[binary visions]

So, my girlfriend bought me the Dell 1905FP UltraSharp 19" LCD for my birthday this year. Loved it, but the one I got had dead USB ports on it - nothing I could do to get them to work.

After some troubleshooting, Dell gave up and shipped me a replacement monitor, which worked perfectly. Very happy. I've done some gaming on it, watched some movies, etc. I had heard that the advertised 20ms response time would cause ghosting with games and movies but I had no problems with it so I chalked it up to overly compulsive computer geeks.

Found a link the other day that said that Dell actually shipped a whole bunch of monitors from one of their production batches with an upgraded LCD panel. These LCD panels had 8ms response times instead of 20ms, and gave a way to check which one you have. Turns out I've got one of the 8ms models!

So, sweet. Not only did my girlfriend get the LCD panel for the cheapest sale price in history, but my replacement turned out to be one of the upgraded models!

I'll post the link later for anyone who might have this monitor and wants to check for themselves.

 

[BUCKET]

So, my girlfriend bought me the Dell 1905FP UltraSharp 19" LCD for my birthday this year. Loved it, but the one I got had dead USB ports on it - nothing I could do to get them to work.

After some troubleshooting, Dell gave up and shipped me a replacement monitor, which worked perfectly. Very happy. I've done some gaming on it, watched some movies, etc. I had heard that the advertised 20ms response time would cause ghosting with games and movies but I had no problems with it so I chalked it up to overly compulsive computer geeks.

Found a link the other day that said that Dell actually shipped a whole bunch of monitors from one of their production batches with an upgraded LCD panel. These LCD panels had 8ms response times instead of 20ms, and gave a way to check which one you have. Turns out I've got one of the 8ms models!

So, sweet. Not only did my girlfriend get the LCD panel for the cheapest sale price in history, but my replacement turned out to be one of the upgraded models!

I'll post the link later for anyone who might have this monitor and wants to check for themselves.

Wow! Someone had a positive Dell experience - that's unheard of these days! Sounds cool - enjoy your new panel!

 

[binary visions]

Wow! Someone had a positive Dell experience - that's unheard of these days! Sounds cool - enjoy your new panel!

Actually, I've had nothing but positive Dell experiences. I've ordered 5 or 6 laptops from them, all of the laptops have arrived ahead of schedule and in excellent condition. I ordered my old roommate's desktop. And now with this monitor - all positive experiences.

Okay, their phone support sucks since you have to talk to Apu somewhere in the far east, but all of those technicians type very well so their online chat support is pretty decent.

I spent about 40 minutes troubleshooting my monitor, at which time the woman shipped another monitor overnight delivery, and told me that if I'd put the defective monitor in the box they shipped the new one in, I could call Airborn Express and have it picked up from my front porch all free of charge.

 

[Changleen]

Actually, I've had nothing but positive Dell experiences.

When I worked at my last job, they were our preferred supplier and I ordered 25 odd machines from them, desktops and laptops, no issues ever. Always fast, always working and always what I ordered. CS was only used a couple of times to change delivery addresses and order details, and was always OK.

 

[H8R]

I use twin 17" Dell LCDs at work. Love em.

I hate the SFF boxes that they ordered for the office machines we use (hard to upgrade vid cards, etc) but other than that they're solid machines.

 

[kinghami3]

It seems that LCDs are Dell's one strong-point. I know there are a lot of mac guys who will even buy them over Apple's displays. Should I ever get a G5, I will look into a Dell display.

 

[binary visions]

It seems that LCDs are Dell's one strong-point. I know there are a lot of mac guys who will even buy them over Apple's displays. Should I ever get a G5, I will look into a Dell display.

Well, again, I'd disagree that it's their "one" strong point. Their computers are good, both budget and mid-level, and their XPS gaming machines are very speedy and come with a great spec. Plus, their PDAs are very nice.

Never used their MP3 players but I've heard the Dell Jukeboxes are good as well.

Seems to me that Dell has gotten a bad "internet rep" - that is, a handful of guys who had a bad experience run around telling everyone. As an IT person, I've seen a lot of computers come and go, and Dells have always been solid machines.

 

[BUCKET]

Snip>Seems to me that Dell has gotten a bad "internet rep" - that is, a handful of guys who had a bad experience run around telling everyone. As an IT person, I've seen a lot of computers come and go, and Dells have always been solid machines.

Being in the IT profession myself, I agree. However, I think that way about most corporate workstations these days, whether it's HP, Dell, or Compaq. We use HP servers and desktops here at work, and the only real problem we have had is the HP SCSI hard drives in the servers being bad from the factory. I can't think of any real desktop problems.

The bad rep comes from outsourced tech support, which most everybody does these days but it still sucks for the user needing support. If you have a problem that takes the poor guy in India off of his flow chart - then your screwed, because he has no idea what to do next. Then begins the escalation process, which can subtract a significant amount of time from your life by the time the process is finished.

 

[Ciaran]

Seems to me that Dell has gotten a bad "internet rep" - that is, a handful of guys who had a bad experience run around telling everyone. As an IT person, I've seen a lot of computers come and go, and Dells have always been solid machines.

Here at Kaiser Permanente we use Dell machines. Their contract just expired though and our new vendor is HP.

Our Dell machines suck ass. We have seen bad HDD's, over heating issues, bad mobos, bad power supplies and bad CPU fans. Each time Dell sends replacement parts because the machines are leased and under warranty but we shouldn't have these issues to begin with.

I am so glad to be getting rid of the dell desktops. Their laptops are cool though. We haven't had any problems with those.

 

[binary visions]

Our Dell machines suck ass. We have seen bad HDD's, over heating issues, bad mobos, bad power supplies and bad CPU fans. Each time Dell sends replacement parts because the machines are leased and under warranty but we shouldn't have these issues to begin with.

I am so glad to be getting rid of the dell desktops. Their laptops are cool though. We haven't had any problems with those.

So funny how people can have such wildly disparate experiences. I mean, I saw hundreds of Dell desktops come through the medical company I did tech support for and they were just solid machines that never caused problems. The last company I worked for had a lot of Dell machines too, and they were generally the ones where the IT guy stuck his head under the desk and said, "What? You've still got one of these things? Why haven't you been upgraded?" when he saw the 3+ year old machine under the desk, and the user shrugs and says they've never had a problem with it.

Yet you've got a whole bunch of bad ones. Wonder what causes that? Doesn't seem to fit into the law of averages.

 

[H8R]

Yet you've got a whole bunch of bad ones. Wonder what causes that? Doesn't seem to fit into the law of averages.

If it's like most companies that use different vendors depending on the product it may be an issue that most of the bad machines came from a bad vendor. Happens all the time in offshore manufacturing.

Where I work we pickup and drop vendors fairly often, as well as move certain products from one vendor to another to find a better "fit" for production.

 

[kinghami3]

Well, again, I'd disagree that it's their "one" strong point. Their computers are good, both budget and mid-level, and their XPS gaming machines are very speedy and come with a great spec. Plus, their PDAs are very nice.

Never used their MP3 players but I've heard the Dell Jukeboxes are good as well.

Seems to me that Dell has gotten a bad "internet rep" - that is, a handful of guys who had a bad experience run around telling everyone. As an IT person, I've seen a lot of computers come and go, and Dells have always been solid machines.

Sorry, I'm a mac user, and should I ever be forced to buy a PC I don't think Dell would even cross my mind. Maybe I'm a little stuck up.

 

[H8R]

Sorry, I'm a mac user, and should I ever be forced to buy a PC I don't think Dell would even cross my mind. Maybe I'm a little stuck up.

Yes, you are.

 

[binary visions]

I'm a mac user

I'm sorry.

 

[kinghami3]

I'm sorry.

<insert witty yet snide comment here>





Anything wrong with have an incredibly reliable, intuitive yet surprisingly powerful computer?

 

[binary visions]

Anything wrong with have an incredibly reliable, intuitive yet surprisingly powerful computer?

Nope, that's why I own a PC

 

[Ciaran]

So funny how people can have such wildly disparate experiences. I mean, I saw hundreds of Dell desktops come through the medical company I did tech support for and they were just solid machines that never caused problems. The last company I worked for had a lot of Dell machines too, and they were generally the ones where the IT guy stuck his head under the desk and said, "What? You've still got one of these things? Why haven't you been upgraded?" when he saw the 3+ year old machine under the desk, and the user shrugs and says they've never had a problem with it.

Yet you've got a whole bunch of bad ones. Wonder what causes that? Doesn't seem to fit into the law of averages.

I have also heard of other folks and companies that have had great products and service from Dell as well. The HDD issue we experienced was most likely MAXTORS fault as all the drives that failed were Maxtors. The Mobos we had issues with were blowing capacitors, while the overheating issues were caused by faulty fans, and bad case design (we use the small form factor) exaserbated by people piling crap all around and on the PCs thus preventing them from breathing. Bad power supplies rest squarely on the shoulders of Dell.

To Dells credit they were very pro-active on the mobo issue. They sent hundreds of mobos to us before they died, and let us know which machines (by serial number) had the bad mobos. They were almost as good on the HDD issue... they took responsibility for the problem (though the responsibility really was with Maxtor) and would send us new Seagate HDDs as we needed.

The old Compaq computers were workhorses though. I'll still run across a P2 350mhz Compaq out in the field and the clients say the same thing... I never called it in to have it upgraded because it never stopped working. Since Compaq was bought by HP I am interisted to see what kind of machines they send us.

Our current Dells are Optiplex GX 280's and GX 620's - P4 2.8 ghz w/ HT (though the HT on the mobo comes turned off), 512 DDR2 RAM, 40 gig Seagate SATA HDD. Not a bad machine for what we do.

 

[H8R]

Anything wrong with have an incredibly reliable, intuitive yet surprisingly powerful computer?

Nothing wrong with that except paying 2x what you should have.

 

[Reactor]

Well, again, I'd disagree that it's their "one" strong point. Their computers are good, both budget and mid-level, and their XPS gaming machines are very speedy and come with a great spec. Plus, their PDAs are very nice.

Never used their MP3 players but I've heard the Dell Jukeboxes are good as well.

Seems to me that Dell has gotten a bad "internet rep" - that is, a handful of guys who had a bad experience run around telling everyone. As an IT person, I've seen a lot of computers come and go, and Dells have always been solid machines.

Dells are generally solid machines (aside from the capacitor problem, which bit me again today) but their tech support has gone through the floor. It got so bad the average service call started going something like this: Call, have to wait half an hour on hold, get transferred, wait half an hour on hold, talk to a script reader in India who had never actually seen a dell product, do a bunch of truly stupid troubleshooting (does the loader arm move when you tell the library to pick the tape in slot one...... No...for the fifth time the power light doesn't come on...I can't give it any commands) finally they realize there is a problem, and wondered why they couldn't find the serial number on a SDLT archive library, get transferred to another person, this time in America, spend 30 seconds describing the problem, yep it's broke, tech dispatched for next day service.

Someone with a lot of influence in my organization finally called the our Dell sales rep's manager and told them that if he got connected to India again it was going to cost Dell about 25,000 PC sales, and about 2,000 server sales a year, because he'd advise every other IT person to change vendors, and disqualify Dell from all future bids.