Poor Customer Support

I purchased a Dell Inspiron laptop as a high school graduation present in May but did not use it until my son was getting ready for college in August.

The first issue was that the wireless card would drop out and was no longer be listed as an available device, the computer would periodically crash with a blue screen then reboot, and the battery life was very short.  Calls to Dell support continually get bounced around between the hardware wireless group and software as the issue.  Typical phone calls lasted an hour and involve transfer between 4-8 departments.

After (2) on-line tech support calls lasting several hours running diagnostics, the conclusion was that Windows needed to be reloaded.  Dell sent install disks for Windows and drivers.  I was un able to reload the operating system.  The next step was a 5 hour session on a Saturday where Dell was finally able to reload Windows after adjusting several of bios settings.  After Windows was installed and drivers reloaded, the wireless card was available for use for a few minutes before shutting down.  Shortly after that the blue screen message "Windows has encountered a problem and is shutting down..." appeared.  Remote tech supported acknowledged that I had a hardware issue.  I asked for a replacement computer, but was told this was not possible. 

Today, after working through issues for almost 6 weeks, Dell on-site support replaced the mother board and wireless card.  The wireless card was still not recognized by the computer.  Dell remote support had us run diagnostics and said there was no hardware problem.  Now when the power supply is disconnected, the computer shuts down immediately even though the battery showed 100% charged.  Dell now wants to get on-line again to run diagnostics for the 4th time.

After 5 weeks of escalated support and countless hours of mine time, I am still being told that they will fix my problem, but they will not provide a replacement to a computer that has never worked.  I have never been so frustrated by the lack of support, the bouncing around between groups and the seeming lack of ownership to resolve a problem.  Something has to change at Dell.