A few months ago I am finishing up my article on System.Transactions for MSDN Magazine at about 3am, decide to hit the sack and review the article one last time before I submit it the next day (the due date). I get up around 8am and go to look at it and the PC locks up and shuts down. I'm softly saying "no, no, no!". I boot up, and it says "bwahahahaha! your hard drive is toast!" Greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat! Long story short, I lost the article. No, I did not back it up. Everything else was backed up just a day earlier, but I had not yet backed up my article nor had I emailed it so I could not even go to the email server to get it. ugh. Thankfully, the MSDN crew were very good to me and let me have a few extra days to recreate my article (oh, that was fun ... talk about deja vu!).
So now I have my new hard drive ... and guess what ... today the hard drive blew again and the CPU fan blew on me! I am so happy!!! NOT! Anyway, the Dell support was very helpful once again. They are sending me the new parts and a person to install them for me. yes I could do it on my own but I am paying for next business day support so why not take advantage of it? Overall I am very happy with the next business day support from Dell. I have 4 Dell computers, only 1 of which has had any hardware failures. But on both of the occasions where the parts failed the phone support was quick to get to (under 3 minutes) and they were quick to get the parts out to me and a technician on the way. Today, I did have to request a technician come out instead of them overnighting the parts to me. That bugged me a little, but he gave in quickly and agreed.
So I spect about $180 for 3 yr next business day service and I got out of it a new CPU fan and 2 new hard drives not to mention next day installation by a technician. So the cost was well worth it for me, especially since I am a developer and this is my main development PC. Overall I give it a thumbs up.
I am considering getting a new PC sometime this year and was thinking about skipping the NBD service from Dell this time. I think my experiences have now proven that for me, it is well worth the extra money. I am now considering possibly getting the Dimension with the dual core processor. If I do, I will blog about how it does or doesn't help speed anything up.
Day 1: OK, they never showed up the next business day nor did they call! At least a phone call or email would have been nice.
Day 2: Dell still hasn't showed. I called them and they say they can't promise a time. </sigh>
Day 3: Where is Dell? Not here. I called them and they say they are sorry but they can't promise a day or time.
<P>Business Day 4: Didn’t call them today. Was hoping they would just show up. It’s been 6 days or 4 business days. Thankfully I have another computer. </P> <P>Day 5: No word once again, Dell says they should be here.</P> <P>Day 6: Ah, finally someone at Dell tells me that someone did not enter the support call correctly and that nobody has been dispatched. The call has been re-entered and they now say it is likely for Friday (8th business day). Can’t wait for the service survey they always send me.</P> <P>Day 7: Service tech arrives with the parts, installs them, takes off. Very professional and quick. Can’t complain about his service. If the original guy I talked to had just entered the call correctly or someone had caught it, this all would’ve been fixed a week ago. </rant></P>
