OMG! I ordered a Dell with huge reservations! And I should have listened to my gut. Originally the sales guy said that I could get help partitioning my drive by calling tech support. Upon receipt of my computer I called tech support only to be told that they don't help with partitioning of drives because of their "PC Restore" feature. After an hour of me arguing with them and fighting with them and inisting that I was promised that it would be done, the supervisor made an exception. The tech was helping me but I kept getting some error message about not being able to boot from the disk due to drive configuration problems. Based on that and 4 hours of troubleshooting the tech figured that it was a bad CD ROM so they reshipped. I got the reship and discovered they had the wrong OS on it... Vista instead of XP Pro. I called Dell to get help with the partitioning and to have my XP Pro OS installed (Dell customer service told me to keep my disks from the original computer). Again the same song and dance about not supporting partitioning. After 90 minutes of arguing with the tech and a "policy and procedure supervisor"..... yes, they have a whole department dedicated to just policy and procedures! .... I was left with "I'll try and send a message to the tech from last week and his supervisor and let them know you are still waiting on a resolution of your issue". Now wasn't that a huge amount of help! I called the next day and talked to Dell again and this time I got someone who actually couldn't understand what the issue was with helping me the day before because it was already approved and would have been done had the computer from last week worked. So he managed to get my XP Pro on the system but ran into problems with the partitioning because it kept going in circles instead of partitioning, so I ended up with XP Pro on the whole hard drive on a working computer which is more than what I had last week. I called to get help with my DSL Connection only to find out that the Dell guy forgot to help me install the drivers! I called Dell customer support tell them to just send me out a new system with XP Pro on it like I asked for. I asked to speak to a supervisor. The girl refused to put me through to one and kept telling me that I'll never get another computer shipped to me from Dell with XP Pro on it. I tried to explain to her that it was what I ordered and what I originally got, but she wouldn't hear me. She quickly put me on hold without giving me a chance to say anything and never came back. I hung up after about 15 minutes and called back. The next guy I spoke with was super dim. He refused to put me through to a supervisor until I told him what this was about. I was pissed off by this time and I'm sure I was yelling by now. He went to make his notes and came back and again asked me to go through it again because he missed some of it. I was livid!!! I told him that I was tired of being screwed around by Dell and he replied "Let's keep this civil!" He put me on hold to finish his notes and came back and said "Can you tell me what it is that you are upset about?" Like OMFG!!!!!! I finally got put through to a supervisor who said that they don't ship with XP Pro anymore and that they only have Vista as of January 31st. It didn't seem to matter to them that I ordered my system in January with XP Pro and that was what I got initially and the reorder was done on January 30th. According to her their policy is that effective January 31st no computers are being shipped from Dell with anything but Vista with NO exceptions even if my system was ordered previously! I was so sick of hearing about policy and procedures that I was ready to shove their policy and procedure binder down their throats! I got put through to tech support again! I was on the verge of tears by this time. I was choking back tears and had tears welling up in my eyes and when the tech asked me "can I have your service tag number?" I sighed and nearly broke down crying....actually I did break down crying, but I didn't think it was adudible over the phone but it must have been. Anyway, he read through everything and he couldn't believe all that I've been put through and he said he would help me with the drivers and if I wanted he could also help me with the partitioning of the drive. I agreed to let him. 1 hour later I had a partitioned drive with XP Pro on it and he even helped me with my DSL connection. He told me to not bother calling the regular tech support number anymore and to just call him or one of his team directly and he gave me the direct line to him as well as his home phone number in case of emergencies. I was so happy to have a working computer with the specs that I ordered. I spent the next 7 or 8 hours installing software stuff and then I powered down my system at 2:50am on Saturday only to find that when I turned it back on the computer screen was black. Another call to Dell and and a trial of a different monitor and I am told my graphic card is gone and needs to be replaced. He suggested a new CPU be sent. I told him to forget it and that I wasn't going to go through all of that "we don't support partitioning" etc etc etc etc again. He put me on hold and came back and told me that he will have a new graphic card dispatched to me and either they can help me install it or have someone come in and do it. I told him that I'm sick of paying for do it yourself tech support and that someone can come in and fix it. He then tells me that I'm running a pirated version of my OS!!!! and that my warranty is void because of it and anyone at Dell who helps me will be breaking the law and will hang up on me as soon as they hear that I have XP on a system that was shipped with Vista. I asked him if that was the case how was he going to have someone come out and install a graphic card for me? He said "What OS? I know from your symptoms that it's the graphic card and I didn't have to go into your system so I don't know what OS you are running." LMAO Anyway, I have the system that I ordered with the OS I wanted and I'm being called a thief!!! All Dell had to do was transfer over the License for XP Pro to me which they apparently refused to do, so now according to Dell I'm a thief even though they told me to keep the disks and 11 people at Dell never once said anything about this license stuff to me despite my having gone on and on about XP Pro, and Dell even helped me put the OS on the computer! That was the real straw that broke the camel's back. I'm returning the whole damn thing to Dell and buyiing from Powerland Computers locally like I had considered before. As a matter of fact I'm writing this from a lovely MAC in their office while waiting for them to box up my Dell monitor for me (I through out the box because I never dreamed that I would be returning the thing to them. Plus I have a quote for a new computer with a 22 inch monitor that is substantially less than what Dell was charging me....and that's with a 5 years parts and labour warranty. So I'm off line for a week or two more while a new system is built for me.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

I think there are horror stories no matter what brand you buy and sorry to hear about all your troubles.

I purchased a Dell last year and couldn't be happier with it. I guess I was one of the lucy ones.

:)

Attached Link: Build Your Own PC

Build your own dear. It's easier in the long run. As long as you have your own copy of XP Home or Pro your all set. I've built my last 3 and what SEEMS like an impossibility was NOT. Read the instructions on all the manuals, check our various sites like the one above.

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE

I bought a Dell last month and I'm happy with it, my 3rd Dell computer in fact! Like Irish, I was probably lucky! Sorry you had a problem with yours, best of luck with your new choice! :)

MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
Intel Core i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 12.0GB RAM, AMD Radeon HD 7770

PoserPro 2012 (SR1) - Units: Metres , Corel PSP X4 and PSE 9

I bought a new dell about 7 months ago and love it to death. Nary a glitch, ever.,

Wow.

I've never hear of anything so pathetically stupid in all my life.

Dell is on a major downhill slide.

I've purchased over 35 Dells in my life. Some have been very good. Some have been garbage. I'll have to think long and hard befor I consider buying another one.

You should sersiously consider writing up your experience in detail and sending to someone higher up at Dell. Might be worth a free moniter or printer to you.

We have DELL at work and they seem to work ok but I've never bought from them personally because I don't like the "Return to base warranty" that they give here!
My normal supplier comes to your house to fix problems that can't be fixed over the phone and they're normally there within 3 days!

Injustice will be avenged.
Cofiwch Dryweryn.

We use Dell computers at work, as well, and because my son does the on-site tech support for Dell here in Phoenix, I know who's coming to fix one at work. Right now, in the Phoenix center, we have over 700 Dells.

On the other hand, Kevin and I both build out own computers because of our specific needs - he's much more into gaming than I am but I'm more into computer graphics (duh!) than he is so it works out better to just build our own.

However, if I ever needed to buy a computer OOB it would be a Dell because of my in-house tech support - he he he

Hugz from Phoenix, USA

Victoria

Remember, sometimes the dragon wins. Correction: MOST times.

I build my own as well. It's my opinion that to do anything else is literally tossing $$ out a window. If you can put together a 7 part lego car you can build a pc. Just last week I assisted my Uncle in building his first (we talked on phone as he did it) for a total of 850$ we built him a system that we than compared with a similarly specc'd dell , That dell cost 1400.

I am: aka Velocity3d

This is my third Dell and I take care of what I put in it.... I keep it clean and treat it with care... I have to physically clean the insides soon.. fans, connectors... I don't have much problems except from the software I install in it... I don't like the proprietary hardware business but......

Customer support from people that can not speak "the English" always rubbed me wrong..

BTW... building your own can leave you without a boat in turbulent sea of problems.... Because you are left without a specific place to call for help... If you have a problem and it is not determined whose at fault.. HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE... you can get ping ponged from manufacturer to manufacturer.... Making your own means you are fairly sure in your general and beyond knowledge of computers..

not for the faint of heart...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yup!! If I were to buy the computer I have here at home it would have cost me around $2000.00 maybe a bit less but not by much. I paid around $1000.00 instead and did it myself. I actually got my down stairs neighbor very interested in building his own as he's HAD IT with pre built computers and their lousy specs and often times cheap innards. I told him I would LOVE to help him out, no problem. Anything to get him to stop bitching about how crappy his computer is running!! :lol:

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE

Sorry to hear about all your Dell troubles.

Like many others, I build my own. Have done so for over 10 years. And it's getting easier and easier, components are better standardized and documented these days than they were 10 years ago.
If you can tell the business end of a screwdriver from the other, you can build a PC. Honestly.

And any decent hardware shop will give you at least a 6 month warranty on all parts. Used to be different too, in the past.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

My gallery My freestuff

Some people in this thread have said that they bought DEL computers and were happy with them. I don't doubt them, but that's not the point! The point is about DEL customer service and tech support! It sounds like DEL have put Acadia through hell. No one should have to go through what Acadia was put through. Acadia, you have my deepest sympathy!

You never realy know what a company is about until something goes wrong and they have to fix it. I hope things are much better with the new computer from Powerland Computers. Sending good vibes your way.

My brain is just a toy box filled with weird things

i agree with everyone that said to build your own...it's not that hard to do, just keep grounding yourself so no static charge is happening.
i build my own. the last one cost me $1300 and would have cost around $2000 at a store. you definately save money. and you also get what parts (mobo, chip, graphic card, etc) you want instead of buying "what comes as a package"...which is usually a big waste of money in the long run.

Comitted to excellence through art.

The bitter irony of the story is that Dell spent much more time arguing why they should NOT help Acadia than it would have cost to actually help her. Talking someone through a basic WinXP installation shouldn't take more than half an hour, fixing up drivers maybe another half an hour, that's it. An hour's worth of actual support.

My personal experience with Dell support is much better, probably due to two facts:

I'm in another country, so I had to deal with another support team;
I represented a business that had ordered 20 workstations plus a server, which is a significant order. Hinting at the possibility that more, even larger orders might follow if customer support was good enough... You get the idea.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

My gallery My freestuff

I wouldn't trust Dell as far as I could throw them, because their customer support is non-existant.

In fact, there are several companies that are now on my "do not buy" list because of a bad customer service experience.

I also build my non-laptop computers, and have done so for about 10 years now. I don't think I would ever go back to a pre-built box. They are, for the most part, over priced and too limited for my needs. I select my parts from companies that I know support their products, and if I have a problem, I can usually fix it myself without too much trouble. Heck, a lot of time time I can replace a problem part for less than it would cost me to take it in to some store to have them "diagnose" a problem, much less actually fix it.

Beyond that ... upgrading and adding on are not a problem. I remember the last pre built box I bought ... years ago .... it was a Gateway. At some point I added something ... I think it was a network card ... and maybe a year or two later I had a mother board problem. I had paid for a warranty extension, but when I called Gateway, they told me that the second I had installed the network card I had invalidated my warranty.

My reply was .... "you are now on my do not buy list, and you can forget getting any more money from me ... ever." I went straight to Fry's Electronics and got a case and all the goodies to go inside of it. I have never looked back.

Gateway ... ick. Dell ... ick. In fact, any company that does not put its customers first .... ICK.

Could be worse, could be raining.

Quote - BTW... building your own can leave you without a boat in turbulent sea of problems.... Because you are left without a specific place to call for help...

In a way, that's a good thing, because then you don't get your nose rubbed in how spectacularly unhelpful all of them are anyway.

Acadia if I were you I'd cancel the order and get a refund, and go with the hardware list I helped you research a while back.

My Freebies

Acadia,

Sorry to hear about your misfortune with Dell (OK, your nightmare with Dell). It's been my experience that as long as your happy with the generic, out of the box, standard config PC, then Dell, Gateway, etc. are typically OK (used to be the CIO for county government, bought, and fixed many PC's). Unfortunately, your timing was bad in the coorporate sense - Dell no doubt has some licensing argreement with M$ to not let anymore XP licenses "out the door", and the date or your re-shipment confused the heck out of the less than intelligent support staff.

Unfortunately, many of the support staff at the large PC companies probably know less about PC's than you do, they simply follow instructions on their screens, and can't deviate from them (literally, they have no clue what they are doing, and can't do anything that isn't on their "cue card"). At home, except for laptops, I have built my own computers, or got customized systems from small custom PC makers for the last 10 years. I have the advantage of being able to be my own tech support, but they really are much better computers than the out of the box variety. I always run through the cost analysis, and sometimes the small custom computer builders can beat the price of buying it all myself. I think you'll be much happier with the machine you get from your local computer store.

But, do beware of the local "techno nerd" type of shop that builds for techno nerds, and not the general public. Typically you'll get a great performer that needs constant tweaking to run properly. As I recall, you had an AMD based unit several years ago that was a nightmare - that's the type of system to watch out for. AMD's are solid now, and have been for many years. But many small shops put out some really unstable systems several years ago. In the right techno geek hands they worked quite well, for anybody else they were a disaster.

Hope your new system is trouble free, and gives you many many many loooong hours of trouble free use. Nothing can be as frustrating as not getting what was promised, having a glichy computer, and dealing with brain dead tech support (something that the companies that purchase several Dell's, Gateway's, etc. don't typically have to deal with)!

Good Luck - better days are ahead!

DR

__________________________________________________________

My Rendo Gallery ........ My DAZ3D Gallery ........... My DA Gallery ......

Caution PC techie rant below :)

Theres a valid technical reason why you can't partion some drives. Both XP and Vista.
It's hiding behind "software protection", but its mainly to force you to pay more later, many companies don't include a full copy of your O/S. They only include a recovery disc.
The recovery disc calls data off a hidden partion on your HDD. But if you've removed it or your HDD is dead then the recovery will fail.

Ok the sales guy was wrong here, and it's PR to say the customer is being dishonest.
And yes at times Dell support is poor, but no worse than other big players.

But it does sound from your description the techies are trying to save you from breaking your PC. Also consider your service agreement - if you know something isn't covered why ask. I don't expect EF to teach me how to use Lightwave why I buy Poser :)

Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.

""many companies don't include a full copy of your O/S. They only include a recovery disc. ""

Yet another reason to build your own and actually the very reason I first started. I didn't want a bunch of crap installed on my system I would never use.

As for technical support or pc repair. Many places like comp usa - or even many local businesses offer support for either a time frame (ie 1-2 yrs) or per call basis. If you really needed to go that route and your manufacturer warranty was up (w/e) it would still cost less in the long run. Plus you get the bonus of english speaking help.

I am: aka Velocity3d

'Duuuude, you're gettin' a Dell!' - runs away screaming in horror! ;)

Sorry, my Windows PCs are either 'spec-built' or built by yours truly. By 'spec-built', I mean that I go to my 'computer guy' (techno geek) and I tell him what I want and he makes sure that a custom build is all compatible and works properly. He knows that I know the he knows that we both know our shit when it comes to computers... ;P

Never once had to deal with all of that pre-built crap. On the other hand, laptops are another story. Can't build them from scratch (realistically). I had an old Compaq laptop - same type o' deal. It had the custom install disks and you couldn't upgrade to like Windows 2000 or XP as it was 98 or bust. [Looks around] Nope, no laptops in my vicinity. I'll stick with my very well working home-built computers (and iMac). ;)

Except for your Mom who uses email and can't figure out computers, stay away from the pre-built stuff - especially if you are using for anything remotely hardcore (3D for instance). Even Alienware which was once the place for pre-built jet fighters is now overpriced - please pay for my logo junk. YMMV, YEMD

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

-- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

one thing to consider acadia is my first computer i built i had the company that i bought parts from, i had them install windows on the hard drive for me and install the chip to the mobo, thats all. and yes, you want the disk...no start up crap. that was the only part i wasn't sure about (for myself) and they happily did it for me. other than that you plug crap into the little plugs, they usually only go one way (so you somewhat safe there ;P). the mobo come with a handy guide that shows you where your agp slots are, this goes here that goes there. i bought from 3 different places.
zipzoom and fly, newegg and can't remember the company that builds/installs/sells stuff that did the initial harddrive and chip install. i think i just googled and typed in "build your computer for you" and waded through the mess.
just be careful and go slow. your not building a rocketship. mine started right up first time and i've been sailing ever since.

of course that doesn't cover the unexpected hard drive crashes or xp locking up for no reason. you can thank mr. gates for all of that crap.

you got a lot of good info from the earlier thread, some good peps had some good stuff for you to buy. we all love buying with your money.

Comitted to excellence through art.

Considering I probably couldn't build a computer if I tried, I went with what I KNOW would work, run like a top, and give me few headaches. Everything in my laundry list of workable office machinery is HP. My comp is an HP Pavillion, which...... not for nothing was affordable as heck, and is like a tank. Very little compromises it, and after upgrading it to 2gig HD, its so fast my hair blows back. My printers as well, both my portfolio printer and my poster printer are also HP.

I've found the customer service at HP not only good, but they basically treat me like the Queen of Shebah......... a far cry from the (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah the horror!!!) E-machine I used to have.

Its not a perfect machine, which I don't think any really are, persea...... but it has what i'm looking for, especially the pocket book (under 900 bucks), and has the most important feature, its upgradeable.

I like HP. Iv'e got a number of HP printers and laptops.

A 2 gig HD?? I would blow through that in a matter of a day. My system is 1.2 terrabytes at the moment. Much of that is graphics, but also just materials from work. And, some of that is backup space. When I hook the rest of the computers up to the network (in my house), I've got about 2.5 terrabytes ... however, a LOT of that is duplcation. Which can be a good thing ... the last time I had a system meltdown, I was able to recover everything.

But you know .... you could build a computer. Anyone who can handle a basic set of tinker toys can build a computer. You just plug stuff in in a certain order, run a few utility programs, and start installing software.

People just get a mind set about it being hard because it involves electronics. But really, its no harder than the cloth room or nodes or ... well anything ... it has a learning curve, and then you get over that curve and suddenly it's all second nature.

Could be worse, could be raining.

I'm hoping that Tiari meant 2gig RAM. :)

Oh and that hair blowing back are all the cooling fans... ;)

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

-- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

OMG! I knew DELL customer service was bad, but damn.... You're doing the right thing, send that turkey back! I have many DELL horror stories. The machines are designed to break right after the warranty ends. I've seen this over and over again. cringes at the memories If you are switching to MAC, you can partition your drive, no problem. Last time I looked, Dec 2005, Consumer Reports gave Apple "Best Customer Service." DELL was "Worst Customer Service." bB

I'll have to try that crying thing next time my girlfriend claims to have a head ache!

regards
pk
www.planit3d.com

The best solution is built the computer by yourself, there are many poweful reasons.

It will cost you less.
You can pick the components (CPU, motherboard, disks, video....) that you want and not what they imposse to you.
You can always upgrade it at any moment you want, so your computer can be always actual without the need of purchasing a new one.
You can install any OS that you want and not be forced to use Vista.
You don't need to buy all at once, you can buy the minimal and later add more RAM, a better video card, another disk and so on.

Components are reliable, even Chinese are!! The only problem that exist is the child death as happened with DELL. If a component don't died in the first days it will live for years, so it probably became obsolette first. If failed in the first days, there's no problem, where you have purchased they will change it for a new one.
Is not difficult to assemble all the parts, you can do it in less than a hour, in the begining you can feel lost, but is easy and in the end you will learn how to do it and so, you will know how to change or upgrade parts.

Stupidity also evolves!

I've had 5 pcs, 3 from PC World, 1 from Comet and 1 i built myself with help, they have all had the odd problem but the hand built one was a nightmare and i'm never going that way again, the 3 from PC World all needed new monitors so rang and told them, next day a new monitor arrived, the packard bell actually had 3 monitors in its 3 year life, the acer had 2 and a motherboard and the new HP had one changed because of a dead pixel........the new HP and the HP from comet have been great so i'll be looking at HP again, but will be happy to by PB too as my laptop is a PB as is my old graphics machine which has been so abused yet still runs almost silent and rock solid........the only thing i can fault PC World on is the time it takes to get through on the phone.......Steve in the UK

And to counter -that-..... My first home system was an Apple IIc that my mom won at work; Promptly on moving out, I got a Laser 128 (IIc clone with add on card port). Getting tired of the limitations, I bought a 386sx at the local mom and pop. I added the 387 co-processor myself, and never bought an 'integrated solution again'. Every box I've had since then I've built myself, and had far better component quality, and far fewer issues than most (Remember AMD's K6 and all the problems people reported? Never had them. Why? I used a high quality motherboard (tyan), and installed the drivers in the correct order, not the recommended order, and I didn't overclock). I know in seems intimidating; I've seen newbies freeze and gibber at connecting all those funny colored wires from the case to the pin block on the mobo...despite having manual in hand. Can't help laughing when it happens, and watching the eyes glaze as I regale them of the 486 days, when you had to set address jumpers on your HDD controller card, modem, NIC, sound card, and usually video card. Set the timing on the CPU with motherboard jumpers about half the size of your litte fingernail...and dealing with chips that were easily destroyed by body static discharge. Today is a cakewalk, until you get to the software side of it...

Quote - My first home system was an Apple IIc that my mom won at work..

Well i will raise you a C64 with a tape drive :) As in actual audio tapes ! God i loved that thing, would sit for hours, ruining my eyes in front of the tiny TV at home, amazed at how it could do 64 unique colors LOL. Or was it 128 ? I forget. Much later our school bought a bunch of 286s which was my first introduction to a 'real' PC. Cutting edge turbo button and all hah ! Those were the days when we would drool over amazing 100 Mhz 486s with 2MB RAM, 400 MB hard disks and this new fangled thing called '3d' We even persuaded our Comp Sci teach to spring for 1 MB RAM on one of the boxes so that we could install Win3.1 on it. All of it on 10 floppies :p

And now we have quad core 2GHz monsters with 4GB RAM and an OS (VISTA) that takes 500MB RAM starting up and 8 GB HDD space just to install. Not sure if you can call it progress or not..

But yeh i do understand how some people just want a PC 'appliance', not a lifestyle. DELL and other vendors like them fulfill this need. And actually IIRC, DELL pretty much built their business on giving better customer service then their competition. Its sad to see how far they have fallen.

Vic-20 with cartridge was my first...

My Freebies

The first pre-built desk computer we ever bought was a Sony Viao. It worked so good we ended up getting 2 more. All of them have been great - no problems after 3 years. They are well built, quiet, and the cases don't rattle (my Dell at work buzzes so bad sometimes I have to smack it).

Thankfully our IS department has to deal with Dells support. I did buy a used Dell computer and had the power supply go up in smoke. At least getting a replacement part was fairly easy - one e-mail and one phone call. Will see how fast it arrives and if it the right part...

LVS - Where Learning is Fun!
http://www.lvsonline.com/index.html

Quote - Vic-20 with cartridge was my first...

Definately showing our age here! My first was a Sinclair ZX81 with 1k (yes kilobyte!) of memory, and man that machine rocked! :lol:

Wayne

Ahhhh, of course, 2 Gig of RAM. Has to be. Stupid me for not figuring that out.

Could be worse, could be raining.

My first PC was a Kaypro. That was about 1984. I upgraded that until it was beyond upgrading, and then I think I got the Gateway. After that, it's been mostly home builts. I think a Sony VAIO might have snuck in there somewhere, but generally it's been a new home built PC every 2-3 years.

I don't even want to think about how many laptops I've been through .... My first of those was a Kaypro too, and as I recall, it weighed about 15 pounds.

Could be worse, could be raining.

I've been building my own since the 286 chip came out.

As mentioned above, the 'script kiddies' have a pre-programmed series of responses to 'basic' questions, and if you call and say your PCs on fire, they'd ask "is it plugged in, is it turned on?"
You get them 'off the script', and they are totally...lost. One of the scariest thing I wind up doing nowadays is explaining to the guy on the other end how to fix my own problem.

One thing they're working with (almost all call centers) is they have a given amount of time to fix a problem, and they'll look for any excuse to get you off the horn. They're supposed to fix you within 'x' amount of time, because the 'business model'.

However, they're not supposed to blow their cool. You should have every right to complain to their manager, and if they refuse, call back, and get their name! Can't stress this enough. I 'know' their 'name' is 'Mark', or 'Sandy', even though their real name is another 7 syllables.
(Nothing against that, there are millions upon millions of South Asians who speak better English than I do, it's just that none of them work at call centers...;)

I was taken aback when last you notified us you were going back to Dell (I kept thinking of Princess Leia in When Harry met Sally, when she kept going "he's going to leave her'..;) And the current track record (I lost track of how many bad parts you got sent) is nothing to write home about.

The Vista bit you're stuck with. Microsoft sets things up that as of launch time, anything you get will have Vista, period. Ka-ching..:| The serial number of the Operating system is probably tied to the Serial number of the unit you had, so that's why it's 'pirated'.

I've been doing PC tech support for 20 years come June, and I've lost count of the number of times I've called Tech Support (yes, we do that too, only our questions are harder and much more pointed..;), and I've noticed a substantial decrease in the helpfulness and knowledge the person on the other end has. It's sad, but it's all about cost, and driving that down even further.

The folks above are right; do it yourself is the way to go. Heck, if they have you replacing laptop system boards, making a new desktop/tower/small form factor/whatever is a lot easier than that.

What I do is sort of a halfway thing; if I'm making a PC, I'll have the store mount the processor and memory, and test that. They leave the whole thing together, then it's just a matter of putting the screws in, attaching cables, and figuring out various options. Usually the system board will come with a CD with all the drivers you need (for the system board), and usually some utilities as well.

And we should be able to help you over the rough parts, should you need to do that. I know Vista can do repartitions, because of the 'training course' I took. We care 'bout ya hon, and think you've suffered enough. Just let us know what more we can do.

Good luck with all this.

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

My first? It was 1984. My sisters and I asked Santa for a Mac, but what we got I don't think of it as computer. To me, it was like a transitional machine between the typewriter and the computer, - the Radio Shack, a TRS80. It used the big floppy disks and casette tapes.

http://www.1000bit.net/lista/dati/tandy/trs80mod4_ad.jpg

The most I ever did with it was play Pyramid (I never got past that darn snake) and write a program that would "draw" an ice cream cone. ;P

bB

Sorry to hear about your Dell nightmare. Your experience is, if not typical, at least amazingly common. Head over to www.gripe2ed.com and check out some of the Dell horror stories there.

Their support used to be top-notch, and that is when a lot of corps standardized on them. But they've always operated on the margins of the business, profit-wise, and as those margins have shrunk, they've had to cut everything to the bone to stay alive. Their support has been on a downward slide for at least five years now, maybe more.

I read that they just ousted their CEO and Michael Dell is coming back in to run the company. Dell has been slashing support AND PRODUCT quality for years to maintain a cheap price, and now the company is finally tanking and their stock is suffering as a result. We'll see if he can turn them around.

Building your own computer is not really hard. If you can hook up a vacuum cleaner and change the bags, you can probably manage it. It was an experience much like yours that got me started building PCs many years ago. Maybe life is giving you a lemon because it wants you to do something with it.

Jimdoria ~@>@

My new system was spec built and it's been awesome and was cheaper than any of the namw brand houses. The last major computer brand I had was a Gateway after dealing with them I've only had spec built machines or have done it myself. I am so very sorry to hear about your problems with Dell. You were so much looking forward to getting a new machine. I hope the local geeks put a real nice one together for you!!

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Silly question, why did you bother to talk to Dell Support in the first place? you must have 50+ people on just this forum alone that could have guided you through the process with far less hassle, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the video card was fine but wasn't sat in it's slot properly & that's why it wasn't working. Opening the case doesn't invalidate any warranties even if they try to tell you it does.

Windows 7 64Bit
Poser Pro 2010 SR1

Yes, but now she gets to spend much less money and end up with a better machine.

My Freebies

First computer was a Z80 based Exidy Sorcerer in 1980. Had a whole whopping 4k of memory. We did a modification to the motherboard and hardwired in another 4k of memory. In those days you had to modify a tape recorder to load your programs.

LVS - Where Learning is Fun!
http://www.lvsonline.com/index.html

Quote - First computer was a Z80 based Exidy Sorcerer in 1980. Had a whole whopping 4k of memory. We did a modification to the motherboard and hardwired in another 4k of memory. In those days you had to modify a tape recorder to load your programs.

My first was an Atari 800 that I bought in 1979. It too had 4k of memory, but did come with
a plug in cassette tape drive for storing programs. Later I bought an Atari 800XL
from Toys R Us, that had a whopping 64k of memory and a 5 1/4 disk drive.
Then I sort of gave up on computers for a while and my first PC was some
Laser brand 286 job that I bought in somewhere around 1988.

What a nightmare, acadia. Sorry to hear about this.

Sounds like you should put the word "support" between quote marks ... as in CUSTOMER "SUPPORT" .... thus signifying support in name only.

I wonder if they spend thousands of dollars big-noting themselves about how good they are. Here in Australia we have a saying for people like this .... "bullshit artists".

The Laser was the first computer I owned; the first one I got to play with was a genuine Altair 8800. Aaaah, the days of toggle switches and LEDs...! I need to find one, just for nostalgia's sake. Of course a more modern one with 64 k of ram and dumb terminal capability would be better..... :P And Dell has earned the monikers Smell and Hell for good reasons, customer confusion and propietary hardware being the top two reasons. I would =love= to see a resurgence of the white box stores. The quality was better, the prices about the same, the option list was ungodly by comparison, and it meant that a geek was within driving distance.

Ahahahaha I've been goggling everyone's old computer to see what they looked like. I keep ending up at this site: http://www.1000bit.net and try this one too: http://oldcomputers.net/

It's a hoot looking at those oldass machines. ;p
.... and prices! EEk! oO

bB

BastBlack, If you are looking for old computers see if you can find the Heathkit H8. That was my first in '75.

I must remember to remember what it was I had to remember.

I think I saw my first laptop .... I'm pretty sure it was a Kaypro 2000 ... but the screen had been improved a bit from the one in the photo.

I also saw my first Kaypro PC in there somewhere. Man, talk about awful customer support ... they took the cake.

Could be worse, could be raining.

I still laugh when I think about our first hard drive - it was 10MB and cost almost $800. My husband swore that he would "never be able to fill it up". Ha, it's now a door stop in the garage.

LVS - Where Learning is Fun!
http://www.lvsonline.com/index.html

Oh, I remember my first job as an attorney. I walked into the firm with my laptop (which had a 40MB HD) and was told that the partners would "never allow an associate to use a computer."

I prevailed ... and then found out that the word processing department for the entire firm had a total HD capacity of 10 MB!!! After I was there a little over one year they decided to allow me to set up a network for them.

So, I feel good for dragging them (kicking and screaming) into the computer age. Now they have a web site, a full time IT guy, and everything.

Could be worse, could be raining.

My first computer was a TI99A - with a whopping 64K RAM, and a tape drive (used standard casset tapes). Got it to become computer literate (in 1981) because many jobs were advertised with "computer/programming skills a plus".

I remember spending many hours optimizing the first 640K RAM on DOS 386 PC's with QEMM to be able to run network drivers, a plotter driver, and load pcArcInfo (GIS Software), so we could run DesqView and "multitask" by editing data, or doing word processing, while we were plotting maps - almost doubled productivity!!!

Remember the old Cyrix upgrade chips? You could upgrade a 386 to a 486 (with on chip math co-processor), and then came the 486 to 486dx4 processors upgrades (upgraded some 25Mhz laptops with these). And the hotest word processor on the market was WordStar, and dBase was the best database software for the PC (command line rulz)!

Oh, and everyone insisted that Unix was just too powerful (i.e. memory hog) to run on a PC. Ah, those were the days ........ NOT!

Now we have Vista, which finally puts Unix/Linux in it's proper place, you just simply will never be able to run Vista on many Unix/Linux boxes (PC's that is) because they simply aren't powerful enough to run it. Hmmmmmm :-?

__________________________________________________________

My Rendo Gallery ........ My DAZ3D Gallery ........... My DA Gallery ......

Quote - Yes, but now she gets to spend much less money and end up with a better machine.

Good point, I wouldn't touch a Dell if my life depended on it, mostly thanks to horror stories like this one. I have yet to phone any type of helpline to do with my pc's, I'm of the school of "I broke it so I'll fix it myself"

Windows 7 64Bit
Poser Pro 2010 SR1

Quote - > Quote - Yes, but now she gets to spend much less money and end up with a better machine.

Good point, I wouldn't touch a Dell if my life depended on it, mostly thanks to horror stories like this one. I have yet to phone any type of helpline to do with my pc's, I'm of the school of "I broke it so I'll fix it myself"

Then it's a damned good thing you =don't= have a Dell, L. Mikey's Boys tend to get things 'customized'....like the series of desktop units that had the ATX power connector rewired away from the spec. More than a few fried their mobo's, ps's, and warranty on that little stunt..... They say they don't do that anymore. And giraffes are pink with lime green stripes.

oh, well, my 1st computer was an Atari 800 as well, though I didn't do much more than play 'Star Raiders' on it..first real one was a Leading Edge model D I bought in 1985 (sold to my Dad years ago...and he's still using it and it still works! scary..;)

If you go out on the web, there are tons of free emulators (and the games that go with them), which will give you the 40 column displays of yesteryear. I used to have the Altair, the IBM 370 (what I was going to do with that I'd never know..;), Atari 800, and Commodore 64. If you need that nostalgia fix, it can be itched..do a search on them..;)

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

Dale .... I really want to see you do a render of a pink giraffe with lime green stripes. If you don't, I may have to .... maybe title it "Giraffe at the Dell Zoo".

Could be worse, could be raining.

Eghads........ first was a commodore 64, using an old TV as a monitor. Even worse? My first internet program, GEOS. Oh gawd.......... I remember those phone bills! All i really remember about the 64 was playing Hitchhikers guide (no pictures, just text game) off a floppy.

Oh ... I LOVED Hitchiker's Guide!!

I couldn't get past one point where I had a "locked" door and no key. So, one night I got really plastered and when the game said the door was locked, I just kept typing "open the door" .... must have typed it about 12 times ... no reason why other than I was faced.

On the 12th (or so) try, the game suddenly said "The door opens ... we lied about it being locked".

Once I realized that I was playing a game that would actually lie to you ... all bets were off.

Could be worse, could be raining.

I needed to get out of the house so I'm at the library.

It was definitely the graphic card that went on it. Bobby Stahr's friend came by my house to wipe the drive of the Dell CPU because I didn't want to send it back with my banking information or programs and their keys inside. He tried reseating the card but it was in there really tight so it wasn't that it was loose. He put in a different card and it worked.

I called Dell on Monday to tell them to come pick up their computer because I was returning it for a refund. They tried to give me $300.00 back if I would keep the system. I told them "NO THANKS!" UPS picked it all up today.

I ordered a computer locally from Powerland Computers where I had initially planned on going. It's $1800.00 including taxes and has a 22 inch flat screen LCD monitor. I only went with a basic graphic card because I don't do PC games and only graphics so Bobby, his friend and Powerland said that the card I have will be more than what I need for what I use my computer for and if I ever decide to get into animation and movie making or PC gaming I can always upgrade the card then. I also have a 5 year parts and labour warranty which cost me a whole $67.00 extra, which is cheap and worth it to me. Plus I'm getting XP Pro and they will partition my drive for me, so I'm happy.

To try and answer some of the questions throughout this thread:

About building my own. I'm not that smart when it comes to computer hardware so buying parts would still mean having to pay someone to put it all together for me because I couldn't do it myself. Well, after this experience I probably could now given the fact that I was digging around inside the tower like a real trooper :) and George showed me how to take out the graphic card, memory chip and hard drive.... so if I ever get another computer after this new one, I may try building my own.
About the OEM OS. Dell did send me a full disk of XP Pro with service pack 2. It wasn't just a restore disk. They have a built in PC Restore now that you access through some menu when you are logged in. So the XP Pro that I finally got installed was a full version of it.

3. About Dell horror stories. Thanks for the link, I'll go and read it once I'm online again from my house. I called the local news paper to see if they are interested in hearing my experience with Dell. Now I normally wouldn't do something like that, but Dell has really lost site of their customers because of their "procedure and policies".

I was so sick and tired of being quoted "it's out policy" or "it's the procedure" or "we have to follow certain rules".... I was ready to shove their "Policy and Procedure Manual" down their throats! It's to the point that they don't care about the customer anymore and they have become very unbending and ungiving because of their damn internal policies.

I felt completely "bullied" when I was trying to talk to anyone there and that just isn't right. I never get that "defeated" feeling and usually I'm pretty tough and will steamroll my way through a company if I feel like I'm being abused, but I felt like I was beating my head against a brick wall with Dell and I felt completely and utterly defeated. I doubt writing to anyone there would be of any help in getting them to start taking a hard look at how they are treating their customers, so I am hoping to use the power of the media to wake them up a bit. No one should have gone through what I've been put through by Dell. I also plan on writing to the BBB in each Province so that they can record what happened to me. I'm mad as hell about what happened to me and I plan on letting the world know it. Maybe something good will come of it and Dell will realize that Policies and Procedures while needed are only a guideline not a law and that what really matters is the customer.

4. About asking for help here about partitioning. I would have done that but I didn't have another computer to use to get feed back and help. It turns out that what they should have done is used Vista's partitioning feature to partition the drive then have me install XP Pro on the smaller volume and then format the larger volume to get rid of the Vista OS on it. At least now I know how to create partitions and stuff now. So I guess while it was all a horrid nightmare, I did come out with some positive things from it....I actually learned a whole bunch of new things that I didn't know before.

For those who have purchased Dell and haven't had problems... I'm happy for you. My luck with my laptop and now this has not been so good with them, and even the UPS guy who picked up the Dell stuff today said that mine was the 3rd full system in the last week that he's picked up for return to Dell. So apparently I'm not an isolated case. I hope you continue to be happy with your computer and the company that you bought it from: afterall that's all that really matters in the end. For me it won't ever be another Dell.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Gotta run. I'm at the library and want to go and borrow some books before going home. I won't be back online until I get my new system now... hopefully mid week next week.

Take care and thanks everyone for being so kind, helpful and supportive :) You're all so wonderful!!!!

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Acadia .... good for you!!!

I've just been writing in a thread about the difference between "just complaining" about something and taking some kind of ACTION.

As someone who has successfully taken action about something that bothered you rather than just complaining about it ...

I SALUTE YOU!!

Could be worse, could be raining.

Ah Nostalgia........

First computer....

Texas Ti99-4a IIRC.....

About the same era as the ZX81 Spectrum...

Mine had a better full keyboard and a cartridge slot.

16KRAM

You could upload programs from audio tape or type them in...

Nicely built, but a total waste of time! LOL

********************************************************************************************************************

Life is a beta.

In faecorum semper, solum profundum variat.

Dell??? Yeah right. My son had one about 5 years ago and support was crappy then too. One day after purchase the mouse died. He called the store where he bought it and was told "you'll have to contact the manufacturer". I just bought him a new one. Then after a few months something else went haywire and he called tech support. After several hours on the phone he was ready to scream in frustration. I managed to get it working again and spent the next year babying that thing. He saved enough to buy a new comp and had one built to suit his needs at Comp USA. But it isn't just Dell that is like that. Our Internet service is the same way. Oh you get tech support alright but they keep you going back and forth without fixing any problem until any warrantee is expired and then tell you you'll have to purchase a new part. In my case it was a modem costing $100.00 I'm glad to see that the junk was sent back to the company. Hope the new one is better.

Let me introduce you to my multiple personalities. :)
BluEcho...Faery_Light...Faery_Souls.

well, even if you had to be bonked on the head...at least you came around to the wisdom from us all.

Comitted to excellence through art.

Quote - BastBlack, If you are looking for old computers see if you can find the Heathkit H8. That was my first in '75.

Score! Try here: http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?c=134&st=1 Speaking of old machines, I saw a special on a program like Nova or Frontline about the coming Digital Dark Ages and what people are doing to prepare for it. One place they highlighted was a museum of old computers and software. So you can take your old floppies or programs to the museum and bring it back to life. I think they offer ways to transfer your files to newer systems. The Digital Dark Ages is a very scary thought; Something I hadn't thought of before I saw this documentary. Perhaps the ultimate solution to loosing generations of information is what one company came up with. They looked at history to see who had ultimately saved their information the best. Know who the winner was? Ancient Egypt. They built for eternity, they used stone. So this company is making what looks like stone CDroms, but it's not a CD. It's etched stone. The text is into 140 languages (like a modern Rosette Stone) and it spirals into the center. To read the tablets, you just need a magnifying glass. Neato, huh? Makes you think.... bB

Okay I have a direct link to the Rosetta Stone project. You can read and see one here: http://www.rosettaproject.org/about-us/about-us bB

The Ancient Egyptians had (almost) all the answers, if only because of their climate. Even their papyrus survives (sort of), if they dropped it in the right place. I remember seeing a pile of papyrus fragments from the Fayyum in a museum in Oxford. Just the thing, if you like jigsaws and can handle lousy Roman-era Greek handwriting. Since I can't read my own scrawl, it was not for me, though.

There have already been some spectacular failures with digital archiving, though. Priceless texts have been ripped apart to preserve them for eternity, except that they have been stored on digital media which have become obsolete very soon afterwards, because the machines to read them have expired and have not been replaced with anything compatible.

I think that that is a threat to everyone, because there is no such thing as a reliable digital storage medium. Any hard drive, whether internal or external, can fail suddenly. CDs are vulnerable to damage and DVDs, if anything, are more so.

The real wonder-substance for record-keeping is vellum; it's almost indestructible. Sadly, it's not great for computer-generated graphics. Nevertheless, the inventor (or inventrix) who finds a way to digitise everything and transfer it to vellum will have far exceeded the inventors of the CD and DVD.

Longetivity is a mesmerizing topic for me! ;) Please don't get me started, please...

Most of the artifacts that have lasted millenia have only done so under extraordinary circumstances - just the right conditions, buried away-forgotten-not touched, being out of the way of wars and natural catastrophes (unless the latter preserved it - see Pompeii).

Think about how close the world was to losing the entire Nag Hammadi scrolls to the fire for boiling water for tea - even after having barely survived nearly two millenia untouched!!!

Nothing is indestructible (but I get your drift in your range of indestructibility and so on). I've considered how humanity (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) could preserve its knowledge and history for a time when, maybe, an extraterrestrial intelligence capable of interstellar-intergalactic travel chances upon our minute solar system and planet (or an un'manned' exploratory device for the same purpose) long after we have turned into something else. The Earth is too volatile for consideration of long-term preservation (and I'm talking millions and millions of years here). An orbiting satellite would be bombarded by micrometeors, solar radiation, and its orbit would eventually decay. The Moon is probably the best bet - the side that receives the least impacts. Luckily, lunar impacts are far fewer than in past eons and its absolutely sterile environment (no atmosphere, no vulcanism, no life) are very well suited to long-term preservation. This would be even more highly successful if the 'time-capsule' were buried beneath the surface to protect against the aforementioned dangers to satellites. The Moon is receding in its orbit (moving further from Earth) so that means there is little chance of it careening into Earth.

It is assured that magnetic and laser media are not good for long-term data storage. Better storage will definitely need to be found. Just think about the reels and reels of early film being lost totally or partially to the cellulose used.

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

-- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

The making of the Pyramides was burned onto a DVD, some centuries later the DVD was gone.
Today only remains a piece of stone that we call "Pyramides" and nobody knows how the Hell was its making of.

Stupidity also evolves!

I build all my own and now my daughter's. She has a Dell she got a few years ago, and it actually works fine for what it is. She hates their tech support and so had me build her new one, now she gets NO tech support! Just kidding. I made her help so she can do work on it herself and she's a lot happier now. I started building mine in the days of the 286. Bought my XT from a computer store and decided it would be better to know how to fix them myself. Had a LOT of headaches back then...you oldies will what I mean, but still worth it. If you can't build it yourself and don't want to learn, don't kick yourself. Some folks just aren't interested in building them they just want one that works. I was in pain for you reading your letter, seems like most companies just don't care for their customers anymore. If you threaten to take your business elsewhere they just say go ahead, there are ten more waiting in line for every one that leaves, and unfortunately they are right. Good luck on your new one. One good thing about a local build, you can run over and choke them if they don't treat you right....lol just kidding.
Marque

Quote - If you can't build it yourself and don't want to learn, don't kick yourself. Some folks just aren't interested in building them they just want one that works. I was in pain for you reading your letter, seems like most companies just don't care for their customers anymore. If you threaten to take your business elsewhere they just say go ahead, there are ten more waiting in line for every one that leaves, and unfortunately they are right. Good luck on your new one. One good thing about a local build, you can run over and choke them if they don't treat you right....lol just kidding.
Marque

I would love to know enough about computers to be able to build and service my own computer. It would ultimately be cheaper on my wallet ;) However I've been looking around for a weekend workshop on general PC repair but haven't seen any offered where I live. The only computer courses I've seen are for software or full time, 2 year computer tech courses which I'm not really interested in taking.

Dell computers really should come with a lifetime supply of Vallium. My nerves were shot after dealing with them. I was never so happy to see a UPS guy as I was the day they picked up the Dell for return. After I closed the door I actually leaped up and shouted "Yay!!!! It's gone!"

I have my new computer now: it just arrived today. So far I'm really liking it, and while my monitor is 2 inches smaller than the Dell one was, I like it more. The 24 inch one was just too big!

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

I used to give free classes in computer upgrade and repair at the condo development where I lived in San Diego. Not enough people around here (in the sticks of Texas) to do that sort of thing.

Is there any chance they have the "Learning Annex" in your part of the world? You might find a good class through them (and cheap too).

I know it can seem kind of intimidating, but once you get the hang of "reading" a circuit board, it gets to be the sort of thing you can do blindfolded. My computer died (stone dead) a few days ago ... I knew from the manner of its death that it was the power supply. Took me a little time to find out that they don't have them in Marble Falls, but only about 5 minutes to order one on the internet, one day to get it here, and maybe 20 minutes to install it.

Could be worse, could be raining.

With Dell you get what you pay for. I suspect that most people buy from the Dell Home PC site and do not get the additional warranty. What you get for free is almost nothing. Pay the bit extra then you get tech support (from Texas, not India) and guaranteed service, usually NBD or less.
Just for the record I build my own PC's but have also bought a couple of ex-lease PC's from Dell off E-Bay. A 2 or 3 year old computer for about $200 is good for the wife or home render farm.

Hrm..I love my dells.

buying the warrenty is a must with dell...it will give you a discount on the system in most cases and get you to th people who can help.

As for your issue....Dell sends out the full os with their computers but if you just try to install it on a new dell when they don't make xp drivers for their newer systems anymore..

Well you weren't gonna get that to work regardless.

I'm talking about the proprieitary stuff in dells, dell uses not proprietary stuff too but you need their drivers in order to make it work with the proprietary.

Now what you were wanting to do was fine but if you couldn't do it yourself it would have been better to go to custom shop where you can bring a knowledgable friend along.

Dells are excellent machines as long as you know enough to get not just get stuck. Kind of like anything in the computer world.

Dell is not a blank box company...you can upgrade and tweak but it's not near as custimizable hardware wise as a blank box.

Tirjasdyn
http://michellejnorton.com

Hi Acadia, this sucks:( Sorry to hear about it!

I've had a dell for several years, and it's OK, but I wouldn't buy another. They are just middle of the road machines. HOwever, my local shop PC is kind of a mess. I hope your shop does a better job than the one I used:(

That said, PCs are pretty easy to fix. But....it takes time and lots of boring reading.

If you want to learn, go by the local bookstore's magazine section and get a few issues the magazines there. Be sure to get one that talks about new hardware, and another that talks about PC software. I have pretty much gotten totally out of touch with things myself, so I can't recommend any magazines, or even websites any more. But....once you start getting familiar with some of the techy stuff, you pick up enough understanding to find the stuff you need on your own.

The web has all the info you need, but you have to know enough to start looking.

Once you get the basics down, a few key websites will help you with all of your windows problems (again, I'm sort of out of it, and don't have any good recommendations there).

Actually, when you go to your local shop, ask the sales person there to recommend a book or magazine. You'll be surprised how easy it is....as long as you keep up.

Then...there are people like me. I just want a mac so I can forget the hassles of keeping up, lol.

Quote - Pay the bit extra then you get tech support (from Texas, not India) and guaranteed service, usually NBD or less.
Just for the record I build my own PC's but have also bought a couple of ex-lease PC's from Dell off E-Bay. A 2 or 3 year old computer for about $200 is good for the wife or home render farm.

In the States they have US based tech support again. In Canada they still use the call centres in other countries, and not just India. Occasionally if you call you do get connected to an office in Canada though, but rare.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Quote -
As for your issue....Dell sends out the full os with their computers but if you just try to install it on a new dell when they don't make xp drivers for their newer systems anymore..

Well you weren't gonna get that to work regardless.

I'm talking about the proprieitary stuff in dells, dell uses not proprietary stuff too but you need their drivers in order to make it work with the proprietary.

They told me to keep the XP and drivers disk from the first CPU unit. So installing XP on the new CPU was possible and did eventually happen...but then 7 hours later the graphic card blew up...and 2 days after that I called Dell and told them I was returning their crummy computer.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Quote - Hi Acadia, this sucks:( Sorry to hear about it!

I've had a dell for several years, and it's OK, but I wouldn't buy another. They are just middle of the road machines. HOwever, my local shop PC is kind of a mess. I hope your shop does a better job than the one I used:(

That said, PCs are pretty easy to fix. But....it takes time and lots of boring reading.

If you want to learn, go by the local bookstore's magazine section and get a few issues the magazines there. Be sure to get one that talks about new hardware, and another that talks about PC software. I have pretty much gotten totally out of touch with things myself, so I can't recommend any magazines, or even websites any more. But....once you start getting familiar with some of the techy stuff, you pick up enough understanding to find the stuff you need on your own.

The web has all the info you need, but you have to know enough to start looking.

Once you get the basics down, a few key websites will help you with all of your windows problems (again, I'm sort of out of it, and don't have any good recommendations there).

Actually, when you go to your local shop, ask the sales person there to recommend a book or magazine. You'll be surprised how easy it is....as long as you keep up.

Then...there are people like me. I just want a mac so I can forget the hassles of keeping up, lol.

I've been picking up knowledge here and there. Between the Dell laptop and desktop issues and them having me going into all kinds of areas in the computer including the CPU and taking things out, and Bobby's friend George showing me how to remove parts, and from all of you guys here... I've actually learned quite a bit.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

RE: DELL

I have five Dell PC's (I have a business so some do work stuff). One is a new bigger, larger, faster (ETC, ETC) XPS. They all work well except the XPS which sometimes recognizes its Firewire connection and sometimes doesn't. It was kind of humerous to try to get it fixed with Dell XPS Tech Service. (in Bophal India). Because it's not a continuing problem they couldn't do anything about it. The techs I talked to were not computor Gurus, they read from a script and trouble shoot from that. If you have something that's not on the script, yopu will run into trouble. They kept telling me I didn't have the right/current drivers (I did). The fix I came up with doesn't fix the problem but addresses it. I turn the firewire drive off and then back on. It works but still isn't the right solution. I have had problems before but Dell has been pretty good fixing them. I'm not satisfied with Dell on this but I have good luck with them before. I appreciate your telling the problems because it will help me decide as I replace computors.

You ought to try sending a copy of your troubles to PC WORLD. They have a track record of making things right.

Several have suggested that your problem should have been addressed and they are right.. Send it back!

I have Gateway 3.4 gig P4 single processor that had plenty of room for expansion, and I keep upgradingit myself, and have been very happy so far. I got it at Best Buy about two-three years ago.

Quote -

You ought to try sending a copy of your troubles to PC WORLD. They have a track record of making things right.

Several have suggested that your problem should have been addressed and they are right.. Send it back!/quote]

Thanks for the tip about PC World, I will look into that.

As for returning it? I did! I couldn't get rid ot it fast enough actually. I now have a locally built computer that I'm thrilled with! :)

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Quote - In the States they have US based tech support again. In Canada they still use the call centres in other countries, and not just India. Occasionally if you call you do get connected to an office in Canada though, but rare.

Actually, I have had to call tech support several times in the past month on our work Dell's (as a lot of others my home computer is self built). Every time I called tech support, I had to talk to someone whose name I can't pronounce and who barely spoke english. In addition, this was on warranties where we paid the extra for the NBD (here in the Texas sticks should be called next business week) warranty. Anyway, so I am not so sure all their support has been returned to local call centers.

Regardless of where their support is located at, it is certainly the cookie cutter approach that someone described above. They have an exact script they follow and if they hit something not on the directions, I always get "please hold." On the flip side, once they fnally realize the problem (which I tried to tell them from the start what was wrong), the guy they send to do the actual work has been great. Even with this, I still wouldn't buy another Dell for my company.

Sorry you went through this, but glad you found a local company to help you out.

Oh and my first computer was a Radio Shack Color Computer 2. Then did a huge upgrade to a Comodore 64 (GEOS . . . I remember that, ah memories . . . )

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." -Desmond Tutu

I can't even finish reading the first post, I feel sorry for you Acadia :(

I build every comp I ever owned, aside fro the first 2 that were pre pentium ;p 8088 and 286 i think, damn old times!

my parents bought a dell cuz my mom didn't want me to touch her comp, cuz she thinks she smarter than me even though she cant find the tv guide channel even though theres a "tv guide" button on the remote.........ANYWAYS, so ofcourse she gets a virus on her comp, and stuff quits working (dell tech thought virus, but couldve been uneducated clicking in places ;p) and after 3 hours of her yelling at them for a cd to reformat the comp, they told her about the restore feature lol then they dont bother to mention setting up the stuff so she couldnt use the internet, but o well.

THEN she finally gets tired of dell, and gives me 5 minutes to fix it, all works fine right? then she uses it and says it doesnt work, yelling at me now o.0 blah blah blah she was right not to let me touch it blah blah......so i go look at it AGAIN, works fine, um ok? and i tell her to show me when doesnt work, and it's cuz she was using msn.com for a search engine, and site was down for some reason, so ofcourse she thinks her comp doesn't work!

after that, i think i prefer the dell guys, lol

but anyways, i always build my comps, well worth it to me, but then again i'm probably more of a gamer, artist just a hobby, so ofcourse i need to know my comp ;p

Quote - Build your own dear. It's easier in the long run. As long as you have your own copy of XP Home or Pro your all set. I've built my last 3 and what SEEMS like an impossibility was NOT. Read the instructions on all the manuals, check our various sites like the one above.

RAMwolf is right. Build your own is the way to go when getting a new PC. Acadia, you ought to make a complaint to your state attny general or the BBB. Companies like Dell get away with doing crap like that to people because no one ever makes a complaint about them.

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge." Albert Einstein

Free the freebies!

I just sent off 2 letters to PC World. One to the Canadian magazine and the other the USA one.

I do plan on writing letters to the BBB in all 10 Provinces but haven't had the time and to be honest I'm still pretty hot under the collar with what happened and the thinking about it gives me a migraine! Plus I was waiting to make sure I got my refund and credit before going after them.

I sort of did build my own... well I picked what I wanted, and I was very specific, and it was built for me by a wonderful local company. I've had cause to call them twice about something (my fault), and there was no waiting on hold for 1/2 and hour and the tech was extremely polite and I was even told that if I couldn't get it fixed myself that they would have someone come out and do it for me. I managed to get it working from their instructions. That's how tech support should be in my opinion.

Anyway, I feel better having sent off those 2 letters to PC World. I think this weekend I'll draft up a letter to the BBB offices here and send them off next week.

I never did hear back from the local news paper. Maybe if I just write a letter to the editor and send it in, but I'm not really into seeing my name in print, LOL I'd rather be behind the scenes.

Any other magazines I can write to?

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

small local guys are almost always polite and helpful

AOhelL is just as bad, i have some GOOD horror stories from them lol

One suggestion for the do-it-yourselfers: let one vendor provide the motherboard, cpu and RAM. Ask them to assemble everything, install the heatsinks and fan on the cpu and then burn it all in for 24-48 hours. This way you know that what you're getting works and has been tested. They may charge a few extra dollars for the service, but is well worth the peace of mind when you consider that these are typically your most expensive components.

 
<;))$$$><<

Attached Link: http://www.rosettaproject.org/about-us/about-us

shrug - I usually buy 'em all online; if anything blows up during assembly, I call, get an RMA, and get a new one. The best advice when buying a new machine in pieces is to never wait until it becomes absolutely necessary before it's time to replace your old one. Me... I just buy Macs now for the 3d stuff. /P

Quote - shrug - I usually buy 'em all online; if anything blows up during assembly, I call, get an RMA, and get a new one. The best advice when buying a new machine in pieces is to never wait until it becomes absolutely necessary before it's time to replace your old one. Me... I just buy Macs now for the 3d stuff. /P

That's great if you know how.

But for the rest of us who are computer hardware iliterate, we depend on companies such as Dell. However, they are so hung up on making up internal policies and procedures and making sure that they are followed to a "T", that they completely forget the primary reason they are in business... the customer!

Not only was the computer I received substandard because the graphic card blew up within hours. But the customer service was disgusting from the tech support all the way to their customer service supervisors.

A company that treats their customers the way I was treated doesn't deserve to be in business.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Quote -
Not only was the computer I received substandard because the graphic card blew up within hours.

That's a common thing in new computers. If something is going to blow up, it usually happens within the first day or so. Hence the short warranty of 30 days on a lot of equipment. If it lasts that long then usually it's good for a few years.

I have been building my own since the days of Kim and Sym..... the prehistoric times, to those who have never heard of them. I have had several given to me for various reasons, and find them very useful.... for parts. Lou.

"..... and that was when things got interestiing."

I was forced to learn how to assemble components because that was the only way I was going to have a computer.

Free men do not ask permission to bear arms!!

I work in my little own company only with DELL - from desktop-PC, notebooks to Hi-End-Graphic-machine.
And this over many years without a problem - the service from DELL in germany is excellent.

It seems that Dell has reversed it's decision to only offer Vista to it's customers. Thanks to Hawkfyr for the thread link:

http://www.techspot.com/news/25004-dell-readds-xp-as-option-over-vista-on-new-pcs.html

However, it's too little too late for me. My situation was beyond the OS, shipping me the wrong OS was minor compared to all of the rest of the abuse they inflicted on me in this customer service nightmare, topping it off with calling me a thief!

I made this thread to show how crappy Dell treats their average customer (I'm Josephine Average) because when all was said and done, I couldn't freaking believe that this company which has such shoddy customer service is still in business!!

Companies like Dell get away with abusing their customers because they have a large corner of the computer marketplace and know that if you don't know a great deal about computers and want or need 24/7 tech support, there aren't that many companies that you can go to.

Only through publication of stories such as mine will there be any hope for the customers out there who are being abused by big businesses. Companies who treat their customers badly need to be made an example of in order for them to see what really matters...the customer. Only then will change happen.

Any successful business requires rules, but when internal policies and procedures start to take on a life of their own and begin to freeze out the customer leaving them feeling abused and utterly defeated, that company has a growing problem.

My friends have repeatedly told me that I'm "dangerous" when I have a cause I feel worth fighting for and now that I've taken time to calm down, I have started to "campaign". I'm currently awaiting responses from a few places that I have contacted about this Customer Service nightmare to find out if they are interested in running a story or review about the adverse affects that rigid and and unbending policies and procedures have on the customer.

Hmmm...maybe I should call Jerry Springer! LOL Can just see me duking it out with Michael Dell on PPV, haha

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

I generally don't pay for TV but you duking it out with Michael Dell, I'll make an exception :)

I must remember to remember what it was I had to remember.

I haven't bought a Dell in years. They used to be number one in service, but once they outsourced all the service to overseas, Dell sucked.

Quote - I haven't bought a Dell in years. They used to be number one in service, but once they outsourced all the service to overseas, Dell sucked.

Actually, not all of their service is outsourced.

Out of all of the calls I made to Dell concerning this issue, only twice was I connected to India. And out of all the people I talked to, the 3 people in India were the most gracious and helpful out of all of them (well, that fellow in Canada who finally got my drive partitioned was pretty good too) The rest of the time I was bounced around throughout various call centres/offices in Canada.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Quote - That's a common thing in new computers. If something is going to blow up, it usually happens within the first day or so. Hence the short warranty of 30 days on a lot of equipment. If it lasts that long then usually it's good for a few years.

Macs come with a one year 'nose-to-tail' warranty, with up to 3 years that can be purchased for ~$300. The price difference for what you get between Apple and, say, Dell, is pretty narrow nowadays, and in many cases the Apple comes out ahead. For instance, I have my eyeball on a new MacPro, which has two Core Duos playing together for a total of four cores. The box I have spec'd out will run about $2700 or so. I couldn't find a big-name PC with the same specs for less than $3000 (mostly because a box with that kind of horsepower at Dell would only be found in their server department)... Even @ the other end, a Mac Mini prices out reasonably well against any other Core Duo based PC. I think the laptops are the only place where you pay a more for a Mac for equivalent horsepower (but then, you can run both OSX and Windows on the critter - simultaneously if you get Parallels). /P

Not to fuel the flame, or anything.... attempts to look completely innocent..... but you might consider sending a copy of the other thread.... at the very least, your initial post... to Dell, pointing out that literally thousands of people worldwide have read this, and that it isn't uncommon. Lou.

"..... and that was when things got interestiing."

"Out of all of the calls I made to Dell concerning this issue, only twice was I connected to India. And out of all the people I talked to, the 3 people in India were the most gracious and helpful out of all of them (well, that fellow in Canada who finally got my drive partitioned was pretty good too) The rest of the time I was bounced around throughout various call centres/offices in Canada.", well, their service has still gotten terrible even according to articles and ratings in all the PC magazine I read. I wonder why? However, some of the outsourcing problems to foreign countries is caused by their lack of the command of languages other than their own. I had some real problems understanding what some of the techs said and I am sure they could not understand me. A language barrior.

I had to talk to the guys in India when I was trying to get my Earthlink DSL setup. I spent 4 hours or so phonetically spelling things back and forth with them. Nothing got done, but they sure were nice to me.

Free men do not ask permission to bear arms!!

Not to stir anything up, but as per tech support at most OEMs? Business customers in the US get American help desk folks... every time. UK business customers... ditto. Same with any business customer at any locale, really. The only folks who get Indian tech support at the business level are ...Indians. So if nothing else, the OEMs are smart enough to listen to the business/enterprise level customers. Consumer-level customers? Dunno - it's a crap shoot. /P

When I call Dell or any other tech support - for Cable, Internet, whatever - the first thing I say when they ask my name is "I'm Mr. don't F with me" (yes, I say F and make a little joke about not swearing in mixed company) "either help me or don't waste my time."

If the runaround starts, for example "We don't ship XP" I reply "did you just say return the machine and don't buy from us in the future?" and if that doesn't work I start shouting.

Tech support people are generally trained not to help, not to offer replacements, not to let people talk with supervisors. The sooner you let them know you're not going to accept that, the better.

Sorry to hear what you went trough with Dell costumer service =( and i agree with most of the people who replied here, i assembled my own computer, i'm never going to buy a brand computer... do try to learn how to build a computer, it's fun =)

My first computer... if i remember correctly it was back in 1982, a Tandy Color Computer, with 4k of RAM :p i still have it, and it still turns on... but the keyboard is not working well anymore =(

Who finds a friend finds a treasure!

Quote -
Tech support people are generally trained not to help, not to offer replacements, not to let people talk with supervisors. The sooner you let them know you're not going to accept that, the better.

I'm not sure what type of training Dell techs have. Back when this fiasco was going on, the time when I talked to the tech support office where the guy told me he would try and send a message to whomever I had been talking to earlier, he also said that Dell techs don't know how to partition drives. I wanted to tell him that he was nuts to even say something like that. And I'm sorry to say that the person was from Ontario, Canada.

Also, due to the fact that HP has been taking up some of the market share that Dell used to have, Dell has closed their Edmonton office. That was the office with the one helpful guy who managed to help me to get XP on my machine and partition the hard drive.

Anyway, I'm happy with my locally puchased machine. It runs like a dream and I haven't had need to contact anyone for support, but I know when I do I will get fast and courteous service where someone will come out to look after my computer, for 5 whole years because I have a 5 year on site, parts and labour warranty. Better than anything that freak company Dell offered me.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Quote - My first computer... if i remember correctly it was back in 1982, a Tandy Color Computer, with 4k of RAM :p i still have it, and it still turns on... but the keyboard is not working well anymore =(

Wow! I had never even heard of computers back in 1982!! I used a computer for the first time back in 1985, but that was to do up shipping invoices. It wasn't connected to the internet. My first go at being online was in 2000 when I bought my first computer. Until then I had no idea what the internet was. hehe I'm serious. I had heard the name but had no idea what it "looked" like or how it worked.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Quote - I'll have to try that crying thing next time my girlfriend claims to have a head ache!

hahahaha!

I've had four computers, and only the first was ever from a "big" company (Olivetti), and this was back in the 486, Win95 days. That was something of a disaster, and completely dispels any myth computers once held that they were "idiot-proof".

My Dad managed to break it after a day. After two weeks going through tech support, they finally picked it up, and about a week later we got it back. One problem - the CD drive wasn't working. Back it went, another week later, and it came back.

Now the CD drive was working, but it was only recognised intermittently. After putting up with it for about three weeks, another long long battle with tech support to get them to recognise that something was wrong. Eventually, (and this was only after Olivetti had changed hands) a tech support guy comes out, installs the drivers that had been deleted during a system reinstall and voila, CD is working again.

Never again. Our next computer was from a small computer store two towns over, the one after that from my friend's dad who lives up the top of our street, and my one now from an independent online store. Out of all that, the only problem I've had was when I managed to break a DVD drive, and after that when the PSU collapsed. All fixed easily and quickly.

ookay. This is a Dell. My first. It's been restored to factory state 3 times in 3 months. First a Dell update hosed the boot cycle. Then there was an issue with their printer bloatware blocking Adobe registrations. Then the monitor went out. Of course calls to Dell support, always start out, "let's do a restore...", and the blinking monitor was diagnosed as a bad graphics card (NVidiaGForce 8600GT). Not. But with all the badly written software, shakey hardware, and wrong problem identification, I have to say everyone from the salesman to the middle-of-the-night 'tech support' guy in India, they've all tried very hard to get the machine running, and haven't charged me a cent for the calls or the replacement monitor. (22" flat panel that has spoiled me rotten.) The guy in India even went OT with me, and tried to explain what "babu" in Hindi means. I don't really trust the machine, and am scrimping money for a USB HD to back it up, but... I keep thinking of the first 2 years of my truck, when the onboard computer kept resetting itself to a 4-cylinder, when it had 6. The truck is 12 years old now, and running like a champ, despite the rocky start. Dell definitely has problems, but they seem to be trying to fix them, at least on the surface. Trouble is, this has really killed any desire to start any projects, knowing they may or may not be there the next time I boot up.

Ouch! And here I thought I had problems just 'cuz Windoze XP decided to kill the Help and Support on my system -- a 5 year old Dell. Every fix I could find, even installing Service Pack 3, didn't restore it either. Now, except for Eudora, Netscape and one or two other programs, all my Help files won't open.

I dunno. Last 4 computers we have had were all Dells. One had some issues with the CD writer so they sent us a new one The writer still didn't work until the maker came out with firmware for it, which they did a month or so later. Then it was fine. Another had monitor problems when it got to be about 2 years old. The one I am on now is over 4 years old, and still runs okay. I thought it was dead once, but hubby took out the memory modules and blew the dust off them, plugged them back in, and all was well. I have never even reformatted it. (Having said that I will probably have to do it tomorrow. lol) The other one is a laptop which seems fine so far. I will probably buy another desktop from them in a year or so. We are not knowledgable enough to build our own, but I like being able to customize the machine a bit. I can usually get more or less what I want from Dell.

Our first computer (and I have no idea what brand it was) didn't even have a hard drive. We had to boot it with big floppy disks, and save all our work to more disks. Those were the days. LOL

seaayre, that was propbably an Apple. Imagine trying to use poser on that. Those big floppies only .74 meg (i think, maybe less). Of course I've seen a floppy that was the size of lp record and didn't even hold as much.

Available on Amazon for the Kindle E-Reader Monster of the North and The Shimmering Mage

Today I break my own personal record for the number of days for being alive.
Check out my store here or my free stuff here
I use Poser 13 and win 10

I'm a build your own guy myself, with a minor caveat. I generally buy locally and purchase what they call a "base system" - it's a computer with only the ram, cpu and case installed, then I purchase the rest of the components seperately and install them myself.

The reason I opt to purchase a base system? That way if anything does go wrong with the CPU I can't be faulted for "incorrect installation" thus voiding the warranty. I've done this with my last 3 systems and I've been very happy with all three, getting exactly what I wanted for hardware with no difficulties whatsoever.

A few years back I actually tried buying a couple of different pre-made PC's, one gateway and one Dell, and I had the same sort of experiences you did I'm afraid. Nothing but problems from the get go, and since I'm not a big fan of the OS the systems generally shipped with the tech support pretty much went from slim to none when they found out I wasn't even running their pre-boxed OS.

I had one moron at gateway actually tell me that the reason my monitor wasn't getting signal was because I had installed Linux on the box. It didn't seem to matter to him that I could plug in a different monitor and it worked fine, or that I could take that monitor and plug it into a different computer running windows and it still wouldn't come up. No, the problem definately had to be Linux, after all, it's an evil "hobbiest" OS that is known to cause such problems. Apparently it's also been linked to sterility and acid rain - lol.

So after that I steered clear of the pre-manufactured PC's and started just assembling them myself, been much happier ever since.

-Never fear, RenderDog is near! Oh wait, is that a chew toy? Yup. ok, nevermind.. go back to fearing...

Quote - So after that I steered clear of the pre-manufactured PC's and started just assembling them myself, been much happier ever since.

I've been much happier since I sent back that Dell desktop and put their crappy customer service behnd me too :)

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL

Subject: (OT) OMG! I'm returning the computer from HELL!!!!