[MMike]

The IT guy at work swears by dell. All of our machines are dell. Including my laptop. We are looking at a new home system and IT guy will get us good deals for home stuff....but it has to be Dell. Now I've heard many anecdotes telling of poor dell quality...including my my mom who got a machine a few years back with a defective hard drive.

Now my work laptop (Dell Precision M65) is nearly 2.5 year old, and I'm getting blue screens of death all over the place. It had been fine up until they tried recently to upgrade my RAM and install XP64. BSOD's left and right They undid the 64 bit and put my old RAM back in, but I'm still getting BSOD....almost exclusively at home...ie: on battery power, on my wireless router, as opposed to my docking station at work.

so I'm somewhat a skeptical hippo about getting a dell machine for home.

Any thoughts?

 

[MMike]

And no "Mac FTW".....

 

[Westy]

I've had great luck with Dell stuff. My old work laptop had issues but they were all due to the corporate mandated software. At one point we had 3 antivirus systems installed on each PC.

With all the tom foolery going on with your work PC I'm guessing a good old fashioned OS reinstall is in order.

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Hilarie and I have for years gotten Dell Optiplex desktops for home and the camp. We buy them through Dell's small business channel so as not to get all the useless teaser apps and desktop shortcuts that come on "home" systems. They have proven to be reliable.

H recently bought one with Windows 7 and it's sailing along placidly.

 

[binary visions]

Blue screens are often not the problem of a hardware vendor. If it started during a software upgrade, it's probably software problem and likely stems from a bad installation.

Dell makes good machines at a very good price point. Stick with their chat-based customer service; it's convenient, there is no accent to work through, and you get a nice transcript when it's over to refer back to if you need it.

 

[BadDNA]

I have Dells at home too, a Studio laptop and a Studio desktop and I've been happy with them so far. I think the key points have all been mentioned already but the best recommendation was merely brushed over; get a business class machine. Their home systems use a variety of different parts based on what's available at the time, the business systems are more consistent and use a slightly better set of parts without that fluctuation.

 

[MMike]

As for my BSOD....I've had two OS reinstalls now....

To hijack my own thread...

Everything was fine. (running 32 bit XP and 2GB RAM). Good for over two years.

They decided to upgrade me to 64 bit XP and 4 GB RAM.

After the install, I was only getting 3.25 GB out of my 4GB RAM. And they were having trouble finding compatible video drivers, Quadro FX350M....the M being the issue. Solidworks is very picky about video card drivers. We could not find one for the FX350M that was approved for SWx and XP64.

So we figured that was the problem.

Reinstalled XP32, left the RAM in place. Still got BSOD's

REmoved the new RAM, put my old RAM back in, Still got BSOD's.

90% of the time, it happens at home. But it will happen when I'm docked.

The machine is over two years old. And I take it home every day....it gets used a lot. But it IS a business class mobile workstation..... I'm hammering away on it right now and it's fine. Likley it will be fine all day....until I turn it on at home. Very puzzling.


But basically, I should not fear Dell then?

 

[binary visions]

No, you should not fear Dell.

I'm betting they did something wrong when installing the memory - bent something, jarred something loose, etc.

 

[MMike]

No, you should not fear Dell.

I'm betting they did something wrong when installing the memory - bent something, jarred something loose, etc.

That's what I'm thinking too actually....or junk got into it when he opened up the back or something

 

[Westy]

Two years is kind of long in the tooth for a business laptop if you ask me.

 

[syadasti]

Two years is kind of long in the tooth for a business laptop if you ask me.

The professional line comes with a 3 year warranty by default. My Latitude's motherboard had a problem about a month after that and they said I was within their grace period and they replaced it for free on-site.

 

[MMike]

Well that was easy.......my Dell Precision 4400 has just been ordered!

Windows 7....I'm afraid

 

[Westy]

The professional line comes with a 3 year warranty by default. My Latitude's motherboard had a problem about a month after that and they said I was within their grace period and they replaced it for free on-site.

We always had a 2 year lease cycle at work. Towards the end of the lifecycle the computer specs were always lagging where our software needed it to be. Of course the cheap bastards always threw fairly low spec units at us to begin with. Our VP only needed to run Microsoft Office, why would the engineering team need any more processing power?

 

[MMike]

That's one good thing about where I work. They do not quibble about our engineering machines.

 

[syadasti]

We always had a 2 year lease cycle at work. Towards the end of the lifecycle the computer specs were always lagging where our software needed it to be. Of course the cheap bastards always threw fairly low spec units at us to begin with. Our VP only needed to run Microsoft Office, why would the engineering team need any more processing power?

The call center at the last place I was at had about 3 dozen Optiplex (bought as refurbs even) still in production after over 7 years - they worked fine for that but just barely adequate with memory upgrades. I think 5 years max is more realistic for that application but engineering workstations (or laptops for any use period due to accelerated wear and tear) are a different story.

 

[Westy]

The call center at the last place I was at had about 3 dozen Optiplex (bought as refurbs even) still in production after over 7 years - they worked fine for that but just barely adequate with memory upgrades. I think 5 years max is more realistic for that application but engineering workstations (or laptops for any use period due to accelerated wear and tear) are a different story.

Hell our corporate anti-virus/security/spy software typically used about 60% of resources before we even opened up a single program.

 

[sanjuro]

All my computers are Dell.

While I am a computer expert, my area of expertise is not PC's. My attitude is that I can resolve any problem (which is why I do not have an extended warranty), but I don't want to start mucking with my pc.

My old pc is still 6 years old and still running. My netbook is working fine, and so is my desktop.

 

[syadasti]

All my computers are Dell.

While I am a computer expert, my area of expertise is not PC's. My attitude is that I can resolve any problem (which is why I do not have an extended warranty), but I don't want to start mucking with my pc.

My old pc is still 6 years old and still running. My netbook is working fine, and so is my desktop.

Desktop extended warranties are not typically worthwhile, but laptop warranties usually are especially on lower quality consumer grade ones.

 

[sanjuro]

Desktop extended warranties are not typically worthwhile, but laptop warranties usually are especially on lower quality consumer grade ones.

Well, my netbook is not getting bounced around like I thought it might.

Otherwise, yes.

 

[MMike]

I should get it Feb 12

 

[Nick]

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Well that was easy.......my Dell Precision 4400 has just been ordered!

Windows 7....I'm afraid

Windows 7 works just fine. My only quibble so far are the semi-transparent windows, which ugly effect I suspect can be turned off, haven't bothered to look.

 

[Squeak]

Ummmmm


MAC 4TW!

 

[valve bouncer]

Desktop extended warranties are not typically worthwhile, but laptop warranties usually are especially on lower quality consumer grade ones.

I agree. Have an el-cheapo Dell laptop with a 3 year warranty and recently had to replace the AC adapter. Called on Friday afternoon and had it by Monday. Good support, in Japan at least.

 

[MMike]

Working on my new laptop right now

Dell Precision 4400. Solidstate hard drive....HDMI port.....windows 7

 

[syadasti]

MMike you have a 21 day return window I think - looks like they just updated the 15" version in the precision line - wonder if the 4400 has i5 option - http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/05/dell-precision-m6500-gets-upgraded-with-usb-3-0-core-i5-options/

 

[Damo]

Before I shifted to Mac (FTW), I have only ever had Dell laptops and desktops.

They last well enough and all get the BSOD, but I put that to MS, not Dell...

FMS.

 

[Anders]

i got all dells and love them. i have had a few problems, but none that tech support didnt help with. right now i have a xps gaming tower and a mini 9

 

[gruczniak]

I am a bit late, following my experiences wth DELL (happy cutomer with some hardware problems) I would strongly advice to upgrade to 4 years warranty.

Why? In short: got XPS. 1 year flawless. 2 year problems started. I followed all the advices had it serviced at my place twice. Send it once for the investigation.
Writing it from m17x which is nicer...
Maybe still could be arranged?

 

[dump]

It's hard to say, "Dell" yay or nay - so many products over the years and they're changing constantly. In my experience the quality is not universal across their line. It's like saying, "GM - yay or nay" (don't answer that!).

I had great luck with Dells in their early years and desktop systems. I moved on to other PCs: Sony/Lenovo(best)/Acer(never again)/no-name. After about 10 years, I had enough. Have been on Macbook Pros since then and haven't looked back.

The quality difference in the physical design/hardware alone is night and day to me.

 

[Anders]

not sure if its dells fault, but just got my 3rd video card, i keep breaking them