by Siberian-Troll (архив) » 26 May 2006, 08:28
Товарищ Дэвид Вебер высказывает свое мнение о службе техподдержки Dell:
[quote]
I know I try not to use this space in a blog-like fashion, but I just have to vent (it's long, though):
I hate Dell technical support.
Why?
It goes back to last fall when my primary computer up and died on me. At the time, I mentioned it here and I got many emails (I never did properly thank the senders… Thanks, guys!) about what I should do for a new machine. Intel/AMD… Windows/Linux…
I waited a long time because I am, for all intents and purposes… frugal (i.e. cheap), but I wanted to get a good, high-end box. (Unlike the recently departed cheap-assed white-box system.)
I liked the Dell XPS boxes… and I'd have loved to have bought an XPS 600, but that cheapness-gene kicked in. I couldn't justify the expense for what amounted to just a bigger, roomier tower case.
I settled on a dual-cored Intel XPS 400.
So far, I think it's a great machine… extremely quiet (a major plus after the multi-fan windtunnel I had before).
I got the machine with a TV tuner and a really sweet 2007WFP 20" widescreen, fine pitch monitor. I can't say enough wonderful things about the combination.
Here's where the trouble started: Dell ships these things configured with the hard drive partitioned as One Big Drive. I'm not a big fan of that. I like maybe 30GB-50GB as a ceiling for the boot drive with the rest as data partition. Call me a geek.
They don't recommend repartitioning the drives. Why? Because they no longer seem to supply a System Restore DVD. What they do is create a 4.6GB partition out of your own precious storage at the tail-end of the drive and stash a copy of a Ghost image of the system drive there. You get to it by hitting CTRL-F11 during boot up.
Now, from a manufacturing standpoint, this is a win-win situation for Dell. They provide a restorable image of the drive so the end-user can recover from system screw-ups. And they put it in a place where the user can't lose it, short of a hard drive meltdown (which, if it was that bad, you'd probably be looking into a replacement any way). And they don't have to provide the backup on removable media.
That's fine for the 97.5% of the Joe Averages who buy these, but not so fine for the Tech Geeks.
As you might expect, deleting the 228GB C: partition and replacing it with a 50GB C: and a 178GB D: - even without touching the other partitions - still broke the link into the recovery partition.
Hardly the end of the world, or so I thought. I also bought a Windows Media Center 2005 re-install DVD. I also have the Dell Resource CD which is supposed to have all the hardware drivers.
No problem.
Zap, repartition, reformat, reinstall… it can't find the TV tuner. No problem... I have XPS Premium support! I'll be fine!
Call number… Please punch in your eleven-digit Express Service Code… beep-beep... beep... beep-beep-beep... beep-beep... beep-beep-beep... Thank you, please wait for the next service person available… Wait, wait wait… (actually, the wait wasn't long at all) Hello, may I have your Express Service Code, please… May I have your name, please… May I have your telephone number, please… No, may I have the telephone number of the location you had it shipped, please… May I have your email address, please… Can you spell that, please…
Tech lady tells me that I called the wrong number, then supplies it to me and helpfully transfers me to the correct extension so I don't have to redial.
Hello, may I have your Express Service Code, please… May I have your name, please… May I have your telephone number, please… No, may I have the telephone number of the location you had it shipped, please… May I have your email address, please… Can you spell that, please…
After all this folderol we manage to determine that the clean Windows set up doesn't seem to be recognizing the TV tuner (it worked fine out of the box). The Resource CD doesn't tell me which driver it should use. He tells me the type of card it shipped with, thus letting me select the driver and install it.
All is well. A short while later, I fire up Media Center, reset the channel guide, select a TV program… Decoder Error.
Call new number… Please punch in your eleven-digit Express Service Code… beep-beep... beep... beep-beep-beep... beep-beep... beep-beep-beep... Thank you, please wait for the next service person available… Wait… Hello, may I have your Express Service Code, please… May I have your name, please… May I have your telephone number, please… No, may I have the telephone number of the location you had it shipped, please… May I have your email address, please… Can you spell that, please…
Are we detecting a pattern here? Why have the phone system prompt for the Express… Service… Code… if all you're going to is have the end-tech ask you again first thing? If I have to repeat T… H… E… F… I… F… T… H… I… M… P… E… R… I… U… M… .… C… O… M… phonetically (and I do mean phonetically, as in Tango… Hotel… Echo…) one more time, it will be too soon.
New guy tells me that I've called the wrong number, he'll be happy to transfer me to the right extension and helpfully supplies me with the correct number. "That's the number I dialed to reach you."
Any way, he transfers me to the proper person. And I wait. And wait. And wait…
And wait and wait and wait…
It's a good thing I had a hands-free boom mike or I would never have lasted that half hour (I read a book). The only sound I hear was what sounded like a line switch. No hiss… no Musak… nothing.
I am not a happy camper at this point. Phone-people are not high on my list this Saturday.
I decide I need a break.
Not long after this, the phone rings:
Hello, may I speak to Mrs. Buckley? "I'm sorry, she's not here at the moment. Is there any message?" No. No message. "Then don't call back." And I hung up on him. Why do telemarketers call and then say 'there's no message'? Why'd they call in the first place?
I'm still in that foul mood.
A couple hours later I call Dell back, but I'm not much in the mood for their crap. Some poor shlub in Bangalore got an earful from me.
Call newer number… Please punch in your eleven-digit Express Service Code… beep-beep... beep... beep-beep-beep... beep-beep... beep-beep-beep... Thank you, please wait for the next service person available… Wait… Hello, may I have your Express Service Code, please…
"Why do you keep asking for that? Doesn't your telephone system give you the number that I already gave it? Is this the best that 20 years' of Dell telephone support evolution can give you?"
So I give him the number.
Then I snarled at him: "Before we get too far, I want to know that I've called the right number. I don't want to go through all this again only to be told I called the wrong number and have you give me the same number back to me!" All the while I was leaning forward in my chair and jabbing my finger into the chest of some phone-guy 11000 miles away. I don't think I've ever been so elementally enraged over technical support. Maybe I'm just PMSing.
This is for XPS hardware support… May I have your name, please… May I have your telephone number, please… No, may I have the telephone number of the location you had it shipped, please…
"Don't you people use databases? Doesn't the Express… Service… Code…" - I fairly spat the words at him - "give you all you need to know to pull up my records?"
No, sir. We have a new case file we need to fill out… May I now have your email address, please…
At this point - anticipating another three minutes of phonetically spelling my email address flashed before me… I saw white - anyone looking at me would have expected my next appearance to be on the Six O'Clock News on a water tower with a rifle.
"No. You cannot have my email address! I tell you what? Why don't I just box the thing up and ship it back?" And I hung up on him.
I spent the next few hours trying to relax into a book by some Weeber-guy. It's gotta be pronounced 'Weeber' or they'd have put another 'b' on the cover, right?
I finally tried their online tech-support chat.
I actually warned the guy right up front that whether I kept the thing may hinge on his responses.
It was slow going, but the guy seemed to know what the issue was: it was the DVD decoder software. Media Center couldn't read the TV tuner without having the DVD player/burner software installed.
Just install the Roxio and Sonic CDs and you'll be all set! "What Roxio and Sonic CDs?" Which neatly explains why I never reinstalled them.
Once we determined that the disks did, indeed, seem to be AWOL, he arranged for replacements.
His only mistake came when he asked if there was anything else I wanted to ask.
"Not that I recall at the moment, other than it should be noted somewhere that the ATI tuner requires the presence of third-party software."
Joseph, it is not that the tuner requires it, the Files used by Media Center are MPEG 2 files and for this file format to play we need a decoder, which is the Sonic Cine Player. Also for the DVD disks to play we need to have a DVD decoder.
Well... color me pedantic, but we weren't discussing DVDs, or even the pre-recorded Media Center files, we were discussing the fact that Media Center wouldn't decode a live signal from the TV tuner. Since it isn't working now, with just the ATI software and seems to need the MPEG 2 decoder in another software product, then, in my book, it seems to pass the Duck Test as far as requiring third-party software is concerned.
I wasn't in the mood to argue. Up until that point he was doing well, so I let it slide and I'll await the CDs.[/quote]