Dell Problem

spuddy

My month-old Inspiron 8600c is giving me trouble. Out of the blue yesterday while watching a DVD it died mid playback. Strange I thought, so re strarted machine and carried on. Few minutes later, died again.

Tried again today, fine for first 30mins, then whenever I try to run a processor-heavy app, out it goes.

Overheating problem maybe?

How much trouble am I going to have with Dell to get this sorted?

spuddy

Update: Machine gets as far as Windows logo, then dies. Its not an over heating problem

Terra

Shouldn't have too much trouble as long as you follow some diagnostic proceedures....

First of all rule out that it is not the operating system that is causing your system to power off.

When you boot up the system just go into the bios and see if it turns off straight away there.

Also remove the battery as I have a laptop that suddenly turns off and it seems to be the battery that is causing it.

I'd recommend using dells email support as it's easier then trying to explain the problem over the phone to some india tech support techician

iceman_2001_ie

Terra wrote:

trying to explain the problem over the phone to some india tech support techician

Isn't Dell tech support, just outside Bray (Cherry Orchard?) in county Wicklow?

They actually speak english there.
And despite all the sh*te that Dell computer/servers/laptops cause, there tech support, I find, are very helpful and generally get the problem sorted. (The one time they didn't was due to a cr@p HP printer that I got from them)

Do your own diagnostic analysis first, by all means - you might as well pander to the little engineer that resides in all our hearts - but DO call Dell before you decide that it was all a horrible mistake, and become a hermit and use an abacus and paper for the rest of your life (which will approximately be 4 months, living without broadband)

Broadband = Oxygen

stakey

Dell tech support is a nightmare over the phone. The person on the other side of the phone is not in anyway a tech person, they have a monitor in front of them with questions to ask you, its basically a troubleshooter like that you would see on Windows when somethings screws up on that. Oh and yes they are in India, in my workplace during the summer i spend 6 hrs on the phone to Dell one day trying to get tech support on a PDA. Official reply from Dell at the end? Sorry sir but the problem you are having has never come up before (ie. it aint on the screen) could we ring you back when we have a solution? I had to ring them a week later and it continued, another 6 hr phone call.

My suggestion... email them!!!!

Saruman

They probably outsource some calls to india too. Anyway... how does itl ook in safe mode??? Could be a bad driver or something if you are lucky.. what OS? Is it XP? if you have system restore enabled try setting it back.. otherwise try event viewer and see if you have any problems listed.. if so post it aliong with the event id.
www.eventid.net to check yourself.

Terra

All home user systems and now most business users are supported by indian tech support

Cherrywood now mostly support large corporate customers and servers.

They also do the gold support that is available on home user systems.