Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!siemens!demon!jrv
From: jrv@demon.siemens.com (James R Vallino)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Dell 310 flame (of sorts)
Summary: All Dell's ain't so reliable
Message-ID: <16196@siemens.siemens.com>
Date: 4 Oct 89 19:37:19 GMT
References: <8634@spool.cs.wisc.edu> <1090@cbnewsj.ATT.COM>
Sender: news@siemens.siemens.com
Reply-To: jrv@demon.siemens.com (James R Vallino)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Siemens Research and Technology Laboratories
Lines: 39

In article <1090@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> jwi@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Jim Winer @ AT&T, Middletown, NJ) writes:
>DELL builds some of the fastest, most reliable machines on the market.
>The key here is *most reliable.* DELL sells to the corporate market
>and to the small business market. They usually have the best overall
>performance for a *stock* machine. They do not have the best price/
>performance ratio.
>
>If your business depends on the machine working
>absolutely perfectly day-after-day-after-day, by all means get a DELL.

There some folks here who would definitely differ with that opinion of Dell
machines.  We have about 30 Dell machines some dating back to when the
company was called PC's Limited.  Of these 30 there are 3 or 4 machines which
have been continual problems.  One 310 had just about everything changed out
in the course of its one year warranty.  When Dell sent the renewal form for
the service contract the user of the machine called Dell instead and
complained.  He asked for a new machine.  Our account representative checked
the repair record then called back later that day.  She said that the machine
sure was a dog and a new one was on the way.  Another 310 had about 3
service calls on it in the first few months.  In the last month we have had
the hard disks on 4 12 MHz 286 boxes give up the ghost.  These machines are
all about 2 years old so we may be getting to the life expectancy of the
disk.  It was rather frustrating for them all to go in such a short period
of time though.

The one thing which Dell is real good about is customer service.  Our
account representative responds when we have any problems.  The service
contract people also do a good job.  That's good because on about 10 to 15%
of the machines we sure needed them.  Our policy now is still to buy Dell's
but if a machine has more than 2 service calls we will probably ask for a
new one to be sent to us.  They have also gotten their act together about
delivering machines according to the first date specified.  We did have an
instance when the two machines which would be shipped in 2 weeks finally
arrived 4 months later.

Jim Vallino	Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton, NJ
jrv@demon.siemens.com
princeton!siemens!demon!jrv
(609) 734-3331