Dell would rather you lose data than support you under warranty

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Dynamic

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#1299686 7-May-2015 09:29

geekiegeek: Being a business slim desktop I wouldn't expect that any data should be held on it and maybe this is Dells reasoning for not enabling SMART? Its not a server and as a business machine you could reasonably expect it to be connecting to a server for critical files etc.

There is no excuse for allowing a device to fail unexpectedly when that device is capable ok alerting you that it is on its way out so the device can be replaced at a convenient scheduled time rather than when things turn to custard.

I would hope that you have either sold them a server with some form of drive redundancy or moved all of their data to a cloud service and informed them that desktops are not for storing critical data.

The site was brand new to us with this event. Backups are being reviewed later today as a part of a general look at their setup.

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MikeB4

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#1299698 7-May-2015 09:50

Its a Reception PC what critical files are held on it? Its a business PC, the local drive should only hold Programs and temp files every thing else should be held on Network Drives. Replace the HDD load the image and back in business. If your client is storing vital data on local
drives you really need to have a talk to them. It could be seen that you have let hem down more than Dell to allow that scenario to continue.

Dynamic

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#1299706 7-May-2015 10:01

MikeB4: Its a Reception PC what critical files are held on it? Its a business PC, the local drive should only hold Programs and temp files every thing else should be held on Network Drives. Replace the HDD load the image and back in business. If your client is storing vital data on local
drives you really need to have a talk to them. It could be seen that you have let hem down more than Dell to allow that scenario to continue.

We all know that clients store stuff in odd places, no matter how often we remind them not to do so.

I agree their previous IT support company has quite possibly let them down.

This client is starting to appear to be one of those clients who calls only when there is a disaster rather than a client who wants to work with an IT partner who will keep them on the straight and narrow. If this is the case, then their previous IT support company cannot have this hung around their neck.

The computer should have been configured from the factory to warn the client that the drive was failing. This would not have removed the possibility of data loss but would have significantly reduced the possibility.

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MikeB4

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#1299708 7-May-2015 10:07

Dynamic:
MikeB4: Its a Reception PC what critical files are held on it? Its a business PC, the local drive should only hold Programs and temp files every thing else should be held on Network Drives. Replace the HDD load the image and back in business. If your client is storing vital data on local
drives you really need to have a talk to them. It could be seen that you have let hem down more than Dell to allow that scenario to continue.

We all know that clients store stuff in odd places, no matter how often we remind them not to do so.

I agree their previous IT support company has quite possibly let them down.

This client is starting to appear to be one of those clients who calls only when there is a disaster rather than a client who wants to work with an IT partner who will keep them on the straight and narrow. If this is the case, then their previous IT support company cannot have this hung around their neck.

The computer should have been configured from the factory to warn the client that the drive was failing. This would not have removed the possibility of data loss but would have significantly reduced the possibility.

From what you have said I doubt that warning messages would have help, you would inevitably hear when it finally failed "oh I was getting this annoying box thingy that would pop up, I just clicked it away, was that important"
Its up to IT to put in place or push hard for them to be put in place safe guards and best practices to mitigate loss.

freitasm

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#1299710 7-May-2015 10:13

One word: NAS. And PCs with low specs. A reception PC holding company data? Asking for trouble.

Worst than your perceived Dell shenanigans turning SMART off is people who do this kind of cowboy act.

1101

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#1299727 7-May-2015 10:48

Yep, its all good & well to say company data should be on the server, not the PC & backups etc.
Thats not the point .

The point is, IF you get advance warning via SMART, you can image to a new drive.
Thats alot easier than a full reload, reinstall (incl downloading drivers) & re-install & re-config all the software & (some may be non standard software thats not simple to setup)

I'd be interested to know why you think the previous IT company let them down ?
Some clients are unrealistic in expectations, & change IT support Company every other year , the new IT support be held responsible for issues with cheap hardware they didnt sell.

Rikkitic

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#1299728 7-May-2015 10:51

I am no IT professional but I used to play around a lot with low-level stuff on older PCs. Because of this, I also provided support for friends. One friend bought a Dell (not my advice) from the Warehouse for his business. Almost immediately after the warranty expired he started experiencing a whole string of failures. The monitor died. The keyboard died. Finally, the motherboard died. Interestingly, about the only thing that didn’t die was the hard drive.

When I looked into the problem for him, I was struck by how cheap and nasty the Dell actually was. The PSU was underpowered (that died later) and everything (like the broken keyboard) had a flimsy feel to it. There was only one internal cooling fan, with some plastic channelling to distribute the airflow. There were other shortcuts in the construction to keep it as cheap as possible.

The hard drive was system-locked but eventually I succeeded in jailbreaking it and putting a cloned copy on an old HP I had. After a repair install and some driver modification everything worked exactly as before with no loss of data or software and my friend was delighted. The HP was old when I got it and I had already moved on, which was why I had it as a spare. I think it was a P3, around 600 mhz but it did what my friend needed and it still works perfectly today, though he finally upgraded a few years ago.

I would never have a Dell. I can’t say their business practices are dishonourable or otherwise, but the computers are made cheap to sell cheap and having one is just asking for trouble.

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1101

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#1299763 7-May-2015 11:24

I would never have a Dell. I can’t say their business practices are dishonourable or otherwise, but the computers are made cheap to sell cheap and having one is just asking for trouble.

The Dells Ive seen dont seem any worse than the cheapies from the other brands. Every brand has the occasional lemon.
Dell can make excellent PCs (& servers), people just want the cheapest instead.

And Dells driver support is excellent. You type in the support number on the PC & it shows exactly what drivers needed, unlike HP where you get a choice of 4 NIC drivers, 4 wifi drivers, 3 vid drivers etc & have to sort through them.

Rikkitic

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#1299765 7-May-2015 11:29

1101:

I would never have a Dell. I can’t say their business practices are dishonourable or otherwise, but the computers are made cheap to sell cheap and having one is just asking for trouble.

The Dells Ive seen dont seem any worse than the cheapies from the other brands. Every brand has the occasional lemon.
Dell can make excellent PCs (& servers), people just want the cheapest instead.

And Dells driver support is excellent. You type in the support number on the PC & it shows exactly what drivers needed, unlike HP where you get a choice of 4 NIC drivers, 4 wifi drivers, 3 vid drivers etc & have to sort through them.

There are always multiple sides to every story. That is what makes an exchange of viewpoints and experiences like this so valuable.

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Dynamic

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#1299773 7-May-2015 11:54

Rikkitic: I would never have a Dell. I can’t say their business practices are dishonourable or otherwise, but the computers are made cheap to sell cheap and having one is just asking for trouble.

This reminds me of a phone conversation with a Dell sales rep in 2012. Client was insisting they wanted Dell machines because of an existing finance agreement in place with "Dell Financial Services" (who were later sold I think). The Dell telephone sales rep could not tell me enthusiastically enough how rubbish the Vostro series machines were and we had to buy the better Optiplex series for a 12 computer office.

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trig42

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#1299797 7-May-2015 12:20

We swapped from OptiPlex to (Acer - ugh, Australian HO decision) last year.

The Dell machines that all got swapped out were probably on average about 5 years old, and of the 210 machines, none of them were faulty. I probably dealt with about 2 warranty claims a year on them, and never had an issue with Dell warranty support. Acer on the other hand - I have one machine with them at the moment (and it was supposed to be on-site warranty) and they have chewed through 3 motherboards (replacements all DOA according to their portal) so far trying to repair it (NIC faulty, not receiving packets). I have three others sitting here at my desk with the same issue. They are 6 months old.

Moral of my story, nothing wrong with (business grade) Dell computers, SMART on or off. Interestingly, we probably would have SMART off anyway - retail staff would just ignore a warning anyway, and the warnings could get in the way of our POS software.

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