Computer Rant, Or, Why my Hair is Turning Blue, Like My Face

I will let others answer about the warranty service. I will say that when you seek an independent repair person, they will do all of what you need. Try Geek Squad as the come to your door.I hear good results.

At one point in the 80s and early 90s, I was an in-house field service tech on larger (DEC) computer systems. When I do need a repair on my computer that's over my head, I bring in the computer to a local repair shop. It's not a heavy computer..perhaps 30 pounds

Phoenix--

Vintage husbands with little computer savvy adore playing with the nuts and bolts of computers--while an adoring wifie is holding the flashlight and gasping with rapt admiration.

You have my sympathy. Want an extra husband?

Noddy- err....................., no thanks. One is quite enough, thank you!

I can't believe they actually asked you, eh no EXPECTED you, to open up your computer! If you touch the wrong thing, you could fry your computer with the static electricity from your body.

Wow.

Dell is a bunch of lazy sob's if you ask me. They should have been able to trouble shoot your computer without asking you to open it up, IMO.

BBB
When I had to add additional space on my 7 year old Dell computer, I disconnected the heavy box and took it to the Staples store. A tech installed an additional hard drive for $35 labor charge. My small handtruck made it easy for me to handle the weight. The big hunk tech just picked it up and toddled into his office with the box under his arm.

I hauled it back home and reconnected it on the same day. I couldn't belive I was able to do that, but the color-coated wires made it easy. The hardest thing was to separate the wires I wanted from the mass of wire spaghetti behind my desk.


BBB

Bella Dea- I asked the tech what would have happened had I destroyed the computer when I opened it up. He said that if Dell had asked me to open it up, they would be responsible to repair the damage.



BBB- I was ready to bring the damn thing to Best Buy and let the Geek Squad take a look at it. It was only when my husband said that he would attempt to work with the Dell tech on the phone, that we discarded that idea.

I would have not had any problem doing that. It was the idea of opening the box, and removing components one by one that messed with my head.

I can't believe they didn't have some diagnostic to test the video card.

Yeah, they did. There are four little lights on the back of the tower. By removing a component, one at a time, the color of the lights indicate the probability of certain things going awry.

They could do nothing with software. The computer shut off as soon as I turned it on. The funny thing was, that the first person that I spoke to said that it was either a virus, the monitor or the video card. It would have been logical to remove the video card first, but the tech had to go in their own order.

The point was, IMO, if a computer is warranteed, the purchaser should not have to open the tower to conduct a diagnostic test. The tech told me a story about an old lady who cut her finger badly while working inside the computer on the phone with Dell. I hope that she sues!

Think of it this way. What if you had a washing machine, refrigerator, TV or amplifier under warrantee that went bad. What if the company that you bought it from had you pulling out and testing components? I think that most people would yell bloody murder. Why is it different with computers?

In fact, from what I know of other types of electronic equipment, just opening the case would void the warrantee.

Computer Rant, Or, Why my Hair is Turning Blue, Like My Face
Good Lord, Phoenix! I never heard of such a thing. I would think that any technical service that said you had to open your machine and fiddle with its innards, before they could help, might well be running the risk of your destroying either the computer or yourself, and lawsuits might well follow.

My suggestion: If you ever do need to get a new computer, don't buy Dell.

I've opened computers several times. Once you get over the initial shock of doing it (Oh my God, I'm gonna break it!), it's pretty easy. Used to open/close the hood a lot at my last job, as added memory would be shunted among several PCs.

No one got fried. No one cut themselves. No computers were harmed. It was not a difficult procedure.

I can understand that you did not want to do this but all the way in India there wasn't a helluva lot that the tech could do (actually, the best comment here was incredulity as to why Dell doesn't have a remote diagnostic for the card -- that's actually something concrete, and useful, to complain to them about). As for the order of things, well, that's how their tech support knows that everything has been tried. We do tech support here all the time, and there's a lot to go through. Since we're volunteers, we're not really expected to go down every single avenue (although, of course, there's always someone who thinks they deserve that level of service from a free website) -- but Dell is because you paid for the machine and for service. Hence they have to go down one garden path and then another in order to be absolutely certain that everything was checked.

Tech Support is not a fun job. It generally involves a lot of very impatient folks who would rather do just about anything than follow a set of protocols. But consider what happens here on A2K. We run around like nuts, thinking that something is really wrong, when it turns out that a user installed a bad video card, or they have Firefox and it's not working as expected, or their computer is ancient or they mistyped a 0 for an O or whatever. Of course it's not always the user's fault but we need to have fairly self-reliant users who will at least make an effort to fix their own problems because there are very few of us doing Tech Support and because, since there are multiple variables out there and things from our end rarely change (yes, I know about when Craven fiddles with things, but when he doesn't, things are very stable on this end), the lion's share of problem sources lies with the end user.

Consider it an increase in your own personal level of self-reliance. Personally, I hate calling Tech Support, whether at home or at work, unless I absolutely have to. I'd rather try to fix things than depend on the next available service technician in Hyderabad to try to figure out what went wrong. They're only going to have me go through the protocols anyway; I may as well go through the protocols myself and see if I can save a super-long phone call.

Computer Rant, Or, Why my Hair is Turning Blue, Like My Face
I think one of the major irritants with tech support occurs when we are shunted to a person whose English is imperfect. The problem (which perhaps outsourcing companies don't accept is that the telephone very considerably emphasizes unfamiliar accents. This makes an already nervous-making situation just that much worse.

Jes- One thing that I did learn from the experience is that I probably would not be afraid to open up the computer the next time something happens.

I also learned to look at my computer manual which describes (in the advanced trougbleshooting section) what the four lights in the back of the tower represent. I might just be able to figure out what was wrong myself.

Additionally, the tech laughed at my fear of frying the computer. Where I live, the humidity is such that you don't have the crackling of the static electricity that you have up north. So I would not have to be as scrupulous about grounding myself.

The problem is, I can imagine a scenario where I go through the machinations myself, figure out what is wrong, and then call Dell. Since I am still on the warrantee, I did not want to pay for the busted part. So I call this guy in New Delhi, and he tells me that I have to go through his protocol, even though I already know what was wrong with the computer.

Anyhow, no one answered the second part of my question. Do other computer manufacturers make you open the computer, or will they send out a tech to diagnose a problem?

Re: Computer Rant, Or, Why my Hair is Turning Blue, Like My


What WAS nice, was that they guy whom I worked with on the phone was aware that his accent might be a problem, and offered to slow down if I did not understand him.

As far as being a nervous making situation, before I call Dell, I always take a valium and a dramamine.

Computer Rant, Or, Why my Hair is Turning Blue, Like My Fac
You were lucky. I've had tech support people in India who were very unhappy with me for requesting to speak to a supervisor (I was hoping that the supervisor would have less of an accent). I've even had to hang up and call again hoping to get someone whose English was comprehensible.

Another thing. I used the "Get Human" database, and found that I could get to a tech much more quickly that if I went throught the menu bullsh!t. I have been using this database for more and more things, and find that I cuts through the aggravation time considerably.

http://gethuman.com/