I though this would go well with computerMan's last poll "Best Computer Company"

I voted Dell for both

This will be a stupid off topic question... Who buys computers from Compaq or Dell or whatever when we perfectly know that they are not as superior as one you can build yourself (probably for the same amount of money if not less) ??

I agree. I have to deal with dell, sony etc. at work... Just though it would be fun to see who else hates comp. tech support from these places as much as I do

A company online called Impact Computers. Worst service ever.

Why do you care about tech support? Every tech support is organised to put an id*** on the phone, because of the large chance of an even bigger id*** on the other end. They call it support levels.

And tech support will never ever acknowledge that anything is wrong with their product. I once called Packard Bell tech support because my notebooks graphics card was fried for the third time, twice in the same machine and again in the replacement. They said I should extend my warranty period.

Geez... all tech support sucks. Compaq complained to me for two weeks when my hard drive was a dud because they kept on telling me that it was "normal" for a computer to take 30-40 seconds to wake up from hibernation. Dell wasn't much better when I had my system from them.

Although, I think I've found a new worst company...

www.flycomputers.com

They built my friend's computer with the following specs:

3.2GHz P4 Prescott
1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 RAM (dunno what brand)
256MB ATI X800XL video card
(some other stuff...)

And to top it all off.... NO CASE FANS!!! The only fan that was blowing air out of the case was the power supply fans. I told him to get at least a 120mm fan to blow air out, and told him to get a better heat sink (he had the stock Intel on there). The guys at the store said that the Zalman 7700Cu or 7700AlCu wouldn't do any better than his stock HS... geez...

HA, that is very very true. Sometimes it takes a couple of F-bombs to get them to understand that their SH#% is broken.

I bought a motherboard from ABIT, and nearly 6 months later it...died.

I called their tech support, and the "tech" person could hardly speak english.

While I listened, I could hear the person turning pages as they helped my "diagnose" my dead motherboard.

When all else failed, they asked me if my toaster was plugged in...

I worked in the MIS department for a private college campus for almost two years as Jr. Network Admin and we had Dell as our primary Laptop and Desktop providers recieving probably 15-20 machines a month for new students. Well most of the students weren't computer literate and tore the machines to hell leaving me and my co-worker to call Dell to replace a simple component like a HD and we use to call and bam three hours wasted talking to a person from india who barely speaks english and can hear the **** book flipping pages in the background not knowing what the hell is going on looping you through the same **** troubleshooting procedures you already did before you called. DELL SUCKS!!!!

Friends don't let friends buy a pre-built system!

I'd have to say Gateway. About a year ago at work we bought 30 17inch notebooks. We've had to send 12 of them back for repairs. On average it takes 2 hours of "troubleshooting" for them to take one back. Makes sense. They ship a box overnight to us, that gets shipped overnight back to them, and they ship it back once its repaired overnight again. 3 overnight shipments like that can't be cheap. Turnaround is usually 9 days. Its not so bad that these notebooks were completely faulty in their design, its the fact that they have us check for spyware and stuff when we have a screen that wont show red, but just blue and green (the screen didn't even show the Gateway logo correctly at boot time, let's see spyware do that). 4 of the computers just outright died and wouldn't even POST, but they kept having me try and hook up a monitor through the VGA port to check BIOS settings. Of course it never worked. Anyway, our Dell purchases aren't so bad since we get people based in the USA. Regardless, we only call them for hardware problems. I do have one bad story for Dell. I had a hard drive with bad sectors. They had us send the comptuer back with the story that it may be the motherboard and the exact same hard disk came back, with the drive wiped clean and a new dell image installed. I had to use autoclave with 25 passes a few times until the drive completely died and they gave me a replacement.

I'm sorry!!! I couldn't get to him in time!!!

It was also his other friend who told him to go with Intel and ATI, just because the friend "liked them more"... *shakes head*

I would have told him to get an Athlon64 3200+ (or the like) and the Geforce6800 (or variant) instead of his current setup... but then again, he's somewhat of a n00b when it comes to the insides of a computer... he told me "anything outside of Windows is hardcore"

Compaq and HP are the same company now...

As I've said before, the Army uses Dell exclusively. They suck. Dell, not the Army, I mean. Dell really, really, really sucks. Day in and day out they break, and Dell's support sucks even more then their shoddy, cheap plastic computers. Hate 'em. It's terrible that America's fighting backbone is at the mercy of such crappy vendors. Ah well, look at the HumVee

LOL, I live by that

so , for now , from brands , dell is on the market
first on the Worst Computer Company Support also
first for the Best Computer Manufacturer !!?

Same Here Im not sure if that is how it is supposed to work

have to say HP.
situation i had involved a dodgy cd-r years ago that just stopped writing. They asked questions based on script, could tell by way he spoke, and wasn't sure what to do if you manage to deviate them from it. Got it changed after some more fruitless calls to more robots.

hehe, try calling sony support. I had to call them for service on an amplifier that I bought from them, and I think they had me talking to a darn robot... Literally

a deaf and dumb robot at that It must have been mu crazy wisconsin accent that threw the robot off, but it didnt understand a darn thing that I said to it... I finally ended up screaming into the phone... it finally got the clue

Also wanted to say that Dell SUCKS when it comes to businesses, such as hospitals.

A lot of schools use Dells, however. I'll ask my IT dept. to see how many times they have to fix those computers. It'd be interesting to learn.

I'm sorry but for me i build and i think the worst parts company is TIGERDIRECT

As a tech, working on every make of computer you can imagin, I hear all the complaints.

The biggest complaint that I hear (daily) is that the caller in the US can't understand the support person on the other end of the line. (usually in the far east)

There are just certain word-sounds in our language that they just can't make, because those sounds just aren't in their native language.

Lollypop can come out sounding like "rorrypop"...

Combine that with an elderly person who doesn't hear very well anyway and put him/her on a cheap K-Mart phone and you have a combination for disaster.

I've been at customers' homes when they called for Tech Support. After just so many "HuH? HuH? HuH?" they would just hang up the phone in a rage.

It was great, years ago when most major corps had their help lines answered by "Ruppman Marketing, Inc." in Peoria Illinois. Many of those girls answering the phones were bi or even tri lingual. But they all spoke flawless English.

Well, that's my 2 cents worth for a Sunday morning.
Cheers!
Andromeda43

Voted Other. Cause all techs like that suck. There are at least three or four levels of techs when you call into Gateway, Dell, etc.

Do it yourself, it's that easy.

I still remember calling Gateway about a simple bug. Windows ME machine, the Start > Documents > My Docs/Pictures broke.

So, I called support to fix it and sat there and listened to them say "blah blah do this do that" to which none of it was related. Since I was at my pc I was fiddling around with it trying to fix it myself.

I fixed it well before they had a clue. Start > Run > regsrv32 C:\Windows\System\MyDocs.dll

The tech asked ME how I fixed it, what I did and wanted all kinds of information. I never call tech support anymore, I just fix it myself.

I still remember going through Dell tech support. It was the most inconvenient thing ever. They have at least 3 different 1-800 numbers, one of which was the desktop phonenumber, and the other was the laptop phonenumber. I called the wrong number a couple of times, and waited 5 minutes on hold until they informed me that I need to call a different 1-800 number. I called the "right" number, and was on hold for at least 20 minutes, then I hear a distant, barely audible voice saying "please tell me your service tag number and express code." Now when you're talking to someone thats all the way across the goddamn globe, it's hard for them to hear you. I had to tell them at least 3 times a bunch of stupid meaningless numbers until I could start talking about my computer issues. But for the most part, they were able to help me somewhat. Luckily, once, I was able to talk a tech support person in the Central United States. That makes a WORLD of difference. So, Dell Support is highly inconvenient, but sometimes, it is helpful. I can't really speak about other computer manufacturers that much, but I can tell you that Rockstar Games support REALLY sucks. Newegg.com tech support is perfect. ADS tech support is efficient, but not helpful and Microsoft is tedious and annoying with reactivating windows xp pro for my laptop.

Just thought id check back in on my poll, and Im seein' the exact results that I expected All in all, I think all support sux, some more than others of course. This is y us non-computer illiterat folk stick to building our own machines, and being our own computer supporters. A forum like this is 1,000,000,000,000,000 times better than any computer support line (not always as quick but way more effective ) Keep on votin'

This poll is better called "who has experience with computer company support" and the results would probably be the same

who buys all those branded computer at once
so how will it be possible to know abt their support from a single person

for today, id say packard bell has the worst customer service...oh wait...are they still around??? hmmm, wonder why.




its a joke guys...Creative Labs by far is the worst

I never had to call Dell for anything so I donno

Y'all gather round and listen to the tale of my experience with Western Digital. I got a new 250GB HD for Christmas, and plugged it in and all that. I booted it up and checked out the entry in the BIOS: WDC [some number] 137GB. 137? No... So I looked at the manual, and it said that in cases like this, I should use the included controller card instead of connecting it to the motherboard. Except one problem... there was no controller card. OK, next idea... supposedly the installer CD can install a hack to work around this. Great, I'll just put the disc in, run setup... and it says I have no CD drive. While it's running from a CD. -.- With no other options, I looked up the tech support number in the manual. There's a single 1-800 number listed. I dial it up and immediately get put on hold... for 15 minutes. Now I don't mind having to wait that bad... the part that drives me nuts is that literally every minute they repeat the same annoying line "please stay on the line, your call is important, blah blah blah" until you've gone completely looney. So 15 minutes later, someone answers. I tell them the problem and they inform me that I called the wrong number! (Gee, so many numbers to choose from - ONE. I can see how I would have made that mistake. ) So they redirect me to some other number, not bothering to tell me what it is in case I need to call back. Back on hold for ANOTHER 25 MINUTES. Finally, someone picks up... I ask about the missing controller card, and they say that they haven't included those in a few years. How lazy are these people that they stopped producing these a few YEARS ago and still haven't updated the manuals? The CD? He has no clue. He tells me to go to their website (don't you just love it when computer tech support asks you to use the Internet to get your computer working?) to download a smaller version that runs off a floppy disk. So I go to the website... it's blank. Sure, it works on their end, but I see an empty white screen. I hang up and find the download page myself via Google. Download, write to disk, reboot... Disk error.
Now, this is the part that really ticked me off. I put in a second disk and do a full format followed by checking each sector. No problems, but the program conks out at 95%. It takes TWELVE disks to get this **** thing to work. After finally getting it running, it asks what OS I'm using. Since I haven't actually installed one yet, I choose WinXP with no service pack. Does it continue on its merry way? Noooo. Does it install that workaround it's supposed to install to support >137GB HDs? Oh no no no. It tells me that WinXP without a service pack can't handle a drive this big. -.- So I decided screw it, I'll just make 125GB partitions. It won't even let me do that! I have to restart and say I'm using SP2 just so I can install anything. And just to make things that extra little bit annoying, I can't even choose my partition size. It just has some crappy, inaccurate percentage thing.


But as long as we're discussing tech support, I may as well add that Cogeco is one of the best I've dealt with. They rarely put you on hold for more than 5 minutes, the automated voice recording - WHICH YOU CAN SKIP - tells you if there are any known outages (though it's often wrong ), and the people actually speak English and really know what they're talking about.

Also, I dunno about tech support but I noticed HP sucks at making computers (or at least they did before they merged with Compaq). I had one and it screwed up everything. I'm not sure exactly what the problem was but programs would always just have random little bugs in them, as if the RAM were faulty, but it wasn't. I also had to add a new fan soon after I got it because it was overheating. It had a Celeron and came pre-loaded with WinME. And to top it all off, guess what it had for a power supply? 100 watts. One hundred. (Come to think of it, that's probably why nothing worked right...)

Oh and speaking of crap... if you're going to have a limit on smilies (quite pointless imo, but whatever) would it hurt to at least say what that limit is? And really, five is too much?

Ive only ever had an emachine

I dont think they even have a phone number

let alone a website, or drivers, or bios updates

Oh... so that explains why you try to make XP as small as possible...

actually , no, I have a 1337 machine right now
The emachine is the only machine I have ever bought from a corperation.
I gave it to my family, not bad for someone whos made only 2500 his whole life
This is what i built myself.
Right now i got, a dfi nf3 250GB, amd 64 754 2800+ @ 3280+,512MB kingmax hardcore ddr 500 @ 570, sapphire ati radeon 9800 pro, 500W diabolic deamon psu (powmax i find out after, **** tiger direct), diablic deamon case, that can hold 8 3.5" drives, and 4 5.25" drives, and I think 18Fans, ranging from 80MM to 120MM. DL dvd burner, and a cd burner and 80GB WD SE 8MB cache


also my reasons for such a small xp, is mainly security then anything else.

mainly cause, not all computers in my house support wireless wap protection, so were stuck using wep, which is completly insecure, ive been hacked, to the point where they changed the router password, 3 times already this year, not I put the antenna strength as low as it can go, to aviod it.

Ah... I see. I was just messin with ya. I've said before that I'm curious to see how this turns out. Maybe when I've got time (dunno when that'll be), I'll give it a shot to see how it turns out.

And yes, that is a pretty killer system.

thanks.

its working out better than I ever expected. I am making patches for software at a incredible rate. Waiting on a nice webhost now, I just hope I get another 2 months to work on this atleast.

so far, i have had a 90% success rate with programs. I have learned all this stuff on my own through trial and error, and cant wait til I get an expert using it, to see how well the do.

I'm not surprised it's Dell as they're the king of cheap.

I guess I'm biased in that I work for MS's enterprise support - but I'm surprised no one said Microsoft. I knew we were good, but...

I will have to say Dell

Dell is most definatly the BEST EVER!!! plus i kno alot of the people that work at dell so its nice
-HP is actully the crappy one, i called them once for help and they were CLOSED!!! Dell never closes!



KING OF CHEAP EH???? then y are you always seeing dell computers in the real world? I kno for a fact most hospidels, schools and goverment places use DELL computers! No to mention stores and businesses!

--excuse my crappy spelling

The thing about Dell (and probably any other), is that it really depends on what you buy and how much. I am the network admin for a gov't office, with about 200 users, all Dell (including servers). Now I didn't choose what systems to buy, but I do have to support them. Whenever I have to call our Dell support line, I usually get grade A service. Sure, I have occaisonally talked to some who really don't know what they are talking about, but usually I am greeted on the other end of the phone by someone in my home area who is willing and able to help. Fact is, if I was a standard home user, calling the standard support number, I would probably be transfered to someone overseas who has been contracted by Dell to handle these calls. If I'm not paying for "on-site" service, why should I expect top level service. Not that I have any doubt in the potential for those who answer these calls to help me, but language barriers can be frustrating. My company pays for top level service, and we get it. If you want to do-it-yourself, or look for the best bargin, why complain when the tech-support isn't top notch. Fact is you get what you pay for. If I've paid for a warranty and/or support on my hardware and it fails, I expect satisfaction--but when I have a problem I can't solve, I turn to the friendly people here at MSFN.

Also, I consider myself pretty knowledgable when it come to computers, and I would never want to answer high-volume tech support calls all day, and I'm sure I'm not alone. I imagine good help is hard to find, especially for this kind of job.

Tulip Computers, when asked for a replacement notebook harddrive we recieved an 80GB full size IDE Hard Drive. Then sent us a batch of 20 Laptops that werent even complete. People on the phone know nothing.

We unfortunately got 32 Dells in. 3 minor problems so far, nothing to call Dell for.

Some of my friends don't listen to me. 1 bought a Dell (he regreted it). 3 others listened to me, and are very happy.

IBM is the vendor of choice for laptops. I know some people call them stinkpads, but if you buy a cheap anything (from any vendor), you almost always get what you pay for. Some vendors are just bad across the line, but I've found IBM Thinkpad T and X series laptops to be the best at taking regular abuse, especially from the higher-ups who routinely beat the living hell out of anything they touch (not to mention what their kids do with them when they're home!).

Sorry to hear about your experiences man - that sucks.

I voted Sony, because they essentially dont have technical support. About Dell, yes their support sucks, but at least they're friendly and try to be helpful.

BFG tech does it for me. Once upon a time - okay, in was back in summer 2005, I bet around 20. June, I bought trought friend in USA BFG 6800OC card. I was convinced by the lifetime warranty and great customer services reviews, as well, as perormance.
I was planing to watercool the suxxka, so I did not care about the two screamers installed on the card. Anyway, when I plug it in on testing machine on my dest, the picture look like this:

<!--ImageUrlBegin--><!--ImageUrlEBegin--><img width="300" class="attach" src="http://ax2.old-cans.com/trashed_screen.jpg" border='0' alt="User posted image" /><!--ImageUrlEnd--><!--ImageUrlEEnd-->


Obviously, wrong memory chip. 600W Enermax PSU sure give enought juice, so... Tried few other machines as well... So I write BFG in hope they have a European collect address for RMA. Included pictures and asked how long the replacement took. They want few infos, give me a ticket and no address info come. Ever. I mailed second time, same stuff. Third - I got a new reply, saying this:



So I waiting still up to today. The card already lost it's value completely and I bougt PNY 6800GT anyway... So, maybe I should remind them again? Pics of the card (look, how nice thing this is!) is there, in case you want to check taht it is not damaged in any way at all:
http://trodas.wz.cz/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=219

this doesn't really comply with the computer company tech support...but i had a wireless G adapter for my xbox that just wouldn't work. so i called the linksys tech support...and nobody had any idea what was going on...so the guy just hung up on me..

topic moved to general discussion.

well i think the company supports might be okay.
we here, know a lot, possibly more than what those support ppl know.
so if u call them to ask something its hard for them to answer

vando2k said don't but from any, customize your own. well if a user knows that there is an option to customize his/her computer (build it from scratch) he/she has some understanding...

also there is the problem of explaning yourself and how the support personal percieves your problem.

ow and dell computers are pretty good. my laptop's been running for 3 years always on. except restarts.. and it has not failed nor crashed bc of any problem...

my dad's dell failed a few weeks ago. but that was a problem on his fault for not having regular maintinence. fortunately all he had to do was reformat it....what i've been telling him to do for 5 months before this happened.

Cluberti,
Don't get too exicted there. MS support is not mentioned here good bad or indifferent. The most likely reason being that most of us can't afford their ridiculous prices.
hitbit

how about an "impartial" option.

we are a "Dell" shop at work...all 200 workstations...

there are times when the tech support people are knowledgeable while others are incredily "slow" for a lack of a better word!

so does one bad apple ruin the whole batch...? yes, but you gotta weigh out the other good times when you call tech support!