Dell complaints

lmb · conscientious beginner Joined: 10 Apr 2008 Posts: 2

I myself spent 13 months being completely frustrated with Vista and it's strange relationship with my Dell laptop. The thing just about imploded when I tried to install antivirus within the first week.

I don't have to worry about that now though. The motherboard has exploded - 14 days past the warranty period and of course, Dell is unable to help me whatsoever.

I think I'll be finding myself a Mac this weekend.

FallenAngel · Super Hater Joined: 21 Feb 2006 Posts: 1516

With all due respect, using your calculations of a 13 month long battle, and the warranty being out by 14 days...that tells me that you had a base warranty of 1 year for your laptop.

If you own a system, ESPECIALLY a laptop, you NEED to get the 3 year warranty at the very least. I want to side with you on this debacle, but really, can't. You gambled on a 1 year warranty and lost.

lmb · conscientious beginner Joined: 10 Apr 2008 Posts: 2

Thanks for the great advice. They say hindsight is 20/20.

Unfortunately, I do not know much about computers and took the 1 year warranty on the advice of others, who (allegedly) did know about computers. Obviously to me now they did not know as much as they had claimed.

But thank you my friend for your empathy. I will be forever indebted to you for your valuable advice, which I will carry with me throughout the remainder of my life.

FallenAngel · Super Hater Joined: 21 Feb 2006 Posts: 1516

lmb, don't get me wrong, I loathe the very core of Dell and 90% of my posts will attest to that. I just can't help but shake my head when I see posts like yours that wanna cry, "Dell won't help me with (whatever)", but in reality you did nothing to help yourself in the first place.

No one expects you to know all about systems. It's sad that you consulted with wannabe techs that you yourself admit know little to nothing as they claimed they did. Best bet for the future is to consult a tech in a shop, or someone who has logged field time in the hundreds or thousands of hours. They're not that hard to come by Smile

(at least where I live)

If this was a desktop system, yes perhaps a 1 year stock warranty is all you'd need, because parts replaceable are a dime a dozen. With a laptop though, the replacement cost for a motherboard will, at last look, run you anywhere from $450-$850 for the part alone. Probably as much as, or more than your whole computer cost. In comparison, a desktop one would run maybe $100-$200. Call Spare Parts just to get a quote for the part alone.

Your best bet, is to eBay yourself a new system. Maybe even just a comparable system that you can cannibalize for parts for your system. I've seen it done and recommended it in the past. Sometimes it's the only choice you have aside from using your now dead laptop as a paperweight.

If you have valuable data on the drive and this is a matter of some concern, that can also be resolved. There are notebook-to-desktop IDE adapters that can be bought for a relatively low cost (less than $70 last time I checked). Remove your drive, attach the adapter, then slap it in as a slave to a working desktop system and get your data.

I wish I could be more empathetic, but that would be like expecting someone to have empathy for people that lose their lives because they jumped out of a perfectly good airplane without a parachute.

Your sarcastic response was humorous though, so I thank you for that.