Dell

daskraut

sorry for any language beore on previous post but if anybody is looking for anything just give me a pm like some of you already have ill see what i can do for you. thanks

aidan_walsh

Are you asking to be banned, or fired?

Might be fun to see if we can arrange both...

Capt'n Midnight

If anyone is thinking of dealing with daskraut look at the abuse he gave to posters on this thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054871511

Does this sound like a you got a friend in the business ? If it's someone who has already handed in their notice the they won't be too worried about support, just the fast buck at your expense. IMHO

Could also be a troll.

Airblazer

they deserved it..they were a bunch of ****..so the guys trying to bump up his commision..big deal..at least this way you have a number and a name if anything goes wrong with the order..

Laguna

Daskraut mate, I think it's against forum rules to promote yourself in regards to a service you provide where you'll end up getting commision..

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

If anyone is thinking of dealing with daskraut look at the abuse he gave to posters on this thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054871511

Does this sound like a you got a friend in the business ? If it's someone who has already handed in their notice the they won't be too worried about support, just the fast buck at your expense. IMHO

Could also be a troll.

well from the way he's replied to people on that post i can see why he's on here looking for customers, i can only imagine what he's like on the phone :rolleyes: .
here's a tip for you Dell people lower your prices and put some decent components into your PC's.

Laguna

hellboy99 wrote:

here's a tip for you Dell people lower your prices and put some decent components into your PC's.

Jesus mate, I'd see it like Dell changing water into wine if they'd only fricking consider using AMD chips as an option and if they didn't force you to buy an OEM copy of Windows when buying their PC!..

Laguna

Laguna wrote:

Jesus mate, I'd see it like Dell changing water into wine if they'd only fricking consider using AMD chips as an option and if they didn't force you to buy an OEM copy of Windows when buying their PC!..

I know what there like i used to work for a company that repaired there components.

Laguna

Tell me then mate, do Dell use inferior components and chipsets or is it just urban myth?

no myth all true, there HD's where change bout 3 - 4 years ago cause of too many faulty returns, other components are just cheaply made seconds, worse component out of the lot these days are the mainboards.

put it this way the company i worked for had all Gateway PC's, think that says it all.

i will give them one thumbs up for there LCD's thou.

Laguna

hellboy99 wrote:

no myth all true, there HD's where change bout 3 - 4 years ago cause of too many faulty returns, other components are just cheaply made seconds, worse component out of the lot these days are the mainboards.

put it this way the company i worked for had all Gateway PC's, think that says it all.

i will give them one thumbs up for there LCD's thou.

Thanks for the confirmation on that, I always suspected this to be the case but I had nothing to base it on. Hope people who buy from Dell realise this. Twice the price for half the goods seems to be their motto then..

Laguna

Laguna wrote:

Thanks for the confirmation on that, I always suspected this to be the case but I had nothing to base it on. Hope people who buy from Dell realise this. Twice the price for half the goods seems to be their motto then..

if you want to buy a pc online buy from komplett and build your own, least you get value for money from them and good customer care when it comes to returns if you ever came across a fault which is rare from what i've heard.

Laguna

hellboy99 wrote:

if you want to buy a pc online buy from komplett and build your own, least you get value for money from them and good customer care when it comes to returns if you ever came across a fault which is rare from what i've heard.

Ah it's cool mate, I always build my own systems from the ground up, that way I can have it the exact way I can want it (and not be forced into buying Windows XP every time I need to upgrade my computer!)

MrFitt

hellboy99 wrote:

no myth all true, there HD's where change bout 3 - 4 years ago cause of too many faulty returns, other components are just cheaply made seconds, worse component out of the lot these days are the mainboards.

put it this way the company i worked for had all Gateway PC's, think that says it all.

i will give them one thumbs up for there LCD's thou.

So Laguna, you believe it for a fact just because one (ex) Dell employee (probably or 3rd party contractor) tells you that Dell use inferior components?

So thats why they are using all dodgy suppliers such as Nvidia, Western Digital, Seagate, Ati, Maxtor Quanta, Asus, Samsung etc etc because they want to supply cheaply made seconds? I don't think so somehow.

Its true they have a few dodgy batches of components and still will do in the foreseeable future, but they do ship over 2 millions units a quarter, so one would expect there to be some fallout from that.

Also it is a facta as Bertie would say, that regardless of supplier most of all the worlds electronic components are made in Taiwan/Malaysia. So the stuff you buy from Komplett/PC world etc all gets made in the same place Dell source their parts from.

Dell also have the clout to get individual suppliers to exclusively supply them with gear that no one else can get (at least for a few months anyway) eg The 2GB quad Nvidia 7800 GTX gfx card avalilable in Dell's new XPS 600 Renegade system...Find out more at www.dell.com/gaming.

So in short Dell do suck at some things but are good a shipping sh1t loads of PC's...:)

Who are Gateway by the way?

maidhc

Another one of these threads...

Fact is Dell make reasonably good stuff at a reasonable price. Watch the offers and Dell will be far cheaper than any self build.

It is grand to speak about building your own machine, but very few people want to do that, either because they cant or because they just dont want to. And that is without even considering businesses who just want a 3/4 yr support contract.

If you want a "super cool gaming rig", you are probably best off doing the self build thing, because you will care about stuff like memory timings. For people (like me) who just want a reasonable computer as cheap as possible, Dell fulfills that need.

Still, the OP isnt a shining example of professionalism from Dell.

Amaru

Is it illegal to ask for dell discount codes on Boards?

TerrorFirmer

The crap about Dell having substandard components is...well, crap. Dell by and large cater for the Office/Home use market and not uber gamers, and Dell aren't as huge as they are for no reason, it's all based on a demanding market which quite frankly wants more. Granted upgraders are limited by the mainboards and psu's but this is just cheaper manufacturing for a market that 95% of the time doesn't need to upgrade the mobo or psu. That fact doesn't them substandard components.

I have a Dell PC, 3.4ghz, 1gb Samsung ddr2 pc4200 ram, Ati 256mb x800, WD sata 160gig HD.

I'm sure these are all inferior components. As for Dell being crap value for money, I paid 1,200 for this system an entire year ago, at which time the spec was top notch, and it still is a very capable machine. I have bought Dell the last few years simply because if anything goes wrong, they send a courier to your door and collect the pc and return in the same manner.

I know for a fact buying online can take weeks to get anything rma'd and send back, hassle with collection, etc, etc.

Obviously its cheaper to go self build, you can get a better machine for less, but Dell still make capable machines with perfectly good components, and you will certainly not build a standard cheap office PC with a licensed copy of XP to match Dells lowest spec'd offer for the same money. Laguna you would be doing well to not listen to hellboy.

Sam Vimes

hellboy99 wrote:

I know what THERE like i used to work for a company that repaired there components.

hellboy99 wrote:

no myth all true, THERE HD's where change bout 3 - 4 years ago cause of too many faulty returns

completely beside the point and i normally get annoyed at people who correct grammar but you had a 1 in 3 chance of getting it right and got it wrong twice.

they're is a contraction of they are, not there
their indicates ownership, not there

hobie

Want to see a 'Dirty Photo'? ........

My six year old Dell of course .....

believe want you want guys, i really don't care but the fact of the matter is i won't buy a Dell PC cause i know whats in them.
i'm speaking from personal experience, the company i worked for not only done repairs but we also manufactured PC components and just because they might have a big fancy name stuck onto them doesn't mean that they are 100% quailty. this company is in the top five in the world but if you were to work there you'd think different. if you saw half the things that went on like cutting corners, cheap ass equitment that was broke more times than working, how things were put together and repaired, the list goes on... it was just shock you. i wouldn't use their stuff nor would alot of tech's there. they were all about quanity and not quailty.

jor el

MobileInfantry wrote:

The crap about Dell having substandard components is...well, crap.

Some people may be happy to use Dell, but I believe that Dell do use some sub-standard components. The RAM, hard disks and DVD drives are all off the shelf, but the motherboards are Dell custom jobs. A bad motherbaord makes a bad PC, regardless of how good the RAM is.

Even the chasis are crap. Have you seen the crappy green plastic connector that's supposed to hold in the PCI cards? We have GPIB controller cards and Data Acquisition cards in all our Dells at work and that useless connector is the cause of more problems. The PCI cards just won't stay in because Dell are too cheap to use two bloody screws.

As a result of the cards popping out, they can get damaged (and cost up to €4000 each for some of them) and the motherboards also get damaged. The motherboard on my last PC was replaced three times in two years, and out of the 20 or so PCs in the lab, there were a total of 12 motherboards replaced in one 6 month period.

Of course, they're still popular though. How many people have the time or know how to build their own PC? Even if they did, I'd imagine most wouldn't be bothered. The big budget advertising campaign probably doesn't hurt sales either.

plonk

Dells are grand if you dont have to upgrade your computer. If you do then they are a waste of time. Simply because of the cheap crappy mobos.

plonk

plonk wrote:

Dells are grand if you dont have to upgrade your computer. If you do then they are a waste of time. Simply because of the cheap crappy mobos.

very true, a few months back a friend of mine bought a new modded case for his Dell but when it came to connencting up the mobo to the power switch/reset and LED's at the front of the new case it was a no go because the connections on the board were different.

irlrobins

jor el wrote:

The PCI cards just won't stay in....

what do u have connected to the PCI cards thats causing them to move so much??? surely there is little movement in a PCI card so the green hinge is more than enough to hold them in place....

TerrorFirmer

irlrobins wrote:

what do u have connected to the PCI cards thats causing them to move so much??? surely there is little movement in a PCI card so the green hinge is more than enough to hold them in place....

Exactly? My system has that green fastener, keeps the card firmly in place, I've even dropped the pc on its side once, no sign of card movement....

Obviously enough the motherboard issue is true. But the reason it that most , 95% in fact, of Dell Customers won't ever need to upgrade. Again, the fact the mobo can't be upgraded doesn't make it a cheap component in terms of reliability. It means to a bit more cost effective and is adapted for its market.

I've changed the graphics card, ram, hd and other bits and pieces in my dell no problems. By the time I actually need to change my cpu/psu, It'll be WELL time for a new pc anyway (Bought over year ago, cpu speed 3.4ghz) - so I still think if you buy a nice PC from dell, it'll last you a long time. I bought my pc as a gaming one a year ago - and It's still a great PC, because I've upgraded it, and it's able to handle the newest games great.

If DELL were as unreliable as people make out in this thread they'd have gone out of business a long, long time ago. Nobody keeps purchasing DELL computers year after year to waste money.

Zascar

Ugh, yet another one of these posts... The Dell bashing threads really have been done to death...

I too have worked for Dell and in my time I sold literally millions of € worth of computers over a 3 year period. Its a numbers game, of course you are going to have a small % that get problems, but very often these would be with other manufacturers products that Dell use in their PC's. Every manufacturer will have a few products fail. If a hard drive fails is that Dells fault? Sometimes you’d get these really irritating customers who buy a PC, their hard drive fails after 2.5 years, they would not purchase an extended warranty, and yet they blame dell for loosing all their data, even though they did not back up… Muppets… You would be so surprised about how many people they will then go on to tell about they ‘nightmare experience’ and spread a bad rep.

I sold to small, medium and also very large organisations, where I would have a very good relationship with IT managers, and they would tell me their honest opinion. Their may be some small gripes but most people are happy overall. Why else would Dell be the biggest most successful PC Company in the world, and continiue to grow at 10%-25% year no year? Their servers are top quality and also great value; it was rare that I lost a deal to IBM or HP.

The vast majority of Dells market is businesses, only a small portion is to home users. Realistically the % of Dell customers who would be concerned with upgrading the motherboards is miniscule. So instead they get Intel to design custom boards that work well but are very good value. 90% of customers, their main priority in buying a PC is €€€ . If you want to get under the hood with your PC then build it yourself, but why the necessity to go Dell bashing just because they do not cater to your small niche market I do not understand.

irlrobins

well said zascar.

TerrorFirmer

Heh....thanks Zascar, the above is what I was really trying to say

Zascar

Cheers, I see these thread time after time and usually don't bother replying but this time I had to... if anyone sees this in the future you have my permission to copy and paste the above into other threads....

If I have to be brutally honest, as with all big compaies they are far from perfect and dell is no exception. The one thing I would hold agsinst them is that a little to often people will have a bad customer experience. So much of the tech support has been sent to India, and God love them they try, but many Irish people just cannot stand to deal with them. However, as with all things in life you get what you pay for, and it is worth paying extra for services with Dell. If you are a business you can get Busines Support for about €40 (or less if you haggle) and it gets you level 2 (irish) engineers, no queues, one contact every time, all for 3 years, so worthwhile.

WexCan

Bus Support is great - Dublin and Glasgow. Most of the Irish home support is actually meant to be dealt with in Derry by Stream but this changes a lot.

main advantage with Business Support is the fact that one person looks after the case, so you have one email and an extension number and don't have to bother with queues after your first call, and even still the queues are never that huge.

irlrobins

yea but u worked REPAIRING PCs. So obviously every dell you came across is going to be broken! But how many is that compared to all the ones working that u never came across.....

Edit: ok that post was in reply to one of hellboy99's. Which i think he deleted before my reply appeared.....

Edit again: Apologies, post wasn't deleted. One of my email notifications was out of seq.

Paddy20

Having spent a large part of my life, involved in business {Closed Circuit TV} from the early sixties, and now happily retired.

I know just how difficult dealing with Joe public can be, thats why I specialised in dealing with 'Blue chip' companies, and leased most of my equipment. Dealing with large customers, beat dealing with the general public 'every time' from every perspective.

Personally, I buy my home computer equipment and LCD TV's from Dell, and have been more than happy with their 'product quality',service, pricing, delivery etc, and I am far from easily impressed.

Good luck to Dell.ie. .

P.:cool:

hobie

Zascar summs up Dells strategy so well .....

I purchased my Dell to do a job .... had the 3 year warranty cover (approx 150.00 euro's total cost) for 3 years ..... spent 110.00 euro's on a "power surge problem" at a local PC repair shop at 5 years and replaced it with an up-to-date Dell at 6 years ....

irlrobins

hobie wrote:

you are def a neat freak!!!! Look at that mobile phone holder!

jor el

irlrobins wrote:

what do u have connected to the PCI cards thats causing them to move so much??? surely there is little movement in a PCI card so the green hinge is more than enough to hold them in place....

GPIB (IEE488) cables to the GPIB card and either 96 pin SCSI connectors or perhaps a couple of 40-way IDC connectors to the DAQ cards. All with heavy duty cables off the back of them. Dells are not suitable for this kind of industrial connection, but it's company policy to buy only from Dell (some kind of exclusive contract). If you're using any expansion cards that use heavy duty cables then that holder just isn't good enough.

Even a simple RAM upgrade has to be bought from Dell, for which we will pay over double what it's worth. I wouldn't waste my own money on a Dell and I'll never recommend them to anyone.

The major problems I have had with Dell are the crap motherboards, the crap cases and the over pricing of standard components (512M of RAM costing us €140 ex VAT, DVD Writer costing over €100, etc).

WexCan

jor el wrote:

Even a simple RAM upgrade has to be bought from Dell, for which we will pay over double what it's worth.

I can't understand how exactly Dell can prevent you from ordering from other companies... I work for Dell and no customer I have ever come across has had these restrictions put on them...

If it's your company policy, well then it's hardly dell's fault.

jor el wrote:

I wouldn't waste my own money on a Dell and I'll never recommend them to anyone.

Nobody's forcing you to buy Dell and the simple fact is that they're perfect for a lot of people.

jor el wrote:

The major problems I have had with Dell are the crap motherboards, the crap cases and the over pricing of standard components (512M of RAM costing us €140 ex VAT, DVD Writer costing over €100, etc).

Again, they're perfect for a lot of people. Seemingly it's your company's choice to buy only from Dell so why bother with money? It's their money - let them spend it how they want.

AFAIK there are a few systems that still use screws to hold cards in place - will have a check tomorrow - the whole reasoning behind the clip is that it makes things easier for your average Joe Soap, and makes engineer visits quicker etc etc

hobie

you are def a neat freak!!!! Look at that mobile phone holder!

I made that myself ......

did anyone ever tell you that you have 'Eagle eyes' ....

okidoki987

To all the DELL people on here.
When are DELL going to have another decent sale on?

irlrobins

irlrobins wrote:

yea but u worked REPAIRING PCs. So obviously every dell you came across is going to be broken! But how many is that compared to all the ones working that u never came across.....

Edit: ok that post was in reply to one of hellboy99's. Which i think he deleted before my reply appeared.....

what did i delete

anyway in reply to your question, i repaired and made components and to be blunt we always seemed to have a lot of fails more so than passes and a lot of these fails got through screening, this was the case mainly with hard drives. the blame for this both lies with the manufacture and dell, we're given a budget and timeline to work with and naturally enough you have to cut some corners in order to fall under budget and meet turn around times in order to make a profit.

the whole warranty side of things people should question, for example you may have a years warranty on the PC and dell want you to upgrade to 3 years but what a lot of people don't know is that some of the components in the PC may have upto a 3 year OEM warranty anyway.

WexCan

hellboy99 wrote:

the whole warranty side of things people should question, for example you may have a years warranty on the PC and dell want you to upgrade to 3 years but what a lot of people don't know is that some of the components in the PC may have upto a 3 year OEM warranty anyway.

3 year OEM warranty? What components would these be?

Zascar

okidoki987 wrote:

To all the DELL people on here.
When are DELL going to have another decent sale on?

Dell ALWAYS have a Sale on.... or in other words, Dell NEVER have a sale on. It just depends what marketing feel like doing at any one time, or e.g. if sales of XPS machines are behind target, they will put out a deal that is sold at huge negative margin to increase demand. The cheaper end PC's are always great vaule. Prices bounce around all the time you just have to watch closely and be quick. Also keep an eye on the outlet, you can get some amazing deals. (they shoukd be at least 10% cheaper than a new one, if not all them up ad they will adjust the price for you). Its always best calling and getting to know a sales person and build a good relationship. If you are good to them they will be good to you. Don't waste their time but let them know a sale is there when you get the right deal.

I still have a lot of contacts there pm me if you need a hand. If you are buying a decent spec or a few computers, you shoulg get a few quid off, but if you are buying the cheapest thing there, a further discount is just not possible. Dell (the sales person) looses up to 25% margin on some of the deals they put out there!

Megatron

hellboy99 wrote:

no myth all true, there HD's where change bout 3 - 4 years ago cause of too many faulty returns, other components are just cheaply made seconds, worse component out of the lot these days are the mainboards.

put it this way the company i worked for had all Gateway PC's, think that says it all.

i will give them one thumbs up for there LCD's thou.

first bit , it's untrue , well mostly untrue , yes they do have a few dodgey things , but this is a industry wide issue , as in whoever decided to use those componets is having the same problem ( some of them are in a well known non dell server company).

as for the gateway comment, well Gateway have sut down everything in EMEA , and are now confined to the US , and will be for the next 5 years at least ( i used to work for Gateway). and most peeps i know consider Dell to be better Pc's than the Gateway , now i've had no issues with either , so i don't know what they are on about.


LCD = Brilliant , But i'm a CRT man myself

someoneelse mentioned being annoyed at no AMD choice , that's the way dell have decided to go , but as for the OS issue , it's a Euro law that it is illegal to sell a computer that doesn't have a OS on it. best solution is to ask for none , and then if they say it has to have one , say you'll take dos.

Occidental

jor el wrote:

Even the chasis are crap. Have you seen the crappy green plastic connector that's supposed to hold in the PCI cards? We have GPIB controller cards and Data Acquisition cards in all our Dells at work and that useless connector is the cause of more problems. The PCI cards just won't stay in because Dell are too cheap to use two bloody screws.

You are aware of course that the entry level machines don't have a green plastic connector, but still use screws.

WexCan

WexCan wrote:

3 year OEM warranty? What components would these be?

I know at one stage when we were supplying dell with hard drives they had a 3 year warranty on them, not sure if this is still the case but worth looking into.

hobie

My warranty claim (one in 6 years) involved Dell collecting the machine from my home via courier and duly returning it fixed, and all at no expense to me ....

I'm almost certain the three year warranty cost me no more than 130.00 punts at the time .... say 44.00 punts a year or a 1/3 of a pint per week

Capt'n Midnight

Zascar wrote:

Dell ALWAYS have a Sale on.... or in other words, Dell NEVER have a sale on.

Actually they do have sales, but only end of line stock when they are bringing in new models and usually it's most apparant with servers. But irregular and you have to be very fast to get one.

Dell do charge over the odds for higher spec machines. One that sticks out recently was an upgrade for a laptop drive to the next size that cost more than a larger third party laptop drive. Best value is bottom to middle of the range machines. RAM / Drives / Graphics cards / processers are usually cheaper elsewhere (and cheaper again if you can flog the dell supplied one to subsidise your third party one). Scsi drives for servers aren't too badly priced, and since you have to buy the carraige anyway you might as well.

netwhizkid

IF buying from Dell insure to get an after sales support pack too. My Dell crashed last April Friday 13th *spooky* and they wouldn't give me the techie help to format it and get rid of the virus etc. without €50 i got it done by a local repair man and he did a miles better job and installed anti virus too. Lesson if you are buying from Dell get a 3 or 4yr Hardware Guarantee as i did (4yr) but for gods sake get a technical support pack too, to insure that they will be able to help you over the phone without charging you loads for a really simple matter. This forum alone has saved me over €100 in techie help since as i didn't have to pay it to "smell computers"

WexCan

megatron wrote:

first bit , it's untrue , well mostly untrue , yes they do have a few dodgey things , but this is a industry wide issue

Excellent example: Optiplex capacitor issue - not just Dell affected.

hellboy99 wrote:

I know at one stage when we were supplying dell with hard drives they had a 3 year warranty on them, not sure if this is still the case but worth looking into.

Might do some digging tomorrow.

netwhizkid wrote:

Lesson if you are buying from Dell get a 3 or 4yr Hardware Guarantee as i did (4yr) but for gods sake get a technical support pack too, to insure that they will be able to help you over the phone without charging you loads for a really simple matter.

Dell's warranty is for hardware only. You get 30 days free software support for configuration etc etc. Beyond that it's all chargeable per issue based on the complexity of the problem. None of the support packages available include software support. This is pretty much standard across the industry, although some companies may implement it in the form of a premium rate number as opposed to a once off charge.

netwhizkid wrote:

This forum alone has saved me over €100 in techie help since as i didn't have to pay it to "smell computers"

Well that's really the trade off isn't it? Research it yourself or sit back and have someone tell you how to do it. Different people want different things, it's like choosing to walk instead of taking a taxi.

And someone's obviously seen that great cartoon at http://www.illwillpress.com/

Capt'n Midnight

Megatron wrote:

, it's a Euro law that it is illegal to sell a computer that doesn't have a OS on it. best solution is to ask for none , and then if they say it has to have one , say you'll take dos.

Dell charge MORE for Linux than for Windows, eg: the windows dimension came with freebies the linux one did not.

DOS ? - microsoft used to charge all manufaturers for that for every machine they sold regardless of whose OS they installed. Illegal, but by the time microsoft said "sorry" (they haven't improved their behaviour since, fines are overheads) DR-DOS, PC-DOS and CPM etc. had all fallen because you had to buy DOS too.

Ask for FreeDos or any othe license free GNU os,
technically since the diags disk is bootable they do come with an OS

Airblazer

can't complain about my dell system..got a dimension 8400 which is still holding it's own...I have a X850XT PE inside and a 17inch monitor so I'm only wasting my time going for a higher spec video card as I can play all games maxed out..
I have to laugh at some of the ppl I meet at lan parties who look at me with pity when they see my dell chassis...guaranteed 12 hours later I'm laughing at the 2 or 3 ppl who are having serious issues with their homebuilt systems..have the system over 16 months now and it's still going absolutely perfect..not even one problem..how many people who built their own system can say that?

Zascar

The higher spec & price of a system, the larger margin % Dell apply, and the larger discount you can get if you try. Low end dimensions almost always sell with less then 10% margin, whereas high end latitudes and servers etc can be 30%-40% plus. Parts are the same and things like ram and hard drives are rarely competive. However, show them a competitors quote and thwy will do their best to match it.

You can get Optiplex without as OS - its called the "N Series" but you can't really buy them online. I think they come with a DOS cd in the box.