Dell strikes again.

The service person came on Wednesday I believe it was. Replaced the
hard drive and was gone in 5 minutes. I held off reconnecting the
machine until today Sat. Same thing happened, which makes me think
there is something more than the HD with problems.
Calling Dell on the weekend I guess is a fruitless deed.
To be specific it just asks to hit f1 to reboot, nothing happens.
Keeps repeating.
I took a look inside in case the video card or something was loose but
it is not like it even has a video card. nothing except the ram looks
anything like my machine.
I guess I will have to wait til Monday.
It is for my Daughter when school starts and this is a pain. I had the
machine on my work room table when the guy came and when I went to the
web page today with my case number etc, it said I was not home user or
something like that. I wonder if the creep who did not check anything
said because he saw a computer on its side in a work space that I
should be changed to a business acct. I just want to get it set up in
time for the new school year.
To refresh, It is a 2.3 gig dimension. Home xp if it will work. What
the ^%^#$# else could be wrong. It worked fine for a few days, then
when left on all night it started acting up. Hit f1 hit f1. NaSa.
I love my machine I built myself. Not a problem. Knock on wood. <G>

 

<snip>

unless you have the tech. demonstrate to you that the machine is working
when they are done...
you are at least partially to blame

 

yeah I spect you be raht, but they still have to make it right. It is
still under warranty. Darn, it next time he will set it up.

 

yep...

 

What led to the problem being (mis)diagnosed as the hard drive in the first place?
You built your own machine, but you don't know what the loose card is?
Dimension.... 2400, 4600?
There is exactly one piece of information on a Dell machine that will immediately tell anyone familiar with them the
exact details of the machine, the service tag.

 

<snip>

When a Dell tech (note: they are not employed by Dell but are
independent contractors) installs a new HD it is blank. You will have to
use your system restore cd to reinstall the operating system and
programs. I used to do this for Dell under contract. It was flat rate
work so the idea was to get in and out as fast as possible hence the 5
minute call.

 

Not entirely true, they told me on the phone that the hd came with
full install. So did the service person. There is something else not
right.

 

The machine I built is fine. No problems other than a blown power
supply which new egg sent a new one without question. Up and running
in a few days.
The dell I bought for my Daughter. It is to be her back to school
gift.
Now when a last week when I first set it up it worked just fine. That
is after I got rid of AOL garbage. It worked for a few days and then I
left it on overnight and the next day it would not boot, kept asking
for f1. hit f1. Tried different things and then called dell and they
said the hard drive was bad. Sent quickie and replaced the hard drive
with xp installed, only the same prob, hit f1. I have to wait till
Monday and when the person returns, this time they are going to boot
it up until I see it working.
I never wanted dell but this one was a good deal. That is it will be
once they get it working. I wonder if the MB is bad. That other disk
he took with him. I will let dell know about that too.
Ahhhhhh, should, coulda, wooda. Agggghh.
And the people at dell say they are technicians.

 

joevan wrote:

OK, it's been a couple of years since I did any work for them (they
don't offer competitive compensation). Sounds like you'll have to run
the Dell support gauntlet again and have them look at the problem again
if it's not the HD. The techs that come to your place are not allowed to
diagnose (incredible!). I was sent out to the same place three times
with different parts to fix a problem when I knew what was needed after
the first visit. Now I didn't really care since they paid for each visit
but you might want to see if you can get bumped up to the second tier
support where you have a slightly better chance of talking to someone
that might know what they're doing. Good Luck!

 

I can't bleeve he got away with leaving in five minutes. It is HIS
responsibility to make sure it boots right. If I am understanding you
right, it is not MB. If I am also understanding you, when you start up
it goes to dos screen telling you to f1? If so, don't let it get to the
screen that says hit f1. Try going from the f1 dos page and pressing
the button to turn it off and keep it pressed for 15 seconds. Then let
it go and start again. As soon as you see any form of life (split
second probly) press cntrl button and keep it pressed. This might let
you arrive at another dos screen. Try some of the options.
johnny

 

and you say you built a pc????
Did you try booting from a floppy disk???

 

Left it on all night... and was it connected to the Internet all night via
broadband without a firewall? You probably have 40leven viruses.

 

Not on.. I use a dialer and always disconnect when away from the
machine. And besides the damn thing had a virus scan and firewall and
I had just updated all. Including spybot etc. So you be wrong about
the virus but something is not right. And they gotta fix it. I think
what Virus checker said about getting to a higher level of
intelligence might hep. Most here don got too much.

 

Hey come on guy, what the heck you trying to do start a war.
The gd thing did not come with a floppy disk and I am not going to
install anything until they get it working again. It worked fine the
first few days. Then nada. Read the other posts maybe you will then
know how to respond.
Yes I built my own pc. It has a floppy, it has a dvd burner and a cd
burner and yes they all work fine. I run xp pro, use broadband and my
daughter who is going on 15 uses it and we keep it working just fine.
I insist she update vs, spybot, sb, etc.
Your opening seems to suggest just what? Have you compared the newer
dells over what I have. You really should not post unless you are an
expert on the new stuff. The monitor plugs into a port and on the
other side of the plug is not a card. I don't know what it is other
than some integrated system that I have never seen before. Prolly I
can envision the configuration in a laptop maybe. Never been there and
don't intend to.

 

Sorry I wasted my time with you. After reading the 5 or 6 posts you
made recently I percieve you as a smart ass. Troll?

 

PS: She sucks cock and swallows.

 

snort!

 

Neigh,

 

Whiiny,

If you are serious, which I strongly doubt at this point, did you check to see if the drive was formatted and loaded
with Windows, as someone else suggested?

 

If you are serious you would have read my other posts. Dell installed
a loaded hard drive. That is what I was told and without a floppy
drive my options are limited. I put a cd with windows on it in the
drive and it went nowhere. Nada. Something is very wrong with this
dell. I will call tomorrow as on the weekends it is basically
hopeless.
The runaround the big creeps give you. Whew.