Dude, Dell's stupid!

[Geek King]

I remember having a batch that would blow caps and overheat hard drives (low profile cases). Out of the 110 I had, over a single semester, 75 got a new hard drive, new motherboard/CPU, or both.

After the 10th or so, Dell just shipped us a box of 20 MBs, 20 CPUs, and 20 HDD, told us to call for more when we got low, and if the problem went away, to keep the left overs for spares.

:-)

Wow...and to think at my current job I have to defend my thesis every time I call HP support for a new part. They've even asked for the number off of the shipping manifest before. I may hate you just a little

[technical.angel]

Aint Gold Tech support grand?

[MadRocketScientist]

The last Dell Gold Tech I talked to (the model of computers for the Helpdesk people have a power supply that keeps dying. We lost 5 out of 10 within 2 months), told me that if I had problems with any other computer, I could just email him..

Happiness.

I remember having a batch that would blow caps and overheat hard drives (low profile cases). Out of the 110 I had, over a single semester, 75 got a new hard drive, new motherboard/CPU, or both.

After the 10th or so, Dell just shipped us a box of 20 MBs, 20 CPUs, and 20 HDD, told us to call for more when we got low, and if the problem went away, to keep the left overs for spares.

:-)

[Pedersen]

Although the cake was taken by the "supervisor" who informed me that there were NO viruses that could attack the BIOS. And a reinstall of Windows would fix all virus problems.

Yowch. Especially ironic considering the virus type I've outlined in my head. No, I won't detail it here, nor anyplace else. Suffice to say that if it were ever written (no, I've never written a line of code for it, nor do I intend to) and released, it would wipe out the x86 computing infrastructure of much of the world before it is finally shut down. It's bad.

And one of the prime reasons for it being so bad is that it goes after that flashable BIOS.

[InsanityInc]

I used to work for Dell tech support back in 2000. (ducks) I worked for an outsourcer in the US that was fairly decent at support..... for awhile. I know it was hit or miss as to which call center you got, and the one in Nashville was infamous for lousy support. You'd look at the case notes, and just go "Oh sh*t, Nashville had 'em."

We had several contracts for different companies, and were each trained on our own individual contract, Dell training was about a month long. This worked fine up until we lost the Earthlink account, and they decided to dump all the techs from that onto Dell with about a weeks worth of training. Management figured puters are puters, what's the difference between hardware support and Internet support? They had to stop me from seriously hurting several techs who I heard doing really stupid things. Although the cake was taken by the "supervisor" who informed me that there were NO viruses that could attack the BIOS. And a reinstall of Windows would fix all virus problems.

[technical.angel]

The last Dell Gold Tech I talked to (the model of computers for the Helpdesk people have a power supply that keeps dying. We lost 5 out of 10 within 2 months), told me that if I had problems with any other computer, I could just email him..

Happiness.

[MadRocketScientist]

When I ran the student computer labs, we had all Dells. Calls for parts replacements went to a major account support line. We'd call up, say part such and such on machine service tag XXXXXX is dead, send a new one, and lo & behold, one arrived forthwith.

Every once in a while, we'd accidentally get transferred to the home support line, and we knew it once they started trying to get us to troubleshoot the device. I trained all my guys on this.

Dell: Thank you for calling Dell, blah blah
Techs: I've got a dead hard drive, service tag XXXXXX
Dell: OK, well lets start troubleshooting to make sure.
Tech: <crap, I got transferred wrong again> Before we do that, could you look and see who owns the computer with service tag XXXXXX?
Dell: Sure, it's ummm, University of YY
Tech: do you see any marks about major account status?
Dell: Ummm, yeah? <Sometimes at this point, the tech would apologize and transfer us right away>
Tech: Do you think maybe you should be not talking to me and instead transferring me to Major Accounts support?
Dell: But I can help you.
Tech, No, sorry, you can't, I don't need troubleshooting, I need parts exchange, and you can't do a parts exchange until you've done all your troubleshooting.
Dell: True
Tech: Please don't make me hang up & go through phone hell again, a transfer to major accounts would be much appreciated.
Dell: Oh, sure, transferring.

[Impetrix]

Nah, the dept head is too nice. We don't crack cases. In fact, we don't do much of anything for students other than networking issues.

One time I had to investigate a possible water damage issue to a laptop. But I was pretty sure it was WATER damage when I started.

Ooooh, you're lucky. Now that I'm out front I just deal with human beings mostly, but back when I was in the advanced support area, 99% of what we did was a.)reimaging fubared machines or replaced hard drives or b.)taking things apart, mostly to clean spill cases.

Once when I was making I believe $7.50 an hour I read a slashdot article (at work, but after I'd mucked around inside a couple machines and had some scans running) about sucky retail support. Someone made a comment to the effect of "well, the techs only make $10 an hour, you can't expect them to be competent taking apart laptops".

Oh, and we had a laptop once that the student said was a water spill. We popped the keyboard and realized there were chunks in the water. Ewwww....

He had Complete Care, so Dell was able to do a full system swap. It stuck around in our back office in a black plastic bag with a biohazard sticker for a few days until they approved it.

[technical.angel]

Heh.. beer makes funny colors on mobos, as I'm sure the Angel (as a fellow college tech) is aware, too. :-)

Nah, the dept head is too nice. We don't crack cases. In fact, we don't do much of anything for students other than networking issues.

One time I had to investigate a possible water damage issue to a laptop. But I was pretty sure it was WATER damage when I started.

[Geek King]

Heh.. beer makes funny colors on mobos, as I'm sure the Angel (as a fellow college tech) is aware, too. :-)

But Vodka shots have the advantage of also burning off when they short the board.

[Impetrix]

Heh.. beer makes funny colors on mobos, as I'm sure the Angel (as a fellow college tech) is aware, too. :-)

[Skrae]

I have just the picture for this thread!

[Acolyte]

Hey, us retail tech slaves have feelings too...

Sorry, I wasn't trying to say that everybody working at Staples or Best Buy are morons. I know there are plenty of intelligent, well-trained techs like us out there who actually earned their certifications, but there are also an unholy fuckload of asshats out there.

EDIT: And I've released the mysterious blue smoke from motherboards too. If course, that was when trying to precariously test a motherboard of unknown function balanced on top of a stripped-down case during a hideously dry day. But still.

[Pezzle]

Oh, man, usually when I fry motherboards it's pretty obvious to everyone. The big black scorch marks usually give it away.

My favorite is the popped caps. When the electrolytic juicy goodness is leaking and oxidizing on the PCB (what is it, lithium? I forget.)

[Gurndigarn]

I know how to check for motherboard damage by looking for popped caps and yellow/browning. ESPCIALLY I know not to plug a floppy connector into the CPU Fan port.

Oh, man, usually when I fry motherboards it's pretty obvious to everyone. The big black scorch marks usually give it away.