Re: Dell vs HP PC's

Let me state it differently this time. No matter whose tech support you are
dealing with over the phone, you will have to convince them of your competence
and knowhow before you get them to send out a spare part. Even then, for
various reasons, they may send you ANOTHER part. For example, a couple of
years ago (pre-Lenovo), I had an IBM P4 box still under warranty and obviously
not working. First thing I did was substitute power supplies. Still nothing.
So I called IBM tech support, told the fellow I was a service provider and told
him that the motherboard was bad. I even told him what I had done to isolate
the problem. He insisted that they send me a power supply, because that was
their protocol in handing systems that would not boot. The replacement power
supply arrived the next day, and, of course, it did not work. I called back,
provided the service call info, and was sent a replacement motherboard.
Naturally, the replacement motherboard worked perfectly, and I had to ship back
the failed board to IBM pre-paid. The second power supply? They told me I
did not have to return it, so I got an extra microATX12V power supply out of the
deal.

Quite a few times, when dealing with Dell for service under warranty on behalf
of my clients, who know from nothing about computers, I have REFUSED to have
them schedule their service company to come out and do the repair. Why?
Because their service company would not commit to a day to do the service and
either morning or afternoon, so I'd be stuck here waiting for them to show up.
It was a far more effective use of my time to have them ship me the part(s) and
for me to do the work in a matter of minutes. Either way, my client pays for
my time, but why waste my time? And, oh, by the way, ALL the name brand
companies use 3rd parties to do the service, so you end up with yet another
entity in the loop and comlicating things should you choose vendor-provided
warranty service.

No matter which brand name you buy, dealing with tech support is always a
crapshoot. One time, you end up speaking with Apoo in India, and simply
stumble around together to solve a problem. Another time, you get someone on
the line who speaks American English, albeit with a southern or western accent.
You never know... Ben Myers

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:59:32 GMT, "cranheim" <caranheim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

"What service did you require from Dell? Hardware or software issue?"

I do not expect much, if any, software support. The past three issues I had
with Dell in the past were absolute hardware problems, which I had to prove
myself, even though my machine was under warranty. I did this by either
swapping out the part in another machine, or by buying the replacement part
from a computer store. Even then, it took several more calls to finally get
a Dell manager agree the part was defective. I do not want to continue going
in this negative direction again explaining my past difficulties with Dell
service. I was only trying to determine two things: Has Dell service
improved like they claim it had since a year ago? Would an HP or some other
PC be a better choice based on the wealth of knowledge and experience you
guys have? I just got started looking at HP because a "friend" said he felt
they were much better than Dell, having had both. I have been around long
enough to realize a few bad experiences may not give the complete picture.
However, after many have replied to my question, it gives me a better
pattern of the way things are. For this, I thank all who responded in a
positive way. I appreciate your comments and observations very much. Charles
Ranheim

.

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