WTF is wrong with Dell support?

[H0R53]

I go on the Dell community forums from time to time.

 

A lot of people ask compatibility questions, i.e is X component compatible with X Dell computer.

 

Twice I've gotten wrong answers from Dell support officials.

 

First it was "is my Xeon E3 1240 compatible", to which the suggested (forced?) answer was "absolutely not"...Yeah, they were wrong. I went on bios-mods.com, asked about it, and tried it with my own CPU, and it worked perfectly.

 

The second time was "Is my GTX 550ti compatible," to which the (forced) answer was "No".

 

They were wrong, again.

 

I'm beginning to think that Dell doesn't know shit about their own products.

I don't have any doubt that their computers are well built considering the amount of old Dells still around, but official support is extremely limited.

 

I feel like they are trying to force consumers to use partnered products (in which Dell gets a percent of profits from), which is a very bad move.

 

Sources:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/20017016

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/20016473

 

I'm starting to think maybe I should go to the forums for the explicit purpose of proving them wrong. Who knows, maybe someone up in corporate will notice.

 

This is a problem, as a lot of people are getting answers to compatibility questions where normally it'd work fine, but some Dell rep replies with a "No" and the customer is left with nothing.

[Droidbot]

they say no to whatever they don't test, the PCH should support both but eh

[H0R53]

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

they say no to whatever they don't test, the PCH should support both but eh

Well then test everything, that's what companies like HP does, and companies like Gateway (used) to do.

 

The 3010, for example, supports all Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge CPUs for the desktop 1155 socket, but they only tested Celerons, i3, and i5s? How does that make any sense?

[Droidbot]

3 minutes ago, H0R53 said:

Well then test everything, that's what companies like HP does, and companies like Gateway (used) to do.

 

The 3010, for example, supports all Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge CPUs for the desktop 1155 socket, but they only tested Celerons, i3, and i5s? How does that make any sense?

Because that's all they sold them with. 

[PineyCreek]

The answers their lower level techs give are based on Dell-supported documentation, not actuality.  Example, if the platform supports Xeon, but Dell never sold it as an option, then it's not supported, and they will tell you it's not supported

[SCHISCHKA]

you are confusing corporate support with "working".

[H0R53]

21 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

They also use proprietary power connectors, front panel connectors and sometimes even USB connectors. I despise dell machines today as their quality is awful.

The post-2006 proprietary BTX move is my biggest beef with Dell.

 

Their consumer machines like the Inspirons and Vostro computers use standard xATX everything, but the Optiplex and Precision/PowerEdge proprietary percentage is fucking ridiculous.

 

Post 2012 it's gone down, I can install a stock Intel or enthusiast cooler easily now. But in the past it's been a hassle.

24 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

ll Dimension machines

Sometimes I get those in my shop, rip out the old insides and stick LGA 77x and 115x mobos in them. They look fantastic in their dark blue colors, and on a good day you can paint them satin red and they look phenomenal.

 

25 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

I even found one in a mud puddle

My old-ass Inspiron 545 I had found in my apartment's recycling center filled with cigarette ash, like someone used it as a tray.

I cleaned it, and used it until it wouldn't even turn on.

26 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

BTX form factor

Who the fuck invented BTX? They need to die.

 

37 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

you are confusing corporate support with "working".

No I'm not. Intel includes microcodes in every motherboard, and usually after a BIOS update or two you can run stickered 771 Xeons in an Optiplex.

 

46 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

Because that's all they sold them with. 

...

 

42 minutes ago, PineyCreek said:

then it's not supported, and they will tell you it's not supported

They need to do their fucking research then.

[Guest lilbman]

I don't know if Dell and Alienware support are one and the same but I've had nothing but good experiences with Alienware support.

[Mooshi]

So you're upset about something the machines wouldn't have come stock with and wouldn't work without bios modding--something a corporate oem like Dell wouldn't have done to begin with? This would be the equivalent of taking a car to a dealer and being upset they don't support an aftermarket mod the car wasn't tested with.

 

Yes, mods can make things work. But when dealing with OEMs, they're not going to test everything with hardware for a super niche customer. They're only going to know the ins and outs what that system was /built for/.

[Tsuki]

they arent wrong.

the answer they gave was 100% correct.  it was not tested and certified to work under those conditions.

Quote

The Xeon CPUs were never tested/validated by Dell in the 2012 Optiplex 3010. We tested/validated the Intel Celeron/Pentium/i3/i5 CPUs.

why the fuck would they spend time to validate a server processor in a consumer workstation?

 

 

does that mean it wont work? no

does that mean you're an asshole for how you treated the support rep for doing his job? yes

Quote

Do you blindly follow your company, or do you do any research at all?

its not the reps job to do individual research on every single component for every single machine.

they have documentation that they HAVE to stick to, which was written by the people who actually do that testing. if they say anything that not documented, and it doesnt work, they WILL get fired.

 

Quote

I'm starting to think maybe I should go to the forums for the explicit purpose of proving them wrong.

i did customer support for years, and on behalf of reps everywhere, fuck people like you.

 

 

EDIT: not to mention is a prebuilt system that isnt intended to be upgraded by the user in the first place.

[mrchow19910319]

Don't be surprised that those people don't really care about "solving your problem". 

 

Called dell's customer service yesterday regarding my dell monitor. 

 

After half an hour 's chat, they insist that my monitor is fine. 

 

They just don't care. Imagine a bunch of people in the same room taking calls every day and most of the calls aren't that friendly. 

[H0R53]

14 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

wouldn't work without bios modding

My Optiplex was never modded to support my Xeon. Only LGA 77x baords need that.

 

16 minutes ago, Tsuki said:

fuck people like you.

Yeah, well fuck you too.

 

15 minutes ago, Tsuki said:

its not the reps job to do individual research on every single component for every single machine.

they have documentation that they HAVE to stick to, which was written by the people who actually do that testing. if they say anything that not documented, and it doesnt work, they WILL get fired.

So they blindly follow their company, like I said.

 

14 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

SFF machines use BTX,

The HP Elite 8xxx series uses BTX and proprietary power supplies.

I have 7 of them. They suck.

16 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

RAMBUS

The N64 used RAMBUS tech, as did a lot of other consoles.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, H0R53 said:

 

 

So they blindly follow their company, like I said.

 

I bet you would too if you got paid to and would get fired if you didn't. 

[Tsuki]

24 minutes ago, H0R53 said:

So they blindly follow their company, like I said.

its not blindly following the company. its using the resources that they have, to answer the question to the best of their ability.

and they even said that it wasnt certified to work. thats not saying that it doesnt work, that just saying it wasnt specifically approved.

you're pissed off because somebody was wrong on the internet.

 

they did their job and they actually did their job very well.

 

having to deal with people like you all day is the reason techs stop giving a shit and you end up with bad support.

this was good support, you're just an asshole.

[H0R53]

On 7/22/2017 at 2:50 AM, Tsuki said:

you're just an asshole.

Thank you, I try.

[Tiz]

On 7/22/2017 at 8:50 AM, Tsuki said:

this was good support, you're just an asshole.

Hey, relax man, he has some good points. And thing like "don't get paid enough" or "is because the company says it" are a bit of an awful excuse. When I had jobs like that I didn't run over the clients just because I wasn't getting paid enough.

[H0R53]

6 hours ago, Tiz said:

Hey, relax man, he has some good points. And thing like "don't get paid enough" or "is because the company says it" are a bit of an awful excuse. When I had jobs like that I didn't run over the clients just because I wasn't getting paid enough.

I mean honestly if Dell support did any research at all, they could make an educated guess. 

 

For example, the GT 620 is an officially supported GPU. It\s nVidia, and it's 6th generation, so if I had to answer the question I'd say "if you have a way to power the 550ti, go for it'"

 

I get it that only some things were officially tested but damn, at least test a little more. It took me like 5 minutes to jury rig the PSU to support the 550, and another 2 seconds to make sure it worked.

[Guest]

35 minutes ago, H0R53 said:

I mean honestly if Dell support did any research at all, they could make an educated guess. 

 

For example, the GT 620 is an officially supported GPU. It\s nVidia, and it's 6th generation, so if I had to answer the question I'd say "if you have a way to power the 550ti, go for it'"

 

I get it that only some things were officially tested but damn, at least test a little more. It took me like 5 minutes to jury rig the PSU to support the 550, and another 2 seconds to make sure it worked.

I wouldn't call it compatible when you can't put the cover back on or use the DVI port

[NumLock21]

2 hours ago, H0R53 said:

I mean honestly if Dell support did any research at all, they could make an educated guess. 

 

For example, the GT 620 is an officially supported GPU. It\s nVidia, and it's 6th generation, so if I had to answer the question I'd say "if you have a way to power the 550ti, go for it'"

 

I get it that only some things were officially tested but damn, at least test a little more. It took me like 5 minutes to jury rig the PSU to support the 550, and another 2 seconds to make sure it worked.

They go by what is validated. Not be in assumptions as to what will work or not. If they go by assumption, customers will put them at fault, when it's not working. And Dell knows what they are doing. You're just being a prick.

[Mooshi]

1 hour ago, NumLock21 said:

They go by what is validated. Not be in assumptions as to what will work or not. If they go by assumption, customers will put them at fault, when it's not working. And Dell knows what they are doing. You're just being a prick.

I deal with customers as well and types like these are what make me lose faith in humanity.  When you rep a company, you provide support that is certified, not go on hunches, that isn't what support is about at all.

 

What happens when advice is given and it doesn't pan out? That agent loses their job and the customer gets to nag someone else. It'd be like if I were to tell customers how to root their phone and then they complain to corporate they broke something. 

 

I'm on the side of Dell here. This is just entitled customer mentality.

[NumLock21]

1 hour ago, Mooshi said:

I deal with customers as well and types like these are what make me lose faith in humanity.  When you rep a company, you provide support that is certified, not go on hunches, that isn't what support is about at all.

 

What happens when advice is given and it doesn't pan out? That agent loses their job and the customer gets to nag someone else. It'd be like if I were to tell customers how to root their phone and then they complain to corporate they broke something. 

 

I'm on the side of Dell here. This is just entitled customer mentality.

This also happens on this forum too. Those that think they know everything, but in reality they know shit.

[Tsuki]

5 hours ago, H0R53 said:

I mean honestly if Dell support did any research at all, they could make an educated guess. 

that is the worst possible thing they can do because if their educated guess is wrong, they get fired.

2 hours ago, Mooshi said:

 When you rep a company, you provide support that is certified, not go on hunches, that isn't what support is about at all.

exactly this.  

 

you go to support to get answers that are documented and certified. not for somebody else to google an idea for you(not saying thats not what they do half the time anyways, but thats not why you went to them).

[kaiju_wars]

On 7/22/2017 at 1:50 AM, Tsuki said:

-all the snips-

I agree with everything you said.  I work the support helpdesk for a local ISP, and hate people like OP.

We go by what the ISP themselves have validated.  I'm not explicitly saying things won't work, granted, but that we don't support certain third party devices and will say it doesn't work cause we never tested it.

Usually it's easier to say this cause quite honestly, even if you tell a customer "we never tested this certain product so I can't give you a 100% answer, it may or may not work."
They're to stupid to know that means we can't help you if it doesn't work, tries it anyways, then calls and bitches at us when it doesn't work.

 

So we say it doesn't work.

If it works for you, good.  Glad it worked, but that doesn't mean we support it now that it's working for you. It's not a configuration from us, and the company doesn't have the time and money to stop everything it's doing just to validate your particular setup.

[K0MP4CT]

6 hours ago, H0R53 said:

I mean honestly if Dell support did any research at all, they could make an educated guess. 

 

For example, the GT 620 is an officially supported GPU. It\s nVidia, and it's 6th generation, so if I had to answer the question I'd say "if you have a way to power the 550ti, go for it'"

 

I get it that only some things were officially tested but damn, at least test a little more. It took me like 5 minutes to jury rig the PSU to support the 550, and another 2 seconds to make sure it worked.

I get this reply is old, but if you're complaining Dell didn't Google something for you, then Dell aren't at fault. If it took you a minute to search it up yourself, and make an "educated guess", why not just do it? 

 

Picture this, they tell you something is compatible without knowing 100% that it's true. You go ahead and listen to their advice. Something goes wrong. You can then hold them at fault. It's safer for them to say no, than it is for them to guess yes.

[Mooshi]

48 minutes ago, Tsuki said:

not for somebody else to google an idea for you(not saying thats not what they do half the time anyways, but thats not why you went to them).

This. If it's something that system was never built for or intended to have out of the factory, that's why there are dozens of tech sites and tutorials that OP can Google themselves.

 

Support that way offers no guarantee because there is no liability. If someone offers bad advice online and you take it, there's no legal obligation to help if something goes wrong. This is exactly why the "bad Dell rep" didn't give the go ahead because that isn't documented internally. Had they used Google to search, why bother calling in to begin with?

 

For the OP: businesses don't like these things called "lawsuits". If someone told you some graphics card would work straight from Dell and you blew your PSU, would you be mad and demand dome sort of compensation since Dell told you it was ok? Of course you would.

 

Honestly, these are people dealing with unrealistic customers on a daily basis at a desk. Do you think each individual rep would have a collection of parts laying around at all times to casually test considering Dell's customer base?