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XPS 710 Dead after < 3 years, two motherboards, two power supplies: What did I pay $3,500 for?
On August 1, 2007 I paid $2,750.57 for an XPS 710 desktop computer. At that price, I thought I was buying not just a high-performance machine but also high quality. On August 3, 2008, two days after my warranty expired, the computer's power supply died. I replaced it, at a cost of $109. In April 2009, the motherboard died. I replaced that, at a cost of over $600. On May 17 of this year, the computer died again. I replaced the power supply ($75 on EBay this time), but that didn't solve the problem. Apparently the second motherboard has gone bad. I can't pay another $600 to replace it with another one-year motherboard, and I can't afford a new computer, so what should I do?
Anybody feel like I've gotten my $3,500's worth? I don't. I have a ten-year-old HP desktop that's never had a major breakdown. If it would run my graphics software, I wouldn't need the XPS 710. Why can't a premium Dell outlast a run-of-the-mill HP?
All Dell Support would do was tell me I should have paid even more for an extended warranty. (Actually, a supervisor called me up and wanted to argue with me when I dared to suggest that a $109 power supply ought to last longer than a year or two.)
Do I have any recourse, other than to start up yet another web site complaining about Dell? (There must be two dozen already, and they don't seem to have had any effect on Dell's quality.) Does Dell have an ombudsman or something? I'm really angry, and I feel ripped off, but I feel like I ought to give Dell a chance to do the right thing.
Jim Crutchfield
Long Island City, NY