Dear friends,

I last told you that the replacement computer that arrived two days ago has strange issues with the volume keys not working and making the screen jump. It is still not resolved after hours on the phone with a technician. That’s a total of four hours on the phone with tech support for a NEW computer. And more to come: now she wants to reinstall the operating system and the computer wasn’t shipped with an operating system restore disc. Now we play the waiting game and draw the saga out a bit more.

The second of two replacement computers arrived and it is gorgeous. I fired it up and you’ll never guess what happened: exactly what happened with the other computer. Inconceivable.. Unbelievable.

Outrageous.

I just wrote this to corporate:

Dear Person at Dell: (for want of a better title)

I need to apprise you of the latest, it is quite unreal.

As I wrote earlier today, the replacement for the mini (yxyxyx) arrived two days ago.

A glitch was found in the sound: the mute works, the raise volume key does not work and the lower volume makes the screen jump. I spent four hours on the phone with the technician and the problem is not resolved. She wants to try to reinstall the OS but I don’t have the disc. It is being shipped.

Now get this: the second of the two replacements arrived today replacing (xyxyxy).

It’s a beautiful machine and I was excited to finally have a laptop.
I accessed a music file built into the machine. (I had installed NOTHING.)
The song began to play.
I was able to mute it.
I was NOT able to raise the volume.
I was not able to lower the volume and the key makes the screen jump.

Sound familiar?

This is the same issue I have with the other computer.

To summarize: the two NEW replacement computers that just arrived have the same issue (the only one I have found so far) pertaining to the sound volume.

A tech team technician worked 4 hours over two days on the first computer with no resolution as yet. Now the second computer arrived and needs what appears to be the same fix. Someone out there must know the fix, there must be plenty of others with the same problem.

Also: I took it upon myself to contact Dell about shipping labels to get the original problem computers back. I had been getting messages on my machine to “just put the computer in the box that the new one came in and ship it back.”

Sounds good, but there was NO RETURN shipping label in any box. My call was routed to India, back here to what sounded a like a young man who had no authority to help me, so back to customer service in India. Finally a lovely gentleman who was professional and articulate helped and the labels were emailed.

I spent close to three hours on the phone today with Dell. This is typical when there is a problem. I hope someone, someone up there is listening to all of this and will eventually make some major changes.

I hope to hear from you,
Sincerely,
Sans Souçi

I am adding a link to an article about Dell that my sister found. Though not recent, it confirms my feelings: Dell knew they were building computers with faulty parts.

My story is still, yes, still going on and it continued here.
The whole journey begins here: index