My Dell Refurb Experience

First off, I am not trying to bash Dell. I think that I will like this computer very much once the bugs are worked out. This might be a long post, but stay with it, cause the ending is very interesting.

I bought a refurb Studio XPS 435T. Really nice computer. It had an Intel I7-960 and an ATI Radeon 5770 video card. Booted it up and several times the first day the screen would go blank, with the computer still running. Had to reboot the computer each time. Called Dell support in India. By the way, I thought the support folks that I talked with (and there turned out to be several) were top notch. They agreed with me that it was likely the video card, and they overnighted an upgraded ATI Radeon 5850. The upgrade made me happy. Unfortunately, the card got lost in FedEx's system, and they had to overnight another card. In the interim, I discovered that the all-in-one card reader would not recognize either a CF or SD card. So they sent a new card reader along with the new GPU. When they arrived, a Dell technician came to install it only to find, 1) the all-in-one reader didn't work because someone had forgotten to attach the power lead, and 2) the replacement 5850 card was defective. Okay, stuff happens. The technician called Dell support and after talking with me Dell decided to send another computer.

About 15 days later the new computer arrived. I hooked it up, turned it on ... and nothing. The power switch glowed a steady amber, which according to the manual means that the power supply, or mother board is defective. So Dell overnights a new MB, power supply, and 8 gigs of RAM. The tech showed up today to install, and hopefully fix, the replacement computer. When he took the cooler off to remove the CPU in the process of removing the MB, guess what he found? The computer was shipped to me WITHOUT a processor. So we call Dell support, and surprisingly the Dell support guy said that this was a known issue. Anyway the said they would resend a new MB, RAM, power supply, and a new I7-960 processor. After about 15 minutes on hold, he came back and said that their system would not allow them to send out a processor. So, they are sending me a third computer.

Ordinarily I would be very upset. But somehow, I am pretty calm. The folks in India are not at fault. Although I think that the person who assembled a computer without a processor, and then didn't bother to turn it on to see if it worked should be disciplined. Anyway, my old computer is working fine, and I am looking forward to the third time being the charm.

As I said, I am NOT trying to bash Dell. I just thought that the entire situation to date is pretty bizarre. Has anyone else had similar bad luck?

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Makes me want to go online and buy a refurb computer from Dell! So far my Dell 2209 monitor is working great though. Why buy refurb when Micro center had new Dell computers at ridiculously low prices? To each his own. By the way, do you enjoy talking with Indian Dell tech support? If you do .... hmmm.

You have to wonder how Dell makes the money it does, it can't make any on service. I am retired, spent many years as a computer tech it my younger days and ran a service company for 20 years. A younger friend of mine was having all kinds of inconsistent problems with his Dell, they had already sent him two motherboards and had hired a local service company to go to his house and install them, still had the same problem. Went over to his house, he had two 1GB DIMMS on the board. Pulled one DIMM, booted up, ran fine. Pulled that DIMM, installed the other DIMM, booted, then died. Problem, BAD DIMM. The sad part is that neither the Dell Tech nor the Service Tech that Dell had hired to replace the motheboards had any basic diagnostic abilities. Just that one service incident had to cost Dell a few hundred doillars when accounting for all costs involved. Just thought I would share that with you.

Charlie

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Agfamatic, Heiland Pentax, Pentax Spotmatics, Nikon F2 Photomic, Nikon FM, Nikon FM2, Nikon N90S, 990,5000,d100,d200,d300,nikon 50mm 1/1.8,nikon 16-85 VR, tamron 28-300, SB800

The XPS line of Dell products has more dedicated support compared to Inspirons. I kind of hesitate buying refurbs because of potential problems. You would think that they would test refurbs prior to shipping but I find it bizarre to what transpired. Support might be in India but parts are still in the U.S. Sometimes you get a fast response if you email them. Some Indian support do speak very good English and apologizes a lot if the product doesn't meet the customer's satisfaction.

Well, then, that goes to show you that Dell is doing something right. If a company goes out of their way to support you, then I guess we can support them!

I decided to go Dell refurbished AFTER my friend sent back her XPS 8100 when it wouldn't run for more than 5 minutes at a time. Someone was going to get a pretty nice machine with a new replaced part in it for a pretty decent price.

So I configured a new one online for $1400 (without monitor) and set myself a refurb price of around $800 for that same configuration. It only took a couple of weeks for a bunch of them to come up and I bit.

When it came it, too, wouldn't run for more than 5 minutes at a time. Dell replaced the motherboard, the power supply, the video card, the RAM, and the fan on the processor heat sink (which was likely the only problem to begin with, it wasn't properly fastened to the motherboard when it arrived). For two months now I've been running it almost 24\7 without any issues.

So, if you want to play the game and you have the patience you can get a pretty nice setup for a pretty nice price by going refurb. Just be prepared for some adventure.

ggeinec

I've got a 3-year old Dell refurb XPS that's performed flawlessly from day one. However, reading the OP's experience, the prospect of ordering from Dell again gives me pause.

I guess with all the hardware, connections, ventillation and voltage stability that has to go into these things, then things can and will go wrong. But still...
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Eric
http://www.pbase.com/cerumen
http://www.insectography.com

Have purchased several Dell refurbs over the years. All have performed flawlessly. One component failure under warranty and it was express shipped and I had it next day. Have also recommended to others, who have purchased with satisfactory results.
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(See profile for equipment)

I've bought 4 refurbished machines from Dell Outlet so far (3 desktops and a laptop).

They all arrived in like new condition (I couldn't tell the difference), and all worked fine.

I've never even talked to Dell about any of them (I ordered online, and I've never called their support lines about any issues).

From my perspective, you're more likely to get a good product by going refurbished, since they would have checked it out, reloaded the OS, etc. But, problems can happen with any of them, new or refurbished (especially considering they can get banged around in shipping).

I bought my first refurbished box from Dell in 2004 (a Dimension 8300, that still works fine, other than I needed to replace a drive after a failure a while back, and that can happen with any of them). Here's an old post from 2005 about it (in a thread where someone was asking about what PCs everyone else was using):

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1024&message=11738059

The last one (4th machine) I bought from Dell Outlet was purchased earlier this year. It worked fine, too.

I wait for coupon codes for more off each time I buy one from them, and that lets me save even more money. Maybe I'm just "lucky" (knock on wood). But, I have no problems buying a machine that way (I prefer to buy refurbished whenever possible if the warranty is the same).

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JimC
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http://www.pbase.com/jcockfield

P.S.

In fairness, I did have a motherboard failure a while back with one of my Dell Desktops (an Inspiron 530 with a Q6600 CPU in it). But, that didn't happen until well after the warranty had expired.

Also, it probably had more to do with me tinkering with it, than any basic issues with the box itself; as I had replaced the PSU in it with a higher wattage unit to support better video cards, and it was a very cheap PSU (an HEC brand PSU that I bought for $26.99 from newegg.com).

I've had no problems with the other 3 refurbished machines I've purchased except for a drive failure with the Dimension 8300 I bought in 2004 (again, well after the warranty expired on it), and that can happen with any of them, as drives don't always last forever.

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JimC
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http://www.pbase.com/jcockfield

Purchased a Dell Inspiron 530 desktop last year with quadcore, 6gigs of RAM,etc for about 1/2 price over a config'd new unit!

Arrived like new, worked well from start up day one and still does.

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Gary

while others rave about dells refurbs i see enough issues with their new boxes to make me shy away from any refurb no matter what the reason is.

i seriously doubt based on dells sales that many of the refurbs are just open box specials, ones customers didn't want for any reason, etc.

they are refurbs because they had issues first time around and frankly i don't trust dell enough to scrounge around their fixer uppers.

just my opinion.

having had dells since 98 and still have my kids get laptops from them, but thats it, no warranties, no open box, no refurbs.

del has made it simple for the user to get all driver downloads for their system from their service tag support page. they have come a long way in that regards, but when they geta buggy system forget it...
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D700 paired with 24-70 f2.8 and 70-200vr f2.8

It's not only Dell that denies problems with their computers. HP also denies that there are problems with the GPUs and wireless on their laptops. Don't know why companies lie when their reputation is at stake. They should just admit it and fix the problem instead of giving the customers the run around.