Dell Hell

Update:

A new release of the FAST ring Insiders Preview build came out today and it installed on the first try on all my machines with no drama.

I'm glad that is over! What a horrible experience.
 
Been busy but have things out again to start at it tonight Stephen. Thanks for the interest.
Planning to do that clean install...was having a hard time finding the required, adequate flashdrive size so will use an EHD hopefully tonight.
 
Been busy but have things out again to start at it tonight Stephen. Thanks for the interest.
Planning to do that clean install...was having a hard time finding the required, adequate flashdrive size so will use an EHD hopefully tonight.

Let us know how it goes.
 
Been busy but have things out again to start at it tonight Stephen. Thanks for the interest.
Planning to do that clean install...was having a hard time finding the required, adequate flashdrive size so will use an EHD hopefully tonight.

Yeah, it's hard to find flash drives that small nowadays... :rolleyes:

Rich
 
I handed the laptop over to my IT guy and for...I think that part of my monthly bill was maybe $100. he completely & fully wiped the drive and reinstalled everything (including all my data and most of my software from backups) and it is working fine now.
I have been using it a couple of weeks.
I'd disputed the Amex charge months ago and they reversed the charge, asked for details, but I'd heard nothing. Driving home from work a few moments ago I decided to ping them to see the status of my dispute and was told congratulations they did not challenge your dispute and their time is up so you won, with no come-backs possible.
I guess they are just too big a company to bother with petty chargebacks like mine, small potatoes customers like me. I'm ok with an almost-free computer.
 
I finally dumped my last Dell products this week. My Dell laser printer went to the dump about 4 years ago - they took my money, claimed they were sending new toner, then the day it was supposed to arrive they sent an email that it was "back ordered". I called and they said they didn't know when they would get more, but it could be 6 weeks. F that. I now have an HP, not perfect, but they support their stuff and supplies are available everywhere.

The two last boxes that got yanked this week were Sonicwall router/NGFW. They were about 7-8 years old and predates Dell's purchase of Sonicwall. Hit EOL, can't get support or updates and even if I wanted to. Reconfigured network, went to the cloud for web server and photo server, and now have a single, current NGFW from another maker. Dell wasn't even a consideration. I used to do open source or something like Untangle, but this unit just works.
 
I handed the laptop over to my IT guy and for...I think that part of my monthly bill was maybe $100. he completely & fully wiped the drive and reinstalled everything (including all my data and most of my software from backups) and it is working fine now.
I have been using it a couple of weeks.
I'd disputed the Amex charge months ago and they reversed the charge, asked for details, but I'd heard nothing. Driving home from work a few moments ago I decided to ping them to see the status of my dispute and was told congratulations they did not challenge your dispute and their time is up so you won, with no come-backs possible.
I guess they are just too big a company to bother with petty chargebacks like mine, small potatoes customers like me. I'm ok with an almost-free computer.

Nothing’s over til it’s really over; Dell has started a call & e-mail campaign, wanting their $1100 back.

Should I ignore it til the summons arrives?

Also as a follow up, the original problem of a sticky cursor returned.
Maybe I’ll just let them have the danged thing back.
 
Nothing’s over til it’s really over; Dell has started a call & e-mail campaign, wanting their $1100.

I was afraid they'd try that. You won't get a summons; they aren't gonna sue for that small amount unless they happen to have a presence in your area and want to try small claims.

They may try to put a mark on your credit. There's really not much they can do if Amex has settled it, though.
 
I had an adventure with Dell.

I told them I thought it was a hardware problem. Nothing else made sense to me.

So we spend about 3 weeks and many hours "troubleshooting" the problem because form their standpoint, it had to be software-related. Complete wipes, reinstalls, the whole ball of wax. Nothing worked. The techs I dealt were were very nice and they let slip that they are not authorized to treat anything as a hardware problem, ut they were worthless. I finally said I wanted my "extended service contract fee" back and made enough noise to get it.

I used a small part of it to purchase a new hard drive for about $49. That worked, but only for about a 4 months, when the motherboard crashed completely.

Guess what brand I didn't buy to replace it.

Epilogue. I just wiped and installed the $49 hard drive in a 12 year old Toshiba laptop (which originally came with Vista :D ) that had been sitting in a closet and did a clean Windows 10 installation. Runs great and being donated.
 
We like Dell but we have tiny leverage with them buying double digit numbers of laptops and triple digit desktops occasionally from them.

For home use it would either be Lenovo for feature set and better Linux support on drivers, or Asus and get most bang for the buck without even considering them doing anything right in terms of warranty.

That’s what a GOOD independent repair shop is for in the PC world. Technically if you want any shot at data recovery, also in the Apple world.

Although I will admit having seen both Lenovo and even Asus not playing games with warranty repair. They make their stuff well enough that they know their hardware losses and it’s just baked in to play one round of twenty questions and then cross ship a new or refurbished one.
 
I must be a masochist. I gave up on updates, formatted and installed fresh, then the Insider edition still failed.

I wiped it all and started over again and that's it for this Dell laptop. It will stay on 1909 forever...
 
I must be a masochist. I gave up on updates, formatted and installed fresh, then the Insider edition still failed.

I wiped it all and started over again and that's it for this Dell laptop. It will stay on 1909 forever...

1909 is the latest in the commercial world’s typical settings.

Only the home gamers are forced above that. We appreciate you beta testing for us. Lol.
 
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