Odd Warning About Dell

i was thinking of getting a new dell pc, but now i'm not sure i will after reading this article from a few months ago.

anyone have trouble with dell? mine needs a new disc burner but everything else is fine so far....


Think Twice Before Buying a Dell Computer ? They Use Shoddy Motherboard Components

Feb. 2010 by allen

At first I thought what I am sharing with you was a single isolated incident, after the third discovery of the same issue with Dell motherboards, in three different models I decided that it is time to disclose Dell?s use of cheap and/or shoddy electronic components.

The first incident I discovered in one of our PowerEdge 4600 hosting servers. The server in question is worth more than the car I drive. A year or so ago one of the four hot-swap power supplies began to cause errors and subsequently the server would randomly shut down.

This affected many of our customers financially. After babysitting the server for several days, I pulled the malfunctioning power supply out and let the server run on the remaining three.

The server stopped shutting down and for the time being I forgot about the issue. About 9 months later (3 months ago) another power supply started causing the same problems. The server again would randomly shutdown.


I shut the server down and pulled it all apart and discovered the power distribution board than controls the four power supplies had swollen and leaking capacitors as you can clearly see below.


http://dellhellagain.com/post/2010/...3-They-Use-Shoddy-Motherboard-Components.aspx

I have never had an issue. I have 12 dell servers and right now I also have 19 desktops and 4 laptops running and never had an issue with any other them. I just got my last server about 4 months ago.

billsboard

I have had a dell inspiron for 3 years now -- no problems at all. I had to replace the battery once and that was all.

I have a Dell XPS and often components fall off and I get quite a few problems.

In about 1 and a half years the webcam panel has broke twice (I dont even use the webcam), the touch screen disk opener thing has broke, the touchpad spring has broken 3 times, one of the keys on the keyboard broke, the bottom panel came off twice.
Also it's made out of some weird metal that gets holes in it if water goes on it (tiny particles like sweat)

That could be my fault because I use it all day everyday and don't treat it too well but my whenever the engineers come round to fix it they ALWAYS say that dell's are shit and you should of got something else :/

My dad also has a dell inspiron and he hardly uses it but he's had a few problems too. The touch panel thing broke on his aswell and the disk drive used to eject the disk after about 15 minutes.

If you do decide to get a dell make sure you extend the warranty. I got a 5 year warranty and I'm glad I did as the problems I've had probably come to more than the $150 I paid for the warranty.

PE4600 is an old box. Inspiron is a consumer product, same with XPS.
If you care about your business, buy Optiplex (desktops) or Latitude (laptops). Get 3y support, preferably with next day or 4 hours intervention.
Stop whining and start making business decisions. Alternatively, you can always run your opps from the iPhone 4, if you think that is best

I have had 2 dell laptops die within about 2 years of purchase. Both were motherboard failures.

trooper said:

I have had 2 dell laptops die within about 2 years of purchase. Both were motherboard failures.

Click to expand...

Should I be scared?
Thanks to this post I'm backing up 200GB of stuff :/

I've had great success with more than 5 dell laptops in the last 8 or so years... I'd not worry about it.

I've had my Dell XP laptop fail a bunch of times:
1. Video cards went first
2. Mobo next
3. Solid state HD next (that fucking media button got me, changed my indexes and after hours of trying to fix it I said fuck it and got them to send me out a new one, so not really a hardware failure so much as a Dell lame feature failure.)

On the plus side, this is the...um, no idea, like tenth dell I've owned and it's the only one to give me all these issues. That and I have the next day service, so they overnight me parts when shit breaks, and every part I've replaced (I'm a do-it-yourselfer so I don't wait for techs to come out) has been an upgrade to what I originally purchased. The laptop is about 1.5 years old now.

I used to get good old American tech support people on the phone (the XPS number, one of the selling points for me) but the last run through it was clearly outsourced and they bounced me around like 5 times and tried to sell me lame software warranties twice to fix my problem before I finally got a guy to just send me a new HD. So I'm not so sure I'd buy another one..

I have had many dell computers for years of intense use, no problems at all..

In my career I have vouched for Dell on may occassions, and have been responsible for buying:

6x Precision Workstations each worth more than 5k USD with one worth more than 20k USD,
3x servers, more than 2k USD each,
10+ laptops, majority Latitudes, only two Insprions, one Precision, one rugged Latitude
20+ desktops.

In the end, majority of problems were with laptops, few of them hit by that famous baterry recall, others by dying graphic card which is NVidia's fault not Dell's.

The reason why I chose Dell is because in my country Dell is better supported than most brands except IBM, whose representatives don't even want to talk to you unless you do turnover of couple hundred grands, and I don't like that altitude.

Now, I cannot stress more that you should avoid Insprion and XPS at all costs and go for Latitude, Precision or Alienware: first two are made to be cheap and use crap components.

In the end, I will just say that all laptops I purchased except one Latitude from 2003 are still working, while others HPs, Toshibas, Acers, Asuses are long gone.

I have been using Dell desktop and laptops for 10 years with no major problems. The consumer motherboards are pretty bare bones but have held up. In fact the ten year old Dell got a second life as a Ubuntu box. I have also had good luck with HP Compaq Laptops. Of course your mileage may vary so keep a backup device ready.

i checked out the hp line, they have some nice machines but their prices are higher than i want to spend right now.