The bad just got badder.

By purchasing an XPS system, she's entitled to a higher support level.

It's got nothing to do with Gold Tech Support.

Notan

 

And you said that you were just making sure that people didn't attribute
what I said to you - which would not happen if you posted properly.

I have no problems standing behind anything I have ever said or typed.

 

Ok...I am convinced. Dell gold support is the holy grail. I hope
that others on this list will also get the message, that it is a whole
different story if you don't have Dell gold support.

The message is clear, pay extra, purchase by telephone and get the
"gold support". Message recieved loud and clear.

Now the rest of you stop bitching about dell support. Get the gold
support, which you have to ask for by telephone and pay the price! If
you don't stop bitching about Dell support.

Larry

 

Gold Tech Support isn't the *only* high level of support.

Why don't you do a little research, and report back to us with your
findings.

Notan

 

Yea right, very funny. At this point I have to live with my dell
purchase and take the consequences. I

It's Dell' s problem not mine. If you say that gold support is the
answer then I buy that. Next I order I will do will by phone and I
ask for the gold support. If I can't get gold support then I will buy
local.

So you tell me what more research is there?

Larry

 

I was serious when I said "Gold Tech Support isn't the *only* high level
of support."

Notan

 

Actually, she said she had an XPS, which comes with a dedicated phone line
and higher level service.

 

Have you tried calling and upgrading the support on the machine you bought?

 

Are you kidding? Just try calling...then forget it. I have also
checked the dell website and upgraded all the drivers they had, but to
no avail. I am not computer illiterate. I service all the computer
at work and at home.

Here is how I back up my 600m. First I attach the USB drive to an old
dell lattitude c600 that fortunately I kept. Then I link the newer
600m to the c600 and transfer the files from the 600m to the hard drive
of the c600 and then from the hard drive I transfer the files to the
USB drive connected to the c600. I am using Fastlynx to transfer files
from the 600m to the c600. Fortunately I kept the old c600 and I am
making great use of it. And it works fine.

But hey, I am not a complainer. After alI got I got it to work. .

I just thought the article about Dell doubling the support staff in
India was a bit too much for me to stomach after the problems I have
had from that support group. I don't fault the poor creatures in
India, they are only doing what they can and I have been very
respectful to each of them, inspite of the fact that sometimes in the
process after waiting a long time the line gets disconnected.

BTW, I don't have any other problems with the dell computers at work or
the older one at home. Its just with the 600m that I just purchased
which I understand is no longer available. I bought a 600m for a
colleage at work and hers works fine with the USB port access to the
same USB hardrive. But mine doesn't.

I have read the USB drive specs and everything is with the tolerances
that dell says they should be.

So my point in my recent posting is that everything is OK until you
have a problem that falls outside the "boundaries". When that happens
apparently you are out luck. Unless of course as at least one member
of this group says, you have to have the "gold tech support". I
ordered the 600m via the web as I have always done. Had I known that
you can obtain "gold tech support" for a home computer by phoning in
the order I would have done so.

Also Dell doesn't like it if you have a non dell product attached. So
don't tell them.

So I can understand those in this news group who are having problems.
Probably my problem is not unique.

As I said if you are not having trouble with your dell then be
thankful. If you do have problems then....suffer I guess.

Larry

 

Well as I said in a previous post, I just went to the Dell website and
priced out an XPS for over $3,000 for home use and the gold option was
not listed. The warrant was the same one I have for my 600m. So she
must be using the XPS at work.

Larry

 

I have a Dimension XPS desktop at home and I do have an Inpiron XPS
which is my own personal laptop I use at work. The company feels we only
need one PC which is a Pentium 3.

Both my systems were purchase new. Inspiron is almost 2 years old, cost
$2,500 and the Dimension cost $1800 and no monitor. I got a $700
discount so I just couldn't resist. XPS' do get special service. I have
external USB hard drives attached to both systems with no problems.

Joan

 

Joan,

I have purchased over 100 dell computers in the past 5 or more years
for work. I have never had a problem with any of them. And a number
of the older ones, most of them are XPS's, I have even upgraded with
off the shelf components and they just keep running. When I buy
computers for work, in my own case higher education, I always get the
best service. I just retired this year and for the first time in my
life I bought a Dell for my own use after I retire. Before that I have
always had a work computer both a desktop and a laptop. The laptop I
carried back and forth from home to work everyday.

After reading the posts today, I now realize that Dell support for a
personally purchased computer is a hell of a lot different than for the
work computers I have purchased. For the first time I have experienced
what the home user experiences when they purchase from Dell and have a
problem that is outside of the "boundaries."

Had I known that before I purchase this 600m for my own use, I would
have done things differently. My wife has a home business and I should
have purchased this computer using her account. Stupid me.

Having had the great support service at work, I naturally expected the
samething with my home computer. Now I realize that I was foolish for
thinking that.

Seriously I really like the dell products, but the service for home
purchases is really as bad as some on this list have shared. Now I
have experienced it first hand. After several days on the phone
talking and I must have talked to over 10 or people and always getting
transfered to some else, who again transfers me to yet another
person....well what can you do but simply give up. On the other hand
when I call Dell ts for a work computer--no problem I get right
through. What a difference. I just cannot get that same service for
my own computer....what an irony!

The USB ports work, but they just don't work with the external drive
setup I have. So the problem is not serious enough to get a new board,
it is just an inconvience.

I am glad your USB ports work with an external drive. I just wished
mine did.

My wife has a dell inspiron 6000 and hers works just fine.

Now I am going to sign off. No more complaining...as it does nothing
except to get my blood pressure up....

I wish you the best of luck with your dells...but remember this
discussion should you decide to buy a Dell for yourself. That
decision may not be good for your health.

Larry

 

Does your external hard drive have its own power supply? Is it a 2.5" or
3.5" drive? I have an Omega 2.5" external drive and it works fine.
However, some 3.5" exteranl drives require their own power supply as the USB
port cannot provide adequate power.

 

Yes both my external HD(s) are 3.5" size. Both have their own power supply.

Joan

 

Your good experience with Dell Support, at work, vs your bad experience
with Dell Support, at home, while new to you, is reflective of what's
been going on at Dell, for years.

*That's* what I've been trying to tell you!

As an educator, weren't you taught to *listen* first, then speak?

Apparently, upon retirement, you forgot.

As a whole, the regular posters in this newsgroup *frequently* discuss
the discrepancies between Home and Business Support. If you had taken
the time to look through old threads, this fact would stick out like a
sore thumb.

Instead, you jumped in without listening/looking, and acted like a
baby who just discovered he had toes! <g> It's a new topic, to you,
but a very old topic, to us.

The contributors in this newsroup are *very* diversified. Not only
from an experience standpoint, but also from a background standpoint.
They range anywhere from newbies buying $299 Home systems, to corporate
buyers, IT folks, etc., dealing with 100s of high-end Business systems.

Look! Listen! Contribute!

Notan

 

Hi Notan,

What a trip to the woodshed...

As a matter of fact I have been posting and watch messages in this
group for several years now and I have seen the gripping and bitching
about Dell support services. But because I never personally owned a
Dell, I didn't understand why. Mainly I was looking for postings that
would relate to a particular product that I was considering purchasing
or for technical advice about upgrading.

The griping and bitching was a bit of an annoyance in that context.
Nothing like first hand personal experience to really see the issue.
What I learned from yesterday was that Dell support does seem to work
well with problems that are obvious, like a bad board, hard drive,
software issues and so on. Those are the Dell customers who will rate
Dell high on support issues.

Where the problem seems to arise is when, like in my case, there is a
more subtle issue like USB ports not working with any of the several
USB hard drives I have tried. Otherwise the ports work fine. And as I
mentioned the USB ports on a friends 600m works fine with both data and
power cables for all the external drives I have tried. I know that it
is suppose to work.

Once the folks in India are told the USB ports work, they want stop
there and advise me to get a Dell external hard drive.

There seems to be a subtle grey area in Dell's tech support where the
India folks will not venture as someone yesterday pointed out, it is
not in their "script". That much I never figured out from the past
posts on this list.

I even wonder if even the gold tech support option would fix this
problem.

Anyway that is what I learned from yesterday.


Larry

 

The external hard drive is set up to receive both power and data from
the USB ports. The several drives I attempted to use were all 2.5"
drives.

Like you my first thought was that the power limits for the USB ports
are exceeded and indeed that is the error message I am getting.
However, I have tried the same USB drives on another 600m owned by a
friend and the external drive works fine drawing both data and power
from the USB ports. The external drive also works fine with an old
c600 and an Inspiron 6000.

The external hard drive also works fine on other laptop brands.

Larry

 

What Gold Tech Support (It may, in fact, be called something else,
these days.) does is afford you the opportunity to speak to a tech,
who actually understands the ins and outs of computers, as opposed
to a script-reader ("I'm sorry, I lost my place. Let's go back to
Step 1."), and whose primary language is English.

Hold times, on the phone, are also significantly shorter.

I don't know, for a fact, that GTS is available to Home buyers... A
while back, someone mentioned that it was, but I've never taken the
time to find out, first hand.

It's obvious that Dell has determined, for the majority of Home users,
that this level of support isn't necessary. What bothers *me* is that,
in general, this level support isn't even *offered* to Home users.

Buying a computer system should be like ordering from a Chinese menu.
"I'll take this system from Column A, this level of support from
Column B," etc.

Alas, it's not.

Notan

 

1. even if you had gold tech support, that wouldn't help your problem.
2. it seems like you are doing something wrong with your usb device,
like not giving enough power. or perhaps not assigning it in disk
management utility or conflicting with another device letter or a bad
cable or any number of other things that could be going wrong.
3. gold tech support is avail on every small biz purchase or greater,
however it is no longer called "gold". it is now labeled as "business
standard", and you will see is an upcharge of at least $69 on most
items. usually found on the second order screen.
home users dont seem to have thjis option, but they have something else
called "one care", which sounds like it can do the same thing. i guess
dell figures they will need more hand holding. but even this will not
solve your problem as i said before you are doing somethign weird there.
and its hard for any tech to see over the phoen when they are not in
front of it. i'll bet if you get your computer to a real tech, they can
solve your problem.

if you want help solving that usb problem, we can help you there, but
stop beating that dead horse already.
dell support and products are among the best available.
they sell tens of thousands of systems each month, and i've only read
about a dozen or so bad experiences here online. i'd say that's pretty
good for a company.
unfortunately, your experience is one of the oddities and it is near
impossible to fix that kind of problem over the phone with your eyes only.

this newsgroup is a great resource for dell expertise outside the normal
channels. use it wisely!
Jay

 

After one of your posts yesterday, I went to the Dell site and selected
under Home and Home Business an XPS laptop priced at over $3,000. No
where in the extended warranty did I seen anything about a gold tech
option. But the option was listed under higher ed puchases. The
warranty options were basically the same as the low end models. So
the home user is out luck even if he/she buy a high end machine.

It's pretty clear that Dell views its customer base as highly
stratified and bases it service policy on this view, a sort of have and
have nots with the home user being at the very bottom of the service
hierarchy. For the home user I can't see that Dell's doubling their
India staffing will mean much for the home user except maybe to provide
questionable service more quickly.


Larry