I had purchased my Dell Inspiron laptop last year. I was hardly using the laptop as i was in a 9-5 job.

The Perception and the wrong decision to go with Dell

I always had the perception that Dell exceeds other manufacturers in product quality, service, efficient and knowledgeable customer support.

As a result i went ahead and finalized Dell laptop over other brands. Now, with my experience, i regret that decision.

Slowly things changed and i founded my own Startup and tried to get busy using my laptop as this was the time i needed it most, i had purchased it with the intention of my business as i already have a fully functional desktop.

However, all of that was an illusion. The product quality is cheap, nothing manufactured by dell. Moreover, inefficient and unqualified support staff, who go out of their way to make sure customer keeps quiet and mislead them

The Original Problem

My Dell Laptop is Dell Inspiron N5110 which has 2GB of RAM, 500 GB hdd and comes with Windows 7 Home Basic.

Per the recent upgrade offer from Microsoft, i paid for Windows 8 Pro upgrade and got an ISO of the Windows 8 Install.

Few incompatible apps and Windows 8 secure boot feature were not a concern for me which i ignored and made a Clean install of Windows 8 Pro.

However, Windows was freezing without even without any applications running, just after starting the Laptop.

I tried to troubleshoot the issue but there was no resolution.

The Worst Dell technician ever, you would encounter,

There are chances such issues are caused due to hardware error, so i considered contacting Dell Technical support toll free number: 1800

It was unfortunate that my call was routed to an Under Training Dell technician, Ravi. When i mean under training is because throughout the call he was putting the call on Mute for long periods and was surely asking the floor lead to guide him on how to proceed further.

During the call i had clearly informed the technician about my problem that Windows 8 Pro was freezing just after booting up.

After taking the essential information and running ePSA test (this is an inbuilt Diagnostic test which comes with All Dell systems), he instructed me to update the BIOS.

Yes, in certain cases updating the BIOS does resolve the issue. However, here the logical problem was with the process of upgrading BIOS.

The update procedure for BIOS is to be able to run the EXE file from the Windows interface itself, NO SANE Person would instruct a customer to download the EXE and run it knowing the fact that customer has complained for Windows Freezing issue.

I was skeptical about this hence, i confirmed with technician “are you sure updating BIOS is essential to resolve this issue”, after keeping the phone on mute for few minutes he replied in positive tone.

As instructed i ran the BIOS update utility and as the original problem existed, Windows froze while the update was running with no response from laptop. No key was working.

The tech Ravi, had no clue on what to do next. He kept the call on Mute again for minutes and later came back saying

“Sir, please remove the Power cable to turn off the system”

I had to remind him that its a Laptop and not a Desktop and that, removing the power cable will cause nothing to the state of the laptop. He then asked me to remove the battery.

After removing the battery, the system would not boot up, no post, no diagnostic.

The Dell tech effectively bricked my motherboard, and then offered me a replacement.

Brick the part that had no issue and then Issue replacement with Refurbished part

I knew the replacement would be with a Refurbished (which has less life) motherboard. I told him that i wont get the motherboard replaced, and asked hime to send a technician to fix the current motherboard. He agreed.

At the same time i had sent an email to India Service head for dell, they gave me a call in evening regarding the issue and told me that i will receive a call on Monday morning 11 AM. Next day, i called up the support team as i did not hear from them. This time the rep, asked me that she would go ahead and issue a replacement.

I insisted that i don’t want a refurbished part and either want the current motherboard to be fixed Or replace with a new motherboard of equal specs.

She transferred my call to Sahil Arora, he informed me that All dell replacements are named “refurbished” for Name sake, as Dell gets new motherboards and installs own bios on hence its called as refurbished.

Hence, i agreed.

However that was a blatant lie, which was negated by DellCares Twitter handle via a DM reply.

“If you install Non-Dell RAM, you’ve void the whole System Warranty, i am dispatching motherboard as an exception”

He went ahead and told me that I have voided the system warranty and he is replacing the motherboard only as an exception.

All of this was NOT true, i confirmed it with DellCares Twitter handle, and they affirmed that System Warranty is Intact if other hardware is installed only that they would not support that hardware Or any issues caused due to that hardware.

Listen to his conversation and decide for yourself, how sure he was and how nicely he was lying and attempting to fool.