Truth, Justice, and where Dell stuffs it.
I’ve just been onto Dell Tech again today (argh). OK, It was an indian call centre, but I didn’t mind too much - the guy I spoke to was well spoken and helpful. Always good.
Why was I calling them? Long story.
18 months/2 years ago, my workplace (Secondary School) built 2 new IT Suites. We kitted them out with 70 brand spanky new Dell Optiplex GX60 Mini Towers with 17″ TFT Screens. We’ve got a lot of Dell kit here, and it seemed like a good deal.
Of the 70 machines we bought, I’ve now documented 22 failures since the 6th January 2006! All power unit failures bar one mainboard going pop and one TFT expiring.
What happens is the machines will either go unstable and die in use, or will start to refuse to power on when the button is pushed, but will randomly spring to life at some point, then randomly power off when a kid is most likely at a major point in their work and hasn’t saved it.
The sure fire way to check is to hit the power button, and if nothing happens pull the unit, open the case and connect the mains. If the “Flea light” Orange LED on the mainboard flickers AT ALL, that’s normally a good indicator your PSU has passed away. Usually, the system appears totally dead otherwise, no diag lights on the panel, no fans, nothing.
When I called and said I had 6 to log for PSU replacement(6 dead in 2 days!) , they had to “consult with supervisors†to check they could do 6 at once! They then had the barefaced cheek to tell me that “We have no faults on our records for power units beginning “TH-0N2286-12782″.
Lies. 2 of their tech supports who were on their last day have told me that it’s a “bad batch, and we’ve been told to replace them, no questions asked. Dell won’t admit it though, it’s against company policy. I’m only telling you because I’m leaving, so stuff them.â€.
This also seems to tie in with articles on the web I’ve been reading about shipments of bad capacitors worldwide that have since resulted in mainboard/PSU failures for many people, not just Dell. The difference is, other manufacturers seem to accept the problem and have measures in place to deal with it.
Dell will deny to your face that there is ANY issue, even when it’s bloody obvious there is. The only way to get an honest answer is if you’re lucky and get a tech who’s leaving and is therefore happy to tell you about any recalls that have been corporatedly denied. Last I heard, they had 2 for power units with certain serial numbers, one of which is “TH-0N2286-17282-xxx-xxxx”, and they were told to replace these PSUs “no questions asked”. However, they don’t do “pro-active” replacements, and you have to log each as they fail. Great.
Here’s a link to a story on the web that is quite interesting:Dell Bad capacitors
I’ve lost faith in Dell. We’re giving major thought to threatening them with a detailed failure report of our kit, straight onto our website and to our LEA, who are a major customer.
So after “consulting with supervisors”, have they agreed to sort out all 6?
It seems that “playing suprised” as if problems never occur, may be company policy.
When I called Dell when my harddrive died, the tech feined bewilderment when I read out the errors I was having and had to speak to her manager. Her manager then spoke to me and said she would follow this case as it was so unusual (yeah right, I’ll bet it is).
I think they try and take us for fools in order to cover their own arses…
well, if you look at that story I linked to, I’m not giving them a chance…as soon as I find a camera. I’ve dismantled 4 of those PSUs, and they all exhibit the same failed capacitors in the same place, which ties in nicely with it..:)
oops. Another 5 failed over the weekend.
Dell once again stated “Unknown issue or isolated incident”.
I’ve now got 5 PSUs opened up next to my desk, all with leaky capacitors. “Isolated” my arse. This is angling to become a dedicated webpage, this is.