In home warranty service

Four years of Dell in-home service came with my Dell 4700 purchase two
years ago. In the first year, after making me do many hours of
diagnostic tests under the telephone directions of their outsourced
technicians, they replaced the motherboard and one 256-meg memory
card . When I again got the blue screen of death, I called my local
guru, who tried to reinstall Windows. He reported a malfunctioning
boot drive, which Dell's service man replaced. When I still got the
blue screen, I called my guru again. After he found and removed a bad
256-meg memory card, the computer functioned again, albeit slowly.
When I called Dell to replace the bad memory card, they refused to do
anything unless I went into the console and performed more
diagnostics. After limping along for a year with only 256 meg of
memory, I finally bought 1 gigabyte and had my guru install it.

So far I've paid my guru $275 to do what Dell is supposed to do under
the warranty. Not to mention many frustrating hours of blue screens,
diagnostics and downtime. And I'm still entitled to two more years
of Dell's in-home disservice!

imk wrote:
> Four years of Dell in-home service came with my Dell 4700 purchase two
> years ago. In the first year, after making me do many hours of
> diagnostic tests under the telephone directions of their outsourced
> technicians, they replaced the motherboard and one 256-meg memory
> card . When I again got the blue screen of death, I called my local
> guru, who tried to reinstall Windows. He reported a malfunctioning
> boot drive, which Dell's service man replaced. When I still got the
> blue screen, I called my guru again. After he found and removed a bad
> 256-meg memory card, the computer functioned again, albeit slowly.
> When I called Dell to replace the bad memory card, they refused to do
> anything unless I went into the console and performed more
> diagnostics. After limping along for a year with only 256 meg of
> memory, I finally bought 1 gigabyte and had my guru install it.
>
> So far I've paid my guru $275 to do what Dell is supposed to do under
> the warranty. Not to mention many frustrating hours of blue screens,
> diagnostics and downtime. And I'm still entitled to two more years
> of Dell's in-home disservice!

It's SOP to have the consumer run diagnostics before sending a tech.

Did you *really* call "your guru" to add memory???

--
Notan

"imk" <> wrote in message
news: s.com...
> Four years of Dell in-home service came with my Dell 4700 purchase two
> years ago. In the first year, after making me do many hours of
> diagnostic tests under the telephone directions of their outsourced
> technicians, they replaced the motherboard and one 256-meg memory
> card . When I again got the blue screen of death, I called my local
> guru, who tried to reinstall Windows. He reported a malfunctioning
> boot drive, which Dell's service man replaced. When I still got the
> blue screen, I called my guru again. After he found and removed a bad
> 256-meg memory card, the computer functioned again, albeit slowly.
> When I called Dell to replace the bad memory card, they refused to do
> anything unless I went into the console and performed more
> diagnostics. After limping along for a year with only 256 meg of
> memory, I finally bought 1 gigabyte and had my guru install it.
>
> So far I've paid my guru $275 to do what Dell is supposed to do under
> the warranty. Not to mention many frustrating hours of blue screens,
> diagnostics and downtime. And I'm still entitled to two more years
> of Dell's in-home disservice!

So, what's your point? That you won't insist that Dell fix your system, so
you call an outside technician and pay to have him muck around with it?
When you call the product support of any company, not just Dell, you have to
make sure they know what your expectations are right off the bat. If you
don't tell them what you want, they tell you what they will give you.

On 28 Feb 2007 18:22:13 -0800, "imk" <> wrote:

>So far I've paid my guru $275 to do what Dell is supposed to do under
>the warranty. Not to mention many frustrating hours of blue screens,
>diagnostics and downtime. And I'm still entitled to two more years
>of Dell's in-home disservice!

There are few things as frustrating as blue screens of death that
can't be easily resolved. It sounds like Dell put forth a reasonable
effort. Unfortunately not all problems are easy to diagnose and fix.

you "got off easy" by paying only $275 for several years....

my typical service call is $200, and some are even as high as $600.
dell is actually better than most of the other major companies.
most of my customers and repeat business come from customers being
screwed by dealing with others, either the mfg or other computer guys.

some problems especially if they're intermittent are hard to solve.
dell does a great job with their scripts for the most part. parts get
out fast, etc. i actually help my customers by getting them to call
support, and get the parts shipped, and if they need help installing, i
can step in. that cuts down on labor for them and time that i dont have.

to contrast, one customer is still waiting a week for a spare part from
HP... terrible.


imk wrote:
> Four years of Dell in-home service came with my Dell 4700 purchase two
> years ago. In the first year, after making me do many hours of
> diagnostic tests under the telephone directions of their outsourced
> technicians, they replaced the motherboard and one 256-meg memory
> card . When I again got the blue screen of death, I called my local
> guru, who tried to reinstall Windows. He reported a malfunctioning
> boot drive, which Dell's service man replaced. When I still got the
> blue screen, I called my guru again. After he found and removed a bad
> 256-meg memory card, the computer functioned again, albeit slowly.
> When I called Dell to replace the bad memory card, they refused to do
> anything unless I went into the console and performed more
> diagnostics. After limping along for a year with only 256 meg of
> memory, I finally bought 1 gigabyte and had my guru install it.
>
> So far I've paid my guru $275 to do what Dell is supposed to do under
> the warranty. Not to mention many frustrating hours of blue screens,
> diagnostics and downtime. And I'm still entitled to two more years
> of Dell's in-home disservice!
>

>you "got off easy" by paying only $275 for several years....

Considering the time, money, and frustration required to fix some
computer problems, it just might be easier to buy a new onw.
Prices are low enough that they are almost disposable
(but not as disposable as a, DVD, microwave, etc... )
The only concern I have with a new one is dealing with Vista.

I guess I have been lucky. My Compaq )origianl from 1983) worked
fine for years and even got a good price for it when I upgraded to a
Compaq 286. My Gateway 486 from 1994 got many years of use and was
still working when I threw it out last year. I currently have a
Dell Dimenson 8400 and an Inspiron 9300, both just over two years
old, and other than placing the order online have never had any
contact with Dell. Both work perfectly (Windows XP!)




Best Regards,
Bob Johnson

"imk" <> wrote in message
news: s.com...
> Four years of Dell in-home service came with my Dell 4700 purchase two
> years ago. In the first year, after making me do many hours of
> diagnostic tests under the telephone directions of their outsourced
> technicians, they replaced the motherboard and one 256-meg memory
> card . When I again got the blue screen of death, I called my local
> guru, who tried to reinstall Windows. He reported a malfunctioning
> boot drive, which Dell's service man replaced. When I still got the
> blue screen, I called my guru again. After he found and removed a bad
> 256-meg memory card, the computer functioned again, albeit slowly.
> When I called Dell to replace the bad memory card, they refused to do
> anything unless I went into the console and performed more
> diagnostics. After limping along for a year with only 256 meg of
> memory, I finally bought 1 gigabyte and had my guru install it.
>
> So far I've paid my guru $275 to do what Dell is supposed to do under
> the warranty. Not to mention many frustrating hours of blue screens,
> diagnostics and downtime. And I'm still entitled to two more years
> of Dell's in-home disservice!
>

Probably would've been better to let your 'guru' have the machine upon first
failure and let him call Dell and return the machine when it was truly
fixed.

This way, you'd at least have been spared the phone time and multiple
failures perhaps.

Surprised your dude didn't catch the hardware failures using Dell's
diagnostics......

-Stew

On 28 Feb 2007 18:22:13 -0800, "imk" <> wrote:

>Four years of Dell in-home service came with my Dell 4700 purchase two
>years ago. In the first year, after making me do many hours of
>diagnostic tests under the telephone directions of their outsourced
>technicians, they replaced the motherboard and one 256-meg memory
>card . When I again got the blue screen of death, I called my local
>guru, who tried to reinstall Windows. He reported a malfunctioning
>boot drive, which Dell's service man replaced. When I still got the
>blue screen, I called my guru again. After he found and removed a bad
>256-meg memory card, the computer functioned again, albeit slowly.
>When I called Dell to replace the bad memory card, they refused to do
>anything unless I went into the console and performed more
>diagnostics. After limping along for a year with only 256 meg of
>memory, I finally bought 1 gigabyte and had my guru install it.
>
>So far I've paid my guru $275 to do what Dell is supposed to do under
>the warranty. Not to mention many frustrating hours of blue screens,
>diagnostics and downtime. And I'm still entitled to two more years
>of Dell's in-home disservice!


Sounds to me like you should stick with your guru and just forget
about Dell support as you seem to have better satisfaction with the
guru. That said, it's, of course harder to diagnose over a phone for
all the things that might go wrong. Many years ago, they messed me up
a bit and over the years, except for outright hardware failure, have
learned to diagnose (sometimes with the help of the internet) my own
problems to avoid dealing with any support over the phone.

Actually I think Dell needs to rethink the competitive price now and
jack the price up on their system purchases but offer a superior
support compared to the competitors. Over the years, pc's have gotten
lower in price but at some point, there must be a bottom and I think
the industry has sorta hurt themselves by conditioning us to expecting
lower prices. Of course as a result, they had to economize on other
aspects on the purchase such as support, warrantee, etc.. .

Good luck and for the time being, scrap Dell (chalk up the support
cost to experience) and use your guru person instead for now and in
the future (till Dell, etc.. get their support worthy).

On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:49:02 -0800, Bob Johnson <>
wrote:

>>you "got off easy" by paying only $275 for several years....
>

Boy, I can't imagine paying out $200 to $600 to fix a pc problem but
good for Jay B if he can get it. Of course, I think a good person is
worth more and he has to eat too <g>.

But considering I once was in a store when the tech guy told a
customer, he could format their hard drive in the store for about $40
perhaps a $200 for a house call isn't too bad after all.

Most "tech support" and service in stores such as CompUSA,
BestBuy et al, is grossly over-priced and under-qualified.
$40 to format a hard drive? Highway robbery.



<RnR> wrote in message
news:...
| On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:49:02 -0800, Bob Johnson
<>
| wrote:
|
| >>you "got off easy" by paying only $275 for several
years....
| >
|
| Boy, I can't imagine paying out $200 to $600 to fix a pc
problem but
| good for Jay B if he can get it. Of course, I think a
good person is
| worth more and he has to eat too <g>.
|
| But considering I once was in a store when the tech guy
told a
| customer, he could format their hard drive in the store
for about $40
| perhaps a $200 for a house call isn't too bad after all.