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Waiting almost a year to resolve tech problems
I have been a loyal Alienware customer since before they were purchased and have always been generally pleased with the quality of their products.
In February, I purchased an Alienware system and a 30 inch 3007WFP-HC Dell monitor. I am going to detail all of the problems I have had following these purchases so you can get a feel for the kind of experience I have had as a Dell/Alienware customer.
Upon arrival the computer would not even boot. I quickly realized this was because they did not have the raid array enabled in the bios. I then checked the clock speed settings of my CPU with CPU-Z. Sure enough the level-1 over clocking I purchased was not enabled. I feel bad for less computer literate consumers who may not have their LV1 OC enabled that they pay for. After using the CPU for a few hours it, had already begun to blue screen and crash intermittently. I would also get green pixels flickering all over the monitor on and off. I called Dell and they said they would send me a new GPU to install for myself. I did and it stopped the blue screens but not the crashing. Also I began to notice the LVL1 OCing would fail and the bios would reset the OC to factory settings, forcing me to reset the OC manually on startup. I also noticed a problem where whenever my computer would either startup/restart/wake up from sleep I would hear a terrible loud popping distortion noise. It would be independent of volume and would wake up my wife and I in the middle of the night, until I started unplugging my speakers after I was finished using my PC. I tried another set of speakers however the incidents continued. I also tried several different drivers but had not luck. I continued to troubleshoot these problems with Dell customer service. After having me run several hours worth of tests they said they would replace the motherboard and gpu again. This did nothing.
I called back Dell customer service a few weeks later and the CSR informed me that since I did not report these issues earlier they would be unable to help me (keep in my I am still to this day in my warranty period and what he was saying made no sense already for that reason). I informed them that I had called them several times in the past and that these issues have been communicated to dell on several occasions. He seemed surprised that I challenged him on this and said "Oh well, then I guess we can look into your issue". Does Dell customer service make a common practice of telling customers in their warranty period that they cannot help them?
The tech said it may be related to my monitor cable and he said he would also send me a new sound card to try and fix my sound issue. I received a new cable a week later which was supposed to be sent to the tech, and then tech send the sound card back to dell since they did not get my monitor cable, thus delaying this repair by several weeks. The only problem after finally getting the cable was it was the wrong cable! I had made it VERY clear to the foreign gentleman CSR that a monitor that uses 2560x1600 resolution requires a special type of DVI cable to ensure an error free transmission. I called back and requested another cable and they sent one. Again it was the wrong cable. The tech came to reinstall the soundcard however the problem has not gone away. The techs now want to replace my CPU.
I made this purchase in Feb and reported these problems shortly after receiving my PC. It is December 6th almost a year later and I still do not have a working machine. Infact this machine is likely damaging my $300.00 speakers with this horrible persistent noise. I also still get intermittent fits of green flickering pixels/artifacts which pretty much ruin my gaming and web browsing experience. I am not running at the LVL 1 over-clocking I purchased because it intermittently fails.
I have wasted countless hours trying to resolve these problems. I feel I have not been treated properly and that the techs have not been knowledgeable enough to address the issues I have had. When I email escalation reps. those emails are unreturned. When someone follows up with me to see if I am satisfied I respond to them I am not and I then receive no response. I have made several posts here as well.
What should I do?
How do I get in touch with that person?
I have asked to be escalted before and they ussually just want to send me more parts. I would be kind of scared to get a fully new system since I only have a few more months on the warrarnty, especially since these are "refurbished" parts.
89fordprobee
1233 Posts
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Posted December 6th, 2010 12:00
call tech support i know its hard but have to .. when the person answers ask to speak to a supervisor or a manager since it seems repairing the system over time hasent fixed the problem the person might ask a few questions to verify system.. and owner .. standard protocol then tell them you want thier manager or a tech support manager to see about replacing the system since i know it sounds harsh since im awaiting my 3rd M17X one faile dhard second one dell tech bricked it , sure its agrevating as can be specially since i started schooling for apprenticship but meh i got a netbook for now .
just remeber be nice and calm when you call you yell and they will hang up on you lol sorry been there and sometimes they cant help you right away since they need to go to higher management to get replacement approval but not all the time aslong as proof shows fixing it hasent solved it
GOODLUCK!
RSL_Mongoose
40 Posts
597
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Posted December 6th, 2010 20:00
First thing you always do when dealing with dell is file a complaint with the BBB, once they get the complaint in hand the ball will start rapidly rolling.
DELL-Chris M
Community Manager
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56891 Posts
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232143 Points
597
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Posted December 6th, 2010 11:00
Since the motherboard, CPU, and sound card have already been replaced, you need to escalate to a technical support manager and get a refurbished like for like system exchange. I do not know what the root cause of the issues is but throwing parts out is not fixing it.
DELL-Chris M (old account)
#IWork4Dell