Dell complaints

Hi all. There are 5 Dells in my household. I am a computer tech, and yes I should know better, but I dealt with Dell because of convenience. As a father and on a limited budget, I don't always have 500-1000 lying around to throw at a computer. I bought from Dell using their financial services knowing how much I would pay and that yes it was more expensive then just plain buying a clone. All 5 Dells are still running great, although one has a recently replaced motherboard, but bear in mind the PC is close to 5 years old (Dmension 2400). My other machines are 4, 3 and a half, 2 and not even a year old. 4 out of the five had Windows in them, the last one is an Open Source PC. Tech Support has always been agreeable for me, although I have always dealt with a Canadian Tech service. I always asked the tech where they were situated. We weren't going to buy any more Dells because of Vista, and I had switched all our PC's over to ubuntu, except for my laptop which runs 2kPro, and while checking out the Dell site, we saw they now offered open source PCs, so we took the plunge and bought a 1525. My wife has no complaints with this system ... it just goes!

I know many people hate Dells, I can understand, but my personal experience with them has been great. Maybe my Dells were middle of the week ones, and not Monday or Friday ones LOL.

Don't flame me for liking them, mine work great!

Dells owned:
Dimension 2400 (board died after almost 5 years, replaced and runs great, note not an OEM board, an ASUS clone board)
Inspiron 1150 (never had problems with it)
Dimension 3000 (still runs great)
Dimension 3100 (runs extremely well)
Inspiron 1525 (the latest edition)

I'm one of Dell's biggest critics. I lead this site (though I didn't found it). There was a time when I would unconditionally endorse Dell products and service. That time was 1998-2001, during which span I bought one and worked for Dell.

The 1998 Dell I bought is still working, and always has. So in terms of MY experience, I'm 130% satisfied with Dell. It has outlived its life expectancy. But that was then, this is now.

Now, Dells out of the box have parts missing or uninstalled. Dells have BIOS bugs that can't be resolved after a half dozen revisions. Dell stiffarms warranty claims. Dell has been proven in the State Court of New York to be a fraudulent vendor. Dell Financial deliberately misleads purchasers, and subjects them to internal fraud and identity theft, without recourse.

If you've bought recent Dells, and had them work for you, you're extraordinarily fortunate. You should consider investing in your state's lottery, or a trip to Las Vegas.

Every issue above has been reported dozens of times, here and on Dell's own site. For every report you hear, there are at least 1000 that you don't hear. Sure, anything can break and require service. Why then does Dell have 8 times the number of BBB complaints as any other vendor? Those are all issues Dell refused to resolve. It's irrelevant if you don't have an issue--like your stuff all worked--but it could just as easily been the reverse, they all did NOT work, and Dell stiffarmed and stonewalled you on all of them, as they are known to do.

What would you say then?

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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

I understand where you're going with that ... I guess I am fortunate to have working Dells then ... I am a bit upset with one that had motherboard trouble, but I know from experience that computers are not eternal, and I am starting to see that I guess I am one of the fortunate ones.

My Inspiron 1150 is an example ... I heard lot's of horror stories about them, how the screen screws up, motherboard blows after so long, plus in back breaks, DVD freaks, and mine has no trouble. Like I said in my first post as a joke, maybe all the Dells I have were middle of the week machines lol.

And I guess that if I had problems with my Dells I wouldn't recommend them to people. It's too bad that Dell doesn't improve the situation. They should, but it seems that in the corporate world, as companies get bigger they forget about their roots. It's all about the all powerful $. Hopefully they will smarten up, and if not well they will eventually lose out.

You'd think they'd learn. When they really cared about product integrity, their stock was splitting 2 for 1 every 9 months. Since they changed strategies in 2000, their stock has just sat there around the low $20s. If they don't care about products or customers, shouldn't they at least care about stock value? In 8 years they still haven't caught on to that.

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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

Maybe somebody who started the company should get off his butt and implicate himself more instead of letting monkeys run the company lol

Hi,
I would just like to add that I have been very satisfied with Dell. I have three Dell machines. Inspiron 1000 laptop, Dimension Desktop 8400, and a Dimension 9200 with Vista Home premium. I have just replaced the HDD on the laptop, which is just over 4 years old. I did have a little bother with the 9200 Vista machine, but I received great help in sorting this out. Now the HDD on the 8400 system will have to be replaced shortly, but bearing in mind it probably has the equivalent of well over 100,000 miles in car terms, so I don`t think that I can complain.
Martin

Michael Dell, shame on you for impersonating users named drawmada and metroman! Is this another lame attempt to increase the stock value of your sinking company. Shouldn't you make a New Year resolution to follow your corporate value to build strong relationships?

Why does the Dell and Enron logo both have the same slanted "e"?

Merry Christmas! Why don't you light your holiday fire with your stock certificates, you greedy bastard!

Bah Hum Bug!

mkwiatkowski the person named drawmada did write all his posts ... here and elsewhere on the forum ... no one impersonated me in any way shape or form.

And yet again I will re-iterate what I said earlier:

Michael Dell should get off his butt and implicate himself more instead of letting idjuts (monkeys would probably run it better) run his company.

Monkeys would definitely run Dell better than the current group of "morons", but then the Executive "Leadership" Team including Mikey would have to deal with Protesters from PETA picketing all of their buildings daily. In the eyes of PETA, it is okay to treat people inhumanely. But if you treat animals inhumanely, then they have a problem with you. And Dhell management is notorious for mistreating their employees.

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Q: How do you know Dell Management is lying to you?

A: Until proven otherwise, Assume EVERYTHING coming from Dell Management is a lie.

And how much did they pay the current crop of outside management?

A: Enough that they made everyone take some unpaid time off to cover the signing bonuses. Purely 'voluntary' of course

Made me ill reading about how 'noble' Garriques was, taking his 'week' off as some sort of example. Hmm, how about giving back 2% of that $25million signing bonus, and who know how many shares, yeah the options are currently worthless, but they'll get repriced, just for execs.

I also agree that some of the original dells from back in the day have been reliable good machines. I have a desktop that's lasted a long time with no problems.

My main issue with Dell now however is the decline in adequate tech support. I've reached a point where I have to solve my own issue if I have a system problem because I am more qualified to troubleshoot it.

You would think an entire floor of techies could do a better job than me with all their resources and training and first hand knowledge. I think they geniunely do not care. They are hiring anyone to do the job when if the jobs were in the U.S. they'd be very selective in picking the right people.

This isn't just a training issue this is an HR issue. I refuse to believe there are that many horrible tech people in India. They seem to hire the wrong people.

Likewise, I bought from Dell and have made at least three sales for Dell in the past few years. Friends and family always ask me to pick their computers. My business owns two Dells: a server and a Vostro desktop. But we will never deal with them again, after dealing with the criminals at DFS. I like their PCs and their prices but I can't afford to spend days on the phone arguing with them for every PC I buy.



That's right.



I'm getting the stonewall treatment from them now. It's awful. I hope there is another class action lawsuit against them, like there was in 2006. You can't stonewall a court.

What a sad state of affairs. Dell used to be the leader in customer satisfaction. I'm inclined to believe Michael Dell had his customers at heart, at any cost, but Corporate Control has effectively endeavored to wring every red cent possible out of it's customer base, to every extent possible. I believe, to a certain level, that is an "action- reaction" situation, caused by customers receiving faulty merchandise, and asking for reparation, which they should be completely entitled to, but the Corporate mentality leading to the unfortunate mistaken belief that everybody is out to rip them off. Now, in Dell's Corporate view, it's "Us against Them". They represent that they have superior products, and they don't. They install foreign made, mass produced, manufacturer tested (or, maybe not), downright cheapest components available. And after the initial warranty expires, drop us like we are dead, unless we pay them dearly not to. Reeks of ultimate stupidity. There's intense competition in the PC field. We, the customer, are ultimately responsible for the products we buy- and, this is key- given fair warning, we'll avoid companies such as Dell. In the PC business, you just don't always get what you pay for. Personally, I spent $2700+ for my Dell rig. The mobo went out, out of warranty, and the only hope is find a used one on Ebay or Craigslist, etc. Dell doesn't even have a replacement on hand. The dvd recorder went kaput just after the warranty, also. I found that the mobo & dvd drive are made by lowest quality providers on earth. Same goes for the Dell LCD TV I bought. They buy cheapest bid of lots on wholesale components, and assemble their products.
To those that have no problem with their Dell's: You have fortunately not had Dell install one, or more, of their crap-shoot components into your systems. I wish I was one of you.

Yep! back in the day. Dhell actually had good products. They also had one thing they don't have anymore. Ouality Assurance!

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Former employee of Dell and can say that they
definitely Suck!

Those are all good systems you purchased. As a former field tech of three years, I can confidently say that you just barely missed the lemons.

Take the Dimension 2350, for instance. All I have to do is mention "plastic heat sink" and people will remember a flimsy piece of plastic, which snapped under the pressure of 25 lbs of force from a pair of metal CPU brackets. Once the bracket broke, the heat sink would no longer cool the CPU (or worse, would clunk around the system, shorting out everything inside). Getting the 2400 was very lucky of you.

Because your inspiron 1150 is still working, I can make a good bet your household does not have pets. The 1150 is in the same family as the 1100, 5100, 5150, and 5160 (and any in between that I missed). The copper heat sink fins are close together, and clogging it is unbelievably easy. Usually it starts with pet hair and within a few months the entire system overheats (or at the very least the fan spins at maximum and you have to purchase a very expensive 'laptop cooling pad' with dual fans to force air into the system). Taking the heat sink out and peeling off the "lint layer" (it mats like the lint filter in a dryer) will do wonders for your system.

A dimension 3000 is fairly decent system, as long as it's plugged into a UPS. Both their power supplies and system boards are prone to voltage surges. Having an E310 (3100) still running is a minor miracle, as I believe this system board fails due to a cheap and faulty thermal resistors (the fan spins at maximum, even when the CPU is cool...sounds like a jet engine). I might be mistaken, though, and that resistor issue only happens on E510's.

Give the Inspiron 1525 some time. Something is bound to happen.