Seeing as I work for Dell, I thought I might offer any help I can Dell owners here at Assembler. Just PM me with your service tag and your problem and I'll see what I can do for you. Seeing as my permissions are only for XPS systems I can't dispatch anything outside of XPS Portables/Desktops. But I can tell you how to get your machine fixed if its borked. I can't promise miracles (well I can, just ask mairsil ). Also don't go asking for any compensation or upgrades or anything like that as I can't do those (no one at dell can except Mr. Dell himself).
Are you able to get a hold of parts? I tend to run into dell systems with dead boards and or powersupplies, almost once a week and they range from the old P4s, to systems just a month after the warranty expired on them. Getting a hold of a replacement board for my customer is easier than telling them they will need a new case, new motherboard, and new XP/Vista license as in most dells, you can't remove the I/O shield backplate to install the new one for the replacement motherboard. So, you have to replace the custom case in order to resurrect their PC. And I can't transfer the Dell OEM license onto the new case as that is against the license agreement. LMK, thanks.
whoops... I forgot what my signature said... I can get regular computer parts from distributers and wholesellers but no dell proprietary parts Updated my sig to reflect this... Older systems unless its in warranty we can't do much with. But if the warranty just expired within the last 30 days or so you can call up and they will usually make an exception and send you the part but dell will not do an onsite out of warranty or depot repair unless you pay for it.
I wished I'd realised it earlier. I just dumped a Dell laptop I was struggling to repair. Dell didn't want to know despite me insisting it was a very common issue. Personally, I think a huge design flaw! Ho Hum! It belonged to my late father, was faulty within its warranty year, he called Dell in the UK a few times, they gave him poor information, advice & assistance. He became too ill to carry on. He passed away, the laptop got passed onto me and Dell didn't care. Not the original owner, out of warranty etc. However, it was meant for the original owners widow! That didn't matter to them. Doesn't matter now - Dell lost a valued customer when my father passed away and considering the grief they caused me trying to resolve the issue for my mother to use the laptop, I'd never buy from them again. They got £500+ for a laptop that was shit from day one, I feel they also took advantage of someone they assumed was operating their system incorrectly. He did get a bit confused towards the end. However, I went through everything on that machine and knew it was faulty. Dell didn't want to speak to me when I called on his behalf though. A few years back the call centre was based in Ireland. Now it's in India. The calls are far more scripted and they just don't divert from them a single jot! Would buy second hand, but not to put the money back into Mr. Dell's pocket. Sorry for the rant dude!
Had i noticed that before i would have PM'd you as i just got some new ddr2 memory, oh well there is always next time.
Initially kept on switching itself off. After a while it just completely failed to switch on. It began to boot up then powered down immediately. At the beginning whilst in warranty Dell's customer care staff suggested all sorts of nonsensical garbage, which regrettably my father took for granted. His judgement at the time was seriously impaired because of an undiagnosed brain tumor. A few months later nobody gave a shit about faulty laptops as he'd collapsed and been found to be seriously ill. By the time we started to go through his belongings the warranty had expired and I'll be honest, I suspect the laptop was out it's box fewer than a dozen times. He had a desktop he used (one of about 30 or 40 Dell PCs he'd bought as part of his business through the years). He must have decided against fighting Dell because I do recall asking him whether I should call them and he was so tired he just asked me to forget it. It should have been accepted back. Dell did suggest they would replace the required parts for an out of warranty fee. I told them to stick it where the sun didn't shine. Ended up in the bin without a single scratch on it. I was just so sick to death of it, which goes completely against my recycling ethic as well :-(
thats fun, in my company we got "some" dell notebooks, some with waranty upgrades and some without, this nice cd i got to change service tags helps a lok heheheh
That still doesn't mean I can't get if fixed. The tool that generates the backdoor password is the same for all portables. The only difference that could possibly prevent me from getting you that password is if he has enabled and is currently using the TPM in the D420. If thats the case the only fix is a mobo replacement. @Serantes: Thats why newer systems the service tag is locked in place with an efuse, kinda like the XBox 360's kernel downgrade patch, which really sucks cause I used to do that too.
Hey is true that DELL is terminating the XPS to focus on the Alienware brand? Too bad I think, since XPS machines were actually pretty good and not as crazy-priced like Alienware PCs.
No they aren't killing off the XPS line. Just quite the opposite. They are doing some restructuring of the lines. its basically going to work out like this: Low end: Inspiron Mid to high end: XPS high end: Alienware Basically your going to get an inspiron for when you just want a computer to write documents on and surf the intartubes. Your going to get an XPS if you want to do media or play games, and you'll get an Alienware if you like to play games and compare the size of your wang at the same time :lol: IMHO they are messing with things they shouldn't, but I don't get much say in that.
I see, bad idea though, since alienware is (IMO) so overpriced that looking at their store is like going back to CompUSA in the 80s. Anyway, you have a SSR? how many mortgages you needed to buy that?;-)
Hi, well my first experience with Dell is an unfortunate one... Yesterday my new system (Inspiron 530, Intel Core2 Quad Core Q9300 Processor (2,50 GHz, 1.333 MHz), 4 GB 800 MHz memory, 500 GB disk, 256 MB ATI Radion 2600 videocard, built-in wireless networkcard) arrived... today it died. It only beeps when I turn it on (4 short ones). I have not opened the machine, just placed it and only connected the supplied keyboard and mouse. As I'm no 'power-gamer' I thought this machine would be more than sufficient to my needs, I play games most often on my consoles. You can probably imagine I'm not really pleased right now. Hopefully they will fix the problems soon and make me a happy customer after all. I hope Dell (the Netherlands) will be helpful and cooperating, I don't really have experience with this kind of situations.
4 beep codes means there is something wrong with your memory a RAM read/write failure, contact dell becuase unless you opened it up it shouldn't do that from just placing it and connecting it up.
Actually 3do, that happens alot. I can't tell you how many calls we get from new people where something has come loose during transit. Lets face it, you can't pay a shipping company enough to baby your package from origin to destination. @Arcadeaction: Go ahead and pop off the side panel and try reseating the memory, if that doesn't work feel free to call up your local phone queue and get them to replace it, its most likely DOA.
