Dell

[M‡¢ĦÆŁ Ҝ]

I didn't want to hijack the laptop thread with a rant about Dell, so I started a new thread.

At work we received a shipment of new Dell PCs.  Since I have to have an admin workstation for each of our domains at my desk, I was given seven new Dells (we have seven domains).  I was given six GX620s and one GX520.  Because I doon't want seven monitors, keyboards, mice on my desk, I use an eight port Raritan KVM on my desk.  The first problem I noticed is that the KVM is PS2 and there are no PS2 ports on the new PCs.  So we had to go out and buy some USB/PS2 adapters.  Then we found that the Dells wouldn't work on the KVMs with the adapters.   After much research I found the problem to be the USB ports.  Dell still refuses to acknowledge any problem, but the problem is well documented online from the many Dell users who have experienced the same thing.  You can't use a PS2 device through an adapter on any of the six USB ports on the back of the PC.  In order to make it work, you have to use one of the two USB ports on the front of the PC.

Now I've been working with/on/in/around computers for a long time and a USB port should be a USB port and anything that works on one should work on another.  Since the KVMs have external power, it shouldn't matter which port I use, but no. . .Dell has to make theirs so that some things will only work on some USB ports.

This is the second major problem (among all of the minor problems) we've noticed with Dell.  A while back, we got a bunch of new GX270Ds in for people to use on their desks.  Within a few months we had a quite a large number of them dying on us.  After researching this issue, we found that the problem was with the motherboard.  A capacitor next to the CPU would overheat and burn out.  The only fix was to replace the motherboard.  To this day, Dell still refuses to acknowledge a problem with the capacitors even though it is well documented by Dell users.  Dell did replace the motherboards under warranty, but when all was done, we had over 50 computers die this way that they had to fix.

And don't even get me started on how proprietary they are getting.  They are turning into what Compaq used to be (before the HP merger).  If you need a new power supply for a desktop (not tower) Dell, you have to get one from Dell because a standard one won't fit in their cases.

Dell has really gone downhill in the last few years, and it seems to only be getting worse.

[Kyle]

Michael don't even get me started on how much Dell is junk and how they continue every day to get worse.  As a former Dell employee, I had to many problems with the BIOS alone when the machines tried to connect to their networks to verify the correct hardware was installed.

The Dell systems E520 and E521 were notorious when I was there for their BIOS's failing when trying to verify the hardware installed.  You had to to go into the system setup and manually clear the event log.  Then in the Boot menu you have to move the network controller up to the first spot, and make sure the nic card was set to PXE.  While this took me remotely 30 seconds to fix and reboot, it still happened to about 25% of the computers I would build each day.

On the Optiplex line, Dell was having a problem with the hard drives staying seated in their 745 series.  When they were in design Dell decided to make the case so that the hard drive snapped in and stayed there.  Unfortunately the case is almost to small for the hard drive to snap in correctly and the plastic edges don't prevent the vibration of the hard drive.  The extended vibration of the hard drive was causing some of the hard drives to fail.  Dell's solution to the builders was just to put in as best as you can and deal with it.

I'm glad I am not there anymore.