Well I finally did it...
Thread Starter
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Joined: May 2001
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Possibly sad.gif
Either way, next time I will not buy a Dell. I will probably just have someone build me a computer intead. Doesn't really matter at this point because like I said before, this computer will last me several years.
Either way, next time I will not buy a Dell. I will probably just have someone build me a computer intead. Doesn't really matter at this point because like I said before, this computer will last me several years.
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Joined: Jun 2001
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Funny. A couple of days ago, I was pretty up on Dell. Friday, I had no less than 3 of them bite the dust.
1. HDD failure. They did send out a new one, should be here Monday. No SW on it, gotta load off of the CDs. Hopefully there shouldn't be an issue with that. Tech support was barely competant to diagnose "No HDD detected" in BIOS. Guh...
2. Video card gives off large cloud of acrid smoke. Several chips on the card look deep-fried. The tech didn't ask stupid questions after that. Video card arriving Monday. (Gotta wonder about secondary damage, and cause. (Power supply?))
3. Wierdest possible problem. This actually failed Thursday, and Dell diagnosed it with my client as a bad HDD. They sent out a new HDD, and a ATA133 cable. It wasn't the HDD. The BIOS settings got scrambled, and it said "No boot device." -- USB keyboard doesn't work AT ALL.
I connected a PS/2 keyboard, and got into BIOS. Reset everything to default, system boots. The sound card was behaving badly... Very badly. Get message "New hardware found ... Ethernet adapter" -- Noway, nohow can I install a driver for the NIC. Diagnostics says "What NIC?"
Swap the modem and the sound card. The sound cars works, the modem doesn't. NIC is still fried. Looks like a bad motherboard, PCI bus arbitration. Just on a lark, I pulled the NIC. It's a bus-mastering type, and it seems that the NIC is the problem. Of course, without the NIC, the station is useful for 2 things: Solitaire and a doorstop. This is in the company president's office. They are currently NOT pleased with Dell. They spent a few hours on hold to get the problem incorrectly diagnosed.
Of course all's well that ends well. I get to charge lots of money, which means that my performance bonus will look really nice this month. I look like a hero to the customer, and next time they buy computers, they'll buy 'em from ME, so I can make even more money.
1. HDD failure. They did send out a new one, should be here Monday. No SW on it, gotta load off of the CDs. Hopefully there shouldn't be an issue with that. Tech support was barely competant to diagnose "No HDD detected" in BIOS. Guh...
2. Video card gives off large cloud of acrid smoke. Several chips on the card look deep-fried. The tech didn't ask stupid questions after that. Video card arriving Monday. (Gotta wonder about secondary damage, and cause. (Power supply?))
3. Wierdest possible problem. This actually failed Thursday, and Dell diagnosed it with my client as a bad HDD. They sent out a new HDD, and a ATA133 cable. It wasn't the HDD. The BIOS settings got scrambled, and it said "No boot device." -- USB keyboard doesn't work AT ALL.
I connected a PS/2 keyboard, and got into BIOS. Reset everything to default, system boots. The sound card was behaving badly... Very badly. Get message "New hardware found ... Ethernet adapter" -- Noway, nohow can I install a driver for the NIC. Diagnostics says "What NIC?"
Swap the modem and the sound card. The sound cars works, the modem doesn't. NIC is still fried. Looks like a bad motherboard, PCI bus arbitration. Just on a lark, I pulled the NIC. It's a bus-mastering type, and it seems that the NIC is the problem. Of course, without the NIC, the station is useful for 2 things: Solitaire and a doorstop. This is in the company president's office. They are currently NOT pleased with Dell. They spent a few hours on hold to get the problem incorrectly diagnosed.
Of course all's well that ends well. I get to charge lots of money, which means that my performance bonus will look really nice this month. I look like a hero to the customer, and next time they buy computers, they'll buy 'em from ME, so I can make even more money.
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Joined: Jul 2001
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QUOTE
Iago:
Thank God he didn't go for MacinTrash. Oy. The Civic of computers. All body kit and NUTTIN' under the hood.
WTF, can we turn old posts into flames?Thank God he didn't go for MacinTrash. Oy. The Civic of computers. All body kit and NUTTIN' under the hood.
J/K, all I'll say is this. I've managed a group of 25 Mac users for the past 8 years. I've never had any part of an Apple computer ever go bad on me. Not one RAM chip, hard drive or video card. Nada. I guess they are like Civics
