Ok, so I got my aunt's old Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop. She also gave me a wireless card with it, but I had to promise her that I wouldn't connect to the Net until I reinstalled Windows. I needed to open the BIOS Setup program to change the boot order of the DVD-ROM drive, but I just couldn't figure out how (even hitting Fn+F1, where F1 is marked setup, didn't work, and I tried about half a dozen other key combonations, which also failed to work). So this morning I called Dell, with hopes of getting my problem solved. The crazy lady whose accent I couldn't really decipher made me tell her all sorts of stuff, about transferring of ownership from my aunt to me, my express service code, and all sorts of other garbage before telling me that I need to pony up the plastic to get this fixed (in other words, they are charging me for them to tell me how to open the BIOS Setup program). So I come here, to tell you about Dell's screwed up support policy, and to ask for help.
How do you open the BIOS Setup program on a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop? Why won't Dell reveal the secret for free?

This post has been edited by michaelper22: Jun 13 2006, 01:38 PM

I hate Dell and wouldn't buy nothing from them. The same problem happened to my neighboor who also has a Dell laptop but I don't know what model is it. And he never solved that same problem for the same reason. I think that the Dell company made a contract with a communicating company. And when someone call for support they will ask tons of question and this way they get the money they lost by answering your call.
I guess the bios should be accessed by rebooting and pressing a combination of buttons, that's how I did it once. And the other option is to sell your laptop and buy a brand new toshiba tecra laptop and forget this problem because with toshiba I had never problems with them. My laptop never had any error. Once I lost my windows CD so I called the support and they sent me a windows XP sp2 C.D packed. Now that's a support, so you can see the difference between those two manufacturers.

This post has been edited by Hadi: Jun 13 2006, 06:01 PM

I personally like Dell Technical Support. My satisfaction levels have been 88% - 100% with them.

They have resolved most problems quickly and easily without spending too much time on it and without much hesitation. The only thing that was really bad was they automatically suspended my order for a new computer.

I would rate them 8.5/10. Former Compaq had people with weird accents that I couldn't understand. I mean typing in msconfig for the first time took about 9 minutes because I couldn't understand her pronounciation of the letters.

Well, it is always easy to say that "i hate this" or "I hate that" but if you look at the business point of view then I think you'll do exactly what dell is doing at this point of time. Anyway, I think dell support is great...now I am not a customer of Dell but still I think their support policy is good. The reason is that they are providing lifetime part replacement policy, which no other companies like HP dont provide. I am sure about HP because I've worked in their technical support myself.

Hi Mike,

On my Dell 4600 , if I want to change the Bios settings I hit the F8 button numerous times str8 after reboot.It should lead you to the Bios settings page

On my Dell, it's F2, not F1. Maybe that's the case for you, too. And I personally prefer live chat to phone because I can never understand them when the people from who-knows-where (India?) answer the phone. It can take longer, but the information can be transferred more clearly.

how can you possibly like dell's technical support?!? first off, you can't understand them. it seem like your call gets directly routed to india. i have NEVER talked to an english speaking human being without an accent when calling dell technical support. second, they like to charge you for things that fall under your user agreement and extended warrantee. thirdly, my personal experience with dell at one time and their advice given to me was to reinstall my operating system. BLAH! i knew there was a better way so i solved the problem without their help.

their help comes from a series of questions that sound like they come from a manual. each question leads to another question that evenually is supposed to lead to an answer and resolve your problem

after my personal experience with dell, i will NEVER buy from them again. haha actually, i never have, it was my parents computer that i offered to fix for them, but i recomended dell to them because i heard so many great things about their customer service and support. i thought that with all the competition, with this so-called great support, they edged out the competition along with a great name to back their product.....WRONG!

my parents still have a faulty fan that makes too much noise(that way when they bought it) and the printer they bought with the computer isn't compatable with the operating system because i guess the drivers have bugs in 'm....haha what a joke! DELL SUCKS!

BTW! AOL technical support sucks too while we're at it, it took me 4 hours to get an issue resolved with them but at least they offered 3 months free service for my troubles. that added up to around $65 worth of service for 4 hours of time. good for them. they suck at technical support(i actually had to get my issue resolved by someone who worked for customer service dept. that used to work for technical support dept. haha) but they know how to at least try to make their customers leave happy! dell offered NOTHING! NADA! ZILCH! except for a headache. my response to each of their statements was either a "huh?" or "can you repeat that?". at times, they couldn't even understand ME and i speak clear and fluent english. what a joke!

i'm really glad someone posted about dell so that i can input my own bad experience with them. my advice to anyone considering a dell computer to look elsewhere

Yes, Dell tech support people have no idea what they are doing. I bet that most of them do not have a computer or have ever used one with the amount of support my family has gotten from them. My grandma just got a computer a few years ago at her retirement party from all of the working people in my family as something to do in her free time. She couldn't figure something out when she first got it. I don't quite remember what but it was something I had been doing since I was six. She called Dell tech support instead of bothering the family's computer nerd (me). The first time she called the Dell tech support had no idea what was going on. It was something simple that anyone should have known. My grandma thanks him for his time and hangs up. She calls Dell again hoping for a new tech support person. This time I do not think the person on the other line was speaking English. Dell computers are pretty good but if you want help getting them to run forget about it.

This post has been edited by wariorpk: Jun 14 2006, 12:27 PM

Yes, that is right most of the times calls do get routed to India.
Now, having the accent problem is natural. If those people can adjust and understand the accent then I think there is no harm for others to try and hear them. As I said, I worked for HP and I even I used to get unhappy customers and I am sure that there will be some right now too but I care about those who were happy and were ready to listen to me.

I am not feeling sorry to say this but but most of the people dont talk properly when they come to know that the call has landed in India as they think that India is third-world country but if it is then why TIME or NEW SCIENTIST have recently talked about India's growth. Anyway, not to drag away everyone from the original post, even if I want to write lot about it...let me come back to the point :

Now, what I wanted to say is that if someone speaks nicely..he will always always get a nice reply only! So, before you call, just lighten up your mood and then make a call! Dont keep high expectations..you've just purchased a computer...not whole dell! keep this last line in mind.

I am not saying to forget your consumer rights but still be nice to the person you talk to and I am sure you'll be one of the happy customers after talking to the support

I don't like Dell's support, not to put down India or anything, it sounded like I was speaking with a lady from India. I couldn't understand half of what she was saying, but in the end it didn't matter because I didn't get support from them. The truth of the matter is that I found the answer to my question, not problem, on the Dell Community Forums, after I performed a little bit of creative searching. This is just an indication that I won't buy Dell computers, due to their lack of advanced-user-friendlyness (meaning that they tailor their products to people who have rather limited knowledge about computers, for example, not telling you how to open the BIOS Setup, like in my case), and their annoying support services. (HP is also probably routed to a international place, but at least they give good help from my experience.)