NEW.. Any and all concerns about the new XPS 435/8000/9000

Are you getting static noise from the speakers when you look and listen to youtube video?

Could be a faulty sound/ graphic card?

Bobbyklump: I think if I were you I would call them back and get another price as that seems very high unless they charge around $500.00 US to ship the computer to England. Looking at your same configuration plus a 20" monitor, it comes out $1598.00 US. I also went to the XPS 8100 with a i7 860 processor, 1 terabyte hard drive and duel drives, one being blu-ray and that only came out to $1648.00 US. It seems that Dell changes prices on things almost day to day or maybe from hour to hour so I would call them back while your online looking at what you want. Good luck!

Wayne

I just got a note from a Dell censor telling me that my post reporting on the status of my technical support case had been deleted because it somehow included unidentified inappropriate language. (Furthermore, the note said that if I posted their note to the forums that I would be banned from the forums. It's interesting that they realize evidence of their censorship could be embarrassing to them.) It's difficult to tell what they objected to -- although I criticized Dell, I didn't come close to the strongly negative tone seen in messages that haven't been deleted. Maybe it was the part where I praised a Dell sales guy who sounded like an authentic human being and not a poorly-paid actor reading a script that he/she wasn't authorized to depart from?

Anyway, the upshot of my post was that I asked the tech guy I've been corresponding with to look into the background of this problem. He said he spoke with his supervisor and his supervisor assured him that the XPS 9000 was absolutely flawless. Uh huh. I appreciate him talking with his supervisor, but his supervisor's impulse to deny the problem rather than looking into it is lamentable. They're sending out a replacement I/O panel, but based on discussion here my hopes for successful resolution are not high.

Dell can and should do better, but they won't without throwing out their script-driven responses to off-the-script problems. Fortunately for the company, their products are of reasonable-to-good quality (despite minor but annoying problems like this one), their prices are generally reasonable, their support is no worse than average for this industry, and their closest competitor (HP) has worse quality control and worse customer service. In other words, Dell has no real incentive to improve.

P.S. I am not complaining about Dell personnel. I have only once encountered a rude support person ... well, twice if you count the person who deleted my last post. The culture of incurious, scripted, non-expert support is what I have a beef about.

As for having your post deleted, I had one deleted also for no known reason other than there may have had a negative remark about Dell service. As for the problem of the front audio noise. I posted on this forum awhile back that I have an older Compaq computer that had the same problem as my 435T/9000 and that noise. I took the Compaq apart and traced the wire feeding the plugin to the motherboard. Ran some snakskin metal shielding around that wire, Gounded one end to the case, taped over everything I installed as not to short anything out. The noise is gone!!!. I won't do that to my Dell because I have about 3 1/2 years left on the warranty and don't want to take a chance on losing that. The point I am making is if it can be fixed on a old Compaq it can be fixed on a new Dell. Why they won't spend 2 or 3 cents on parts and 5 minutes in labor to fix a known problem is a good question. I rarly use the front audio jack so to me it's not a big issue, but after seeing all the posts about the problem I just wanted to see how hard it could be to fix it. Maybe it's not that easy on the Dell, but them telling you there was not a problem is not true and they are only reading that from a script as they are taught to do. We, growing up in this country have always been taught to look outside the box to fix a problem, not so over there. If it's not in front of them, it's not a problem. This is not just a Dell thing either as I am still waiting for HP to fix a problem on a printer from the time Vista was released. Good luck on getting anything resolved.

Wayne

Thanks Wayne for the suggestion regarding wiring; I think I'll skip it though, for the same reason as you.

The service guy came out to replace the I/O panel this morning. It did not fix the problem with static/noise in the front audio port. I had him listen, and he agreed that there was a problem, that it was the front port only, and that it was not resolved by replacing the panel. He was unable to replace the wires from the motherboard to the panel because Dell (apparently) sent the wrong wires and only sent 2 instead of 3. He called tech support and they asked if I minded getting a replacement system in 2-3 weeks, to which I said "sure", as long as I can swap drives (assuming the new one isn't faster; I'll check).

I think that Dell sincerely wants customers to be satisfied, and their support people will do everything they can, within reasonable limits, to make that happen. Dell has chosen, however, to have non-expert people staff their phone tech support lines, and that constrains what they can do for you. What they can help with is necessarily limited to permutations of a couple dozen common problems. It also means that, if you're a power user, their tech staff may know less about the computer than you do, but they must still follow the script that was handed down to them by more knowledgeable tech staff/tech writers. This is hardly unique to Dell. (I do not think that the degree to which they follow a script has anything to do with how much initiative or curiosity the techs have; that's just the way they run tech support. I think what is unusual about Dell, I think, is that they appear to have chosen not to employ multiple tiers of tech support. Instead of kicking a problem upstairs to the real expert, the telephone tech support person sends you a new product. It seems wasteful, and may stretch out the amount of time it takes to get a problem fixed, but I'm guessing that Dell saves money by cutting the phone conversations short, not involving and more-expensive experts, and just diagnosing the problem in-house and then reselling the product as refurbished. If I had a serious problem and I had to wait three weeks for a replacement machine, that would really make me mad. That not being the case, I will be perfectly happy to get a replacement ... assuming it does not have the same problem (or any other!).

Michael

Michael: I hope the new one has that problem fixed, at least your onsite tech guy heard it and reported it so they know that it is not just your imagination along with many others. I too think Dell tries to get the customer a good product, but putting the weakest link as the first link of their support chain with very little tech knowledge and no where else to go just doesn't make sense. Unfortunately that's they way all companies are going.

Wayne

I just got my "new replacement" xps 9000 on the 2/15/10 and it had the same noise / crosstalk issues with the front headphone output. This confirms, to me, that the issue must be in the wiring of that front panel (I'm sure there others saying the same in this thread). I spoke to Dell and they must be looking for a resolution as the costs to replace systems vs fixing it must now be in favor of replacing the wiring with something that is more robustly shielded...

Fingers-crossed for a tech to come out with a updated i/o that fixes it all!

UPDATE!!!! I was just offered a XPS 8100 to replace my XPS 9000 ... I took a look at the Dell site and the XPS 9000 is NO LONGER FOR SALE... Hummm, right? Needless to say the XPS is a lesser computer than what I paid for in the XPS 9000 ... So... we shall see what they come up with next...

Where did you find this information about Dell no longer selling the 9000?  I only ask because this is what I found on their site just a minute ago. http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/desktops/desktop-studio-xps-9000/pd.aspx?refid=desktop-studio-xps-9000&s=dhs&cs=19&~oid=us~en~29~performance-deals_anav_03~~.  Not sure why they were offering the 8100 to replace the 9000, but from what I can see they are still selling the 9000.

UPDATE!!!!

I was just offered a XPS 8100 to replace my XPS 9000 ... I took a look at the Dell site and the XPS 9000 is NO LONGER FOR SALE... Hummm, right? Needless to say the XPS is a lesser computer than what I paid for in the XPS 9000 ... So... we shall see what they come up with next...

Yeah... They are back on Dell.com... It seems that it was off the store for a few hours... Dunno, I wish I would have taken a screenshot! Maybe these will be without all the issues.

I received a new system in early March and it had the same issues, but not as bad as the original. The new system came with an X-FI Titanium, which is probably what made the difference.I told Dell that the problem had not gone away and the tech support supervisor kind of, sort of admitted that Dell knew there was a wiring problem and had changed one of the wires. They sent out a field rep who replaced the wire for the headphones with a new part number, but that did not have any effect. The noise is mainly evident with high system activity, as during game play, and it's tolerable, so I will probably just live with it. I'd be happy to hear, though, if anybody finds a solution.

Michael

Hi all,

 I'm a new owner of the XPS 9000 (what a monster), but unfortunately I've got an issue with it.

Whenever I shut down the system, and proceed to switch off the socket mains, then boot it up later, it will beep 3-4 times, and then display the following error msg:
CMOS Time and Date wrong, Press F2 to enter setup... etc
I did as I was told, went into setup, corrected the Time/Date settings, saved and exit. But when I off the system and the switch, and on it again to boot it up, the error repeats itself. The time/date resets itself to 4/2/2010 00:00:00am. Thing is, if I just restart the system, or shut it down without switching off the mains, everything seems ok. The problem only occurs when I switch off the mains and boot it up again later.

Has anyone had a similar problem? Would appreciate any suggestions to remedy this, it's frustrating.

Try and boot past the error into windows and then update the bios to the latest or reinstall from Dell's support site. The cmos battery may be bad too if it isn't remembering your settings...$3 fix from Wal-Mart. Worse case, you have a bum motherboard but it will be covered by Dell.

See my concern after getting XPS 435T on 3/27/10.

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19329727.aspx

Sandy.