Dell Computers

[Christoph P. Kukulies]

On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 07:31:19AM -0800, richard childers / kg6hac wrote:
> Speaking of crooked companies ... I've had some problems with Dell, also.
> 

I bought a Dell Inspiron 8000 in August 2001 with DVD Reader and CDRW (two
drives), a 1600x1200 XGA display, Gefore2Go and a couple of extras.

After the warranty period had expired, as it has to happen, the display
gave up the ghost (fading intensity etc. - I reported here or somewhere
else). 

For 700 Eur (that was about the same in Dollars a few months ago)
I got a brand new display plus a full one year warranty for the whole computer.

Now this time the luck was on my side:

first off, the built in hard disk went broke (although very painful
for the data loss) and I got it replaced in a 24h bring in service.

Next, and that happened 10 days ago, the DVD drive started to fail.

First the symptom was only in Windows 2000 which I had as a second OS on
the HD and when calling their support on the phone they asked me if I could
insert the diagnosis disk (which I hadn't - it had been stolen with several
other CD in a CD brief case from my car a year ago). OK they asked, can you
boot from a CD. First I could (one time) and from that they concluded that
it must be a problem with windows and I should re-install it.

After I finished the phone conversation I noticed that now the booting
of the CD also failed and after I told them that a brand new original
MS Windows XP/Pro CD did not boot, they believed me and I got the DVD drive
repaired.

Although I didn't lie in this case I agree with Warner, it's better
to tell not always the whole story.

All in all I cannot say that Dell is a bad choice. They are steep in price
but their service isn't that bad.

Despite of the ACPCI hacks and NVidia quirks I had to go through recently
I can say that, at least the Inspiron Series is well suited for FreeBSD.

I have heard of stories far worse with Linux and other brands. 
 
--
Chris Christoph P. U. Kukulies kuku_at_physik.rwth-aachen.de