Dell complaints

[dellcrap]

I'm not a computer newbee. I got my EE degree some 20+ years ago, and have run mainframes and a multitude of PC machines.

Our firm ordered a Vostro for the upcoming tax season. (Our first mistake!)

The packages arrived just before Christmas, so we put things aside until I could get have time to put this machine on-line.

The boxes were shipped by DHL, and were in pristine shape; no obvious damage or mishandling.

The Vostro machine rattled when moved from horizontal to verticle, and I shook the machine, and it sounded like there was a loose brick in the machine.

I took the side panel off, and low and behold, the whole CPU fan was loose, and the power cable for the back panel fan and CPU fan were all disconnected.

I've seen cables come loose in shipping and cards come unseated, but this appeared to be way beyond what could have possibly happened just in shipping. The CPU fan is held on with 4 threaded screws into the motherboard. All 4 screws had to have come loose for this thing to have been flopping around in the case, and it's much more probably that the thing was never assembled correctly.

Is there any QC done on machines before they go out the door? It would certainly appear that this one shipped without anyone ever doing a power on test.

Has anyone ever had a machine delivered in such a state of complete disassembly?