DELL Beyond the Marketing !!!

WillieDH

Dell’s Quality Issues


1. Incident – 21. June 2006

Dell laptop explodes at a conference in Japan
The laptop computer suddenly started to burn and produced several explosions for more than five minutes.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32550


2. Incident - 04. July 2006
Two Dell laptops started to burn
A man from Pittsburgh reported about his Dell Inspiron 1150 started to burn in February 2006:
“My laptop started to smoke and catch fire in my bedroom, under normal use. After about 3 months, with another 1150 (the replacement), it too started the same problems I was having just before unit #1 caught fire. It was locking up constantly, and certain things on the laptop would not work. I contacted Dell that evening, and at 230am EST, the laptop began to emit smoke“.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32739


15. July 2006
Laptop batteries a possible cause of plane fire
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is looking into the possibility that laptop batteries may have started a fire on a UPS cargo plane that was forced to make an emergency landing last February. The plane's three crew members managed to escape with only minor injuries, but the fire ultimately destroyed the plane and most of the cargo on board. While the NTSB investigation hasn't pinned the blame on the batteries just yet, the FAA's has Harry Webster has testified that lithium-ion batteries can vent flammable liquid and "pose a risk to the cargo compartment."
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/13/ntsb_laptopbattery_upsfire/


3. Incident – 19. July 2006
Facility evacuated because of burning Dell laptop
A blogger from Utah reported about an evacuation of a Novell building in the USA because of a burning Dell laptop.
"Building D of Novell in Provo was evacuated at about 1:30 PM today because of fire alarms set off by a Dell D600 battery "venting with flame" under normal use/charging conditions. It took the laptop out with it, of course."






http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml?articleId=190700059




19. July 2006
Dell Knew Of Dozen Burned Laptops Before Recall
Dell grappled with apparently severe overheating problems in scores of notebooks for at least two years before it announced a recall of 22,000 notebooks last year, according to a source close to the company. The source allowed journalists to review documentation of investigations into the notebook problems, and the source said that documentation was supplied to Dell executives. The documentation included detailed evidence, on a notebook-by-notebook basis, of which component areas suffered the brunt of the overheating. The documentation showed the following:
• One notebook was charred black for several inches on the bottom corner of the unit, about one-half inch from the system fan;
• Another notebook with a two-inch hole showing where a section of case had melted away, charred black and brown on the bottom of the unit, on the side, about half-way between the fan and the battery;
(More information about the damaged notebooks can be found in the link below).

http://www.personaltechpipeline.com/190600186?cid=rssfeed_pl_ptp


4. Incident – 28. July 2006


Another Dell laptop ignites
Another Dell laptop burst into flames in a company in Vernon Hills, Illinois. Again it looks like the batteries are the cause. It is reported that the computer was in standby mode when it started to burn.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/28/another-dell-laptop-ignites/


5. Incident – 28. July 2006

Swiss Dell customers facing problems
It is reported that Swiss Dell customers facing problems with Dell OptiPlex PCs. The cause for this defect are bulged and partly leaking capacitors.
The problem was already reported last year in the US.
http://www.inside-it.ch/frontend/insideit?XE7lhitk49Zh64ao6ObWaa0hiusMx50OAnd80heEEeifImn9Pq5Xhm1g50LL
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=24596


6. Incident - 28. July 2006
Dell desktop switches off by mobile phone
It is reported that Dells desktop PC GX520 will go into suspended animation if you put a mobile phone near the hard disk when receing a text message or a phone call.
Blogger Rickard Liljeberg found this so weird that he took, and posted, a video of the shutdown on his blog.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/28/dell_turned_off_by_text/




7. Incident – 31. July 2006
Dell laptop number 5 explodes
This time it was in Singapore, a Dell Latitude D410. The laptop computer is showing extensive damage to the underside of the computer consistent with a traumatic malfunction in the battery area.

http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives/005359.html




2. Dells Quality-Marketing


Quality is just Marketing at Dell
Dell is trying to convince customers of its “high quality” standards by various means. They state different quality tests and performance benchmarks on their website but it is clear to see that “quality” is merely a marketing argument.



Dells Reaction to the latest problems
In reaction to the upcoming reports of defective batteries and burning laptop computers Dell had to set up an own web site to assist customers with suspect units in replacing suspect notebook batteries.

“Batteries subject to recall should not be used while awaiting a replacement battery pack from Dell. You may continue to use your notebook computer using the AC adapter power cord originally provided with your notebook.”


http://www.dellbatteryprogram.com


Effect on Customer Perception

Customers are getting annoyed about the constant quality issues.

http://www.ihatedell.net


Ratings show that Dell tops all others manufacturer combined in consumer complaints

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/dell_lap.html


Already sub average customer satisfaction even declined further in the last six months.


http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1867.html





A reader satisfaction survey
of the US “PC Magazine”
showed that 26%
of all Dell business
notebooks needed
repair!



http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1851298,00.asp

Ruu_Old

Ah less of the Dell bashing.

Jambo

In fairness they only took 2 months to deliver a new power supply to me after it continually crackled and eventually started to smoke fairly bad !!

PogMoThoin

angel_of_death wrote:

In fairness they only took 2 months to deliver a new power supply to me after it continually crackled and eventually started to smoke fairly bad !!

Yeah.....After numerous calls to yer man in India...lol

Ruu_Old

PogMoThoin wrote:

Yeah.....After numerous calls to yer man in India...lol

He has a name you know! One that I can't pronounce.:o

Static M.e.

A few odd fires here and their... WHO really is to blame, Dell I think not! To be honest it all sounds like a Communist plot to me .. fires as if..

majiktripp

I was about to start writing a middle of the road neither for nor against Dell post seeing as I have so much of their gear but when I actually think about all the times I've had to deal with them (I'm a tech by trade.) on behalf of customers its just ridiculous....Gold Next Day business service for a GX520 - took 3 days to get the part to us...and I never dealt with an Indian on the phone that time,all soley Irish based support....they really do have strides to take to improve their support systems before they even start worrying about the production end of things,but one improving without the other just wont cut it...

Wertz

The sh*t will really hit the fan when someone using a dell lappy on a plane has it explode like the one at the japanese conference.

The dell battery recall site has been up and running for over a year now (I know because I thought I had one of the faulty units on my inspiron) and on the whole "Ratings show that Dell tops all others manufacturer combined in consumer complaints" point, you have to consider that Dell probably also outsells all those other vendors combined.

I'm not turning fanboi here; the exploding battery thing is downright dangerous and could end up getting someone killed (perhaps by an over eager air marshall ) but all they can do is do a recall...the real problems here stem back to cheap manafacturing processes in use in china and taiwan where most of these batteries are sourced...it comes down to basic economics...buying a heap of cheap units to keep costs down on the end unit....the factory wants to keep costs down and profit high so some bad eggs slip through the QC net (assuming there is one).

All people can do is vote with their feet...but you'll find most people will vote with their credit cards and end up buying whatever seems to be the best value; ie the Dell.

K.O.Kiki

Apple FTW! *

*in case you didn't guess it: that was a joke...

uberpixie

K.O.Kiki wrote:

Apple FTW! *

*in case you didn't guess it: that was a joke...

Yeah apple are pretty dodgy when it comes to the old QC as well.

zilog_jones

It's not just Dell who have problems with combusting laptop batteries - I've heard of this happen several times (and have seen several recall notices) about HP laptops too.

Dell don't make Lithium-ion cells - it's probably Sanyo or some Japanese company who make them for Dell. But whether the fault lies with Dell's design or the Li-ion cell manufacturer's design is not known.

It's kinda the same thing with dodgy cap's in desktops - again it's not Dell who make them, but it is Dell's fault if they knowingly buy cheap ****ty Chinese cap's. If it's some fault with a batch of capacitors from a respectable manufacturer, then it's just as likely to happen with any product that contained them - be it Dell PCs, someone else's motherboards or anything else. There's still the chance the problem lies with the motherboard design - then it would be Dell's fault (more or less), but that's usually not the case.

The above cases don't really surprise me, and don't make me think Dell are any worse than the other big companies. I still won't buy their stuff though - I've just had better personal experience with HP/Compaq products and like their designs better (for starters I've never seen a modern HP/Compaq microtower without an AGP or PCI-E 16x slot!), and have heard great things about Fujitsu-Siemens too.