Well I finally reluctantly took my laptop into Micro Center and paid them $95 to "look at it". Of course 5 days later I get a call saying they cant rapair it and it would have to be shipped off. He thought it was a problem with the board, drive, or even LCD. He said they charged a flat repair fee of $300 regardless of what the problem/parts are. So over all its cositng me about $400 to fix my laptop. Again its only 15 months old and cost me over $1,200 at purchase.
Don't feel bad. My 5 week old $2,000 Dell Laptop died on me in March. I lost every song, picture, and paper I had created in the past 6 years, including two large reports I was working on for my undergrad graduation this May. I wrote Dell a nasty letter and they paid me $150 for my trouble. It turned out to be only $50 though, because I paid an independent data recovery company $100 to "look at it" as well.
I believe they only have a 90 day warranty unless you purchase the 1 year or more "extended" warranty. Which, I think you should always purchase at least a 1 year warranty. It's not like it's that much more expensive.
It came with a free one year warranty. They replaced the parts, but still, $50 bucks (they KNEW I had paid 100 for the data recovery people's service, that i had to decline, because it would have cost me $1400 total to recover my data) is really lame. If the dude hadn't called me at 8 AM to "negotiate" the deal and I wasn't way hung over and tired I would have been more alert and upset and demanded more money or something.
Replacement parts. It was a dead harddrive. And get this.. they didnt even send me a formatted harddrive! So I had lost all the software that had come with my new computer that I paid for.. I eventually brow beat the poor indian tech support person on the phone into sending me a new, formatted one like I had gotten from the factory though.
This just in DELL SUCKS!! They screwed me out of 1800.00 on a laptop, I have no laptop and no cash.. I had 2 then 3 then 4 total pixels go out on a two month old laptop and they wouldnt give me a new LCD they said it was within spec... After piching a fit they tried to buy me off with $100.00 I said NO, I told them I would send in the laptop and buy someplace else, but it wasnt that easy... Dell said because it was "USED" and out of the 30 day window they could only give me $1500.00 for it, after going around and around for weeks I didnt care and told them to just refund the damn money, BUT I had just closed the account that the debit card is linked with and they needed to 1. send a check or 2. credit my new account... they said NO PROBLEM, after 2 weeks of holding out still no money, anyone that deals with Dell knows what a b**** they are on the phone so I really didnt want to call after the amount of time pasted that said I should have gotten the money I called and asked what was up, Dell tells me they have already refunded the money... I knew right then what they did and almost lost it... The person didnt understand what I was saying and because you can never speak with anyone with power without scheduleing it I got pissed... I turns out Dell some how claims they refunded my money to a closed bank account.. well I call my bank and they feel bad, but say if an account is closed you cannot deposit money into it....well Dell claims they did... that was over 2 years ago and I STILL havent seen a single red cent and have been writing letters and calling every now and then... They only good thing I to say is I'm now a Director of IT for a global oil/gas company and we dont use DELL anymore our last server upgrades came to about half a million and Dell wont see a dime of it... **** YOU DELL!!
Here's my abbreviated Dell BS story: After nine total hours on the phone Dell finally said "Yes, send the laptop in..." I send the laptop in -- they say, "Something was spilled on the motherboard and (various other components) we don't cover that -- $900 to fix it." Nothing was ever spilled on that computer. A great deal more b****ing went on... They sent it back and the laptop is still broken stored in a box somewhere. My dell desktop has been solid, but I will probably never buy a dell again because of the laptop fiasco.
In my experience, Dell laptops have fallen in quality quite a bit over the past few years. I used to swear by Dell laptops over everyone, now I won't recommend them to anyone. I'm an IBM fan now (which is going to suck soon since IBM sold its laptop division . . . ).
