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My (15 month old) Dell monitor developed a problem - intermittent line
of dead blue pixels resulting in a yellow vertical line across the
screen. http://i46.tinypic.com/vigwlk.jpg
So I call Dell about 12am yesterday. No problems, we'll send a
replacement, they call back to say it won't be later than Monday pm.
It arrived this morning (Sat 10am) - less than 24 hours.
Now that part impressed me - truly fantastic service.

Replacement monitor is a "refurb", but looks fine/unused clean
condition, recent production date stamp. Hmmmm...
So I plug it in and at first it's okay, and after 1/2 hour, the darned
thing is consistently flickering badly (whole screen quickly dimming)
about every 4 seconds or so.
They've replaced my dud monitor with one that's even dudder. (yeah -
I've checked by swapping between VGA/DVI connections and on 2 PCs for
both monitor problems - but I'm not paid to be Dell's QC checker).
I'm starting to get a bad feeling about how this is going to turn out.

On 2010-03-06, Me <> wrote:
> My (15 month old) Dell monitor developed a problem - intermittent line
> of dead blue pixels resulting in a yellow vertical line across the
> screen. http://i46.tinypic.com/vigwlk.jpg
> So I call Dell about 12am yesterday. No problems, we'll send a
> replacement, they call back to say it won't be later than Monday pm.
> It arrived this morning (Sat 10am) - less than 24 hours.
> Now that part impressed me - truly fantastic service.
>
> Replacement monitor is a "refurb", but looks fine/unused clean
> condition, recent production date stamp. Hmmmm...
> So I plug it in and at first it's okay, and after 1/2 hour, the darned
> thing is consistently flickering badly (whole screen quickly dimming)
> about every 4 seconds or so.
> They've replaced my dud monitor with one that's even dudder. (yeah -
> I've checked by swapping between VGA/DVI connections and on 2 PCs for
> both monitor problems - but I'm not paid to be Dell's QC checker).
> I'm starting to get a bad feeling about how this is going to turn out.

Go on, keep us informed. Dell is in the witness box, can they deliver?

In article <>,
says...
>
> > So I call Dell about 12am yesterday. No problems, we'll send a
> > replacement, they call back to say it won't be later than Monday pm.
> > It arrived this morning (Sat 10am) - less than 24 hours.
> > Now that part impressed me - truly fantastic service.
> >
> > Replacement monitor is a "refurb", but looks fine/unused clean
> > condition, recent production date stamp. Hmmmm...
> > So I plug it in and at first it's okay, and after 1/2 hour, the darned
> > thing is consistently flickering badly (whole screen quickly dimming)
> > about every 4 seconds or so.
> > They've replaced my dud monitor with one that's even dudder. (yeah -
> > I've checked by swapping between VGA/DVI connections and on 2 PCs for
> > both monitor problems - but I'm not paid to be Dell's QC checker).
> > I'm starting to get a bad feeling about how this is going to turn out.
>
> Go on, keep us informed. Dell is in the witness box, can they deliver?


Mpf. I bought a 30" Dell monitor a while back. Was quite keen on it
since it was about the only monitor that size available in NZ that had a
scaling chip built in. (it still may be the only one, for all I know;
neither Samsung nor HP do). IIRC, it was a few hundred Dollars cheaper,
too, but I'm not sure on that point.

Alas, it arrived uncalibrated. The garish (wide gamut?) colours were
horrid. Eye cancer red some guy called it; similar for the greens. BUT,
when I tuned them down so that it was suitable for desktop use, then
video rendition was like faded watercolour, barely hinted at colour,
damn near b&w. Impossible to find a balance between the two. Very
disappointing. Then, to top it all off, it developed a creeping green
tint along the top edge and particularly in one corner. RMA time.
(Incidentally, I should point out that the scaling chip proved to be
excellent, much better than my 'high-end' video card can manage).

I sent the monitor back, and I didn't want a replacement. They refunded
my money without giving me any grief over it, no diversionary tactics or
trying to turn money into credit or such like, so I can't really
complain, except for the agony spending hours on the phone to various
people in India and the Phillipines, trying to understand them, and
trying to get understood. And of course they all had to do things by
their flowcharts, so I got handed from one to another, repeatedly ...
explain again and again. In the end it boiled down to some chap in Oz
trying to find a courier that would come out to pick up the monitor
here, 80km from the nearest depot, and that's not an easy chore (NO
courier comes out here). Took weeks.

I decided that, while they behaved quite correctly, and tried their best
to be helpful and were extremely polite, that the frustration of dealing
with their 'corporate machinery' just wasn't worth any savings, or the
scaling chip. Well, and the quality of the product, obviously.

The HP I bought instead was wonderfully calibrated out of the box, and I
have no difficulty to get a colour/contrast/saturation balance that
works for desktop use as well as watching DVDs. So it goes. I'm afraid
Dell won't get my business again until they open a shop just down the
road.

-P.

On 6 Mar 2010 06:38:29 GMT, Gordon <> wrote:

>On 2010-03-06, Me <> wrote:
>> My (15 month old) Dell monitor developed a problem - intermittent line
>> of dead blue pixels resulting in a yellow vertical line across the
>> screen. http://i46.tinypic.com/vigwlk.jpg
>> So I call Dell about 12am yesterday. No problems, we'll send a
>> replacement, they call back to say it won't be later than Monday pm.
>> It arrived this morning (Sat 10am) - less than 24 hours.
>> Now that part impressed me - truly fantastic service.
>>
>> Replacement monitor is a "refurb", but looks fine/unused clean
>> condition, recent production date stamp. Hmmmm...
>> So I plug it in and at first it's okay, and after 1/2 hour, the darned
>> thing is consistently flickering badly (whole screen quickly dimming)
>> about every 4 seconds or so.
>> They've replaced my dud monitor with one that's even dudder. (yeah -
>> I've checked by swapping between VGA/DVI connections and on 2 PCs for
>> both monitor problems - but I'm not paid to be Dell's QC checker).
>> I'm starting to get a bad feeling about how this is going to turn out.
>
>Go on, keep us informed. Dell is in the witness box, can they deliver?

I had a very similar experience. The second replacement monitor has
been fine. So I am guessing that they have a history of sending out
monitors that their techs have marked up as "no fault found" due to
intermittent or time dependent faults, and letting the customers
confirm the fault is actually there.

Fortunately, our courts have already well informed Dell as to their
CGA responsibilities.

Stephen Worthington wrote:
> On 6 Mar 2010 06:38:29 GMT, Gordon <> wrote:
>
> So I am guessing that they have a history of sending out
> monitors that their techs have marked up as "no fault found" due to
> intermittent or time dependent faults, and letting the customers
> confirm the fault is actually there.
>
I guess the same. That would seem to imply that perhaps they don't pass
on to their techs the customer's description of the fault.
> Fortunately, our courts have already well informed Dell as to their
> CGA responsibilities.
>
Their NZ registered office is c/o Simpson Grierson (lawyers). There are
4 directors, domiciled in Sydney, Singapore (2) and Texas. For
small-claims, who turns up?

Peter Huebner wrote:
> In article <>,
> says...
>>> So I call Dell about 12am yesterday. No problems, we'll send a
>>> replacement, they call back to say it won't be later than Monday pm.
>>> It arrived this morning (Sat 10am) - less than 24 hours.
>>> Now that part impressed me - truly fantastic service.
>>>
>>> Replacement monitor is a "refurb", but looks fine/unused clean
>>> condition, recent production date stamp. Hmmmm...
>>> So I plug it in and at first it's okay, and after 1/2 hour, the darned
>>> thing is consistently flickering badly (whole screen quickly dimming)
>>> about every 4 seconds or so.
>>> They've replaced my dud monitor with one that's even dudder. (yeah -
>>> I've checked by swapping between VGA/DVI connections and on 2 PCs for
>>> both monitor problems - but I'm not paid to be Dell's QC checker).
>>> I'm starting to get a bad feeling about how this is going to turn out.
>> Go on, keep us informed. Dell is in the witness box, can they deliver?
>
>
> Mpf. I bought a 30" Dell monitor a while back. Was quite keen on it
> since it was about the only monitor that size available in NZ that had a
> scaling chip built in. (it still may be the only one, for all I know;
> neither Samsung nor HP do). IIRC, it was a few hundred Dollars cheaper,
> too, but I'm not sure on that point.
>
> Alas, it arrived uncalibrated. The garish (wide gamut?) colours were
> horrid. Eye cancer red some guy called it; similar for the greens. BUT,
> when I tuned them down so that it was suitable for desktop use, then
> video rendition was like faded watercolour, barely hinted at colour,
> damn near b&w. Impossible to find a balance between the two. Very
> disappointing. Then, to top it all off, it developed a creeping green
> tint along the top edge and particularly in one corner. RMA time.
> (Incidentally, I should point out that the scaling chip proved to be
> excellent, much better than my 'high-end' video card can manage).
>
> I sent the monitor back, and I didn't want a replacement. They refunded
> my money without giving me any grief over it, no diversionary tactics or
> trying to turn money into credit or such like, so I can't really
> complain, except for the agony spending hours on the phone to various
> people in India and the Phillipines, trying to understand them, and
> trying to get understood. And of course they all had to do things by
> their flowcharts, so I got handed from one to another, repeatedly ...
> explain again and again. In the end it boiled down to some chap in Oz
> trying to find a courier that would come out to pick up the monitor
> here, 80km from the nearest depot, and that's not an easy chore (NO
> courier comes out here). Took weeks.
>
> I decided that, while they behaved quite correctly, and tried their best
> to be helpful and were extremely polite, that the frustration of dealing
> with their 'corporate machinery' just wasn't worth any savings, or the
> scaling chip. Well, and the quality of the product, obviously.
>
> The HP I bought instead was wonderfully calibrated out of the box, and I
> have no difficulty to get a colour/contrast/saturation balance that
> works for desktop use as well as watching DVDs. So it goes. I'm afraid
> Dell won't get my business again until they open a shop just down the
> road.
>
"Wide Gamut" is an feature oversold as if it's a can full of caviar
instead of worms.

The monitor I'm having trouble with is a 22". I have access to a 22" HP
(LP 2275W?), but I prefer the Dell, because it's IPS rather than sPVA
panel (both viewing angles and black levels are better), sRGB rather
than wide-gamut, and although not well calibrated "out of the box", is
easy to calibrate.

On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:36:43 +1300, Me <> wrote:

>Stephen Worthington wrote:
>> On 6 Mar 2010 06:38:29 GMT, Gordon <> wrote:
>>
>> So I am guessing that they have a history of sending out
>> monitors that their techs have marked up as "no fault found" due to
>> intermittent or time dependent faults, and letting the customers
>> confirm the fault is actually there.
>>
>I guess the same. That would seem to imply that perhaps they don't pass
>on to their techs the customer's description of the fault.

No, I think that the techs simply have a lot of monitors where they
have been unable to provoke the fault. So they mark them as "no fault
found" and having passed their testing regime, they are put in stock
to be sent out again. With predictable results. In my case, the
fault on my first replacement monitor was occurring within 10 minutes
of it being turned on, which suggests that the techs are simply
incompetent. Of maybe just lazy.

>> Fortunately, our courts have already well informed Dell as to their
>> CGA responsibilities.
> >
>Their NZ registered office is c/o Simpson Grierson (lawyers). There are
>4 directors, domiciled in Sydney, Singapore (2) and Texas. For
>small-claims, who turns up?

I understand that no-one did, on the first occasion they were taken to
the Disputes Tribunal. They were comprehensively ruled against, of
course. So they asked for a re-hearing, and were comprehensively
ruled against, again. Now, apparently they have a designated NZ
manager who turns up.

On 7/03/2010 5:37 p.m., Stephen Worthington wrote:
>
> I understand that no-one did, on the first occasion they were taken to
> the Disputes Tribunal. They were comprehensively ruled against, of
> course. So they asked for a re-hearing, and were comprehensively
> ruled against, again. Now, apparently they have a designated NZ
> manager who turns up.

We bought 19 new Dell servers last week - so far 2 are dead within 24
hours of power on, with 5 yet to be unboxed. I'm going to try and
convince the management that we return the whole bloody lot and buy HP
or IBM gear.

Stephen Worthington wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:36:43 +1300, Me <> wrote:
>
>> Stephen Worthington wrote:
>>> On 6 Mar 2010 06:38:29 GMT, Gordon <> wrote:
>>>
>>> So I am guessing that they have a history of sending out
>>> monitors that their techs have marked up as "no fault found" due to
>>> intermittent or time dependent faults, and letting the customers
>>> confirm the fault is actually there.
>>>
>> I guess the same. That would seem to imply that perhaps they don't pass
>> on to their techs the customer's description of the fault.
>
> No, I think that the techs simply have a lot of monitors where they
> have been unable to provoke the fault. So they mark them as "no fault
> found" and having passed their testing regime, they are put in stock
> to be sent out again. With predictable results. In my case, the
> fault on my first replacement monitor was occurring within 10 minutes
> of it being turned on, which suggests that the techs are simply
> incompetent. Of maybe just lazy.
>
>>> Fortunately, our courts have already well informed Dell as to their
>>> CGA responsibilities.
>>>
>> Their NZ registered office is c/o Simpson Grierson (lawyers). There are
>> 4 directors, domiciled in Sydney, Singapore (2) and Texas. For
>> small-claims, who turns up?
>
> I understand that no-one did, on the first occasion they were taken to
> the Disputes Tribunal. They were comprehensively ruled against, of
> course. So they asked for a re-hearing, and were comprehensively
> ruled against, again. Now, apparently they have a designated NZ
> manager who turns up.
>
Dell asked me to return my original monitor to them, and hold on to the
first replacement. I got them to agree taking the replacement back as
at least it's quite usable - but the flickering screen on the
replacement was very annoying.
On the phone their tech service rep asked me to unpack the monitor that
I'd already packed up again, so that I could get the serial # off the
back. I did this, then repacked it again - the same serial number was
clearly marked on the outside of the carton anyway - and I seriously
doubt that they'd have sent out the replacement without a record of that.
I have a service code reference #, but neither their phone system nor
web system recognise it. But their people in Manila can look up all my
details via that number. Three times so far they've asked me to go
through all the details they already have for me, and each time they've
said that the cellphone # they have on record is my old number, but it
seems that they don't change the record. They also ask for the original
invoice number, even though they bring it up using the service reference #.
In 3-5 days, replacement #2 arrives...

Final report (I hope). The second replacement arrived, and seems
perfect. Dell phoned me twice since Monday, including on my correct
cellphone number, to conform delivery time etc. So in the end their
level of service was excellent, even if their process seems a bit baffling.