Two Weeks in Dell Computer Hell
It's the Holiday Season and many of you are considering buying a computer. Instead of travel articles, please take time to read about my experience and think carefully about the two weeks spent in Dell hell before purchasing your computer.
The day has come -- for most of us -- where it is impossible to survive without a computer. My old Dell Desktop had been making strange noises and didn't have either a DVD drive or a sufficient graphics card to make videos. The old Dell worked with a minumum of problems in the past so I didn't think twice. Picked up the phone, called Dell and spoke to a salesman. Techie sons had given me advice..."Mom, upgrade...get 2 gigs (whatever that is) and 500 hard drive." With that in mind, told the salesman my requirements, was explicit in detailing what I needed this new desktop to do and left nothing out. The primary requirement was a system powerful enough for advanced video editing. (I want to add video to Travels With Sheila.) The Dell salesman gave zilch guidance and said the Inspiron 530 system would do the job. Little did I know I had entered Dell purgatory.
The system arrived in three days with free shipping. I will say that new computer systems are so easy to assemble that even 66-year old me can do it. What takes hours is transferring information from the old computer to the new computer and reloading all your programs. Three hours one night to migrate the old data, and an additional hour or two the next day. Victory and I was pretty darn excited. The excitement lasted about five minutes...
First call to Dell Technical Support regarding the speakers. They didn't work. I could hear a little sound coming from the CPU but nothing from the speakers. Yes...I had adjusted all the volume controls in the Control Panel. Yes...they were plugged in the right place - there is only one possible place to plug them in for goodness sake! During this first call, the speakers suddently started working. Not because we had done anything new, just started working on their own. Sound came out. I was happy. Problem one resolved on its own.
Afternoon of the same day, I loaded Pinnacle Studio 11 video editing software. Took my Sony Handycam mini-dvds and tried to import. "BLUE SCREEN"... Huh? Even I know, this is Bad! The computer wouldn't turn off and there were all kind of error messages. Phone Call #2 to Dell Technical Support and the first two hours on the telephone with what would eventually turn out to be a total of 13 TELEPHONE HOURS, over the next 14 days!
Dell Technical Support gives customers a Case Number, and sends an e-mail instructing you to reply to that e-mail if there are still problems. DO NOT BOTHER RESPONDING! No one ever e-mails back.
The "Blue Screen" saga continued...
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