My troubles with my Inspiron 5100 laptop began a few months ago when the CPU was over heating and shutting down the PC. According to the Dell user forum this is a very common issue with this laptop. Anyway since I paid for a 3 year on site warranty Dell sent out a tech to replace the CPU and heatsink. This seemed to fix the issue as my laptop's temp dropped from a max of 77C to temps in the 50's which seemed more normal for a P4 chip. Things were ok for a few weeks then I started to get BSOD's in Windows XP Pro. I tried the usual fix's but kept getting different errors at somewhat random times so I did a reinstall of the OS and thought that would be the end of it....nope no luck. After several more installs and getting no further ahead I called Dell again and this time they replaced the motherboard and ram sodim modual. Since it was a new mobo I did yet another reinstall of XP but it was evident that there was still an issue as the BSOD remained. On top of the OS issues my ethernet port no longer worked on the new board so I called Dell again and complained so they sent the tech back with another motherboard. This one fixed the ethernet port but I can't even do an install of the OS as it BSOD's half way though the install and rebooting it tries to continue but fails again and now will not boot at all (just boots to the BSOD). I've been calling Dell now for over two months trying to get a working laptop and their latest line is that they have to send out a level 2 tech to see what's going on before they can replace it out right (which would have been much cheaper for them and I'd be a happy camper not :M as hell). When they set up the Level 2 tech to come out I was told he'd call within 5 business days...after not hearing anything on day 7 I called and was told he tried to call at 4 the day before and left a message...which is BS since we were home at the time and there's no message on the machine. I'll be calling again on Monday to bitch some more but I'm really getting tired of this run around not to mention having to deal with staff that don't seem to grasp the simple concept of transfering a call properly or even speaking english (they often transfer calls to India which while they're technically proficent communication barriers exist). I actually got transfered to the wrong department 4 times in a row the other day before I just hung up and dialed up the department I needed myself. I won't even start about the "on hold" time I've had to put up with...I think the longest was nearly 1.5 hours before even talking to someone :M
Dell had the oppertunity to make me a believer if they'd simply said that since the first board swap didn't work that they'd just replace it outright. They could have done it sooner given the apparent design flaw surrounding the CPU over heating issue but I'd have been ok with them trying to resolve the issue first...that hasn't happened and its now gone on way to long so this will be my last Dell and given that I frequently recomend systems for friends and co workers Dell will likely loose several systems a year now. Likely nothing they're going to get too worried about but it points to a bigger problem with the way they're doing tech support and that will show up in their sales figures in the not so distant future...actually it already is given they now have dropped to 3rd (last time I looked) in customer satisfaction with IBM and Toshiba ranking above them.
Dell had the oppertunity to make me a believer if they'd simply said that since the first board swap didn't work that they'd just replace it outright. They could have done it sooner given the apparent design flaw surrounding the CPU over heating issue but I'd have been ok with them trying to resolve the issue first...that hasn't happened and its now gone on way to long so this will be my last Dell and given that I frequently recomend systems for friends and co workers Dell will likely loose several systems a year now. Likely nothing they're going to get too worried about but it points to a bigger problem with the way they're doing tech support and that will show up in their sales figures in the not so distant future...actually it already is given they now have dropped to 3rd (last time I looked) in customer satisfaction with IBM and Toshiba ranking above them.
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