Dell Tech Support chat......20min of my life I will never get back

[Ex-MGSTech]

Martin Jan D

 

Thanks for chatting with us. Ask me anything.

 

 

 

Chat started at 3:30 PM

• Hi Steve. Thank you for contacting Dell Technical Support. My name is Martin Jan. Please allow me a moment to review your case details.

3:30 PM

• I understand that you have problem with system overheating. Do not worry, i am here to help you.

3:32 PM

• One of 9 units purchased and two of them are having serious heat issues (in that they get too hot to touch ) and then lockup

• the other unit is: ******

• In order to assist you further, please confirm if you are contacting with regard to the system with the service tag ******.

Martin Jan D

• yes and the one I've just posted

3:33 PM

• Thank you for letting me know.

• I was able to check that you are using INSPIRON 3791 that has an active Collect and Return warranty.

• Yes

• Are you doing collections during the COVID -19 lockdown?

3:34 PM

• Before we begin, I just want to verify your email is ******@******* and your phone ************

• Both units have been re-boxed at present

• Yes we do Mr. *******, but we need to identify first what's causing the issue by doing troubleshooting and diagnostic test on it.

Martin Jan D

• Yes apart from working from home today that tel no is the school I work for

3:35 PM

• Were there any troubleshooting done on the system before they were put inside the box>

Martin Jan D

• I'm an ex IBM Laptop engineer, what test are you going to do to prove something is getting too hot?

3:36 PM

• Yes use them they get VERY hot compared to the other 7 identical units and stop responding, let them cool down for an hour and you get another 15 minuted to work on them before they overheat again, fans "seem" to be running, BIOS defaults set no change

3:37 PM

• I understand that you have specialities in this field Mr. ***** however we need to check the firmware, OS and drivers as they are the possible faulty.

• One of those mentioned could be out dated that is causing the overheating issue in your system's.

3:38 PM

• These are Dell factory re-manufactured units so I suspect the fan bearings have work out

• Drivers were all installed via the Dell update utility as was the BIOS

• If these are re-manufactured then there's a high possibility that either the BIOS , drivers or OS is out dated.

3:39 PM

• If we could check these we could save days of waiting for the repair as our Engineers in our depot will do the same thing.

Martin Jan D

• All units are running Windows 10 Education, Build 1809 with latest BIOS from Dell update utility....All 9 units are the same but only these two are proving faulty

3:40 PM

• we erase all units on arrival as they ship with Windows 10 Home which is not suitable for use on a network, they have a baseline of Windows 10 Education 1809 and then the dell utilities downloads the latest drivers and BIOS from your website

3:41 PM

• As you mentioned that the Windows version is 1809, that alone can cause this issue as there has been a version for 1903 and now the latest 1909.

• If you have updated the BIOS to it's latest version then it is sure not compatible with the Windows version 1809.

3:42 PM

• and no IT manager in their right mind would allow a brand new OS build onto a production environment, 1809 is a stable supported version of Windows 10

3:43 PM

• Updates with BIOS Firmwares are updated to be compatible with every update that Window release.

Martin Jan D

3:45 PM

• So you are trying to tell me that the version of the OS and the version f the BIOS are incompatible only on TWO of NINE identical machines?

3:46 PM

• I know you have a script to go through but can we not either send me two fans and i'll fit them or book for return when the lockdown has finished?

3:47 PM

• I understand that only two of nine turns out to have this issue. And I base on the information that you have provided so that I can also provide you accurate resolution to fix this issue and save you a week with out the system once we fix this issue by updating the necessary drivers and OS.

3:49 PM

• Its immaterial if we are without them for a week as staff are not in school at the moment, I am NOT deploying units with an UNTESTED 1909 build onto my network, this is NOT a driver, OS or BIOS issue. My colleagues are going to love the transcript of this chat!

3:51 PM

• Just a heads up *****, once we collect the system the turn around time will be 7-12 business days.

3:51 PM

• As for this we need to identify first what is causing the issue,

3:52 PM

• No issues, I've ordered more units than I needed and I'm expecting delays in repairs. We have staff back in school from Monday, from 08:30-15:30 next week, can you book a collection from Monday?

• HW failure?

• If you can provide us with troubleshooting and diagnostic that is saying that there is a hardware issue then we can proceed.

Martin Jan D

• Really? not test in ANY Dell diags is going to tell you a fan is failing, it will just stop the same an any other application running on these two units?

3:54 PM

• We have our Pre-boot diagnostic features in all Dell system that we can use to identify if there is a hardware issue on the system's Mr. ******.

Martin Jan D

3:55 PM

• What test do you suggest we run to test the fan/cooling then please?

• bear in mind when cool these will work fine for 15 min, then I can't even run your pre OS Diags ???

• Martin, before I loose my mind and post this dialog to the web (as we all need a good laugh) can you just run this past your supervisor please?

 

 

ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

[elsiegee40]

Need a case of EduJD @MGSTech? I don’t think EduHobnobs are going to touch this one!

[hardtailstar]

The last school I worked at had loads of new Dells and a 3 year warranty. It was painful ringing them up every time to book an engineer or sending them back.

 

In the end they sent me the parts to fit!

[FishCustard]

Uuuuugh I've been there, both professionally and personally. As you say, how would an "incompatible OS and BIOS" cause overheating on only two units? Fans must cost pence, just send a couple out!

 

Reason 418 I can't stand OEM support and would always prefer to buy refurbs.

 

If I have a problem I can call the supplier and 9 times out of 10 you talk straight to someone who understands you and will just ship you the parts you need. I realise that doesn't help with machines the school has already purchased though!

[Arthur]

It was painful ringing them up every time to book an engineer or sending them back.

Ever since discovering that you can log issues through Dell's @DellCaresPRO Twitter account I haven't bothered calling them since it's so time consuming.

 

That said, no one at Dell seems to be checking their Twitter DMs at the moment since I tweeted about an issue yesterday and there haven't been any replies. They are usually really quick.

[Katy]

Took me 40 days to not get a replacement for a faulty monitor with "3 years advanced replacement business warranty". Awful service, very slow replies to emails and in the end they wanted to refund to a credit card (but wouldn't refund the VAT that we'd paid as "that is tax for the government"). Think in the end the reseller I bought them off just took the hit and gave me one from stock as they couldn't get anywhere past the awful Dell support either.

 

They used to be great around 2008, we bought loads of Dell kit and usually got a UK call centre when we had a fault and skipped the script nonsense, engineer out next day, as it should be.

[dcwhitworth]

That's the sort of reason I hate dealing with huge IT companies like Dell and HP. Customer service is terrible compared to medium tier IT suppliers, especially education oriented ones. Price may be a bit better but you pay in pain.

[FN-GM]

In all fairness you are using consumer grade hardware. You can’t expect consumers to have change control. They would usually use the latest version.

 

If you was using Optiplex or Latitude with business support you would have a case.

Edited April 16, 2020 by FN-GM

[FishCustard]

While I take the point that consumer grade hardware has consumer grade support, the idea that an incompatibility would affect two of a group of identical machines with identical configurations is still laughable and points to a lack of even basic engineering training for their support operatives.

 

EDIT: I'm aware that there are edge cases that could very well cause bizarre failures like this, but it shouldn't be the first thing to look at! Hardware failure is far more likely.

[jmak]

I find that lying was the most successful way to get past that stage.

 

Contact them once, find out what the required answers are (eg when they ask what BIOS and driver version, give some random possible answer from the available options on the Dell download site). If they say "ah, that could be the problem" offer to go away and install the version they want. Contact them the following day and tell them you've done what they asked and it's still the same.

 

I had some very long phonecalls where they asked if I'd updated all drivers etc and I foolishly admitted that I hadn't (I had checked that it was irrelevant) and they waited while I did it. After that - yeah, just plain lied [emoji57]