Dude, Dell's stupid!

[technical.angel]

So, I called up Dell's Gold Tech Support today.

"I have a dead hard drive. The head is scrapping the disc."
"Have you run a disc diagnostic?"
"No." Because the head is scratching the disc. The computer won't recognize the disc, I don't think a diagnostic is going to help much.
"Why don't we do that?"
"Well, hold on, I passed the HD to another tech." Who also declared it dead. "Okay, error running diagnostic."
"Well, let's try to boot it in safe mode."
Am I not speaking English? Head, disc, SCRATCH! "Hard disc drive 0 not found."
"Well, it sounds like it's dead. Will parts only be okay?"

ARG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Pixagi]

Ugh, I HATE Dell techs. When my 2nd laptop's mother board broke and didn't allow the comp to charge, I had to call Dell. My fiance and I have figured out a system for dealing with them, which is awesome.

And excerpt from having to call them for the laptop:

Tech: Hello, this is Dell blah blah.
Me: Hi, my computer won't charge.
Tech: Is it plugged in?
Me: Yes.
Tech: and all the lights are on?
Me: All but the charge light.
Tech: Well, blah blah-
Me: You're an asshole. The part where the plug goes in is loose, and not making a connection, therefore, no chargey.
Tech: Oh, that sounds like the motherboard, let me just get your info and we'll send someone over asap.
Me: Thank you!


Really, though, I don't blame them, they have to deal with stupid people all day who don't realize a computer needs to be turned on to work.

What's really pissing me off right now is Geek Squad. For my latest, most precious baby I have a 3 year PSP with Best Buy covering everything including accidental damage, which is awesome. Now, last time I had to take it in, there were bad sectors in the hardrive (as that's what I was told) and they fixed it quickly for me. This time I'm having the same problem as before. When I took it there, the guy told me it was either the same problem as before, or the sound card was broken. Okay, all covered. Here's the problem: Best Buy now has a new policy where all hardware fixes need to be sent to some other place in Kentucky or Maryland to be done, and they can't tell me what specifically was done to the computer. So, when I got my comp back, the screen (which had cracked) had been fixed, but the sound was still f-d up.

THEN, the guy tried to tell me I probably uninstalled all the codexes necessary for the music to work properly. O_o WHAT? I'm not gonna say I'm a computer wiz, but I know enough not to uninstall stuff that came with the comp and I don't knoew what it is >< Furthermore, it's the exact same problem as I was having before, that was fixed, so wouldn't it stand to reason that it was the SAME PROBLEM?


Damn... I'm bitter...

[sld72382]

From what I heard the in-store techs at the geek squad are idiots, so I'm not surprised you've having that problem.

BTW OP, you're not the first to deal with Dell's idiocy. One of the most annoying things they do when clients need to reload their O/S, they don't wipe it out and start over, they do a redundant install and it screws it up further. When I tell the client that they need to format, they don't believe me because "Dell told them that redundant install is the best solution."

[JustADude]

Dude, Dell's stupid!

Okay, there is but one thing I can possibly say to that statement, and it will be the sum total and distilled essence of every comment I might possibly make about that corporation:

"Well, DUH!!"

[draggar]

If I didn't work tech support myself I would have thought them to be very arrogant and pretensious.

BUT - considering the plethora of really really REALLY stupid calls I've had, I can see it. I've actually had people come in, yell that I need to send someone over because the have no sound. Guess what, their speakers were unplugged.

Reinstalling drivers, someone kept telling me his device manager said "ShockWave" for all his drivers (I knew this was f-ed up since it was supposed to be X-Wave) so after 4 or 5 uninstall / reinstall of the correct driver, and after the third time I asked him to spell exactly what was on the screen, exactly as it says, he said "well, it says X-W-A-V-E, but doesn't that mean shockwave?"

I also had to check the weather reports for thunderstorms, if I saw some I knew I would have a large number of calls from that area.

Calls that began with "I decided to upgrade my computer so I bought a new CD-RW, a new CD-ROM, a new sound card, a new monitor, and a second HDD" The call was usually, and quickly followed with "have a nice day".

And then there are the people who got pissed at me because I wouldn't support their non-(company) computers.

[HawaiianShirts]

In my store, "Dell" has become a cuss word. We even joke with some of the nicer customers when they ask if we carry Dell computers or Dell parts by asking, "Did you just use the D-word?"

In my experience with any tech support (Dell, Geek Squad, Qwest, and HP are the ones I've personally used), you get good techs and bad techs. Geek Squad was my most recent adventure. Had them test a problematic wireless card; they tested it, changed a setting, and I'm good to go. Had a hard drive problem; they replaced the drive and my data, problem solved. Asked one of them if there was much image quality lost through a VGA-to-DVI adapter; he proceeded to tell me it was impossible to adapt those connections and that I needed a new monitor. That's why I always ask for a second opinion (have the tech ask another tech while I listen) if I question any recommendation.

Had one (that's ONE) Qwest tech I now have some respect for. During a recent outage, he got me to reset my modem (which I'd done a dozen times) without telling me to reset my modem. He told me he was doing a line test to the remote terminal and suggested that it works faster if I unplug my modem while he does so, then plug it back in to test the line from the terminal to my house. I realized after I'd unplugged the modem that it shouldn't make any difference whether I'm connected or not. Clever.

/rambling

[volatile]

Ugh, I HATE Dell techs. When my 2nd laptop's mother board broke and didn't allow the comp to charge, I had to call Dell. My fiance and I have figured out a system for dealing with them, which is awesome.

And excerpt from having to call them for the laptop:

Tech: Hello, this is Dell blah blah.
Me: Hi, my computer won't charge.
Tech: Is it plugged in?
Me: Yes.
Tech: and all the lights are on?
Me: All but the charge light.
Tech: Well, blah blah-
Me: You're an asshole. The part where the plug goes in is loose, and not making a connection, therefore, no chargey.
Tech: Oh, that sounds like the motherboard, let me just get your info and we'll send someone over asap.
Me: Thank you!


Really, though, I don't blame them, they have to deal with stupid people all day who don't realize a computer needs to be turned on to work.

What's really pissing me off right now is Geek Squad. For my latest, most precious baby I have a 3 year PSP with Best Buy covering everything including accidental damage, which is awesome. Now, last time I had to take it in, there were bad sectors in the hardrive (as that's what I was told) and they fixed it quickly for me. This time I'm having the same problem as before. When I took it there, the guy told me it was either the same problem as before, or the sound card was broken. Okay, all covered. Here's the problem: Best Buy now has a new policy where all hardware fixes need to be sent to some other place in Kentucky or Maryland to be done, and they can't tell me what specifically was done to the computer. So, when I got my comp back, the screen (which had cracked) had been fixed, but the sound was still f-d up.

THEN, the guy tried to tell me I probably uninstalled all the codexes necessary for the music to work properly. O_o WHAT? I'm not gonna say I'm a computer wiz, but I know enough not to uninstall stuff that came with the comp and I don't knoew what it is >< Furthermore, it's the exact same problem as I was having before, that was fixed, so wouldn't it stand to reason that it was the SAME PROBLEM?


Damn... I'm bitter...

Is your sound card an integrated Realtek HD audio? If so, you need to get updated drivers to get it to work. If you are using some of the older drivers your sound will go out intermittently or completely but the hardware will seem like it is running fine.

[wagegoth]

My Dell's almost five years old. The warranty help I received from the Indian outsourced staff was really good, but I recently called and got the Tier 1 support staff in the Philippines. All the person did was read through a binder or book (I could hear the pages turning), and kept telling me it was my heat sink.

After giving up, I took it to Geek Squad, who replaced the hard drive (which was doing the big fade), and together we figured out a weird conflict I was having with a keyboard.

[volatile]

My Dell's almost five years old. The warranty help I received from the Indian outsourced staff was really good, but I recently called and got the Tier 1 support staff in the Philippines. All the person did was read through a binder or book (I could hear the pages turning), and kept telling me it was my heat sink.

After giving up, I took it to Geek Squad, who replaced the hard drive (which was doing the big fade), and together we figured out a weird conflict I was having with a keyboard.

I hope you didn't get fleeced by Geek Squad and their overcharging. Word to the wise...if they ever tell you your hard drive is dying because it failed SMART test don't buy it. The whole purpose of SMART is to allow the hard drive to monitor itself and notify the user of any potential mechanical failure and give you a chance to back up data before it completely fails. However, SMART isn't implemented consistently by all manufacturers and diagnostic tests give false positives. I've had to recommend hard drive replacements simply because it failed SMART tests but passed every other mechanical test just so we could make more money off of them. SMART is usually not that useful because more often than not your hard drive will crash suddenly (i.e. drive head) and SMART's benefits are negated by that fact.

[sld72382]

Yeah, that's great, tell people to ignore SMART failure messages. Then when their hard drive dies a couple of days later they'll blame you for telling them to ignore it.

[volatile]

Yeah, that's great, tell people to ignore SMART failure messages. Then when their hard drive dies a couple of days later they'll blame you for telling them to ignore it.

More often than not, the SMART feature isn't given a chance to be used before the drive fails. I'd say, roughly, out of 10 hard drives that fail only one might actually provide a SMART error message before the drive fails. The hard drive on my laptop "failed" the SMART test one day; then a few weeks later when I ran it again it miraculously passed. All I am saying is the diagnostic run to test SMART is error prone at best.

P.S. I didn't say ignore SMART FAILURE MESSAGES. I said take SMART test failures from diagnostic tests with a grain of salt. Please read and thoroughly comprehend the posts.

[Pixagi]

I'm sorry, but I didn't see with what you said how they could be an asshole. Sounds like you were being an SC, unless you left out some details.

I left out details. He was repeatedly trying to tell me my comp was probably not hooked up right, or that it was something stupid like the surge strip it's on not working, or something else retarded like that in an extremely condescending tone ("Okay, I want you to change the outlet it's on and let me know if it works." was pretty much cut him off.)

Not once did he recommend what computer-wise issue there could be, just that it was a PEBKAC, and spending a lot of time not letting me speak until I finally cut him off.

[BravoOrig]

3rd hand story going around the call center is that someone called Dell, and when they went to tell the rep what they had already done, all the rep could say was "Start, Control Panel" over and over till he actually did it.

[Shabo]

I think with a lot of repair places, they are required to have you go through a certain number of steps before they can say for certain that it is or isn't something. Of course, sometimes it really is something really stupid, like a wire is disconnected, but that's not always the case. Only thing to really do is to listen to them, and pretend to redo whatever things they are telling you that you've already done.

Not everyone who works there is computer savvy enough to know how to fix problems, so they have to go through a list of steps.

[Jadedcarguy]

I lost all faith in Geek Squad when I told them I use Poser and he said, I shit you not, "Poser? Sounds like a virus." No, moron, it isn't. Even if you don't use it, someone who works around and troubleshoots computers all the time should at least have heard of it. Couple that with the time I asked them about an NVidia Quadro card and was told, "That will be terrible for games. You should get a GeForce 7900(can't recall exactly which one)." I'm not a gamer, dude. I render. GeForce cards are OK for rendering, but Quadro's ROCK for it. BB doesn't even sell Quadro's, I found out. I buy most PC parts at NewEgg now.