As I noted on the PhoneNews.com Blog… one of our workhorse PCs failed. It was determined at first (on my end) to be a PSU failure. I’ve opined to friends and family the virtues of ordering a PC versus building your own. Now, granted, I can take PCs apart and put them back together all day long. However, I prefer ordering them from a reputable manufacturer.
Why? I’ll explain with this week’s case:
When the PSU failed, I called Dell support. After about 30 minutes, they had a PSU overnighted to me. Now it was the weekend, so I won’t get it until Monday. But, if I built the system myself… I would have had to mail in an RMA, wait the two weeks for it to come back, and then replace the unit myself. Now, Dell encouraged me to have a technician come out (free of charge) and do the PSU swap, but I can do it myself… so they were happy to send me out the part with free overnight shipping.
But, it gets better. I somehow got the PC to boot again. This caused me to start tinkering. Once I powered down the unit again… it wouldn’t start back up. Weird. So, I took a peek inside. Tuns out, the times the system won’t boot, you can see a visible shock from the motherboard. Obviously either the PSU is fried, and is killing the motherboard, or the motherboard is bad, or the PSU is frying the motherboard and everything connected to it.
Regardless, this is obviously a total-system-failure situation. Just about everything could be in some grade of toast at this point.
So, I call Dell back, and ask for a technician come out. After all, I don’t want to waste an entire day taking apart and putting a system back together… and I can always critique the tech’s actions (see prior posts… I’m happy to oblige).
Dell first offered to just swap the system out, but I declined. My 4 GB of RAM and twin 250 GB hard drives could be toast… and I want Dell to replace those if their PSU fried them. So, come Monday or Tuesday, I’ll get a call from my local Dell-sourced tech who will be setting up an appointment. I’ve spent more time typing this post than I will fixing this fried PC. And that my friends, is why I say dude, I’m so glad I got a Dell.
It’s also why I pay for Apple ProCare, too.
Update: Dell’s contracted technician came out, and did the replacements. Unfortunately, the new motherboard failed when I installed the latest BIOS update. After a half-hour call explaining the new failure… Dell will have another technician out here within 48 hours. And, again, I don’t have to mail anything, open a case, or lift a finger.
Update 2: Dell’s contracted technician came out today, again on time, and did the entire job. The technician waited to see the BIOS update install properly, and couldn’t have done a better job. And it was all done while I ate lunch, saving me time… and money.