[Frank4d]

I purchased a Dell Optiplex 760 in April that experienced a failed hard drive over the weekend (WD VelociRaptor 160 GB).

I called Dell and got a CSR in about 1-2 minutes. I explained the PC has two hard drives and Windows XP will not boot, and if I switch SATA cables Windows XP still will not boot. The BIOS setup, UBCD and WD Diagnostics all point to the same thing. We agreed in about 1 minute the hard drive was bad.

Dell offered to send a tech to replace it, or send a hard drive with the original image pre-installed. I opted to go for them sending a hard drive.

20 hours later I received the replacement via FedEx overnight. I installed the hard drive and problem solved.

[1002richards]

That's good service, and reassuring as I use a Dell laptop!

[LauraMJ]

I have found that Dell does stand behind their warranties well, however....the Dell tech support are not very good at diagnosing problems from scratch. My sister had a Dell that was fairly new and began having all sorts of problems.....after listening to her describe the problems, the first thing that occurred to me was a bad RAM stick. I posted a thread on here about it, and that was the general consensus, too, that the best place to start was a memory test.

My sister did call Dell and was on the phone to them for HOURS. Two different people, who, of course told her two different things. The one guy said it wasn't hardware related, it was software, and he sent her to someone else. This second guy told her (finally) that it was something on her computer that was incompatible with SP3. And he said that he would have to reinstall Windows to fix it (said this even though my sister's computer had had SP3 installed on it for months before this problem). Which means my sister would lose everything. All her settings, etc. She has Outlook on there and uses that and the calendar and all for her business, and so that means that ALL the calendar entries and Outlook stuff would be gone.

I told her to mention to them about bad memory, and she did.....she said the techs wouldn't even consider that it might be bad memory or anything hardware related, they insisted it was software related and the only thing to do was reinstall.

If it's a bad memory, reinstalling Windows won't do squat to fix the problem.

She's at her wit's end by that point so I get a CD of MemTest86 and drive two hours to her house and run the memory test. Long story short, First pass ended with 35,785 errors. I called Dell and with the first tech I get I told them that I KNOW it's a bad memory stick and DEMANDED they send new. They had me run their diagnostic that EVERY DELL comes with that has a memory diagnostic as one of the tests. NO ONE THOUGHT TO DO THIS until I TOLD them it was memory problems because I had just run a memory diagnostic (MemTest86). Of course, their memory diagnostic (which was so simple to run that my sister could have done it!) failed miserably and couldn't even finish the test.

Once the bad stick was determined and I removed it, the computer worked fine. Big surprise. They sent her another stick within a week, so that is good.

So, bottom line is, if you have a decent idea of what the problem is to begin with and can give them a place to start, lol, or run the Dell Diagnostic tests from the machine FIRST, and give them the results, they will immediately stand behind their warranties....but don't count on them to be able to diagnose problems.

[JohnWill]

Laura, your story with Dell support is representative of most first level support. Most of those folks are "script monkeys" that just read the canned solutions based on how they interpret the symptoms they hear. They're not really thinkers.

[LauraMJ]

They're not really thinkers

That's for sure. The moral of the story is, for ANY tech support nowadays, either have a good idea of where to point them or ask for a floor manager or the next level of support after it's obvious you're getting nothing but frustrated.

[JohnWill]

You get the idea of what's wrong right here at TechGuy, then you call the manufacturer support armed with real information.

[LauraMJ]

[vicks]

Originally Posted by JohnWill

You get the idea of what's wrong right here at TechGuy, then you call the manufacturer support armed with real information.

Agree! Good group of problem solvers here.
Vicks