Quote Originally Posted by Lord Orwell
I would recommend either of the latter but i've heard horror stories lately about dell's customer support. Supposedly they outsourced it and it's getting horrible ratings.
That's absolutely true. With standard tech support, you get sent to call centers in India. A combination of lousy phone wiring and possibly thick accents makes listening a painful experience. Add to the fact that the call center workers aren't trained on the specifics of Dell equipment and most aren't even trained in basic computer technology and are going off a bunch of lists and websites for their info... something most of us computer hacks have already gone through, and it's downright infuriating.

The plus side, for an extra couple hundred you can get Dell "premium" support which routes you to American call centers with good phone wiring to speak to people with native accents who are pretty knowledgeable about the specifics of Dell equipment and know their way around computers pretty well, including the esoteric settings and configurations in Windows Server.

It's worth it 1000%.


---Story time---
The flip side of this whole story, recently, I had a Dell Vostro problem. The monitor suddenly went dead (as in no-signal, monitor still functioned). No POST, no Windows, nothing. Can't be a driver or software issue if I can't see the POST. I figured "possible monitor burnout" and tried a different monitor. Nothing. I check the pins on the video cable; they look fine. Now I'm thinking "possible video card burnout" and I tried a new video card. Nothing. Now I'm thinking... damn... PSU? I hook up a different power supply. Nothing.

This whole time, the computer is acting like it's booting to Windows! It merrily starts up, pauses as it POSTs, beeps once, small pause, hard drive starts grinding like mad for 3 minutes, eventually dying down as Windows comes up. I just can't see any of it on the screen. No beeps about no video adapter, no dead activity, the hardware is behaving normally.

Now I'm thinking... wow... maybe it's the motherboard?! Something on the PCIx slot blew and it can't detect the fault? I call Dell, I get "standard" tech support. The guy's accent is fine, I really don't mind call centers in India, what I mind are brainless techs trying to diagnose a problem and running me down paths I know are pointless.

The next 2 hours, I'm swapping RAM, unplugging components, playing POST beeps over the phone... all of these tests pointless from everything I know about computers. The tech doesn't care, he wants me to push on, I humor him. Finally, after two hours, he tells me he'll send out a Dell tech with a new motherboard the next day. I tell him fine, and proceed to set up my coworker with a laptop on our wireless, piped through our VPN and running Remote Desktop to his handicapped PC. The machine seems to be running perfectly fine over Remote Desktop. I'm stumped as to what is causing the monitor blackout.

The tech comes out. tests the system for 20 minutes repeating the tests I did before I caled customer service. He agrees it's gotta be the motherboard. He swaps it. STILL NOTHING. Now, we're totally stumped. Then he does the one thing I didn't do, replaced the video cable. VIOLA! It works. For god knows whatever reason, the video cable went bad. The machine wasn't moved, bumped or anything, it was fine one minute, my coworker leaves his office for 20 minutes, power-save shuts off the monitor, he returns, and somewhere in there, the video cable went bad.
---End Story---

Weirdest hardware bug I ever had, but also the worst tech call I ever had. Most of our machines are bought with the premium support, and I've never had that kind of tail-chasing with them. The premium call centers would have maybe had me do a BIOS clear test, but after that, immediately sent out the tech because they understand when I tell them "the computer seems like it's booting, I hear no abnormal beeps and the hard drive is grinding like it's booting Windows", that it's not the RAM, CPU or Video Card not in the slot.