XPS 730 failure to boot. Possible design failure but certain customer service failure.

System design failure?

I have seen a few posts from people with a similar theme on this and other sites.  I have the XPS 730.  It seems that the cooling system has failed and taken the motherboard, bios and chip with it.

Dell has been at best frustrating so far.  It has been 2 weeks 3 days now and they have failed to fix the thing.  This is despite it still being in the UK warranty period, with a purchased extended warranty and next day business service contract.  I have remained polite but firm with Dell throughout.  The saga is as follows  (please bear with this):

Friday morning 2 weeks ago the machine fails to boot and switches itself off within 10 secs.  This happened repeatedly.  I was put through to the wrong helpdesk despite clearly identifying myself, my service tag and explaining the problem (this then happened each time that I called over the last 2 weeks).  Eventually, I got through to tech support.  Despite having paid for onsite service I was told to fiddle around in the inside of my very expensive machine with a screwdriver so that they could identify the problem over the phone.  I did explain I was unhappy doing this.  The tech support eventually identified that the motherboard/bios was gone.  They arranged for a service man to come out and replace the part only - he would not check that it worked this was up to me according to tech support.  This was Friday 1000.  They told me that the next day a tech could come was Tuesday.  I pointed out that this was not the next business day, but instead Monday was.  The tech support refused to book Monday for me and I asked for him to check with his manager.  After some time on hold he came back and agreed to book someone for Monday. 

About lunchtime a friend dropped by.  He just happens to build water cooled PCs!  I explained my problems to him and his immediate take was that it was either a power supply issue or overheating.  With the help of external fans we managed to get the system up and running long enough to get into the NVDIA systems monitor.  This revealed that the CPU was running at its coolest at 90 degrees C.  We watched the temp climb just at idle and the system shut down.  On retrying later once all had cooled down I managed to increase all the Fans to 100%.  The CPU temp came down to 60 or so.  Now having the clear pointer that the cooling system was not up to the task we identified the cooling system and indeed the chip was red hot as were all the tubing of the cooling system.  I then called Dell back and had to re-explain everything despite a Dell case reference number.  Eventually, after another trip via the manager the tech support also agreed to replace the cooling system and after a little more discussion they would bring a new CPU as well.  On Monday.

Monday came and Dell did not.  At about 1730 I received a call from the tech sub-contractor that was supposed to come.  He told me that he had never been booked for Monday, but was always booked for Tuesday.  Unfortunately, he then went on to tell me the mother board was not in stock but would be in the next 1-3 working days.  At this point it was apparent that Dell had been less than truthful/honest about the date of the onsite appointment.

Thursday came (day 6 after system death).  Dell did not.  As it was the end of the 3 day period so I called the Dell contractor at 0900 (their number had come up in my phone).   The part was still not in stock and they were waiting on Dell to send it out to them.  I very politely expressed my dissatisfaction.  They promised to send an email to Dell Customer Service for me.  They also promised that Dells action to that email would be to call me within the day.

Friday morning and no call from Customer Service.  I called the Tech sub-contractor back.  There was still no part and they assured me that the email to Dell customer service had been sent as they had a received a reply from Dell to their email.  They suggested calling Dell again.  I called and ended up at the wrong help desk.  I had had enough by then and asked to speak to someone who could refund me my computer and the service contract as neither the warranty or contract was being honoured.  I was promised a call back from customer service "either today or tomorrow."

Later the same day I actually got a call back from a man who identified himself as the European head of customer services.  After a long discussion, where he apologised that my computer was not working and over the minor, yet repeated, help desk communication failures; it was decided that I would just have to wait for the part as from Dell's perspective they were allowed a "reasonable period of time" to source products.  It seems that the motherboard was out of stock (interestingly DABS presently have it in stock - I am awaiting confirmation from DABS on this).  From Dells point of view "a reasonable period of time was 2 weeks."  I was promised to be put on the priority service list.  The manager promised to email me details of my standard warranty, extended warranty and next day business contract.  He never did send me that email.

Another week rolled by. 2 weeks was up and I had heard nothing at all.  So I called Dell back.  Instead of going through tech support again I asked to be put through to customer services.  Then I was put through to tech support despite asking not to go back there.  This happened 4 times.  Indeed on the 3rd occasion the customer service operator cut me off mid explanation and put me through to tech support.  I have to emphasise that I remained highly civil throughout this.  Eventually, I gave up and had to explain everything to the tech support agent, who had to speak to his manager in order to allow me to be called back by Dell customer service.  My point to tech support was that my computer was still in Warranty and Dell had failed to honour their service contract so I simply would like to return the machine and get a full refund so I could go elsewhere and buy a machine that worked if they could not fix things by Monday.  In the intervening 2 weeks I have had to pull out of 2 presentations and put on hold a major audit because I have no computer to work on.  I was again promised a call back "either today or tomorrow" from customer services.

Later that day I was called by the same customer service manager that I had spoken to the week before.  And yes I have his name.  He moved the goalposts on me.  I was told that the "reasonable period of time" was 2-4 weeks.  I pointed out that he had failed to email me the warranty details.  Initially and very defensively he denied not sending the email and said he had sent it.  I asked him to check, he then agreed that he had not sent it.  He promised to send me the details.  I explained to him that I wanted to go over the terms and conditions, to discuss this with my family and possibly seek legal advice to see if Dell could be in breach of contract with me.  It is 2 and a half days later and the promised email has still not turned up.  We left the conversation with the conclusion that I would have to wait for 2 more weeks and then he would "consider my request for a refund."  He was not open to discussing other options such as replacement same spec machine.  But to be honest i am not sure that I would want another Dell machine.

Throughout I have been polite with Dell but have met with nothing but obfuscation and rote followed “help.”

I would appreciate the link to the UK extended warranty and next business day service contract terms and conditions if anyone has them.

What do you think that I should do?  The man to write complaints to is apparently the same customer service manager who has failed to email me.  This has not filled me with confidence.  If anyone else out there has a similar story or any helpful suggestions please post me a reply.