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Solve : New $4,000 Computer Crashing and Freezing? |
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Answer» Quote from: Salmon Trout on March 12, 2011, 07:27:01 AM At the risk of making myself appear stupid, I have to confess that there is something here I am not getting. A person has a computer under warranty, and has to pay $150 (one hundred and FIFTY dollars!) to call their warranty support? And then another one hundred and thirty-nine dollars because the first call didn't lead to the problem being solved? Is that right? If so, I'm glad I live in a country with consumer protection laws! Actually, I was scratching my head about that when I first read it. If I ever dropped 4 grand on a machine that refused to work properly in the way that the OPs is I wouldn't be trying to fix it. As far as I'm concerned, at that point it's the Manufacturer's job to make sure that I'm satisfied. If they want an additional 150 dollars for me to have the "privilege" of that they can take the computer back and give me a refund and I'll find somebody more willing to take on the responsibility of making the customer satisfied that selling a product generally entails. This includes, you know, having warranties that aren't just words. Quote from: Salmon Trout on March 12, 2011, 07:27:01 AM At the risk of making myself appear stupid, I have to confess that there is something here I am not getting. A person has a computer under warranty, and has to pay $150 (one hundred and fifty dollars!) to call their warranty support? And then another one hundred and thirty-nine dollars because the first call didn't lead to the problem being solved? Is that right? If so, I'm glad I live in a country with consumer protection laws! Er no I only had to pay $139 and that was for a service outside my warranty where they walk me through how to back up and restore my computer so that all the programs and files are where they are supposed to be. It saves time but I agree its overpriced. What I am really ticked about is they never called me back yesterday. I will have to deal with them some other time and I am certainly not paying for them to replace my video card, I already paid for a working video card.Quote from: Seekster on March 12, 2011, 11:38:27 AM Er no I only had to pay $139 So what is this that I read? Quote Had to pay about $150.00 to have them walk me through partioning my hardrive and making a backup and then doing a system restore to factory Quote I spent another $139.64 just to have a guy walk me through how to partition my harddrive and restore my computer On my planet that makes $289.64, which, moreover, I would not have spent! How nice it must be to have piles of spending cash. Quote from: Seekster on March 12, 2011, 11:38:27 AM I already paid for a working video card. Didn't you pay for a working computer, though, too?Quote from: Salmon Trout on March 12, 2011, 11:55:22 AM So what is this that I read? I was refering to the same single payment. The first time I just gave a rounded figure and the second time I just gave the whole figure. I did pay for a working computer but this was a service where they walked me through a partition back up and instant restore. That part worked well and now I have a partion for backups in the future so I can't argue with them on that.Quote from: Seekster on March 12, 2011, 02:41:40 PM I have a partion for backups in the future so I can't argue with them on that. So what are you complaining about? Quote from: Salmon Trout on March 12, 2011, 02:46:55 PM So what are you complaining about? The fact that after all that the thing still freezes up randomly.Seekster, what did the DELL tech support do for you (if anything)? you mentioned that you were gonna talk with them regarding your pc's problems, specifically video card replacement...Quote from: Seekster on March 12, 2011, 08:19:50 PM The fact that after all that the thing still freezes up randomly. here's the thing. You paid 4 grand. they should have delivered the machine in working order. Wether they managed to scam you into believing that repartitioning the drives would somehow dissolve your issues is redundant. Quote they walked me through a partition back up and instant restore. That part worked well and now I have a partion for backups in the future so I can't argue with them on that. There seems to be a bit of confusion here I think. If I bought a toaster that didn't work, I wouldn't be satisfied if their response to my inquiries was "well, here, let me walk you through setting up the different toast settings". because that is clearly wholly irrelevant to the issue (that the bloody thing doesn't work). Additionally, why did they make you go through all that? Did you ask them to take you through repartitioning your drive? Or did they somehow trick you into thinking it would fix the problem when it should be clear, at least to them, that it would not? Basically what I'm seeing is somebody essentially being forced to forego their warranty by being sidebarred with irrelevant instructions by incompetent tech support that additionally has the GALL to charge for the irrelevant sidebars. The fact that even after giving them four grand you still have to resort to coming here to fix what appear to be rather major defects in the hardware as it came configured from the factory should be reason enough to give pause.Actually i'm leaning towards ths whole scenario not being what we've been led to believe... But's thats just me...Quote from: patio on March 13, 2011, 06:55:24 PM Actually i'm leaning towards ths whole scenario not being what we've been led to believe... I would have to agree. If they are are as concerned with their $4k machine as they sound why did they live with the problem for "months" before contacting Dell? Since this mainly happens to be with games are these legit COPIES of the games, are they cracked, are they modded? If I spent that much on a computer and it had this problem right out of the box I wouldn't wait so long to get in touch with the vendor.The problem was subtle at first and yes these are all legit copies. Really the whole problem is at worst a notable annoyance. Plus I spent the last few years in an abusive relationship with a bootcamped MacBook Pro that took an average of 30 minutes to start up Windows XP for some strange reason so I guess I am just used to stuff not working. In any case Dell did not call me back like they said they would and I have really had it with their tech support. The good news is that I am now almost certain the video card is the main problem. The other day I encountered a variation of the sound freeze but this time the screen changed to several lines of small horizontal rectangles of different colors. I have never seen it do that before and it has never done it since but if that doesnt indicate some issue with the video card I don't know what does. I intend to call up Dell as soon as I have a free day to waste on hold with them (so probably this weekend) and ask them politely to replace my video card. I will NOT pay for the video card. The main reason I am not raising a fuss about paying for the partion and restore was because I was dumb enough to pay them for it anyway (at least I didn't spend $250 for a year long plan like they wanted me to). Moral of the tale, as of so many others like it --- Wondering if it would be better to contact the manufacturer of your graphics card if it's still got warranty attached to it, instead of going thru Dell. That is if you're certain that your graphics card is not working right and needs to be switched out.It could be a video card incompatibility problem too or perhaps you don't have an ideal video card for the games you're running. Also, have you updated Windows 7? When I bought my gaming system I had problems DOWNLOADING the Window 7 updates until I found out the update service was missing from my machine. Make sure your system is updating properly and get service pack 1 installed too. |
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