[Inori]

For those of you who haven't been witness to my saga of dealing with Dell's god-awful tech support, it's been a bumpy ride. It started with my hard drive getting killed, then went to me having to shell out unnecessary cash for a recovery USB because the one I got when my warranty was valid stopped working, and it's all ended here.

Sunday, the night before I went back to school after break of all fucking nights, I tried using the recovery USB to reinstall Windows. It went fine until the connection step. Wifi? Limited Access. Ethernet? Limited Access. Fuck. I tried everything I could find online, reinstalled my drivers, reinstalled Windows, nothing. So I called Dell again and ran the tech through what I did and was told any additional support would cost me. Fuck, again.

So then I went hardcore. I tried about 6 different live Linux images, attempted to connect through wifi (the eth0/enp1s0 interface wasn't even showing up, and on the last try, the card itself wasn't shown in lspci) and ethernet and ping Google's DNS. Nothing; every single time. So then it was back to dell; I emailed a three page whitepaper on my findings to the tech I was talking to earlier, and he agreed to elevate my ticket to corporate support.

The guy from corporate called last night. I went over my forensics and forwarded the email, and just to humor him I reinstalled the drivers again. He said there's no possible way he's aware of that both wifi and ethernet could fail at a system level like that, so the only fix he could think of was shipping the thing in and replacing the motherboard. That wouldn't do, this thing is 3 years old and wouldn't be worth the time and money. My last resort was taking the stupid computer apart as much as possible while still being able to put it back together, checking all the connections, and trying again with Windows and a Linux image. Sadly, but not surprisingly, still nothing.

So, I'm on to stripping the computer for anything I can resell and put towards a new laptop, and I have to put building my gaming rig on hold to pay for it. It's been a pain, and for those in the market for a new setup, I would stay away from Dell.

[JzJad]

as for windows, I'm assuming 10 did you try just skipping the connection part making a local account then checking drivers/installing. As for my experience with Dell I have never had a problem.

[Inori]

as for windows, I'm assuming 10 did you try just skipping the connection part making a local account then checking drivers/installing. As for my experience with Dell I have never had a problem.

8.1. Fuck me, right? And yeah, I tried that and everything else.

[d0ntjump]

This sound terribly frustrating. I sure hope you can recover your data.

[mothered]

Oh goodness, Dell Is still the same 12 years later.

I bought a Dell lappy back In 2004 and on boot up fresh out of the box, It BSOD'd. Their support was terrible and after many phone calls, they finally agreed to replace the Ram. On another lappy (Dell Inspiron 510M at the time), the keypad practically fell apart. I haven't touched Dell since.

I agree with your closing paragraph. Get rid of It and purchase one that'll serve It's purpose.

[Inori]

Oh goodness, Dell Is still the same 12 years later.

I bought a Dell lappy back In 2004 and on boot up fresh out of the box, It BSOD'd. Their support was terrible and after many phone calls, they finally agreed to replace the Ram. On another lappy (Dell Inspiron 510M at the time), the keypad practically fell apart. I haven't touched Dell since.

I agree with your closing paragraph. Get rid of It and purchase one that'll serve It's purpose.

I'm looking at this Asus model, which can actually handle what I need it to now, not what I needed in middle school, which was little more than Minecraft.

[mothered]

I'm looking at this Asus model, which can actually handle what I need it to now, not what I needed in middle school, which was little more than Minecraft.

I must say, for the specs It entails, It's very well priced.

Sufficient ram, a very respectable VC, excellent res and not too bad of a CPU. It's always the OS (In a lot of systems) that's a letdown. In this case, Windows 10 Home (non-volume licensing)- no BitLocker Drive Encryption nor Group Policy Editor, Hyper-V support missing, maximum memory limit of 4GB for the 32 bit architecture (this Is 64 bit so It's fine) and the list goes on. Nonetheless, It'll only take an hour or so to Install a more superior edition (Pro or Enterprise).

All In all, good find. If you do purchase It, I'd like to read how It performs.
EDIT: Typo.

[Blink]

I've had numerous Dells and have learned my lesson.

Spoiler:

Fuck you ell, you don't even deserve a "D"

[Skullmate]

I can relate.

I bought a laptop from NewEgg and the manufacturer sent me a faulty one. I realized it quick and contacted them and they accepted a return & replacement. NewEgg messed up the return and it took calling 9 different times to get the order returned. It's been about a week and I'm waiting for them to acknowledge it's been returned - fortunately FedEx tracking shows they received it. But, it's going to be like 2 months before I actually receive what I paid for.

[JzJad]

Any luck yet? @Inori ??????????????