Dude - I got a dud!

I am not one to normally complain. I’m a very optimistic person by nature, always willing to help others and generally a pretty up-beat person. Not so this past couple of weeks. So grab a cup of coffee, tea - whatever, and pass the cheese, because the whinning will not commence……

As you all know, I’m a web designer. I’m a one-woman operation, working full-time from my home. Business is booming, which is a good thing! My Dell computer has served me very well for 4-5 years now, but I was taxing its limitations and needed to upgrade my system. Since I had no real problems with my Dell, I decided to order another one. So I start with a base system, and customized it from there. So I got my new “super computer” with all the bells and whistles that I want/need. Life should be grand.

Well, the new system arrives and I’m literally too busy with work to do much with it for about a week or more. I finally spend an entire weekend setting the thing up, installing some of my programs and transferring files from my old system to the new one. One huge job!!

It isn’t long, and I’m getting weird error messages on the new system. So I have to stop my work, to figure out why I’m getting this error message. Over the next several days, I start getting more error messages, the dreaded “blue screen of death” appears and then the system won’t turn on at all. Ugh! I soooo do not have time for this!! This is a brand new computer for goodness sakes!! I have to call tech support. I talk to tech support for hours and hours over the course of the next couple of weeks. They have me run this diagnostic, and that. Take off the cover unplug this and that, etc…… It seems to fix things, or resolves one issue for the moment, but then it would only reappear a day or so later. Very frustrating.

In the meantime, I have clients waiting on web sites, and a brand spankin’ new Dell computer that’s giving me fits. I tell Dell to send someone out here to fix this - afterall, I do have a full warranty on my computer that’s not even a month old yet!; only to be told that they do not send technicians out for diagnostics issues, only to replace known hardware problems. Great! So that means more hours on the phone with tech support. Grrrrrrrr!!!!! I’m not happy.

The computer runs - sort of and part of the time - so I continue to plug away in trying to get work done - praying the entire time that this computer will keep working! I *thought* I had made a break-through and found my problem when tech support called me back and left a message to uninstall McAfee antivirus, as they’ve gotten numerous other clients reporting problems with the preinstalled McAfee on their systems. Sweet! So I spend an entire morning uninstalling all the various components of McAfee on my system and then purchasing and installing Norton. That did resolve one main error I had been getting. All else appears to be functioning, so I assume McAfee was the culprit and I’m happy and get back to work.

Not so fast….. yesterday, I get the blue screen of death once again. [ SCREAM! ] I am seriously behind in my work, so I do not have time to sit for hours on the phone with tech support again. I thought - I’ll just email them! Good grief, even sending an email to tech support is a process. One can not just compose a new email to support@dell.com and be done. Nope, gotta find the right email support form, on the Dell web site, and fill in all the blanks to then only receive an automated response to your problem. Okay - that does it - I’m am fuming mad!!!

So today, I am going to have to spend it once again on the phone with Dell tech support (no work today). I’m about ready to tell them to come get their dud of a Dell and I’m going to get myself a Mac!

I’ll keep you posted on my progress…….

November 11, 2005 | Filed Under Uncategorized 

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