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Dell does the right thing, after about A BLOODY YEAR

post #1 of 17
8/8/03 at 5:31pm
Thread Starter 
I bought an Inspiron 4100 January of 02.

All was well until the drive started screaming after 6 months.

Rajnesh in India sent a replacement drive off to me.

I reformatted it, of course, and did a nice clean install.

Thats when the the nightmare began. The computer wouldnt stop emitting a VERY high pitched whine from the MOBO.

VERY long story short, after replacing every single part in the 4100 they sent me a 4150 with a broken keyboard and the same whining noise, and then another 4150 with the same whining noise.

Id had it. I demanded they refund my money entirely and take their notebook back. Sure they said, we'll be in touch. Sure. Months go by. Call after call after call - explain the same thing over and over and over and over again. Get sent from the wrong dept to the wrong dept. - get hung up on. Get lied to. Cant find that file or case number. Dont know what your talking about. What desktop do you have? ITS A LAPTOP YOU FRELLING BONEWAD!

*sigh*

Sorry - I said I wouldnt go too far into it, suffice to say this went on until, literally, 2 nights ago.

I finally LOST IT sufficiently enough with some poor customer service person (basically threatened to have my lawyer call and get in touch with the media about the entire scenario, and I wasnt kidding) and they told me a senior manager at the home office in Austin TX would call me within 24 hours.

He wasnt kidding!

Nice guy calls me within 4 hours, gives me his first and last name, personal email, extension and says that from here on out, I should always and only deal with him. Whoa! FINALLY!

Will he give me my money back? NO.

But he IS sending me:

Inspiron 8500 Pentium 4m 2.2 ghz

15.4" Wuxga screen wide aspect ratio - native resolution of 1920x1200 (whoa!)

40 gig 5400 rpm drive

256 megs ram

dvd.cdrw combo drive

64 meg Nvidia Geforce 4 4200 GO

Internal WIFI card

Snazzy graphite silver snap on cover

It will be a refurb, Im sure - but he said that he would ensure that it was a refurb that had never been at another customers house. He also is having the system sent to HIS office so he can go over it personally to ensure its ok before he personally sends it to me.

It should arrive Tuesday.

So - long story short, it took them far too long, and I will NEVER do business with them again and will NEVER suggest Dell to anyone ever, because they have gotten too big to properly support their customers - BUT... they are giving me a MONSTER of a machine to replace the P3 Insipron I bought in jan of 02 for 1700 bucks.

Im wondering If I should just keep it, or sell the mother on ebay and buy the Sager 4760 I lust after so badly.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your replies!

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post #2 of 17
8/8/03 at 6:52pm
Wow. On many levels... wow.

-myrkat
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post #3 of 17
8/8/03 at 8:03pm
Thread Starter 
LOL

Wow indeed!

So what should I do?

Ive never even touched one of these 8500s.

Theyre ugly as sin, thats for sure.

What do people think of these machines?
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post #4 of 17
8/8/03 at 8:40pm
I've heard similiar stories before, but this account is pretty amazing. Glad to hear you at least got somewhat of a resolution.

A friend of mine had a problem with a desktop he ordered from them a while back. Nothing was wrong with the PC itself but it did not match, exactly, what he ordered. After a lot of calls and emails he was able to get them to refund part of the price and give him some free software.

At a place I worked at we had several Dell laptops. When one died Dell sent out a tech to take a look. He arrived at the time we scheduled and after examining the laptop he said he needed to go back to his shop to pick up a part. He said his shop was nearby so he should only be gone a 1/2 hour....

4 hours later the guy shows up again. No explanation of where he was, but he did have his part. He fixed the laptop and left. Soon afterwards we discovered that he had broken the dongle on the NIC we had for that laptop! Heh,heh,heh. Oh well. We were just glad it wasn't the dongle for a NIC we had license codes tied to.

So I think the moral of the story is that while Dell does not neccessarily provide stellar support a persistent person can get some sort of resolution from them
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post #5 of 17
8/8/03 at 9:18pm
It seems like these BIG companys (DELL,HP ECT.) dont care really about the customer only the sale and to get anything done you have to basically threaten them with legal action before they get off thier dead ass and help you.

Glad to hear you are gettin a disent laptop out of this mess.
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post #6 of 17
8/8/03 at 10:38pm
First off, I've heard that the 8500 is not a bad machine; I believe there are many threads / posts on this here... I'd keep it and see how you like it, as you will not get full-price on eBay or wherever, so play with it for a week or two and see how you like/don't like it.

As for companies FINALLY doing right by their customers, I have a tale to add:

A most-excellent network guru that I know was recently upgrading a client's MS SBS 4.5 to SBS 2000. So, he bought the SBS2000 upgrade version (MS website says to go from SBS 4.0 to 2000, one must upgrade to 4.5 then upgrade to 2000).

Anyway, he could not install SBS 2000 with the "upgrade version" of SBS 4.5 CD's, and SBS 2000 didn't recognize the full version SBS 4.0. WTF?

So he calls MS and they said it should work... uh, yeah. Ooops. So they tell him he needs to buy a full version of SBS 2000. "No, I don't think so" he demanded to speak to the supervisor all the way up as high as they'd send him (his full-time job is head of IT for a large University here in California). So he gets the head of something-or-other at MS (product development?) and the guy just says, "Yeah, we found out it doesn't work with upgrade 4.5 CD's but it's supposed to... here, take this complimentary copy of SBS 2000" - done.

Now this isn't a week-long saga, probably 2 days. MS did the right thing fairly quickly, which isn't something I would have thought would happen...

So, my company will be in the exact same boat soon (upgrade 4.5 to upgrade 2000 SBS), so I'll see if I can get the same deal.

-myrkat
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post #7 of 17
8/8/03 at 10:53pm
Thread Starter 
I too hear the 8500 is a pretty good machine.

I think I could get enough for it, though, to get a Sager 4760 which is my current laptop of desire.

Thoughts?

Thanks for all the replies folks!

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post #8 of 17
8/8/03 at 11:51pm
Go for the 4760 ... it a REAL laptop ... LOL
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post #9 of 17
8/9/03 at 2:11am
MAKE SURE YOU GET A SHARP SCREEN If you don't go ahead and set up an advanced screen replacement because it will burn in. There's a 30+ page thread on the issue in the dell inspiron forums. I sent my 8500 back after 3 burned in screens (I can't be too upset...that's the thread that introduced me to sager )
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post #10 of 17
8/11/03 at 10:52am
Dude sell it and buy a sager - how many rants liek that have you seen on these boards - All I know is that recently (after outsourcing to India it seems) Customer support with Dell sucks nuts and the quality of the machines is in the toilet. This is why I wont be going with a new Dell when I upgrade this year - even though my old 5000e has been a rock.
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post #11 of 17
8/11/03 at 7:56pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally posted by ayasin
MAKE SURE YOU GET A SHARP SCREEN If you don't go ahead and set up an advanced screen replacement because it will burn in. There's a 30+ page thread on the issue in the dell inspiron forums. I sent my 8500 back after 3 burned in screens (I can't be too upset...that's the thread that introduced me to sager )
Ill have to find a way to KNOW if its a sharp or not!

Can you help with this, and direct me to that thread on the dell forums?

Im getting the 8500 tomorrow!
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post #12 of 17
8/12/03 at 4:44pm
Thread Starter 
OK got the 8500 today.

I may just have to keep this thing. Its bloody GORGEOUS.

The screen is STUNNING.

The board is great, button placement is right. 5400rpm drive screams. Nvidia 64 meg card is making the card in my desktop feel unloved, for a good reason.

Its also alot better looking in person than the pics Ive seen.

More later. So far - I gotta say I like this machine alot.

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post #13 of 17
8/12/03 at 5:00pm
Have fun with it, no doubt the 4200 go is really nice.
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post #14 of 17
8/13/03 at 3:05pm
Thread Starter 
OK about the screen:

According to the packing list the screen is:

EXG 36922103
LCD WUXGA 15.4" Samsung

So, its a Samsung, NOT a Sharp.

Can folks here help me to REALLY confirm that the Samsung screens go south and burn in or not?

Thanks!

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post #15 of 17
8/14/03 at 10:09am
Hi,

I have a M60 with the same 15.4" WUXGA from Samsung. I have had the machine for a few weeks and have not seen any problems yet. Maybe they have fixed their problem with those screens if not, I hope you got the at home service like I did.
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post #16 of 17
8/17/03 at 3:04pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Domhain
OK about the screen:

According to the packing list the screen is:

EXG 36922103
LCD WUXGA 15.4" Samsung

So, its a Samsung, NOT a Sharp.

Can folks here help me to REALLY confirm that the Samsung screens go south and burn in or not?

Thanks!
Sharp screen is a Dell terminology. Sounds like you got it, just happens to be made by Samsung. Confusing as hell since the company Sharp also makes LCD's.
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post #17 of 17
8/24/03 at 10:18am
Thread Starter 
So far so good with the 8500.

I played NeverWinter Nights on it at 1920x1200 with everything pumped to full and it was STUNNING on the nvidia 64 meg card.

Apparently theres a new palm rest coming to be installed Monday as the keys on the left side of the board are rather clacky.

Otherwise its a damn good machine so far, and baring no further nightmares, Ill keep it for awhile.

What Im really loving is having a dedicated customer support person who gets back to me within hours every time, and a dedicated tech support guy HERE IN AMERICA who gets back to me within hours every time, and is clearly a top tier tech.

So long as that continues, itll be hard to get away from Dell, now that they are treating me like royalty.

LOL
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