Tech Support HELL

I HATE DELL.

If anyone who reads this works there, I'm sorry, but I get at least 5 calls from customers who referred to me (an ISP who also supports the modem) by Dell (a hardware vendor) for hardware problems. Your wireless card doesnt see any networks, anywhere? Well, OBVIOUSLY that's a problem with the gateway in your house. Call your ISP. What, you can't get on from work either? Your IT department must have disabled access to Dells. What do you mean smoke's coming out the back of your laptop? Oh, that's an ISP issue, you must have a bad connection... give 'em a call...

And on top of that their shitty preinstalled bloatware causes my customers more problems than their own idiocy does.

Me: "You're behind a hardware firewall, so you might want to disable your software firewall."
Cu: "Okay... it says if I disable it, then my wife and children will die horrible deaths in their sleep. Do I still want to?"
Me: "Yeah go ahead."
Cu: "Okay its still there."
Me: "Still there? Well... you could try to uninstall it..."
Cu: "Okay. I'm uninstalling it now. I hear the shrieks of demons crying out in pain. Is that normal?"
Me: "You're using a Dell, right?"
Cu: "Yeah."
Me: "Then yes."
Cu: "Okay it's gone. Wait, I still see the logo."
Me: "What?"
Cu: "Yeah. It's still there."
Me: *slams head into desk repeatedly*

Grrr.

From:

I'd also add that there are two things I will never, ever buy in regards to technology. A Dell laptop, and a Lexmark printer. Why?

They are as yet the only two things that I have seen, right out of the shiny new box, spontaneously burst into flame. Well, to be fair, the flames on the laptop were coming out the exhaust port on the back for the cooling fans, so it wasnt as dramatic as the printer that looked like someone had just set off a molotov cocktail on its print cartridge.

From:

And that should be five calls per day (of the 25-30 I take) just on that issue. Sorry, it's early for me and my fucked-up schedule.

From:

jjjiii

Dude, you're getting no help from us.

From:

ghostdandp.livejournal.com

I will never use Lexmark again for one reason. I have a lexmark x125 here. It's a nice 3 in one (scan/fax/print) thingy. I paid next to nothing for it since the place I bought it was going out of business.

The drivers for it are dated I believe somewhere back in 2003. There is a known issue with the printer, it affects virtually all windows xp machines. The software that comes with the printer randomly crashes and causes the driver not to work. All the user will see is a red x where the printer icon usually sits. This is a known issue, you can see it on hundreds of tech forums, when you email the company they say it's a known issue. They haven't updated the drivers, and as far as I can tell aren't going to fix this issue. The work around "If you reboot your system you should be able to use the printer until the software faults again". Which can be anywhere from 10 minutes after boot to a day after boot.

yea. They suck

From:

shifuimam.livejournal.com

At least Dell sent him any hard media at all - now they're just including a "restore partition" on most of their home machines.

Most people don't know that you're entitled to hard CDs, including an independent copy of Windows XP (not a restore DVD sort of thing), since you paid for the license.

I still like Dell, but this restore CD/DVD crap is totally asinine.

From:

reddragdiva

Lexmark used to be IBM. It's such a pity they suck now.

From:

kedemel.livejournal.com

*shakes head* I've heard so many stories about Dell tech support.

...and I have friends working there. Some are decent - but some are so goddamned boring it's like, "zzzpt, what was that? IP..zzz"

From:

kedemel.livejournal.com

My Gateway laptop had the restore partition.

Until I killed it. Killed it dead.

From:

jecook

Yep. they also used to have a "buy the printer for $50, and the ink to refill it for $70" type of deal going.

That, and the fact that I tried installing USB print drivers on a P3 that made the entire system print so slowly that they thought the machien was not printing at all, and I wrote off all of their USB based printers for a good two to three years.

Unfortuantely, HP is leaning the same way, along with all the others. ::sigh::

And then they wonder why people still spend money (sometimes more then it costs to replace it!) to keep their older, more intellegent laser and inkjets running...

Hint to the printer manufacturers: make a decent product, not one that will sell at Wally world and become landfill material in a year. that'll earn my money.

From:

jecook

Agreed. a friend of mine went around a few times with Dell, MS, and her ISP, and eventually found that XP has issues with the on board ehternet and their wirless card product when both are enbabled at the same time... ::rolls eyes::

From:

hisamishness.livejournal.com

that CD cost me an extra 10 bucks.

(yeah, I still feel a bit dirty about buying a dell - kept expecting to have to shoot some slimey teen "Dood"-ing all over my system...)

There was a restore partition? Never knew - nuked the thing on it's first power-on.

From:

I actually managed to win a game of Taboo by simply saying "It's a brand of printer that really sucks!" and got every. single. person. to yell back "Lexmark!"

From:

My parents just got a new Dell and I was pretty peeved by that. I promptly burned them a copy of my own Windows XP install CD and wrote their product key on it in Sharpie.

From:

geekosaur

Ironically, the best printers we've found are from Dell. They take high-end (not the cruddy cheap low-end units) Lexmark printers and rebuild them. The original Lexmarks are somewhat prone to paper jams, but the rebuilt ones from Dell don't seem to ever jam.

(Everyone's low end printers suck horribly. HP's high end has been falling off, although Lexmark's is still okay — but we're talking $3000-$5000 if you don't want crap.)

From:

Also? Metaquoted (http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/4982045.html).

From:

geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com

Ironically Lexmark make's Dell's printers.

From:

geekosaur

Lexmark makes the print engine. The rest, in particular the paper path, is Dell's own design. (Lexmark might do the assembly, I suppose, but it's not Lexmark's design.)

From:

pixeltwist.livejournal.com

I haven't had any issues with my Dell laptop other than the usual branding issues. I got my XP cd and the key is on a sticker on the bottom.

However, that sticker is melting and I have to keep the computer on a USB powered cooling rack in order to keep the thing from overheating and shutting off.

So, I take it back.

Oh yeah, and I had some BIOS issues in the first few months of using it.

Other than that though, no issues...

From:

brownizs.livejournal.com

You do know that Sharpie's eat through the protective layer on the top of the CD don't you?

From:

jcaswell.livejournal.com

I've had four laptops over the last 10 or so years - 3 Dell, one Vaio. Each and every one of the Dells has knocked spots off of the Vaio. The build quality, usability etc. are about a million times better than the Vaio.

Current Dell (Inspiron 9300) is the sexiest laptop ever.

And the free multifunction jobbie we got with it is better than our old £200-odd Epson. Best print quality I've seen in an age - and both our Epson and my father-in-laws Epson are allegedly "professional quality"

From:

Everyone tells me I'm crazy for hating Dell laptops. I've no doubt they have good workmanship in general. I just dont trust things that can spontaneously combust.

From:

LOVE the icon. May I steal?

From:

irishmasms.livejournal.com

Not to mention Lexmark sued some of the ink cartridge manufacturers under the DCMA for selling cartridges for their printers; because the company had reverse engineered the smart chip in the cartridge.

Fucktards. They can kiss my ass.

From:

Hate on Dell all you want. I used to work there, but then I was outsourced to India.

Incidentally, when I did work there, a plurality of the calls I dealt with were ISP password resets, ISP billing issues, and issues with particular ISP dialup numbers not working.

All of which had been referred to us from their ISPs.

From:

"Disable Local Area Connection." "But then my Interweb won't work." "Disable Local Area Connection." "But..." "Disable Local Area Connection!" "OK... ... ... My Wireless is working." "The computer was getting confused." "Oh..."

From:

A lot of these probably came from lazy people. But it's also because people don't know how to describe what the password is for.

"What password are you looking for?" "My Computer!" "To access your computer totally, or just the Internet?" "MY COMPUTER!!!" "OK then, we won't have the information for that. Call OEM."

When, in reality, "MY COMPUTER!!!" is really the Internet Password.

From:

That's why I'd always make sure of what they were asking for before sending them somewhere else. "My computer's password"--if it isn't asking for it before Windows starts, there's nothing the OEM can do about it. It's not like we could reset passwords.

From:

trixtah.livejournal.com

Hm. I'd say anything is better than a Sony Vaio. They may look pretty, but they're crap.

I will say Dell and Toshiba are fairly evenly matched these days, although Toshies cost about 25% more than they should (they're obviously still harking back to long-ago days when they were actually the best thing around). However, give me an Acer/ASUS any day, in terms of feature set/reliability/cost.

From:

trixtah.livejournal.com

On top of the CD? So?

From:

And what do you do when all they'll answer with is "MY ****ING COMPUTER!!!"?

I do ask leading questions, but we can only go off when people tell us. And, well, people are idiots and liers. We all know that, we've all experienced it.

From:

I wait till they give me a real answer. Honestly.

From:

Or hang up. :p

From:

Well, as much as I detest working Tier I tech support, I'd rather be employed than not. heh ;)

From:

geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com

That's still too much Lexmark content for my liking.

From:

Absolutely. Wear it with pride!

From:

Although the scientific data (http://digg.com/technology/Sharpie_Pens_are_bad_for_CDR-DVD_Media_) backs you up (http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/CDandDVDCareandHandlingGuide.pdf), the cummulative experience of users and CD manufacturers seems to be that Sharpies aren't corrosive enough to make any difference under normal opperating conditions.

The first study was done at 150 degrees and 86% humidity, which may have been extreme enough to cause a chemical reaction that just doesn't occur at room temp. And sticky labels are often MORE dangerous because the chemicals in the glue can be quite caustic - see the note in the first thread about how a Post-It note ate through a Verbatim disc.

Basically, user experience seems to be that if Sharpies DO destroy your CDs, it takes years. And I seriously doubt I'll be needing Windows XP in two decades.

From:

harmer.livejournal.com

oh my god, amen. I love when I tell customers to reboot their computer and they say "YOU MEAN...WIPE IT ALL OUT?!"

From:

jcaswell.livejournal.com

We've got a couple of Toshes at work. Awful things, unreliable and with a shelf life of about 13 months. Then again, the experiences I've had with Acers haven't been much better! Maybe it's just down to the luck of the draw - or maybe the difference is down to where in the world you are.

From:

jcaswell.livejournal.com

That's a fair point as it goes :)

From:

goose-entity.livejournal.com

let me consider the ways..

DOA PC. "Dell, PC DOA, replace" "Have you updated the BIOS?"

Dell printer works for couple of days, stops working - just stops. "Replace printer." "Have you updated the BIOS?"

Server redundant PSU dies. "Dell, replace PSU." "Have you updated the BIOS?"

Monitor comes in with new PC, with DIRTY GREAT BIG CRACK ACROSS THE SCREEN, NO I HAVE NOT UPDATED THE VIDEO DRIVERS OR THE BIOS YOU CRACK SMOKING CERTIFIABLE MORON!"

Fsckin D*ll.

*seethes*

From: