I just wasted about an hour and a half talking to Dell tech support about my Dell XPS M1730. I easily paid over $3000 for this beast 3 years ago... Top of the line. etc. etc. etc. My problems with this thing first started up when I installed Win7 on it a couple of years ago. For whatever reason, the video drivers never quite seemed right with the hardware and although I have 2x8800M video cards installed, I had to disable one due to incompatibilities. Whatever.
Then, about 7 or 8 months ago, the battery quit holding a charge. Which, I understand, but instead of dying off quietly, I would getting annoying nags about it, so I just pulled the battery completely. Last week the Power Supply quit being recognized. Huh? So, what does the software do? Derate of course. I purchased a new power supply. That didn't fix it.
I'm stuck with a machine that is about as crippled as you can get. The derating brings my programming builds to a crawl. Oh, and I'm only 149 days out of the extended three year warranty I purchased. The support people were sympathetic and polite, which is great, but how does that help me? It doesn't.Their solution was to upgrade the BIOS. Oh, but wait, you can't run the reflash program unless you have a recognized power supply and battery. Oops. There goes that idea.
I figured my only option was to get a new motherboard. Tech support gave me the out-of-warranty repairs number, who then redirected me to somebody that claimed I shouldn't have been directed to. Argh! They said my best bet was to skip a motherboard replacement altogether and instead buy a new computer. Ummm. Excuse me? I have no desire to purchase another Dell. I recommend everyone avoid them at all costs. I was considering to 'upgrade' to an Alienware machine -- but they share the Dell taint so I guess I need to look elsewhere.
If you are considering buying a Dell, think again.
A disappointed, FORMER Dell customer.
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