Computer woe update
Finally managed to speak to Dell, and they were very reasonable - they've gone up a significant notch in my estimation.
I was through with only very minor telephone tree delay to an efficient and nice chap called Deepak.
The warranty has expired (one year came with the system, it's about fifteen months old), and their first pitch was that diagnosing would entail a charge, as would any repair or replacement indicated. I countered saying that I didn't think that it was satisfactory quality (in terms of the Sale of Goods Act) for a computer to break down completely in less than eighteen months. He had a talk with his supervisor, and came back agreeing to diagnose for now and then discuss options.
The diagnosis was impressive and speedy. I said no video signal at all, no beeps, steady amber on the front. We did a bit of unplugging and replugging of the video cable, and then checked the CD drawer came out when pressed (neat check that power was getting to the motherboard), and then whether the caps lock key made the light come on on the keyboard (neat check for progress to BIOS). Then we removed all the cables and cracked open the case (which it was already), and I whipped out the RAM and tried booting again, and got no beep codes.
Then another briefish hold while he talked it over with his supervisor. He confirmed it was the motherboard not working and offered two options:
(a) return to the depot, repair and rebuild, then return - with all data wiped, taking up to 10-12 working days, for free, or
(b) extend the warranty, and have an engineer visit to fix the problem, for various prices depending on warranty level and duration.
Option (a) struck me as perfectly reasonable in Sale of Goods Act terms but a right pain for me. No PC for a fortnight, then many hours reinstalling from backups (which shamefully are not quite up to date - notably, some photos would be lost) and sorting out all the software and configuration and connected devices - not a happy prospect. I could hunt down another machine and rescue the data off the HDD first, but that would be yet more hassle and would delay the *start* of the repair well in to next week.
So I went for option (b). It's actually jolly civilised to allow a warranty extension when you already know you need it. I suspect they don't want to let it be widely known that you can routinely do this or they'll never sell an extended warranty again. It's really not an insurance policy at that point. I decided to go for a 9.00-5.30 next business day warranty extension - the cheapest - for £60 for a year. There were 1, 2 and 3 year offers, but that's back in to insurance territory so I didn't go for them. There was also a fix-a-time-to-suit-you option for an extra £20, but I think we can manage with it vaguer.
This is even better than my idea of a solution, which was going to be that they send me a replacement motherboard. It leaves the responsibility for getting the thing working with them, so if it's not (just) the motherboard, they can diagnose and fix the problem too. And they'll believe their own service engineer (I hope).
All done in about 23 minutes, which is pretty impressive.
Deepak very efficiently took my credit card payment for a warranty extension, then gave me an order number and emailed it to me. The engineer will call tomorrow morning to confirm the time of the visit, and will turn up armed with a replacement motherboard. Deepak (or someone) will follow up with a phone call after that to check I'm happy.
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/228558.html, where there are
comment(s) not shown here.
I was through with only very minor telephone tree delay to an efficient and nice chap called Deepak.
The warranty has expired (one year came with the system, it's about fifteen months old), and their first pitch was that diagnosing would entail a charge, as would any repair or replacement indicated. I countered saying that I didn't think that it was satisfactory quality (in terms of the Sale of Goods Act) for a computer to break down completely in less than eighteen months. He had a talk with his supervisor, and came back agreeing to diagnose for now and then discuss options.
The diagnosis was impressive and speedy. I said no video signal at all, no beeps, steady amber on the front. We did a bit of unplugging and replugging of the video cable, and then checked the CD drawer came out when pressed (neat check that power was getting to the motherboard), and then whether the caps lock key made the light come on on the keyboard (neat check for progress to BIOS). Then we removed all the cables and cracked open the case (which it was already), and I whipped out the RAM and tried booting again, and got no beep codes.
Then another briefish hold while he talked it over with his supervisor. He confirmed it was the motherboard not working and offered two options:
(a) return to the depot, repair and rebuild, then return - with all data wiped, taking up to 10-12 working days, for free, or
(b) extend the warranty, and have an engineer visit to fix the problem, for various prices depending on warranty level and duration.
Option (a) struck me as perfectly reasonable in Sale of Goods Act terms but a right pain for me. No PC for a fortnight, then many hours reinstalling from backups (which shamefully are not quite up to date - notably, some photos would be lost) and sorting out all the software and configuration and connected devices - not a happy prospect. I could hunt down another machine and rescue the data off the HDD first, but that would be yet more hassle and would delay the *start* of the repair well in to next week.
So I went for option (b). It's actually jolly civilised to allow a warranty extension when you already know you need it. I suspect they don't want to let it be widely known that you can routinely do this or they'll never sell an extended warranty again. It's really not an insurance policy at that point. I decided to go for a 9.00-5.30 next business day warranty extension - the cheapest - for £60 for a year. There were 1, 2 and 3 year offers, but that's back in to insurance territory so I didn't go for them. There was also a fix-a-time-to-suit-you option for an extra £20, but I think we can manage with it vaguer.
This is even better than my idea of a solution, which was going to be that they send me a replacement motherboard. It leaves the responsibility for getting the thing working with them, so if it's not (just) the motherboard, they can diagnose and fix the problem too. And they'll believe their own service engineer (I hope).
All done in about 23 minutes, which is pretty impressive.
Deepak very efficiently took my credit card payment for a warranty extension, then gave me an order number and emailed it to me. The engineer will call tomorrow morning to confirm the time of the visit, and will turn up armed with a replacement motherboard. Deepak (or someone) will follow up with a phone call after that to check I'm happy.
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/228558.html, where there are
comment(s) not shown here.