Alienware and my Dealing with DELL - Page 2

Tommycat · 07-24-2010, 01:22 PM

Future reference: Still not a good idea to force a disc in the drive. If it doesn't go in, call for support FIRST. That way you can blame it on the device not working.

Actually, legal representation on the part of Dell, they likely still have lawyers there. They have to. They couldn't afford to pay out to every yahoo that decided to sue because they got their knickers in a bind. Lawyers here are just as expensive, and we have more lawsuits that are just settled out of court because they figure it's less cost effective to fight than to pay whatever you sue for. However, you still have to prove harm. Likely they would have fired off a counter suit for legal fees, and you would have ended up owing them more than you would have gotten, to pay for their high priced lawyer.

Personally I'm more upset at the technician. He should have known better. In the US, Dell only hires techs that have an A+ cert. Having been through the hiring process, I know they are pretty dang rigorous in their interviews. I have greater than 15 years in the IT field, and they put me through the wringer. Like I said, that tech probably no longer works in the field. He should have had you up and running in 15 minutes. I would have.

ALSO for everybody's reference: Slot loading drives... Elite Duck was right. Sadly there is no manual eject mechanism on these slot loading drives. So the only method to remove a stuck disc is to go in there with slim tweezers. My thoughts on him breaking it was jamming the disc in there to begin with. If it doesn't go in, DON'T FORCE IT. But as for retrieval, if the disc fails to eject... Tweezers and be careful. I've never been a fan of slot drives. It just invites dirt in, and since it has more moving parts, is more likely to fail. Not to mention, tray drives have a manual eject. If you look on the front of the drive, there is a small hole. You can use a paperclip to push in in that spot and it will eject the tray.

Pho3nix · 07-24-2010, 01:40 PM

Alienware was one of those things I thought were cool back when I was about 15

True_Avery · 07-24-2010, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Astrotoy7

Avery, you either have a bad short term memory, or multiple posting personalities

Or I was joking.

Tommycat · 07-25-2010, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pho3nix

Alienware was one of those things I thought were cool back when I was about 15

Actually, they are the top of the line as far as gaming laptops go. I'm just one that is willing to sacrifice performance for price point and battery life. Best "value" gaming laptop would probably be the Acer. The "Rock" aside from being European(I keeeed, I keeed), are just over priced for performance. The Alienware would actually be a better value than the Rock, and it even looks cooler.

For my money, I generally go for something less top of the line and more "It does what I want," so in essence I'm a practical shopper. The thought of spending upwards of 3-4 grand on a laptop is obscene to me. But I spend more time doing Database Design on my laptops than gaming. Which means I have Linux, or Intel UNIX on laptops.

**Jae Onasi** · 07-25-2010, 09:51 PM

Elite Duck, you got your computer repaired under warranty, despite you doing something unwise (forcing a disk into a drive when it wouldn't go in initially). On top of it, you got another free laptop out of it--regardless of whether or not you think it's a POS, it's worth at least several hundred dollars. The company went above and beyond the call of duty, and you want to sue? Sue for what? They held up their part of the legal bargain when they repaired your computer in compliance with their warranty. Good luck getting anything out of a court. Of course, you can feel free to consult appropriate legal experts, since I am not one.

@Astro--or perhaps Avery just realized she was wrong initially and changed her mind in the thread? We girls do change our minds now and then.

@Tommycat--HP has the worst record for having things going wrong on their laptops according to a Consumer Reports survey a couple years back. After having a display hinge go bad (which HP later acknowledged was 'a problem' for many users) and burning out 2 video display adapters on that same laptop in 2 consecutive years, (the second time a month after the warranty expired, and that display adapter had only lasted about a year), and frying another display adapter in another Compaq laptop (after HP had acquired them), I'm less than impressed. I don't abuse my laptops, I don't overclock them at all, I don't run my games at max video on a laptop because I know about the heat problems. HP laptop problems are significant, and until HP is willing to fix that, I'm never going to buy another of their laptops. I'm happy with their desktops, however.

Now on to my experience with HP Support:
It's here (clicky). Scroll down to Paragraph 8, where I start talking about how to handle speaking with tech support when English is not their native tongue. This is followed by paragraph 9 and on where I discuss how HP tech support views their callers:
"HP teaches their staff that a. all callers to HP tech support are complete imbeciles, b. HP is always right and c. the Holy Manual of Help must be followed To The Letter, lest God smite the tech support agent with Holy Static Electricity."

Tommycat · 07-25-2010, 10:31 PM

@Jae Again, from my side of it(having worked on them, though maybe from a different perspective as I was dealing with the "large business" side of it) the systems are fairly robust. Though maybe it's because the people I deal(t) with generally abused their laptops. Perhaps HP laptops tend to be better if you beat on them a bit haha.

As for the Tech support, welll... I generally don't have to call them. When I had to RMA something, I had access to the same tools that Tech support had, so I can't speak to that end. And if you got some of the calls I did, you might actually believe "a." As to the holy manual of help... ugh... well can't say what they did, but ME PERSONALLY, I never saw a manual. Of course they very well might be non-technical people who don't have enough knowledge to tell the difference. But seeing as how I'm one to blow away the OS, crack open the system and upgrade things as I see fit, I void warranties faster than they can make em haha. So it makes sense that I wouldn't give a rip about the support(or lack there-of). And of course, knowing the systems the way I do, I always explain it to them, then if they insist on telling me to do something, I ask for a more senior tech. If that tech follows the HMoH, I ask for a more senior tech. If I have to I'll keep asking for more senior techs until I'm talking to the engineer who designed my motherboard.

Funny that you had such a hard time with them. My guitarist had a wonderful experience with them. Of course he followed my general rule of when they sound like they are reading instructions, ask for a more senior tech. Repeat until you get a very tired sounding American in a bad mood, and suddenly you get the answer you need.

Darth Avlectus · 07-26-2010, 05:13 PM

Dells and HP are fun to take out and shoot full of holes once they've proven to be worthless and have no further use.

**mimartin** · 07-26-2010, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTA:SWcity

Dells and HP are fun to take out and shoot full of holes once they've proven to be worthless and have no further use.

Couldn't that be said about just about anything.

Darth Avlectus · 07-26-2010, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mimartin

Couldn't that be said about just about anything.

That it could, but it's far more liberating when the target in question is something that was supposed to be worth its money and instead gave you more grief than it was worth by a longshot. So, it's all the more rewarding to give it a GUN shot.

Tommycat · 07-27-2010, 01:19 AM

They're still better than Packard Bell was

Q · 07-27-2010, 04:44 AM

Heh, Packard Bell.

I'll go on record saying that I've owned a couple of Dells now, and I'd recommend them to anyone who doesn't want to build their own. The one I have now is 8 years old and the only thing that ever went wrong with it was the optical drives, and that can happen with any computer because optical drives are pretty much disposable.

Dell often has great deals on plain-Jane machines that can be cheaply and easily upgraded to a decent, inexpensive gaming machine by adding a graphics card and a better power supply that was bought elsewhere.