WTF is wrong with Dell support?

[H0R53]

7 hours ago, DrunkJesus said:

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

 

 

Yep - okay. Who multi-monitors on an SFF anyway?

1 hour ago, Mooshi said:

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?

Dell has warehouses filled with valuable older hardware, I'm sure they could do a little R&D themselves.

My girlfriend's cousin works for Dell in the warehouses as a forklift operator. He has a TON of older stuff like replacement GTX 570s from Alienwares that Dell never shipped because customers didn't need replacements, and such. If he finds something he wants all he has to do is ask the supervisor, they check supply, and if they don't need it he gets it for free. That's how many spare parts Dell has to test things with.

 

If Dell can't do R&D themselves then hire someone else to do it, fuck it, I'll do it for free if I get to hang out with Dell all day.

 

Don't get me wrong here, I don't hate Dell. I am a huge fan of them, everything made by them that I've owned has been fantastic (except the XPS 8300).

 

I'm just a little miffed at their extremely limited "officially supported hardware" lists. The Optiplex I've got uses the H77 chipset, and by Intel's definition the H77 chipset supports the Xeon. To be clear, I didn't google this, I went straight to Dell and asked. They said No, so I went to bios-mods.com and asked DeathBringer. He asked me to test it myself, which I did.

 

It was at this point that I got kinda miffed.

 

Why doesn't the community at the very least maintain some sort of 'unofficial support list'? Heck I'll start making one by throwing all the hardware I can into my Optiplex's, I own three of them and am getting at least three more.

[Dabombinable]

HP are similar in this regard (although they go as far as BIOS white lists to ensure that something won't work). However I've proven them wrong time and again by:

• Putting the laptop into sleep
• Removing the original "certified" wifi card (Wifi A/B/G/N no BT)
• Installing the wifi+BT card from a Dell laptop of the same age
• Waking it up, installing the drivers and having it work perfectly (with better reception)

Even though the computer wouldn't even boot with it installed (it would post, but then a message would pop up before loading any OS) because of HP's "so what if you bought the laptop, go fuck yourself".

[Shreyas1]

i dont think they want you to upgrade 

[H0R53]

4 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

HP are similar in this regard (although they go as far as BIOS white lists to ensure that something won't work). However I've proven them wrong time and again by:

• Putting the laptop into sleep
• Removing the original "certified" wifi card (Wifi A/B/G/N no BT)
• Installing the wifi+BT card from a Dell laptop of the same age
• Waking it up, installing the drivers and having it work perfectly (with better reception)

Even though the computer wouldn't even boot with it installed (it would post, but then a message would pop up before loading any OS) because of HP's "so what if you bought the laptop, go fuck yourself".

I've experienced this problem.

 

Personally, I HATE HP. They suck.

 

I've owned 7 HP laptops and only 2 of them were any good. Two quit working one random day, one caught on fire, and the other two of the spoiled bunch were just flat out nightmares.

 

I don't mind whitelists because I don't do much on my laptop other than browse the web and light flash games, it's not like I'm doing an eGPU mod like the guy from DIY Perks did. That's what Dell is for.

 

My friend who lives in Texas found a dm4-3099se in the trash ($1300 laptop, btw), with a broken screen. For my personal laptop a replacement screen is about $20.

 

Not the dm4-3099se.

 

Fucking $50-100 just because some screens don't work. The BIOS has some sort of screen blacklist.

Some people have gotten HP Chromebook screens to work with it though, and they're only $21.

4 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

i dont think they want you to upgrade 

That's not it at all.

[Centurius]

A company designs a product with a specific goal and figures out the hardware they want it to work with. That's what they support. Other hardware can work with it but it's not supported as you will lose any company support by using it(and to be quite frank, when you have to actually cut pieces of metal and leave your GPU exposed I'd barely call that working in the first place). In turn it is the responsibility of an employee to reference that official support in interacting with customers. It is not Dell's job to verify hardware works in every combination possible.

 

Working tech support for an ISP myself, we use standardized ftth and dsl protocols, in theory any modem or router with the required specifications could work but if the R&D guys were to test every single product on the market the price for a subscription would go up a lot. That's why we only tell our customers that we support the hardware we provide. Can they get the other tech to work? Sure. However it's on them to deal with any issues that might arise.

[Guest lilbman]

@mrchow19910319 What was the issue with the monitor?  Most people do not realize this, but what they can help you with is not entirely up to the person on the other end of the line.  With the monitor situation; they have to tell you that it's fine because the issue you described to them wasn't a validated issue.

5 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.  

 

5 hours ago, Mooshi said:

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. 

 

This is true.  @mrchow19910319 What would happen if they gave un-certified advice about your monitor and it ended up not working?  They'd lose their job.  

 

Now please stop being the entitled customer and realize that they do want to help you because its their f*cking job.  I'm pretty sure Dell knows a hell of a lot more about monitors and their issues than you do. They can't help you with stuff that is not validated.

 

[kasugatei]

It is the same story with all major brands. Some hardware combinations could work, but they will say it won't work because they did not test those combination thus they will not support them. Imagine how much resource would you need to test all possible cases. 

 

[mrchow19910319]

9 hours ago, lilbman said:

 

I have been the most polite person I have ever been when I talked to the Dell person. 

 

The monitor goes black screen from time to time, it usually goes black for 1 or 2 second when my aircon is on. 

Then it went back to normal. 

Also sometimes my laptop and my desktop cannot detect the dell monitor. Switched cable and it didnt help either. 

 

Does all of those sound not like an issue to you? 
 

Anyway, I send my monitor back to dell just let them check, my one is still under warranty, I have every right to demand them to give me a reasonable response. 

[Guest]

I have no experience with Dell but Microsoft support said I need a "gaming" motherboard to play light games like CS GO..

Lost faith in humanity.

[Dabombinable]

31 minutes ago, Vielo said:

I have no experience with Dell but Microsoft support said I need a "gaming" motherboard to play light games like CS GO..

Lost faith in humanity.

*Looks at H87M Pro*. Yeah....its the same for me, because people keep on telling me that I can't overclock my 4790K on it, and that I need a Z97 motherboard. Of course I don't and it can run at 4.8GHz just fine (as long as I have adequate cooling-which I don't after my AIO failed).

#bicyclewithajetengine

[DnFx91]

On 7/22/2017 at 6:01 AM, H0R53 said:

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.

working as a computer systems engineer with access to Dell's Enterprise Protection, has really opened my eyes on this one. I had a dell laptop as a kid too and was also stunned at just how stupid and uncaring the people at dell used to seem when i had problems, always put through to some fucking retard that just wants to read a script at you with no understanding of computers.

 

However, if you could see how things work for enterprise cover, you would be stunned. If one of my machines break beyond my ability to repair it, i call dell, tell the automated system that i am a business client, at which point i think they transfer me to a local call center full of intelligent english people whom you can understand, and usually after 5 minutes of talking to these lovely people, they have identified the problem and have already booked an engineer out for the next morning. If they cant work out what is wrong with it down the phone, they just send the guy anyway with a new motherboard because they know we value our time.

 

Bottom line, i think we need to split Dell support into 2 categories. 

If you are an enterprise customer, who actually pays dell's wages, they go to the ends of the earth to fix your shit.

If you are a "consumer" customer, they don't give a fuck about you lowly peasants.

[DnFx91]

11 hours ago, H0R53 said:

 

 

that is fucking glorious ! i enthusiastically condone this

[H0R53]

11 hours ago, Centurius said:

barely call that working

It works flawlessly, what are you talking about? If I cut the metal with anything other than the tiny ass pair of scissors that I did it'd look a lot better.

11 hours ago, lilbman said:

lot more about monitors

So is that why they advertise HDR when there really isn't any?

55 minutes ago, DnFx91 said:

Bottom line, i think we need to split Dell support into 2 categories. 

If you are an enterprise customer, who actually pays dell's wages, they go to the ends of the earth to fix your shit.

If you are a "consumer" customer, they don't give a fuck about you lowly peasants.

THIS

 

Thank you

54 minutes ago, DnFx91 said:

that is fucking glorious ! i enthusiastically condone this

Gonna stick a better GPU that matches the CPU in performance soonish.

[DnFx91]

1 hour ago, H0R53 said:

It works flawlessly, what are you talking about? If I cut the metal with anything other than the tiny ass pair of scissors that I did it'd look a lot better.

So is that why they advertise HDR when there really isn't any?

THIS

 

Thank you

Gonna stick a better GPU that matches the CPU in performance soonish.

Funny thing is, i have an identical SFF optiplex under my desk right now  you have inspired me to take a hacksaw to it  

[H0R53]

Just now, DnFx91 said:

Funny thing is, i have an identical SFF optiplex under my desk right now  you have inspired me to take a hacksaw to it  

DO IT. I can show you how to do the GPU 6-pin as well, it's completely worth the performance boost.

[DnFx91]

Just now, H0R53 said:

DO IT. I can show you how to do the GPU 6-pin as well, it's completely worth the performance boost.

lol molex to molex to molex to molex to 6-pin or something awful like that i imagine ?

[H0R53]

20 minutes ago, DnFx91 said:

lol molex to molex to molex to molex to 6-pin or something awful like that i imagine ?

How about SATA to 6-pin?

 

Or strip the wires and mod it yourself like I did?

[DnFx91]

Just now, H0R53 said:

How about SATA to 6-pin?

 

Or strip the wires and mod it yourself like I did?

yeah its even more awful than i first thought  although this is coming from a guy who put a 1080 into an OEM lenovo tower and ran the thing off 2 PSU's just to see how she chooched

[H0R53]

1 minute ago, DnFx91 said:

yeah its even more awful than i first thought  although this is coming from a guy who put a 1080 into an OEM lenovo tower and ran the thing off 2 PSU's just to see how she chooched

Something like a GTX 950 would be better, even at 10 inches long. I'd have to cut the metal more.

[DnFx91]

Just now, H0R53 said:

Something like a GTX 950 would be better, even at 10 inches long. I'd have to cut the metal more.

wish i had pics of what i did to that lenovo to show u haha. Had to remove the entire drive cage to fit that 1080 in there, which somewhat affected the structural integrity of the case, had a bit of a wobbly shimmy on the go haha.

[H0R53]

Just now, DnFx91 said:

wish i had pics of what i did to that lenovo to show u haha. Had to remove the entire drive cage to fit that 1080 in there, which somewhat affected the structural integrity of the case, had a bit of a wobbly shimmy on the go haha.

Lol, I used a power inverter to run my gaming PC in a car.

[DnFx91]

Just now, H0R53 said:

Lol, I used a power inverter to run my gaming PC in a car.

hmm, thats just downright unsafe

[H0R53]

This was a VERY long time ago, I was like 14 or something (21 now).

722153_630041170355134_2831033159_n.mp4

[DnFx91]

1 minute ago, H0R53 said:

This was a VERY long time ago, I was like 14 or something (21 now).

722153_630041170355134_2831033159_n.mp4

well fuck me

 

points for effort haha, most people take an ipad 

[H0R53]

Just now, DnFx91 said:

well fuck me

 

points for effort haha, most people take an ipad 

I didn't have an iPad. I had a computer.

 

Anyway, to get a 6-pin on the PSU, you need to cut one of the power cables that supplies 12 volts, and then rewire the 6-pin on like I did.

 

I haven't had a single issue with mine and even OC'd the video card.