Glad I don't own a Gateway !!!

Tom, close your eyes and repeat ten times: "Dell is not perfect"!

 

you truly need to re-read your posts if you believe that is my position.

 

Perhaps Tom has never had the 'pleasure' as we Canadians do of having to
call Dell Support.

For us, the answer (when we can understand it because of the accent) is
always 'Do a complete reinstall'.

Need I add where we get directed to for support?

Thought not..............

 

What the hell did I do to start getting abused? Do you even know anything
about my posts?

 

I'm in the US and have had the pleasure of not understanding the Tech's
accent. I hung up immediately and emailed my problem. It got resolved
within a work week. The tech who came to correct the problem spoke with
an Ohio accent.

You know if everyone stopped complaining about calling and getting tech
voice support from (which truly most of us cannot understand the accent)
India, and we chose to email instead, maybe Dell would get the message
we can't understand them.

Griping on the newsgroup about it, makes me wonder if too many of us
have too much time on their hands, and no problems with their Dell
system.

Dell Tech has never told me to reinstall the OS. I only call when I
know I have a hardware problem. Software is not their problem, unless
you didn't install anything and the system is not working properly, that
will usually show up immediately or within the 30 days, send it back and
order another one. It will never work properly.

Joan

 

Unless the software is Dell's own Media Experience where, one day, it
refused to run with a message that file such and such was missing. The call
to support gave the suggested solution: reinstall.

I chose to do without Media Experience instead.

 

I would of too. Most of that stuff is junk programs. Didn't you get
the program on one of Dell's CD's?

Joan

 

I tried that, and the e-mail tech was very quick - sent me a script to
try, none of which applied, then confirmed what I knew (DVDRW drive as
shot, less than a month old).

Unfoirtunately, in Canada e-mail support cannot authorise anything
because they're in the US. So, I had to call... Took me 40 minutes to
convince the "tech" - reading from a script that I needed a new drive.

He had trouble understanding me and me him. He simply could not
understand that the drive read/wrote CD but did nothing with DVD. I
explained it to him 4 times and told him e-mail support had confirmed I
need a new drive.

I don't know what these guys get to see when I tell them my service tag
and name and address - obviously not a profile of my PC since this guy
could alos not comprehend that I had a DVDRom and DVDRW and therefore
could easily verify that there was nothing wrong with the 12 different
DVDs that I had tried. I followed him and deleted some stuff in the
registry which screwed up many many other things. I was running a
system restore back to immediately before I called him when I was giving
him my address *again* to get the drive sent to me.

But, eventually a new drive was sent to me and I replaced it and all is
well. (I had the old one over a month before I convinced Dell that I
was going to throw it out if they didn't want it back because they never
ssent me the return envelope for it - but that's another issue and was
finally done with Canadian web support)

I pity the newbies who don't know enough to back up - restore point,
before they call support (he didn't even tell me to back up my registry
before deleting keys in it). This was so obviously not a software
issue. I was actively waiting for him to tell me reinstall XP.

 

Yes, Joan, I did ....but the support guy said I'd need to do a reinstall of
XP itself when I hung up (politely, though <g>).

 

I would disagree with the comments about the Solo 9100xl. I have one and
have no problems. It is about 4 1/2 years old and I still use it. I did
buy a dell 600 m and have been less than satisfied with it, as well as dell
support. The only reason I replaced the Solo is because of the age - it was
just getting too slow. The only reason I replaced with Dell was the rumors
about Gateway going under...and I wanted warranty repairs if needed. My
next laptop will be a Gateway if they are still around. It seem blue
screens are a way of life with the 600m. I have reloaded and still
frequently get blue screens...Never did get a resolution from Dell support.

 

David, I do feel sorry for computer newbies, but we all had to learn the
hard way, especially if you bought your first computer back in the late
80's. I still do many things in dos and the Win dos prompt. Old habits
die hard I guess.

Joan

 

Wow Cynthia, I would think Dell had email support on the web site where
you purchased PC's from in Canada. Bummer :-(

Joan

 

I would had thought so too. But the link warns that it's taking you to
US support, but I thought that they could at least e-mail Canada and
tell them what's what, but no luck.

I eventually found a customer service e-mail address on the Canadian
site (it was well buried) but had to fill out a form and none of the
pre-selected categories fit my problem (still had their broken drive and
wanted to give it back to them). After three replies of use the form on
page... I finally got someone to understand that the form didn't fit and
if they told they didn't want it I would throw it out.

 

Hardly a newbie here, Joan....I was TEACHING computer courses in high school
in 1970!

Having said that, all that experience has taught me to know enough to know
when I don't know enough!!

Ah DOS, them were the days..............

 

If DOS and cosmic consciousness would return, life couldn't be better...

Rocky

 

Ah yes fella's dos. I still have two systems 486 3.1 & Dos, Pentium
Win98SE reboots to dos. I will never give up my Tex Murphy series of
games. I'm 71 and I think I will be covered with dos and Tex for
rest of my life, I hope!!

Joan

 

Did you eventually get it straightened out with email? US'form asks the
same, but gives you a place to explain your problem. My 8300 has no
screws in the system and the little green plastic clamp holding the PCI
cards would not stay clamped down. I just kept asking for screws in the
message that would work, cause the holes are there. My return email
said we are sending a tech to replace your motherboard. Ouch :-( Tech
agreed I didn't need the motherboard, he ordered the clamp and was back
out the next day to install it. You know between the hard to understand
accent when you call, and email, Dell pays a lot of money to these Tech
Companies for servicing. Two trips because Dell doesn't stock any items
with the tech company they use. Dell pays for next day delivery. :-(

But at least with all the Dell's I have purchased 6 in all, I really
haven't had any hardware problems to speak of. They are all still in use.

Joan

 

i had a custom pc built with the following:
antec sonata case with 380watt antec power supply
intel d865perll mainboard with latest p14 bios
sony 16x dvd-rom drive, liteon 52x32x52 cdrw
crucial.com ddr 3200 ram
crucial.com radeon 9600pro 128meg video card with latest ati.com
drivers
western digital 80gig 8meg cache hard disk
sound blaster pci 128 sound card
internal usr performance pro modem v.92 with latest usr drivers
xp pro full version

been getting intermittent blue screens as described at the following
link:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314492

i did a reformat and reinstall of xp pro and still get the
intermittent bad pool caller errors.

so much for having a computer custom built. seems like blue screens
follow me from new computer to new computer on custom built ones.

am considering my next computer from www.buympc.com or
www.falcon-nw.com. what i like about either of these companies is the
first one is cheaper than dell when configuring online and both allow
selecting of exact components.
i've read that at buympc.com that the same technician on the phone is
assigned to a customer's computer problems.

so is my blue screen error likely faulty drivers, bad software or bad
hardware?

i had a toshiba pcx2600 modem attached via ethernet cat 5e cabling &
that was the last thing i had added hardware wise. since then ive
removed it and gone back to the rented cable modem from the cable
company. could it be the toshiba modem even though it was connected
via ethernet was causing the problem?

most other people that i know of with either almost one year old dell
computers or newer dell computers dont have blue screen errors. also,
people that i know that have custom built pc's don't have these
problems.

any insights?

 

Not to replace the drive - that took a (long) call. But to give them
back the bad drive, they were supposed to send a purolator return
envelope for it - I specifically asked for it from the tech - who said
yes, but clearly had no idea what I was talking about and wanted to get
rid of me because he had *solved* my issue.

Eventually got the envelope - only after the third message clearly
stating that if they wrote back that they didn't want it I would throw
it away - no problem. But a month of sitting my liing room was too
much.

I wrote this in the explanation space of the form message - but got at
least 2 replies telling me to go to their site and fill out the
appropriate form. There is no form for "take your broken stuff back - I
don't want it"!

 

Yeah. Get that shift key fixed.