One of my clients and I both have Dell XPS M1210 Laptops.

These were small 12″ performance laptops.

Now my client’s M1210 had his motherboard recently replaced after it developed a Video out problem. It took Dell two site visits to effect that repair and a number of post repair problems  occurred:-

Corrupt Intel Pro Wireless Profile, so he couldn’t connect to his wireless network.

iTunes would not re Activate, so he was locked out of purchased content.

We got passed those problems and his laptop settled down for a bit.

So my heart sank when I got a call last week to say his laptop was dead suddenly, the power light was on but nothing else.

We tried removing the battery, we tried removing and re-seating the memory but nothing would bring it back to life.

My client is a Managing Director so the clock is ticking, his laptop is dead, he is locked out of his recent data.

So I do the right thing. I don’t want to inflict another Dell repair on him (a minimum 24 hour delay) So I swap the hard disk from his M1210 and put it in mine. He gets my laptop with his hard disk.

A couple  minutes later we are back up and running. The only hurdles are some software product activation and  iTunes was playing up again but that was expected.

All in all my client was offline for about 2 hours and most of that was me doing prep and travelling to site.

Naturally I come out of this worse as his laptop was several months older and had less ram and no web cam  and was based on the initial release of Core2Duo. However this is a small price to pay to get my client up and running.

The Next Day Hangover

After spending 25 minutes talking to Dell Technical Support they agree to replace the motherboard again.

This time I hope they do a better Job. The picture below is the faulty one I got back from the client, the one that had its motherboard replaced about a month ago. You can clearly see masking tape covering a good 20% of the air vent.

I would imagine this could have easily caused the machine to overheat and fry.

For my sins I am back computing on a Dell Latitude D630 running Windows XP (again) until I decide what’s next.

***Update 11th June 2008***

Dell contacted me about this case.

There was a lot of debate about who said what when, and each engineer site visit was investigated in great detail.

They acknowledge that the masking tape should have not be left in place (pictured above).

Initially they said as I elected to replace the customers machine with my own one, that was a business decision I had made.

However they have subsequently offered to perform a number of upgrades to the M1210 to bring it back into line with the specification of the machine I gave my client.

This includes replacing the screen to include the inbuilt webcam, upgrade the memory to 2gb, replacing the CPU to get to Core 2 Duo 2 and extend the warranty by the 70 odd days.

So I thank Dell for investigating this case and offering the upgrades.

Every time I use Dell Technical support I write up my experience both good and bad. Hopefully this will help potential customers of Dell’s equipment get a feeling for the aftercare that is on offer.

Link: You can read other reviews here

I have a customer with a Dell XPS M1210 Laptop, this is used for presentations and gets plugged into lots of things like projectors and the such.

The customer reported a problem when connected to their Dell LCD monitor over the VGA out. The picture contained lots of interference. Eventually the Laptop could no longer use the VGA out.

Tips: for diagnosing a Video Out problem.

1) Try another display, see if the problem is with the laptop or the current display.

2) Update/re-install the video card drivers

I was lucky because the Clients laptop dual booted another operating system (Vista) so I quickly launched Windows Vista to see what the video out was doing. I got the same result. No Video out.

Time to call Dell Technical Support

I contacted Dell Technical on their main telephone number the user agent took my Dell Service Tag and passed my call into a holding pattern for 15 minutes.

When the support agent eventually picked up my call they had to re-direct my request to the dedicated XPS support line. This is something the original user agent should have spotted and saved me 15 minutes of waiting.

Eventually they called me back on site. The call online took about 30 full minutes to complete and for them to agree to send an engineer to site.

They booked their engineer between 9am and 5:30pm the next day.

On the day the engineer turned up at 4:50pm with a new motherboard. However due to a small dent in the users laptop case he was going to have to order an additional part to be able to fully complete the motherboard replacement.

The next time it is convenient for the client to meet the engineer on site is in a week. So the case is still open.

The engineer on site did dismantle the M1210 and turned off the onboard WiFi on the switch at the left hand side either intentionally or by mistake.

Either way the switch was not turned back on and an out of hours technical support call was placed to help identify why the laptops WIFI wasn’t working.

I will update this post once the original Video out problem has been resolved by the motherboard replacement.

Tip: 3 years next business day on-site warranty is always a good idea. Especially for the business user.

Every time I use Dell Technical support I write up my experience both good and bad. Hopefully this will help potential customers of Dell’s equipment get a feeling for the aftercare that is on offer.

I had a case of an Dell Optiplex GX280 Small Form Factor desktop. The fan on this machine was running fast and loud. There was a batch of Optiplexes from Circa 2006 that had this problem but it could take a long time to manifest.

So I called Dell Technical Support. The UK based technician was very helpful and said if I did a quick bios upgrade first and if that doesn’t cure it they would send an engineer. I received an e-mail with the link to bios file within moments.

I got the end user to install the Bios Update and we monitored the machine for half an hour. The problem persisted. So I replied by e-mail to the Dell Tech with the site address and got a quick confirmation that an engineer would be dispatched.

The problem has now been resolved and in this case Dell Technical Support gave an excellent service.

To read the other Dell Technical Support Reviews Click Here

**I updated this post in April 2008 to remove the names of the people involved**

I have now created a category called Dell Technical Support Review

Every time I use Dell Technical support I write up my experience both good and bad. Hopefully this will help potential customers of Dell’s equipment get a feeling for the aftercare that is on offer.

Yesterday I was dealing with a Dell Optiplex GX280 Desktop that would not POST.

POST = Power On Self Test

There is not a lot you can do with a computer that wont POST.

So I travelled 23 miles to my customers site to investigate for myself this problem PC.

On arrival as the user described the PC would not POST. Optiplexes have an inbuilt mechanism that spins the fan super fast because if It cant POST it cant tell the temperature.

The noise of the Fan spinning so fast, loud and hard is to be almost frightening and not behaviour suitable for the call centre environment where I  carried out the inspection.

My inspection consisted of looking at the motherboard for signs of loose cables, faulty capacitors and to pinpoint which fan was causing the noise.

After this it was time to call Dell Technical Support.

My first tech was called **** (extension *****) I explained the symptoms and explained I had carried out an inspection. I asked **** to send me an engineer to site (under the terms of our next day on-site warranty).

Bare in mind we have a PC that will not boot up and when powered up causes an audible disruption as well as sounding like an appliance that is going to explode.

**** said unless I was prepared to start removing cables he wasn’t going to escalate this to an engineer.

Well based on the fact I clearly had a faulty machine I wasn’t prepared to start unplugging components on the motherboard and switching on the device.

My primary concern was the safety of those working near this device, as well as maintaining a sensible db level, after all this was a call centre.

**** and I could not come to an agreement, so I asked for this to be escalated to his manager.

About 10 mins later ****** *******, *****’ manager called me on-site. We have another 25 mins of debate about me carrying out more problem solving on what I consider an un-safe machine on their behalf.

****** made two crucial mistakes he said “If you were an end user, I wouldn’t ask you to do this”. Next, I asked ****** the crucial question “Is this computer safe” his response was “well I wouldn’t leave it switched on”.

Now I am glad this web site gets lots of attention from Dell, so I know your listening (see above).

First of all that is clearly discrimination by class of user.

To explain that in context, I visited site on behalf on my Client, not Dell.

Dell don’t pay my fees to stick my hands into faulty electrical appliances.

What I did to help?

I travelled 23miles to the clients site.

I  observed the fault for myself.

I carried out an an initial examination to ensure we would not be wasting Dell’s time.

The computer was dead, It’s now Dell’s Problem.

I ultimately decide what I am prepared to do with my skills not Dell.

After four phone calls over the space of an hour, ****** eventually conceded and agreed to send an engineer to site, as per my original request.

He wasn’t happy about it and neither am I.

The kicker is Dell offer two levels of support, normal next business day on-site, and Gold Technical support.

This problem PC was covered by Gold Technical Support, the enhanced support offering from Dell.

I am in a one word….disappointed.

If anyone from Dell wants to comment please do so in the comments.

Yesterday was a bad day in my domain a couple of older Dell Optiplexes decided to give up the ghost in various parts of the country.

So I had to remotely diagnose the problem and then convince Dell technical support to send engineers to site.

Thankfully in the two separate calls I placed yesterday I am happy to report I was dealt with quickly and efficiently.

I did enough investigation prior to placing the calls that I could answer any of their questions and help move things forward.

The whole process still took about 20 minuets per call and all the problems will be fixed under the machines existing hardware warranty.

Note: I write about my dealings with Dell Technical Support both good and bad.