Dell complaints

[Oops]

I am stuck in Dell Hell!

I have a Dimension 8300 with an ATI Radeon 9800 XT video card. In the 30 months I have had the system, the video card has fried itself twice. (The symptoms are video dropouts that get worse as the complexity of the video processing task increases, accompanied by horrible noises as the GPU fan tries in vain to cool off the video chip, with GPU temperatures in the 90-to-110-degree range, followed by a BSOD.)

The first time this happened, six months ago, I opened my case to find that the GPU fan was totally clogged with dust bunnies. (I live in a dusty city -- something that Dell's support people in Mumbai should certainly be familiar with!) After much hemming and hawing and not believing me when I called with a pre-diagnosed problem, Dell finally replaced the video card as an even exchange.

Now it's happening again. After doing some Googling, I have read many reports of Radeon 9800 cards frying in Dimension 8300 or 8400 systems. Apparently -- and this makes lots of sense -- there's insufficient airflow in these cases to cool the hot Radeon 9800 GPU, and the physical location of the GPU fan about a centimeter from another expansion card makes it very difficult for the on-board fan to do its job adequately. So these cards tend to fry after a year or two when users run them hot by pushing their video capabilities to their limits, as I do.

So enter Dell, again. My system is still under its four-year, next-day on-site warranty. I called tech support to explain the problem and to request a resolution other than putting another incompatible card back into my poorly designed case. (Call me fussy, but I have no desire to go through this dance with Dell every six months when the GPU burns up again. I also don't want to have to automatically throw my computer out next year when the warranty expires.)

I would think that the possible solutions are:
1) Replace the Radeon 9800 with yet another Radeon 9800 and wait for it to burn out again. (I don't like this solution.)
2) Change the Radeon 9800 for an equally powerful video card with a better fan design or that doesn't have the same heat problem. (Dell sells a handful cards that meet these criteria.)
3) Change the Dimension 8300 for another tower design that has better airflow or more spacing in front of the GPU fan.

Over the course of two weeks and many hours, my calls to Dell have ranged from fleetingly hopeful to entirely pitiful, but they have not resulted in any action yet. On the occasions when I've gotten a tech-support or customer-service rep who seems semi-interested in helping me, he always seems to need to "check with a manager" about a proposed resolution, and it always seems to take the rep 15 minutes to determine that that manager is "in a meeting." The promised call-backs invariably never happen. The telephone extensions the reps give me invariably don't work. A few days after I speak with a rep, I get email saying something to the effect of "if I can be of further help, please reply to this email" -- as if "further help" really means anything when there was no help to begin with. I reply, and a few days later yet another rep in yet another country calls me back.

My call has been escalated a few times, but each level of support has been no less frustrating or fruitless than the previous level. Early on, a rep in India said he would replace my video card with a different model but just needed to check with his manager, then he never called me back and the phone extension he gave me didn't work. At another point, a specialist in the Philippines agreed to replace the whole system (actually, it was her idea), but she would not tell me in advance what should would be sending me. ("Dispatch will decide what to send you. It might be the same system, or it might be a different system that is also the same [sic]" -- whatever that means.) At another point, a rep in El Salvador offered me a 50% discount on the purchase of any new video card from the Dell store, but I would be responsible for ensuring compatibility with my system. (I declined, because I thought the whole point of a warranty was so that I would have to pay anything to replace a defective part.) Later in the week, an escalation specialist in the Philippines offered me a 20% discount on a video card -- clearly demonstrating that she had never even bothered to read the case notes. The same Filipino specialist told me that it was my fault if the original card is incompatible with the original tower -- even though Dell sold both to me as a system -- and that I should have known about the problems when I first received the system.

So here I am with a system that BSOD's if I do anything more graphics-intensive than Flying Toasters, a next-day warranty that I'm still waiting for a resolution two weeks after calling about it, and a string of Dell reps and resolution specialists who don't return calls and who give out wrong extensions and who make up stories about their managers being in meetings all the time.

What do I do now? It is unreasonable of me to insist that Dell do something other than simply replace the incompatible card with another incompatible card? How can I convince Dell that this really is a compatibility problem? Does anyone reading this have any more evidence for me about the Radeon 9800 and Dimension 8300/8400 heat problem? How do I get my computer fixed? How can I get someone at Dell who will actually help me?

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

Welcome, Oops. And you thought stepping in cowflop was something that happened when you bought Gateway

Your experiences with Dell contract/offshore support are universal. Add yours to the 14,000 Dell complaints the BBB received in the last 3 years (while HP received 1,960 and Ford 2,100). Dell DOES resolve BBB complaints--generally doing what they should have done in the first place without being forced by a consumer watchdog.

How did you arrive at the

[Oops]

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

110 Centipede? Yikes! That's TWICE the temperature computer parts are rated for (55C, 130F). Yes, I know about the 3rd fan, and the fact it just stirs hot air if that's what the corner of the case is full of (underdesigned ventilation).

What I was saying about dust--it's just like the stuff we blow into our attics to keep the heat IN the house--so that plus the high-performance video chip and the known chassis airflow issue, equals a maintenance liability. Like the difference between a Geo and a Corvette (which has also suffered from underdesigned cooling at times). Looks like you're just going to have to stay on top of that. If your environment is that dusty, better vacuum or blow out ALL the vents--front, rear, internal and external power supply, processor heatsink, video heatsink/fan--regularly.

Know what I'd likely do, to engineer my way out of that situation? Drill 3 rows of 1/4" holes in the removable cover, right where the video slot is, and duct-tape any other open holes in the rear, so that the video card gets its own outside air inlet. ('Technically', voids the warranty--but they'll never know, and the chassis is not replaceable under warranty or any other way, anyway.) But wait--at least one chassis in that family already HAS a mesh of holes drilled in the cardbay corner of the cover. Does yours? Sure it's not being blocked by a bookcase or otherwise stopped up?

Some cards 'insist' on being in a certain socket--can't offhand tell you which cards or which sockets--but could you move the one that's right up against the video card?

File with your nearest BBB office. Call, and they send you forms to fill out.
_________________
Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

[sickofdell]