Dell knew about computer failures, hid info from customers

[The Straight Story]

Dell knew about computer failures, hid info from customers

Dell might have made efforts to hide problems with its machines after all, according to recently unsealed court records. The New York Times went through hundreds of documents related to the lawsuit that Advanced Internet Technologies brought against Dell, and found that Dell knew much more about its computer problems than it let on, all while continuing to sell the machines to the public. Dell settled the lawsuit earlier this year, but the revelation is troubling.

This lawsuit goes back to 2007, when Advanced Internet Technologies accused Dell of making efforts to conceal known defects in its desktop machines. The suit was settled in September of this year, though the companies did not disclose the terms of the agreement. A federal judge unsealed the documents on Thursday, however, revealing that much more was going on behind the scenes.

For example, the Times says that Dell conducted a study in 2004 and concluded that a minimum of 12 percent of its SX270 Optiplex machines would have problems over three years (the same study also included the GX270). The company eventually raised that minimum expectation to 45 percent later that year, with the possibility of the failure rate reaching as high as 97 percent.

Despite this, Dell apparently encouraged its salespeople and technicians to not let customers know about known defects, and said internally that most customers (those who had not bought more than 50 machines) would be subject to "fix on fail"—that is, the company would only help them when their machines broke down. An internal presentation on the Optiplex GX and SX270 acknowledges that the company had discovered "quality issues," but that employees should not proactively bring them to customers' attention.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/11/dell-knew-about-computer-failures-but-hid-info-from-customers.ars

[hobbit709]

1. Most Dells are undercooled

They use one fan to do the job instead of two in most computers. Heat is the enemy of electronics.

[Initech]

4. My self-built i7 desktop has six fans in it. The more, the better.

[hobbit709]

5. My main system has 4 fans

3 120 mm and one 140 mm. One of the 120's is on the liquid cpu cooler. Then there's two fans in the power supply. I'm running a 3.2 quad core Phenom II OC'd to 4GHz. Case temp stays about 25°C and the cpu at 30° idle.
Except for my laptop, all of my computers are homebuilt.

[Initech]

6. After owning two self-built computers, I'll never go back to Dell, Gateway, etc.

[leftstreet]

11. ...

Can I ask what laptop you settled on?

Gonna have to get a new one here, not sure what to get

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Go Mac.

The Macbook Pro is a wonderful machine. I use mine for everything (except for running some ancient, specialized SW for which I keep a couple of old XP machines running).

[hobbit709]

16. I'd rather save the money.

My most expensive computer cost me $600 for parts, my cheapest about $200.

[leftstreet]

18. thx

[DainBramaged]

19. Why do you Mac Addicts have to preach about Macs as if they are religion?

I can buy one notebook, a GREAT portable 17" gaming computer, and have money left over for dinner for what a MuckBook Pro costs, and I HAVE a Mac Mini (so I SPEAK from experience) and all you get is the the chance to overpay for Steve Jobs clumsy software. Until Apple decided to use Intel processors, they were slow, clumsy and limited to use by graphic artists.

[Jackpine Radical]

24. Because Steve Jobs is God, that's why.

[DainBramaged]

37. No, you folks think yours is better, it isn't, get over yourselves.

[proud2BlibKansan]

29. Because your Mac will live longer

In the long run, Macs are far more economical.

[DainBramaged]

35. Fallacy

[proud2BlibKansan]

38. Not in my house

[DainBramaged]

43. I have TWO ten year old computers that still work, one with Windows 98

Fallacy.

Mac people are inherently cheap, therefore they put up with old technology.

[proud2BlibKansan]

44. DH and I both bought new computers - same month

His was a PC and mine was a Mac. Mine was considerably more expensive. Two years later, he had spent the difference on his, keeping it running and buying addons. Ten years later, my Mac still runs. His PC was sent to the garbage 5 or 6 years ago.

Not a fallacy in our house at all. Yes the Mac cost more brand new but it's been far more economical over time.

[AnArmyVeteran]

32. I had an all Mac editing system/graphics programs and they never crashed & worked fast & perfect.

PCs are cheaper because they are made cheaply and the maintenance on them is a huge problem. Read my other post in this thread. I had about 20 different graphics programs and they worked flawlessly and extremely fast before intel processors.

[DainBramaged]

36. Mac's are made in the same factory as the PC's

and just as cheaply. You folks pay way more for the same crap we use. And there is no such thing as 'maintainance' on PCs tat is a huge problem. More fallacy.


Look up Foxcon.

[AnArmyVeteran]

31. Hi fellow REAL computer user!

I have a MacBook Pro too and love it. No crashes, no viruses, no freezes and no problems of any kind. Everyone I know with PCs are always talking about problems they are having. I've used both Macs and PCs and I have no idea why anyone would own a PC, except for them being cheaper. But you get what you pay for.

I worked for a large company that had an all-PC environment and then they switched to all-Macs. Because they were no longer needed, the tech support department eliminated 75% of the people. While I'm not advocating people losing their jobs I think it's crazy for companies having PCs because they spend 4 times as much for computer support and the entire workforce is much less efficient than an all-Mac environment.

PC = Piece of Crap or Pretend Computer

[Jackpine Radical]

42. To be fair, PC's use an open standard

and the whole environment is cobbled together to permit a lot of variation in the software and hardware that end up in the mix. Mac stuff is a much more closed, and therefore controllable, universe.

As for the virus issue, my understanding is that Macs have a twofold advantage, in that 1) OS X was designed with the Internet in mind, while Windows has roots that go back to the DOS era and some inherent vulnerabilities as a result; and 2) Since OS X has such a small share of the market, there is little incentive to bother with writing viruses for it.

Come to think of it, if I want to retain Advantage # 2, I shouldn't be encouraging people to buy Macs.

Hey, Go buy a PC. I think you'd be happiest with one of those cheap Toshibas. They'really good machines.

[hobbit709]

14. Compaq CQ60

It was on sale and did what I wanted. It came with Vista but I cured that immediately.
2GHz Athlon X2, 2Gb RAM, 250Gb hard drive,15.6" screen, DVD-RW. What I liked was the full keyboard with numeric pad(rare in most laptops).
Upgraded to 500 Gb hard drive and 3 Gb RAM. Dual boots Windows 7 home Premium X64 or LinuxMint 9 X64.

[leftstreet]

17. thx

[Initech]

22. I have a Toshiba - it's a great system.

[Jackpine Radical]

25. I have a long history of laptop PC's before converting to Mac.

I always had the best luck with Toshibas and IBM's (now Lenovo). If I had to go PC, I would get a cheap Toshiba. I see there are now some quite adequate ones around for $350 or so.

[Initech]

27. I used to own a Mac but converted back to PC's.

I like the do-it-yourself approach to desktops and I prefer Windows 7 to be a much better OS than Mac OS 10.5.

[Jackpine Radical]

28. Well, it's OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) these days.

Anyway, I took my first programming course (FORTRAN) in 1964, spent much of the 70's running statistical packages like SPSS on mainframes, and got my first "portable" (an Osborne I) in 1982. I wrote some fairly complicated BASIC programs for PC's in the DOS era, and still use one of them for scoring the MMPI. I've never had the time & energy in all the years since to convert it to Visual Basic. If I ever do modernize it, I'll start over & put it on an Excel spreadsheet.

Anyway, as the years went by, I became less and less of a "nuts & bolts" computer guy, & now am happy with whatever works the best for what I'm trying to do. That's mostly writing & some statistical work, and the Macs suit my purpose quite handily. I have no experience ofWin 7, but it was reading reviews of Vista that made me decide on a Mac. That, and my stepson, who is a PhD particle physicist/computer geek and Mac lover. It's easier to cajole him into doing computer support if I'm using a Mac, of for no other reason than his sense of responsibility for putting me on the Mac path.

[sakabatou]

2. Not a surprise

[Initech]

3. I've owned two Dells - both were pieces of shit.

[proud2BlibKansan]

30. I've owned one and used several at work

They all sucked.

[Initech]

33. One of mine had a defective pixel right out of the box.

Dell refused to fix it citing a shipping error - I had to fight them relentlessly in order to get them to fix it.

[AnArmyVeteran]

7. Dell & right wing fanatic Governor Rick Perry, both corrupt slimeballs.

Dell and Perry are almost inseparable. And check out the shady real estate deal (scam) between Dell and Perry. Perry bought a piece of mesquite and rock covered land in Round Rock, Texas and 18 months later resold it to Dell for a huge fortune. It was nothing more than a payoff for Perry to be Dell's personal prostitute.

[hobbit709]

8. I know people that knew Dell in the old days when he was selling out of his room.

He was an asshole then, the only difference is that he's now a $6 billion asshole.

[Greyhound]

9. SOP. HP has also knowingly sold defective computers for years.

In fact they view this as a marketing strategy. And don't even get me started on what the industry done to software...
:kick: & R

[Dr.Phool]

10. Not just Dell. A whole shitload of defective capacitors from Asia.

And, they've infected just about every type of electronics.

Have a two year service agreement on your cell phone, and a one year warranty? Look out.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

21. I use to have a custom box with XP installed... for a long time I thought the problem was "XP"

turns out the motherboard died of leaky capacitors near the CPU.



With all the bad talk with Win-XP and Win-98, sometimes hardware is the cause.

[DainBramaged]

12. Ahem.......

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=8936761


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/technology/13dell.html?_r=2&hp

[quinnox]

15. I've always known Dell sucks

Whenever I buy a new computer I always get it custom built by small independent computer companies.

[sally cat]

20. The Dell Vostro I'm using has performed flawlessly since 2007, so I like Dell.

[surrealAmerican]

23. There was a time when putting out a product with a 97% failure rate ...

... would guarantee a company would be going out of business.

They cut a few corners too many this time.

[TBF]

26. Our Dells have been terrific (knock on wood) - both desktop and laptops.

In fact we have one laptop that is still ten years old and our daughter is able to use it for games. I did have a problem with an overheating Sony laptop that I had to replace before it was 2 yrs old.

I wonder how much of this goes on with all the computer companies. After watching car companies hide their defects for years I can only imagine they all are doing it.

[sally cat]

34. I've noted over the years that Dell owners hate them less than other folks.

[hobbit709]

39. About a third of the desktops I work on are Dells

The most common hardware failure is power supply.

[KharmaTrain]

40. Dells Have Used Second-Rate Parts...

The rejects other companies don't want...cheaper parts that is why those machines can sell for the low prices. I just had a friend have his 2 year old Dell laptop overheat and pass on...he got a Lenovo...paid more for the machine but knows he's got something solid to work with.

I'm with those who either can build their machines (I used to) or have them custom-built. My business relies on these beasts to always be there and machines like HP or Dell or Gateway (are those still around) just don't cut it.

Cheers...

[HughBeaumont]

41. Yeps, that's why I go with homebuilts.

Our work uses POS Dells for Desk and Lap-tops. Because of the undercooling, near the end of the day the things sound like jets taking off. Crashes, motherboard fails, slowness . . . just a horrible brand.