functional now. I was issued a complete care replacement machine and this is where the nightmare started.
They upgraded me to a 1730, saw fit to upgrade my processor to a 2.2, and gave me 4 (!) gigs of ram, but then crippled the system by including 1 8700m 256mb card. I immediately called Dell before the system shipped and implored them to look at my history, and see I upgraded the card. That I would happily exchange half that ram (for an 1800 dollar credit) towards the purchase of an equivalent card. The rep had sympathy but told me that my system doesn't have a service tag so they can't schedule a swap, he set up a call back from a manager for the next day where he assured me that I would be taken care of. That was Tuesday.
Wednesday came and went with no call, I called them after work and got someone who couldn't possibly understand why I didn't receive a call back, and he went to work in his area to try and solve my issue. It turns out that there is a call center in Oklahoma and a call center in Utah. The Utah office has the only staff that has the authorization to replace my card. He scheduled another call back for Thursday, assured me that everything was in the notes, and that I would receive resolution.
That evening the laptop was waiting for me. I knew there was a problem when I opened the box, as the laptop is missing the service tag sticker on the bottom. There is no power cord (only the AC adapter half) in the box, but no worries it's a standard PC plug and I have tons of those. I plug it in, open the lid and hit the switch... and nothing. No power, no lights, no nothing. I fiddle with the plug in the back of the case and I see lights flash. A lot of upward pressure and I have power! So problem number 2, Faulty AC Jack. I'm cruising along at this point checking things out, and I go to the invoice to check the parts list vs. what is physically there. Pop off the memory plate and there is only one 2 GB card in the case. Okay I'll call about that, fire up the machine... Boot error, open the hard drive bay... no HDD.
The massively expensive ram ($3600) on the invoice is not even there, only 2GB. At this point I am absolutely through the roof with frustration, but I figure "Hey the rep is going to call tomorrow; I'll wait till then to lay it all on them and get resolution right..."
Thursday comes and goes, with no call back. So I bring them up on the line and I sadly get the nicest guy that was not meant for customer service. The poor rep was spelling out his words as he typed them, ever so slowly into his notes. I felt bad and I endured through all of my problems, this rep was in the Utah office, he gets on the chat with the people who can fix my problems and assures me I will receive a call back within 5-10 minutes.
30 minutes go by with no call back, so I call again and get Oklahoma, or wherever, and the very competent tech gets on and starts a fire storm. I think he had 5 different people on the phone working his tail off to fix my issues. Alas, and he admits this to me, that he didn't even know about these Sr. Support managers in Utah but they really are the only ones that can fix my issues. He assures me that while he can't disclose to me, there was a very good reason I didn't get my call back, and that I will most certainly be getting a call tomorrow. Here is the surprise.
He said Dell has a new policy on its equivalent trade for graphics card. He read this to me verbatim from a policy. I don't have the wording 100% but here is the gist
"...Dells policy on graphics card exchanges is to exchange the item for an equal or better part. The policy to determine equivalence is not based on the cards ram, or benchmarks, but on the generation of the processor..."
Therefore he explained that the card that was originally included has a G7 processor, and it is considered an upgrade to be moved to the G8 processor. Despite the 8700 being a proven inferior card, it is going to be dells policy that the 7900/7950 is to be replaced with its upgraded model; considered to be the 8700's until they go obsolete.
I still have this call scheduled from these Dell Wizards, and the rep said that possibly for all my issues they may choose to give me a better card, but if he was to process the exchange he would not be able to exchange to an 8700 SLI, only to what I was given, the single 8700.
I have my call scheduled for tomorrow; we will see how it goes.
I received my 1710 about a year ago. It originally shipped with the basic card but I upgraded through dell, having their techs come out and do the install, to a 7900GTX 512 MB. I was assured many times through the process that the upgraded card would fall under my complete care warranty should something go wrong.
Well something went wrong, 1.5 years later I have suffered from many heat issues and they have replaced the exact same 7900 card TWICE!! Then we had an accident with my dog and a glass of Ice Tea. Needless to say the laptop is non-functional now. I was issued a complete care replacement machine and this is where the nightmare started.
They upgraded me to a 1730, saw fit to upgrade my processor to a 2.2, and gave me 4 (!) gigs of ram, but then crippled the system by including 1 8700m 256mb card. I immediately called Dell before the system shipped and implored them to look at my history, and see I upgraded the card. That I would happily exchange half that ram (for an 1800 dollar credit) towards the purchase of an equivalent card. The rep had sympathy but told me that my system doesn't have a service tag so they can't schedule a swap, he set up a call back from a manager for the next day where he assured me that I would be taken care of. That was Tuesday.
Wednesday came and went with no call, I called them after work and got someone who couldn't possibly understand why I didn't receive a call back, and he went to work in his area to try and solve my issue. It turns out that there is a call center in Oklahoma and a call center in Utah. The Utah office has the only staff that has the authorization to replace my card. He scheduled another call back for Thursday, assured me that everything was in the notes, and that I would receive resolution.
That evening the laptop was waiting for me. I knew there was a problem when I opened the box, as the laptop is missing the service tag sticker on the bottom. There is no power cord (only the AC adapter half) in the box, but no worries it's a standard PC plug and I have tons of those. I plug it in, open the lid and hit the switch... and nothing. No power, no lights, no nothing. I fiddle with the plug in the back of the case and I see lights flash. A lot of upward pressure and I have power! So problem number 2, Faulty AC Jack. I'm cruising along at this point checking things out, and I go to the invoice to check the parts list vs. what is physically there. Pop off the memory plate and there is only one 2 GB card in the case. Okay I'll call about that, fire up the machine... Boot error, open the hard drive bay... no HDD.
The massively expensive ram ($3600) on the invoice is not even there, only 2GB. At this point I am absolutely through the roof with frustration, but I figure "Hey the rep is going to call tomorrow; I'll wait till then to lay it all on them and get resolution right..."
Thursday comes and goes, with no call back. So I bring them up on the line and I sadly get the nicest guy that was not meant for customer service. The poor rep was spelling out his words as he typed them, ever so slowly into his notes. I felt bad and I endured through all of my problems, this rep was in the Utah office, he gets on the chat with the people who can fix my problems and assures me I will receive a call back within 5-10 minutes.
30 minutes go by with no call back, so I call again and get Oklahoma, or wherever, and the very competent tech gets on and starts a fire storm. I think he had 5 different people on the phone working his tail off to fix my issues. Alas, and he admits this to me, that he didn't even know about these Sr. Support managers in Utah but they really are the only ones that can fix my issues. He assures me that while he can't disclose to me, there was a very good reason I didn't get my call back, and that I will most certainly be getting a call tomorrow. Here is the surprise.
He said Dell has a new policy on its equivalent trade for graphics card. He read this to me verbatim from a policy. I don't have the wording 100% but here is the gist
"...Dells policy on graphics card exchanges is to exchange the item for an equal or better part. The policy to determine equivalence is not based on the cards ram, or benchmarks, but on the generation of the processor..."
Therefore he explained that the card that was originally included has a G7 processor, and it is considered an upgrade to be moved to the G8 processor. Despite the 8700 being a proven inferior card, it is going to be dells policy that the 7900/7950 is to be replaced with its upgraded model; considered to be the 8700's until they go obsolete.
I still have this call scheduled from these Dell Wizards, and the rep said that possibly for all my issues they may choose to give me a better card, but if he was to process the exchange he would not be able to exchange to an 8700 SLI, only to what I was given, the single 8700.
I have my call scheduled for tomorrow; we will see how it goes.
