Shush! Don't tell them we sent out 11.8 million faulty machines!

Biggins

Looks like Dell are in trouble big time:

Dell is in court accused of knowingly selling thousands of computers which it knew were likely to be faulty.
Documents seen by Ashlee Vance at the New York Times show Dell staff were aware that problems with capacitors from Nichicon were likely to hit at least 11.8 million OptiPlex machines shipped to customers between May 2003 and July 2005.

An internal review by Dell itself found that 97 per cent of the machines were likely to fail over three years. The problems got worse when Dell managed to replace the faulty motherboards with other faulty ones.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/29/dell_optiplex_issues/

As complaints mounted, Dell hired a contractor to investigate the situation. According to a Dell filing in the lawsuit, which has not yet gone to trial, the contractor found that 10 times more computers were at risk of failing than Dell had estimated. Making problems worse, Dell replaced faulty motherboards with other faulty motherboards, according to the contractor’s findings.
But Dell employees went out of their way to conceal these problems. In one e-mail exchange between Dell customer support employees concerning computers at the Simpson Thacher & Bartlett law firm, a Dell worker states, “We need to avoid all language indicating the boards were bad or had ‘issues’ per our discussion this morning.”
In other documents about how to handle questions around the faulty OptiPlex systems, Dell salespeople were told, “Don’t bring this to customer’s attention proactively” and “Emphasize uncertainty.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/technology/29dell.html?src=me&ref=general

Bold boys.
I wonder what is the odds of a class action suit happening for near 12 million machines going faulty and they knew about it - and did nothing but misdirected customers!

BIG OPPS!

..And they actually thought this might stay a secret and/or get away with it? :pac:
Thats even crazier if you think about it!

starbelgrade

How long before an Apple user points out that all other PCs except Apples are faulty?

Columc

Thats why I like apple

Biggins

starbelgrade wrote: »

How long before an Apple user points out that all other PCs except Apples are faulty?

...Or Sony, Compaq, or any other pc maker to be honest.

I can see the next advert for them in the making "...at least we're not a Dell!" :pac:

monkeyfudge

starbelgrade wrote: »

How long before an Apple user points out that all other PCs except Apples are faulty?

I'm a proud owner of an Apple MacBook Pro that was part of a generation that was shipped with faulty logic boards.

starbelgrade

I have a Dell laptop, and it's never given me any pr

orourkeda

Whats wrong with pen and paper?

pickarooney

monkeyfudge wrote: »

I'm a proud owner of an Apple MacBook Pro that was part of a generation that was shipped with faulty logic boards.

Weren't those aimed exclusively at female consumers?


I'll get my chainmail.

KeithM89_old

Im not surprised. 2 faulty Dells made me move to Mac

petes

orourkeda wrote: »

Whats wrong with pen and paper?

Did you write that post on pen and paper?

ejmaztec

starbelgrade wrote: »

I have a Dell laptop, and it's never given me any pr

I had a Dell laptop, and never needed to switch on the central-heating when I used it in the winter. I also used it at breakfast time to do the toast. Apart from those uses, it was a complete crock o' sh1t.:(

jimmycrackcorm

pickarooney wrote: »

Weren't those aimed exclusively at female consumers?


I'll get my chainmail.

Can women use computers?

Gets heavy armour on.

recylingbin

Keithm89 wrote: »

Im not surprised. 2 faulty Dells made me move to Mac

I'm the same. 2 bad rides turned me ghey.

APM

on my 5th motherboard for a faulty M1330....thank god I extended the warranty, dell didn't want to know about it initially

Howard the Duck

That explains why they ditched their 3 year warranty. Dell are evil anyway. Michael Dell gives massive amounts of money to the republican party.

Rented Mule

I blame all of the unemployed people in Limerick.

....and Mary Harney.

Voodu Child

Not surprised. Faulty Dells are why I switched to Apple.

I havent had a problem since. Well, apart from faulty ram slots, flimsy hinges, discoloured casings, exploding batteries, yellow-tinged screens and phones that lose reception if you hold them the 'wrong' way. Apart from that it has been smooth sailing :cool:

Daisy Steiner

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

I was manufacturing those units at the time



La la la la

Cuddlesworth

Yes we all know MAC's are great and flawless in the eyes of fanboys. Ignoring the fact the parts that break in Dells are the exact same as those inside MAC's.

This isn't a big deal, the Optiplex desktops were mainly sold to business customers, most figured it out quite quickly and moved to another vendor or picked up a different model.

gizmo

monkeyfudge wrote: »

I'm a proud owner of an Apple MacBook Pro that was part of a generation that was shipped with faulty logic boards.

Sure you weren't just holding it wrong?

ejmaztec

Daisy Steiner wrote: »

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

I was manufacturing those units at the time



La la la la

Is this some of your work as well?:P

mooman

pickarooney wrote: »

Weren't those aimed exclusively at female consumers?


I'll get my chainmail.

I didn't know Apple made cookers:D

Indubitable

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=macs_cant

https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/31730/114765.jpg

Biggins

gizmo wrote: »

Sure you weren't just holding it wrong?

LOL Like holding the mouse with the right hand and not the left you mean? :pac:

bullets

Dell also had issues with Faulty Power supplies on the
Dimenion series a few years back, They refused to admitt
there was any problem dispite lots of threads from lots of Dell PC owners with the same issue.

Some of the power supplies were not compatible with
standard ATX power supplies, early versions of the power supplies had issues with the capacitors. Cant remember now which ones but there was supplies that had A04 and A05 on them that had issues.

Dell themselves made it very difficult for customers to get a replacement powersupply on its own, and when you eventually did find a away to get one they were chargine crazy money for them.

Other PC component online stores even started listing
Power supplies that were specifically combatible with these
Dell ones and of course they had hiked up prices.

(This was back in the days were powersupplies were typically between 150-300w)

~B

Overheal

Columc wrote: »

Thats why I like apple

Because they build phones that have no consideration for Human-Interaction?

To solve the problem, Apple suggests purchasing their $30 rubber case.

CEO Steve Jobs also contributed his own eloquent solution:

"Don't hold it that way"

http://consumerist.com/2010/06/your-new-iphones-reception-is-bad-because-youre-holding-it-wrong.html

http://consumerist.com/2010/06/class-action-brewing-for-iphone-4-death-grip-issue.html

http://www.mysmartrend.com/news-briefs/news-watch/apple-class-action-lawsuit-explored-california-law-firm-aapl

http://gizmodo.com/5573177/apple-do-the-right-thing-and-give-away-the-iphone-bumpers?skyline=true&s=i

Dont even get started on the Yellow Screen Issue, though youre welcome to google that.

how does this scale with the dell lawsuit? Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone G4s in the first 4 launch days.

ScumLord

Dell where such a good company back in the day when they where more of a supplier to offices. Rock solid they where but now they've really gone down hill. Every Dell I've seen lately has been a disappointment.

Snowie

is that the black and gray esk top ones ? i have one actually im uing it right now :eek:

Biggins

ScumLord wrote: »

Dell where such a good company back in the day when they where more of a supplier to offices. Rock solid they where but now they've really gone down hill. Every Dell I've seen lately has been a disappointment.

Agreed.

Years ago they were VERY reliable. I, myself had two earlier ones and they could take everything nearly you could throw at them.
In the latest years things got so bad that now I wouldn't honestly touch them with a barge pole and have advised others to avoid them at all costs for a number of reasons.

I didn't then know about the inherent fault they were keeping secret but it looks like my words previously might have innocently saved a few people/businesses some trouble later thankfully.

Misty Chaos

I remember having a Dell laptop, the one before my current Acer. Its hard drive died after only two years! :mad:

My ipod has lasted longer than that dell laptop!

Biggins

Misty Choas wrote: »

I remember having a Dell laptop, the one before my current Acer. Its hard drive died after only two years! :mad:

My ipod has lasted longer than that dell laptop!

Hell!
My first marriage lasted longer than some of their computers it seems.

ScumLord

Biggins wrote: »

Agreed.

Years ago they were VERY reliable. I, myself had two earlier ones and they could take everything nearly you could throw at them.

Most the Dells we had at work over the years where thrown out not due to any failures they ran as good as they always did they just got to old to run any of the new software.

My Uncle got a laptop off them recently and I thought it was terrible it was over burdened with software it didn't need and could barely run but I suppose that's par for the course with cheaper laptops these days.

Dravokivich

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Can women use computers?

Gets heavy armour on.

No...

Fúck where's my "cloak of dashing"?

Cuddlesworth

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Yes we all know MAC's are great and flawless in the eyes of fanboys. Ignoring the fact the parts that break in Dells are the exact same as those inside MAC's.

This isn't a big deal, the Optiplex desktops were mainly sold to business customers, most figured it out quite quickly and moved to another vendor or picked up a different model.

Exactly. The capacitor plague problem hit a vast number of electronics from almost all manufacturers - even several makes of Sky digiboxes were affected. I've also seen old Abit, Transcend and Foxconn motherboards keel over. So it's in no way specific to Dell, though they obviously tried to cover it up.

Duggy747

Oh dear, I've a Dell Studio 17 laptop that I got back in December. The thing is well built and haven't had any problems on the physical or hardware side.

Except it's got one of those self-loading bays which I never like and a goddamn HDMI output only................the last laptop had S-Video which was so goddamn handy! Up until recently I streamed this as a media server but UPC supply us with pathetic Cisco routers nowadays. (They don't allow communication from wireless to wired devices, multicast is disabled on them)

Years ago Dell were a great, reliable company. Many of the laptops and desktops I had to repair were of older models and were of sturdy builds. Now many of the lower end stuff they ship out are as untrustworthy as a pervert at a knickers convention.

SugarHigh

Keithm89 wrote: »

Im not surprised. 2 faulty Dells made me move to Mac

Toshiba are better know for reliability than Apple and are cheaper, why the **** did you buy the 2nd Dell anyway?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/17/laptop-reliability-survey-asus-and-toshiba-win-hp-fails/

Sanjuro

bullets wrote: »

Faulty Power

Don't mention the war!


Sorry.

Indubitable

Polish workers just aren't as good as Irish workers.:pac::pac: simples.

briantwin

Dell, HP and Toshiba may still be sued for using defective GPU's on their laptop boards. Dell XPS M1330,m1530 , HP Pavillion DV range , and the Toshiba Qosmio range of recent years all had the same defect. All the companies are blaming Nvidia for using the wrong solder on the chips themselves and Nvidia is blaming them.

Bottom line, consumers don't really matter to these large companies when their (the customers) money is already in the bank.

Duggy747

Housemates 2nd HP Pavillion's (The first one died on him and it was replaced under warranty) charger died. He got onto HP and they said they'd send one out to him.

6 weeks later still no charger so he rang them and they said they have to take his laptop and replace the motherboard as they "don't have his charger model in stock" They had no intention of telling him unless he rang.

Hmmmm............

Archeron

Looks like the moral of the story is that all PC manufacturer warranties are cack. I've sold Sony, HP, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and I can honestly say that for the most part, they just dont wanna know when something goes wrong.

Never sold a Dell, but I do know somebody who logged a call and got a screwdriver in the post from them as a solution

Rented Mule

kingofthe3rdyrs wrote: »

Polish workers just aren't as good as Irish workers.:pac::pac: simples.

Better re-check the dates these were manufactured.

Truth be told, Dell has not been the same since they left America.

Gunsfortoys

I have a dell and it has caused me more to repair than what I paid for it, I repaired it for the last time recently and if it gives me anymore trouble out it goes.

Biggins

Gunsfortoys wrote: »

I have a dell and it has caused me more to repair than what I paid for it, I repaired it for the last time recently and if it gives me anymore trouble out it goes.

Now I suddenly think of a nickname for my first wife. DOH!!!
I should have called her "Dell" and done sooner what the poster above is going to do!

"Dell from Hell"
It would have been a good one at the time! :pac:

Gunsfortoys

Biggins wrote: »

Now I suddenly think of a nickname for my first wife. DOH!!!
I should have called her "Dell" and done sooner what the poster above is going to do!

A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go

Biggins

Gunsfortoys wrote: »

A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go

...but one can cut the cord!
Mind you, I was tempted to cut something else!

Anyway - back on topic...

Dell antics... BOOOOOOOOO

JONJO THE MISER

I brought my dell Inspirion 1300 in may 2006 over 4 years old, so far it has been soaked in drink (gave up but came back on a week later) fell off the top of a bus, droped on the ground, the battery is dead the last 2 years, the screen is hanging off one hinge and still the old boy powers away:D. i even give the old boy the odd punch.

peasant

I think I had one of those optiplex computers ...but seemingly I was lucky.

It didn't work straight out of the box ...rang Dell, a guy came and changed the motherboard and it worked flawlessly then until it got frazzled by a lightning strike

Sitting in front of another optiplex as we speak ...works fine too

peasant

peasant wrote: »

I think I had one of those optiplex computers ...but seemingly I was lucky.

It didn't work straight out of the box ...rang Dell, a guy came and changed the motherboard and it worked flawlessly then until it got frazzled by a lightning strike

Sitting in front of another optiplex as we speak ...works fine too

I think it was mainly the GX260/270/280 models that are affected.

Guy:Incognito

orourkeda wrote: »

Whats wrong with pen and paper?

The internet runs too slow and it doesnt do flash.

peasant

Karsini wrote: »

I think it was mainly the GX260/270/280 models that are affected.

Where they the very bottom of the range?

Then I had one