4600 power supplies

As the (to date) very happy owner of a Dell Dimension 4600 purchased
new in March 2004, I am slightly concerned to read the following:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07...tomer_support/

How prevalent is the failing 4600 power supply issue, in the group's
experience? If the probability is that it will shortly fail, I will
order a spare now, so that they can be swapped over as required.

TIA.

--
Anthony Edwards

To date, in the time since the machine was introduced, I don't remember any
people coming here to discuss their 4600 power supply failing. Certainly not
in the numbers you would expect if it was a major problem.

That article is amazingly bias. They compare their search of Dell customer
service problems to a similar search of Britney Spears customer service
problems.

The surprising thing isn't how biased it is, but that Britney has 180,000+
complaints.

Googling

"Dell customer service problems" brings back 6, count'em 6, hits. One is
the article.

It seems they don't know know to use google, as if you put it in without
quotes or + signs, it brings back every page on the internet with the word
customer OR service OR problems OR Dell.

Useful, huh

Putting it in properly, +Dell +customer +service +problems does bring back
751,000 hits. Surprise, surprise, they're big.

Substitute Compaq for Dell and you get 496,000 hits, for a company that
doesn't sell much any more.

Put in HP and you get 1,250,00 hits. Where does the article mention that?

Gateway = 1,150,000

Toshiba = 609,000 and they only make laptops

IBM =2,610,000

"Britney Spears" = 174,000 (they even lied about that!)

By these measures, Dell is actually better than HP, Gateway or IBM.

Don't you love BIAS coverage?
"Anthony Edwards" <> wrote in message
news:...
> As the (to date) very happy owner of a Dell Dimension 4600 purchased
> new in March 2004, I am slightly concerned to read the following:
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07...tomer_support/
>
> How prevalent is the failing 4600 power supply issue, in the group's
> experience? If the probability is that it will shortly fail, I will
> order a spare now, so that they can be swapped over as required.
>
> TIA.
>
> --
> Anthony Edwards
>

The problem seems to be fairly common.

The good thing about the 4600 (and 2400/3000/4700) chassis is that the
back is wide open, so just about any ATX power supply can be used for
the 2400/3000/4600 (the 4700 uses a BTX connector and SATA power rails).



Anthony Edwards wrote:
> As the (to date) very happy owner of a Dell Dimension 4600 purchased
> new in March 2004, I am slightly concerned to read the following:
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07...tomer_support/
>
> How prevalent is the failing 4600 power supply issue, in the group's
> experience? If the probability is that it will shortly fail, I will
> order a spare now, so that they can be swapped over as required.
>
> TIA.
>

On Mon, 11 Jul 2005 17:17:39 -0000, Anthony Edwards
<> wrote:

>As the (to date) very happy owner of a Dell Dimension 4600 purchased
>new in March 2004, I am slightly concerned to read the following:
>
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07...tomer_support/
>
>How prevalent is the failing 4600 power supply issue, in the group's
>experience? If the probability is that it will shortly fail, I will
>order a spare now, so that they can be swapped over as required.

I see 4600's occasionally, maybe replace 2-3 PS's per week...but it's
nothing widespread. It could've been from voltage surges or
lightning. Swap it out, upgrade the BIOS while I'm there, begin a
defrag, and done.

Sometimes Dell sends the whole kitten-kaboodle....motherboard, CPU,
DIMMs, modem *and* PS, just in case it was a surge and it got to other
parts in the system. Nothing worse than replacing a PS, still not
working, then having to call Dell tech support and wait on hold for
20-30 minutes (yes, techs have to wait on hold, too ;P ).

I think I'm *too* good at my job...I keep having to move into other
tech's territories cuz there's not enough work in my area Where's
those thunderstorms when ya need em?

Dan