Dell tech service problems

I bought a new XPS-13 based on the glowing reviews. My machine unfortunately crashed often (Windows blue screen) 2-5 times per day. Dell technical support could not solve this problem, would never return phone calls when promised and would not tell me how to return the computer for a new one or my money back. I conclude that Dells quality control problems have now been transferred to their non-existent technical support. They are basically incompetent and don't care about customer satisfaction. My advice is to try another company that makes sure their products work as advertised. Anyone else had this frustration with Dell?

 

Have I had this problem before? Yes and no.

Everyone has run into a situation where they buy a product and it turns out to be a lemon. Or they call tech support, and they are completely unhelpful. Any product you buy from any company has a chance of this happening. And you will always find stories on the internet about people who get screwed by this kind of bad luck.

As for what to do... Your problem is most likely caused by either faulty RAM, conflicting software on your machine, or faulty motherboard.

You can test for faulty RAM by downloading memtest86 and running it. You can test for misbehaving software by reinstalling Windows or restoring the machine to the factory image. One of these two is most likely the culprit.

If you exhaust both of those options, then you probably have a faulty motherboard, and will need to get it replaced. You will need to work through Dell tech support to get that done.

The most important advice I can give you when working with tech support is to be polite, and let the tech go through the steps they need to go through. If you just call and say that you have a faulty motherboard and need a replacement, it won't happen. You need to let the tech walk you through all of the steps on their end (and you actually follow them) in order for the tech to come to the conclusion that you need a motherboard replacement. They have a script they need to follow, and will only do something as drastic and expensive as a motherboard replacement after they can prove to their manager that they have gone through the proper steps on their script first.

In any case, good luck to you.

 

Unless you've paid for the Pro level of support, you're going to get through to people in India who are trained in the most basic of troubleshooting ("have you tried a different power socket?") and are incapable of deviating from a script. The best they'll come up with is taking the system in for a service. That's the world we live in. The Pro support technicians are based in your country, so they cost more. Cheap Indian workers will suffice for most users. If you don't have the Pro support, then you're better off diagnosing the problem yourself.

You can run the built-in diagnostics by powering off your system, then holding down the Fn key while you turn it on again. Keep the Fn key held down until the diagnostics start. Do the full whack including any extended memory tests. If that comes back all clear, there's probably about a 90% chance it's a software issue, and you should consider reformatting. If it fails, phone up tech support and give the precise error code, it'll likely indicate a hardware fault.