Dell Technical Support & My SXPS 1645

I purchased an SXPS 1645 last summer and I've always had throttling/cooling problems with it but couldn't afford to send it away to Dell's "depot" because it was my only computer and I use it for work... to get it fixed/replaced/whatever. I recently bought a cheapy laptop to use so I could finally get something done about this $1500 laptop that is of no more use to me than the $300 one I bought temporarily. Like most people, my CPU/GPU hits around 90 C under load and throttling occurs on most games after 5 minutes of playing and even when playing Blu-Ray's for an extended period of time (Avatar for example). Specs are in my SIG...I have the WLED and 130watt adapter.

I called into tech support last Thursday and was told a technician would come out and that I would be receiving "parts" in the mail. This was odd to me because I know that Dell doesn't (or didn't less than a year ago) do in-home service in Canada. I told them that on the phone too multiple times, plus the fact that I was told last time I'd have to send my laptop in for repair, but they seemed to ignore me. I was told I would receive a call from the technician in 2-3 business days. They didn't tell me when the parts would be in. Shouldn't the tech have his own parts, or they at least be shipped to him? Doesn't make sense to me.


So here we are over a week later, no one has contacted me nor have I gotten anything in the mail. So is Dell just lying to me? What is my next step? I blatantly told the agent on the phone that this model of laptop is flawed and I couldn't see how they could fix all my problems short of replacing it with a different model.

Thanks!

 

Dell does have in-house repairs in Canada, but it depends on the warranty you have. I have the 3-year advanced warranty, and so far both of my issues were fixed in the next day. In your case, they may actually be sending out a tech given that this particular Dell XPS is plagued with all the overheating issues. If you've had enough techs come and replace parts, eventually they'll likely offer you a replacement unit, probably a XPS 14 (since they don't sell them anymore) or XPS 15.

Or at least the replacement unit concept I laid out comes from stories I've read left, centre and right around these forums...

 

Hey Dave...thanks for the quick reply. I just have the standard 1 yr warranty. I was told in my initial call last year that only entitles me to depot service...they didn't mention that to me during my last call though. I will call them again today and quote the reference numbers they gave me (call reference & dispatch). You'd think at some point Dell would just say..."Any SXPS1645's with so and so problems = automatic replacement" instead of having to jump through loopholes and a few service visits/parts replacements that obviously won't fix the problem due to the design flaw of the entire unit. In the end Dell is just wasting time and money not admitting the flaws and addressing the problem efficiently...I'm sure I don't have to tell you that, I'm just venting.

 

While I completely agree with you, Dell does have to fix its customer service - it's horrendously structured for the consumer. For businesses, however, it is a different, gentler beast (and a different story).

I think the problem you and everyone else faces when dealing with Dell support is that it has been outsourced to individuals who are explicitly told to follow the script. These folks aren't trained to be engineers or technicians. Follow the script, when in doubt and/or trouble drag your Supervisor/Manager into it, but otherwise follow the troubleshooting script as best as you can. And to this extend Dell's support is flawless - I have never been greeted so many times over the phone by the exact same words (I swear the only difference between the 4 calls I made were the places in the sentences where the support agent took breaths). But when you try to describe your problem to them, they may not truly understand the nature of your problem, they're just jotting down your problem for engineers or technicians to solve later on.

Given that, you cannot really blame the support agents because they really do not have much power over what can be done. They're told by the higher ups that issues with the 1645 require a motherboard replacement (as an example). So if somebody calls about an overheating 1645 with a 4670 motherboard, send out another motherboard - but wait, if they are Canadian, then have them mail it to a depot. Somebody calls about a 90W adapter, we'll mail out a new 130W to replace it. And so on.

I can only hope for the best for your replacement (c'mon Dell, daddy needs a new XPS15! ), and for everybody else who suffers the wrath of shoddy customer support troubleshooting scripts ("Have you tried turning it off and... ah, even I'm getting sick of saying that" a la IT Crowd). You should also email Michael Dell. I mentioned this in another post: some people seem to have better success with support issues if they clearly state their problem and frustrations (with as few expletives as possible, I would imagine). It may propagate to the right people and subsequently end up in better service. Or you could hammer out the problem with the next support agent over the phone. It's like Russian Roulette, only that instead of a bullet you get the dreaded motherboard replacement, which is about as good as shooting yourself in the foot.