Bummer dude! Oh.... I mean sorry you have had such trouble, thanks for sharing. I won't buy a Dell.
On my Dell right now -- second one and LOVE THEM.
Bought this one about a year ago.
The previous one my wife still uses and is about 3 years old.
Dell is the only company I will buy from. They rock.
I LOVE my DELL......BUMP
I did a lot of research before buying a laptop in late July. The Dell's looked attractive, but the reviews were not good. Ended up with a good deal on an HP from Best Buy.
btt
My brother put 2 in the trash in less than 3 years. The techs they send to his house couldn't fix them. About 6 trips for the first one. They finally said enough and gave him a new one. It lasted less than a year and ended up in the dump. He went to a local PC shop and had one built from scratch to his needs. Awesome PC. Not one problem in a year. He bought his son a Gateway laptop and it was in the shop the first month. Power supply was bad. Took them 10 weeks to get it back to him. I have an Emachine that was free after all the rebates. 3 and a half years and still going strong. Not a peep out of it. Cable ISP, video and audio streaming is great.
After good experience with Dell on the first one, four years ago, I set out to buy another one via the Internet. (We're in a town of 1,000, and live a half mile into the woods. So. long-range sales and service are a must.)
Sorry your experience is so miserable. Ours has been quite different.
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I have 3 Dell laptops right now and 1 Dell desktop.
I've owned at least 4 other Dell laptops in the last 2 1/2 years.
I've built my own PCs for a while but as far as "namebrand PCs", Dell can not be beat.
You may have just gotten a "lemon".
It happens.
A friend was having problems (desktop PC) recently, didn't know if hardware or XP, I helped as much as I could but decided it was something due to XP and/or driver(s) & I'm no XPert. He called Dell even tho' his warranty had expired, they were cooperative, patient and between them & him the problems were fixed. He's now a very happy customer.
Sorry for your trouble.
I have a Dell, I know people who have Dells, nobody has a problem, somoen I know needed some tech support and got it with no problems.
I hope they'll fix it for you and you won't have any more trouble.
Desktops I build my own. Can get better quality for the same price large companies sell their crap for.
Laptops: Sony vaio all the way. They cost more, but they are more innovative and they just keep running.
Got a PC and a laptop here. No troubles.
Winders is a different story.
Have had both good and bad experiences with Dell computers.
The bad ones are making me think about getting an Apple next time around.
If you get a bad one they should replace it outright.
Another suggestion:
You may want to post the technical details about what do you think the problem is with your computer, and what isn't working, etc.
There are a lot of technically knowledgeable FReepers, who could help you identify, whether it's really a hardware or software problem.
When I had the problem with my custom made computer, that the people, who buit it couldn't fix, it turned out it had a problem with the CD-ROM drive (definie hardware problem) and a setting in the software.
When I took it in to someone who knew what he was doing, he put in another CD-ROM, showed me what was wrong with the original setting, never had any problems afterwards.
My son says the same thing. Since they moved to China, the product is garbage, like most Chinese made products.
Another Dell user here. We bought a desktop in 2001, and I got a used laptop late last year.
After upgrading the desktop from ME to XP, we've had no problems at all.