Last night I turned on my Dell XPS laptop to a rude surprise. Instead of the normal Dell logo followed by bootup screens, I got a black screen that slowly grew a weird streaky rainbow of colors, then abruptly blacked out again and stayed that way. I could hear Ubuntu booting, and see the lights come on for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. But no video. Reboot, and again, same and same.
Well, crap.
So, I went looking on the Dell support website, and to my amazement, I found the machine is still under warranty and will be until fall 2011. I had forgotten I’d bought a 3-year care package with Next Day Onsite Service. Sa-weet! And to make matters even better, that package includes 24-hour support. Double sa-weet! 1:30 in the morning, I called them up and got a warranty support tech who was quite efficient, though a bit difficult to understand through his unplaceable accent. We did a little diagnosis with an external monitor and determined it was the video “card” (actually motherboard video support) that had failed, not the panel. So they’re replacing my motherboard.
All good so far, but you have to know Dell would find a way to trip themselves up and ruin it somehow, and they did.
Apparently “Next Day Onsite Service” can take up to a week to happen.
They allow themselves three business days to ship the part to the field technicians, and another day for the technician to call you and set up an appointment, which can then be the following day after the call. So, in my case, I called them on Monday morning. They have until Thursday to get the part to the field. If they take the full time, the tech has a day to call me; if he calls me on Friday, the earliest appointment would be next business day, or next Monday. One full week.
Now, granted, I don’t know if it will actually take that long. And I understand the need to ship a part. But still, when you sign up for “Next Day Onsite Service,” no reasonable person would think that actually means “a week later.” I expect they should overnight the part to the field (or keep it in stock), call me the day it arrives to set up an appointment, and be there the next day – which in this case should be Wednesday, not next Monday.
Let’s see how long it actually takes.
That term belongs on the list with “lifetime warranty”, “free” and “complimentary”.
And “Unlimited internet access”
I had the exact same thing happen to my Dell XPS M1330 laptop.
The difference being, my warranty had just expired literally a WEEK before this happened.
Now it’s junk. A $2000 piece of junk. :-/
[...] 168-hour days at Dell So, I went looking on the Dell support website, and to my amazement, I found the machine is still under warranty and will be until fall 2011. I had forgotten I’d bought a 3-year care package with Next Day Onsite Service. Sa-weet! [...]
FWIW: I had the motherboard on my Dell laptop replaced a few months ago (video went bad) … it took an extra day for Dell to get the service provider the motherboard … but once they had it, the repair was done the next day.