How is Dell when it comes to service?

[Anonymous]

Laptops and workstations.

--
Thanks,
Todd
P4 3.2 Ghz
XP Pro sp2
1 GB Ram
LDD2005
w/ all patches

[Anonymous]

depends which you are talking about home or business? Personally never had a
problem with either, but some have had big problems with home. Depending on
the service you get for business it might make a difference. We have next
day, which the parts get here next day but if you need a tech to install the
part it will be another day or 2 but never more then 2 days total for us.
Once the part got here the same day, but we call early in the morning with
the problem.

"Todd W" wrote in message
news:5087221@discussion.autodesk.com...
Laptops and workstations.

--
Thanks,
Todd
P4 3.2 Ghz
XP Pro sp2
1 GB Ram
LDD2005
w/ all patches

[Anonymous]

I've only had to deal with the home side of Dell's service twice for my
wife's laptop, an Inspiron 8600.

The first time was when it was new, and the guy I spoke to was on this side
of the world and understood that I already did everything I could do before
I called. He simply shipped out a box that I then used to send the thing
back to Dell for them to replace the LCD screen. No problems. This was 2
years ago.

Last December, I had to call about getting a replacement keyboard. There
was no way to directly call for parts, so I ended up going around the world
this time. But, I got back to the U.S. eventually and within less than a
half hour, I had the part ordered. 2 days later, I installed it.

Not bad considering. I think the Business side is supposed to be better
though.

Joel

[Anonymous]

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 18:36:35 +0000, Todd W
wrote:

>Laptops and workstations.

Overall, excellent, in my experience. Of course, YMMV.

What is very important is to establish a solid relationship with your account
sales representative. The problem I have had is that my account sales rep has
changed 4 times in less than two years, because of shifting restructuring n
Dell's side.

But when I lost a HD in my server, I had a new drive on my desk the next day.
When one of our PSUs blew in a server, it was replaced by an onsite Dell
technician in an adequate time frame. One of my company's partners had a
moherboard replaced in his laptop in a weekend (it was shipped on Friday and
back in his hands on the following Monday).

Of course, there are the horror stories as well. Trying to figure out why an old
laptop's screen was going screwy was tough, as I was calling India or some far
away place and the language barrier was an issue. Bbut I don't think Dell
outsources tech support anymore, because of that problem.

Matt
mstachoni@comcast.net
mstachoni@bhhtait.com

[Anonymous]

It depends on which service option you pay for... . There is support,
then there is SUPPORT.

[Anonymous]

I know many MIS directors that have purchased upwards of a million dollars
through dell and still talk to India when there systems get problems. I
would also add that these systems were less than an hour drive from dells
home offices. Sure they do respond and do take care of there clients but
they are guilty of trying to first fix the problem as cheap as possible and
assume you may need to first talk to someone that will remind you to "plug
it in first". I do think dell deserves some bad publicity on the help
support simply because of the outsourcing. When people need help the last
thing people want to deal with is a language barrier. As if computer lingo
was not hard enough. It really was not a genius move by Dell.


"Todd W" wrote in message
news:5087221@discussion.autodesk.com...
Laptops and workstations.

--
Thanks,
Todd
P4 3.2 Ghz
XP Pro sp2
1 GB Ram
LDD2005
w/ all patches

[Anonymous]

Do yourself a favour and DONT buy DELL.
We have a gold service package; not worth the paper it’s written on.
The problems I've had with them is endless, from dodgy heat sinks to faulty hard drives, even had a nut sert missing from the casing which screwed the heat sink down.
If you are experiencing problems, Dell will NOT do anything till you run their own fault finder program, and it finds something wrong. We did this and it didn’t find anything wrong, so after hours of wasted time our IT department checked through the bios and found the errors, we had to take it to management level and threats of cancelling our account with them, to get them to do anything.
When they did it took 2 weeks to replace. If you order a new pc from Dell it doesn’t take that long.

Don’t do DELL.

We are a huge company, and have a lot of leverage to get things done; I just pity those one off's and small companies that don’t have this type of leverage.

The cost these faulty machines can cause is astronomical. Down time for one day can be: (and dell turn this into 14 days at least)
£50 per hour labour (not even a consideration)
£100,000 contract lost !!!

[TravisNave]

I have had only excellent experiences with Dell. In my last two jobs, I have had about 100 workstations, laptops, and servers from Dell.

Of those many machines, I have had only two hardware related issues:

1. Loud system fan. Dell replaced it next day on-site.

2. Laptop overheating problem. Dell cross-shipped me a replacement.

In 6 years, no other major problems. In fact, I was so impressed with the quality of Dell machines, that I own them myself and recommend them to my family. You just can't get a better PC with name-brand parts for less. And from a technical standpoint, I have never worked on any PCs that are easier to take apart than a Dell.

I am fortunate to do some contract support work for Dell now and am getting my Dell Certified Systems Expert Certification as well.

Professionally, I wouldn't use another manufacturer, period.

[Anonymous]

I am fortunate to do some contract support work for Dell now and am getting my Dell Certified Systems Expert Certification as well......................................

[Anonymous]

Here's a perspective from a small home based firm.
I have had 2 dells over the years both of which required support at one time
or another. Support was great and was presumably handle by support in the
USA. My newest Dell is now 4-5 years old, the earlier one is retired.
Dell lost my business for one reason. Their insistence on selling only Intel
based machines. My last Dell was a state of the art P4-1300. I was
reasonable happy at first (it replaced a Pentium pro 200). As an accurender
user I eventually benchmarked the performance of accurender and found that
my state of the art system was about equivalent to a P3-700. Boy could I
have saved a lot of money by buying a P3 instead of the new P4. Now I know
the processor problem was Intel's doing (won't go into it anymore than
that), but I trusted Dell to give performance that I paid for. Should I have
done more research before buying, sure I should have.
My last two computers are AMD systems. A Systemax 3200 64 bit with 32 bit
windows and an E-machines 3200 with windows XP. The Systemax has had no
issues in almost two years of ownership. The E-machines has had the
harddrive replaced twice due to a noise issue on the first and complete
failure on the second. E-machines doesn't have on-site service, but I'm
technical enough to swap out parts and emachines shipped replacements parts
quickly. The emachines is the only system I've ever bought new just for home
use. All other computers were business use for 3 years than passed down for
home use. The emachines has been a good cheap unit, but I probably wouldn't
recommend for business use. The Systemax is inexpensive (not cheap) and I
highly recommend for business use.
Mark


"Todd W" wrote in message
news:5087221@discussion.autodesk.com...
Laptops and workstations.

--
Thanks,
Todd
P4 3.2 Ghz
XP Pro sp2
1 GB Ram
LDD2005
w/ all patches

[TravisNave]

Their insistence in only using Intel-based machines is the reason that I prefer Dell.

It's also the reason I stopped using Compaq PCs. It's funny how you can watch the decline of Compaq and Gateway after they stopped using Intel processors and switched to AMD. Businesses stopped buying. So did I. You can argue Intel vs AMD all day long and never agree... but perception is reality.

[Anonymous]

Dell now sells AMD. Good reason. IT'S FASTER! Also Intel chipsets have
been atrocious, I have legacy software that I HAVE to use and Intel
screws up the screen 80% of the time. AMD never does.

AS for the decline of Gateway, you've got it backwards. They used to
sell AMD back int the P2 days and were doing great business I know
because I had one, but when it was time to upgrade, they only had Intel.
Intel told them to stop selling AMD or they would be put on short
supplies and slow deliveries. They stopped selling AMD and only then
started sliding.

Compaq didn't sell AMD until they were bought out by HP. Anything after
that point is difficult to judge because HP changed the focus at Compaq,
taking over the IPaq line as HP, dropping various lines because they
duplicated HP's products etc.

In the meantime Dell sales were stagnant / sliding prior to the decision
to sell AMD chips and since they haven't introduced an AMD line, they
haven't bounced back yet.

Additionally, AMD is now the top dog in sales of Windows cpu's. (Intel
is more diversified so they make money on chipsets, wireless, etc so no
need to pass the hat for them yet.)

TravisNave wrote:
> Their insistence in only using Intel-based machines is the reason that I prefer Dell.
>
> It's also the reason I stopped using Compaq PCs. It's funny how you can watch the decline of Compaq and Gateway after they stopped using Intel processors and switched to AMD. Businesses stopped buying. So did I. You can argue Intel vs AMD all day long and never agree... but perception is reality.

[TravisNave]

I don't mean to get into any kind of processor war, because it is irrelevant to this topic. However, I can recommend that you back up your claims with facts.

Why? Because your claims are flawed. Probably moreso are the data that you heard that from. AMD is not the top dog is sales of 'Windows CPUs.' There was a 'survey' last year that AMD captured 52% of new sales of Home computers for ONE month. However, the report did not include direct sales. Therefore, the #1 manufacturer (Dell) of direct sales was not even included in the report. Therefore, the survey is flawed.

Case in point, there is a lawsuit from AMD about Intel's monopoly on the market. Here is an exact quote from AMD:

"AMD said Intel had about 80 percent of worldwide x86 microprocessor sales by unit volume and 90 percent by revenue, giving it entrenched monopoly ownership and excessive market power. Intel denied the accusations, with chief executive Paul Otellini saying the company will not alter its practices." -AMD

Furthermore, Dell does not sell AMD in their machines. They may start selling the individual CPUs, however they are not selling them in their desktops or laptops. At best, they might use the Opteron in their servers should Intel fail to deliver. Unlikely though. It's simply speculation at this point.

As for Compaq, they sold AMDs long before HP bought them out. I was a huge Compaq supporter back in the days when they owned Digital and made some of the best PCs on the market. Gateway fell by the wayside the same way Compaq did. The best they could do was buy out eMachines. Not very impressive.

Frankly, I don't really care about who is better or faster or cheaper. But please, don't post a bunch of claims when it is clear to the intelligent person that it is full of hogwash. All I am doing is offering an opinion based on the topic at hand.

[Anonymous]

The key part of what started the argument is blaming the Gateway and
Compaq slide on AMD. I am less certain about Compaq than Gateway since I
did not pay that much attention to their product line, but they were
primarily Intel machines, so how their slide can be blamed on AMD is a
mystery, or as as you like to call it "hogwash." However I do know for
certain that when Gateway and Emachines made their deal there were
absolutely no AMD chips in any Gateway machines, nor had there been any
in several years... none. Gateway had already hit their low point at
that time. That slide was probably (supposition on my part admittedly)
due to the Gateway Country Store fiasco wherein they lost many of the
advantages of being a direct marketer without gaining the "buy it now,
get it now" advantage of brick and mortar. I bought a Gateway at one of
those stores, but I was the exception.

Note well that AMD has made substantial inroads since the initiation of
the anti-trust lawsuit. There is a major time factor here. Intel HAD 80%
by volume of microprocessor sales at that time. They no longer do. The
numbers don't stay in one place very long, nor are they consistent in
what they measure. The initial Pentium D chips hurt Intel's dominating
position when they were compared to the Athlon X2. That is the primary
cause of the improved state of AMD. Also AMD did introduce the TURION
chips which are very good, but Intel has an extraordinary product in the
Pentium M (which is not based on the P4, but on the P3 according to
everything I have read) and the Core Duo may be the real chip to watch.

From what I have read, there have been or will be improvements in
Intel's architecture for their various multi-core chips. Intel does have
a significant ability to engineer and I would love to see them improve
from what I personally perceive as misses in the design of their chips.
In the ideal market, there are multiple suppliers of product and the
best product wins until the competitor steps ahead. This process has
been the reason that we are able to purchase incredible videocards for
any degree of functionality at wide ranges of prices.

If quality of computer (disregard the AMD vs Intel argument for a
moment) is to be considered, I have to come out squarely against Dell. I
maintain numerous machines for work and for friends and family. One of
the only 2 brands I recommend NOT buying under any circumstance is Dell.
Emachines are fair, Compaq's and HP's except for one model have been
okay to good, IBM desktops were slow, but reliable, and Gateway's I
haven't seen much of in the last couple of years. Homebrews have varied,
but generally were quite good. You may ask why I dislike Dell. The Dell
computers I have had to work on were of inferior build quality.
Substandard hard drive with a poor hard drive controller (Intel
chipset), use of out of date sound hardware on modern computer and
CHARGING extra for the part(Soundblaster Live limited edition non-duplex
sound card at a time when Audigy 2 should have been the standard, and
Audigy 4 the premium product), and poor customer support. Routing calls
overseas and refusing to replace either motherboard or hard drive when
computer kept crashing due to drive problems is not acceptable. I had
reinstalled windows 6 times in 6 weeks due to drive errors, and
eventually replaced the hard drive on that machine. If you think I like
driving 50 miles each way to my sister's house and wasting my Saturday
because a computer keeps crashing....

TravisNave wrote:
> I don't mean to get into any kind of processor war, because it is irrelevant to this topic. However, I can recommend that you back up your claims with facts.
>
> Why? Because your claims are flawed. Probably moreso are the data that you heard that from. AMD is not the top dog is sales of 'Windows CPUs.' There was a 'survey' last year that AMD captured 52% of new sales of Home computers for ONE month. However, the report did not include direct sales. Therefore, the #1 manufacturer (Dell) of direct sales was not even included in the report. Therefore, the survey is flawed.
>
> Case in point, there is a lawsuit from AMD about Intel's monopoly on the market. Here is an exact quote from AMD:
>
> "AMD said Intel had about 80 percent of worldwide x86 microprocessor sales by unit volume and 90 percent by revenue, giving it entrenched monopoly ownership and excessive market power. Intel denied the accusations, with chief executive Paul Otellini saying the company will not alter its practices." -AMD
>
> Furthermore, Dell does not sell AMD in their machines. They may start selling the individual CPUs, however they are not selling them in their desktops or laptops. At best, they might use the Opteron in their servers should Intel fail to deliver. Unlikely though. It's simply speculation at this point.
>
> As for Compaq, they sold AMDs long before HP bought them out. I was a huge Compaq supporter back in the days when they owned Digital and made some of the best PCs on the market. Gateway fell by the wayside the same way Compaq did. The best they could do was buy out eMachines. Not very impressive.
>
> Frankly, I don't really care about who is better or faster or cheaper. But please, don't post a bunch of claims when it is clear to the intelligent person that it is full of hogwash. All I am doing is offering an opinion based on the topic at hand.

[TravisNave]

It's apples and oranges. If you base your opinion on a company because you purchased a $300 cheap PC, you get what you pay for. This is going to be true whether you buy a Dell, eMachines, or otherwise.

However, from a business stand-point (you know, places that might actually use AutoCAD instead of playing Grand Theft Auto) that purchases hundreds of workstations at a time; a company is more likely to buy higher end workstations and laptops, rather than cheap machines.

I can tell you from experience of being the IT manager in charge of hundreds of Dells, that the quality of service from Dell Business is exceptional as is the quality of the workstations. At the same time, I cannot tell you the same is true with eMachines or HP. But again it is apples and oranges because my HPs and eMachines were more of a 'home' machine and not business class.

None of my business class Dells have ever failed. Not one of them in 6 years. And those problems I did have with a failed RAID HDD in my server, a loud case fan in my desktop, and a faulty motherboard in my laptop, all were solved next-day or onsite by Dell. But I can tell you that 100% of my eMachines failed in the same time span.

Does that mean I haven't ever fixed my mom's Dell at home or my sister's or any of my co-workers home Dells? No. Of course. No computer is perfect. But even with Home Dells, I have never had one RIP.

It's opinion. You have yours, I have mine. It's up to the original person who posted here to decide.

[Anonymous]

I'll keep it short this time: it wasn't a cheap $300 machine. It was a
$3000+/- top of the consumer line model. And that was one of many Dell's
that I have had to fix. And it wasn't used for games. She uses it for
freelance graphic arts work. Her livelihood.

Were eMachines reliable? Better than Dell worse than HP. Most reliable
was IBM, but they don't make them any more. Near the top were small
system builders locally.

What was the fastest? Home build AMD x2. Slowest? Celeron's of course.
Dollar value? Sempron (dirt cheap and quick) Worst dollar value? Dell P4
with HT.

The only computer to actually fail unreparably? eMachine (bad cpu fan
clip and it fell off shorting motherboard) but they replaced it.

Only company to refuse to replace or repair a malfunctioning computer? Dell

TravisNave wrote:
> It's apples and oranges. If you base your opinion on a company because you purchased a $300 cheap PC, you get what you pay for. This is going to be true whether you buy a Dell, eMachines, or otherwise.
>
> However, from a business stand-point (you know, places that might actually use AutoCAD instead of playing Grand Theft Auto) that purchases hundreds of workstations at a time; a company is more likely to buy higher end workstations and laptops, rather than cheap machines.
>
> I can tell you from experience of being the IT manager in charge of hundreds of Dells, that the quality of service from Dell Business is exceptional as is the quality of the workstations. At the same time, I cannot tell you the same is true with eMachines or HP. But again it is apples and oranges because my HPs and eMachines were more of a 'home' machine and not business class.
>
> None of my business class Dells have ever failed. Not one of them in 6 years. And those problems I did have with a failed RAID HDD in my server, a loud case fan in my desktop, and a faulty motherboard in my laptop, all were solved next-day or onsite by Dell. But I can tell you that 100% of my eMachines failed in the same time span.
>
> Does that mean I haven't ever fixed my mom's Dell at home or my sister's or any of my co-workers home Dells? No. Of course. No computer is perfect. But even with Home Dells, I have never had one RIP.
>
> It's opinion. You have yours, I have mine. It's up to the original person who posted here to decide.

[TravisNave]

So it was a cheap $300 machine with a bunch of added accessories and software to make it a $3000 machine.

Yawn. If you're throwing the Golden Gate in free, I might buy it. Of course, you could just tell me the Dell Service Tag number to prove it, but that would expose your bluff.

Sorry you had such bad experiences with Dell Home support. Dell Business support is exceptional. They may have refused your malfuctioning computer, but they cross-shipped me a new laptop no questions asked. Can't say very many companies would do that.

If Dell was so bad, they certainly wouldn't lead in market share. We'll just let the numbers speak for themselves. Neither one of us is going to change their minds.

[Anonymous]

Travis - You're being a bit of a knob!!!! I haven't had any problems with
either manufacturer of chipsets and I have also dealt with Dell without
issue. I'm not an IT guy just a render monkey. I do use higher end
workstations and for the price and performance I have found that Intel
doesn't come close to AMD and most of the people that I talk to in my field
concur and I thought it is quite well documented. I am using mostly Max /
ADT and do a lot of renderings and animations. People have their opinions,
as you keep saying at nauseum, but you don't give jg the luxury of having
his without berating him. Please don't berate me for having my opinion.
Thanks.

Peter.

wrote in message news:5108043@discussion.autodesk.com...
So it was a cheap $300 machine with a bunch of added accessories and
software to make it a $3000 machine.

Yawn. If you're throwing the Golden Gate in free, I might buy it. Of
course, you could just tell me the Dell Service Tag number to prove it, but
that would expose your bluff.

Sorry you had such bad experiences with Dell Home support. Dell Business
support is exceptional. They may have refused your malfuctioning computer,
but they cross-shipped me a new laptop no questions asked. Can't say very
many companies would do that.

If Dell was so bad, they certainly wouldn't lead in market share. We'll
just let the numbers speak for themselves. Neither one of us is going to
change their minds.

[Anonymous]

All you have proved is that you will downplay any contradictory
information without accepting facts. If you bet me enough money I'll
drive the 50 miles each way to my sister's house and get the serial
number. It was their top of the line at the time it was bought.

No software other than Windows in the package since she already had all
her software sitting on the Gateway. She didn't listen (they never do)
and bought a Dell. When she started telling me about it, she couldn't
accept that I wouldn't say that she had a great computer. Of course I
had to go to her house to set up her network. 2 weeks later I'm back at
her house salvaging her data, reformatting, reinstalling, and resetting
her network. Next week, and every week for 6 weeks I had to return,
salvage work data, reformat and reinstall. She was afraid to buy
anything except Intel because of the propaganda that her software
wouldn't work. And not once was the issue software. File system
corrupted. Replaced hard drive and same problem. Added an ide interface
card, problem solved. Bad motherboard.

The real answer to why they sell so well is:
a) many people are believing that Dell support is what it used to be. I
remember working at an office that had 5 Dell computers, 286's and 386's
and they sent service tech's out within 24 hours. (Of course the
computers broke down a lot in those days, averaging 8 months between
on-site calls each computer, those machines were really poorly built,
but service was great.) Unfortunately now you have to pay a premium for
that kind of service, or have a very large purchasing clout. But quality
is marginally better, but so is quality on all brands.
b) they sell some really cheap computers which are underpowered, but if
all you want is to go online or play solitaire, you'll never notice.


TravisNave wrote:
> So it was a cheap $300 machine with a bunch of added accessories and software to make it a $3000 machine.
>
> Yawn. If you're throwing the Golden Gate in free, I might buy it. Of course, you could just tell me the Dell Service Tag number to prove it, but that would expose your bluff.
>
> Sorry you had such bad experiences with Dell Home support. Dell Business support is exceptional. They may have refused your malfuctioning computer, but they cross-shipped me a new laptop no questions asked. Can't say very many companies would do that.
>
> If Dell was so bad, they certainly wouldn't lead in market share. We'll just let the numbers speak for themselves. Neither one of us is going to change their minds.

[TravisNave]

Peter,

I wouldn't berate you at all. No worries. The fact that this came down to Intel vs. AMD is completely off topic and I just couldn't let those claims go unchallenged.

I simply offered my experience with Dell vs manufacturers in the past. Basically what the topic was about. I have been in the business long enough to at least provide some insight.

Next thing I get is a response to my post stating how Dell is selling AMDs and how AMDs are outselling Intel. Of course, this is all bogus information. It was not my intention to start some bickering, as we all know too well that nobody is going to change their minds. Frankly, I don't care which is faster and who sells more. I am just here to defend my experience with Dell customer service, when rarely needed, has been incredible.

I respect his opinion. It's his faulty data and assumptions that back up his claims that I find exception. Anyway, I am the one that got put on the defensive.

Relax.