Dell Dimension E310 user reviews (Pentium 4 521 2.8GHz, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, XP Media Center 2005)

3.5 stars

"They're running a clown circus at Dell" on February 1, 2006 by Imnicerunice2

Pros: Fast computer

Cons: Their tech support, customer support and sales sucks

Summary: These people are running a total clown circus with tech support monkeys, a customer support service that sucks and a sales department that is even worse.

By the way, they no longer send people to your home to install anything for you. So if your mother board fries and you need a new one, you will have to install it. If you need a new DVD drive, you will be installing it. They require you become a technician to own one of their computers.

If you need to install anything, you will be opening up your computer and crawling inside and doing everything yourself.

After I bought my new E310 I discovered that I needed an additional hard drive for a project I decided to do. So I ordered one through Dell. First the salesperson sent me the hard drive with no bracket rail or IDE cable. That means I could not install the hard drive.

So after wasting my time on the phone going in circles I finally discovered that it was the spare parts department that I needed to be talking with. I had to wait a week for them to send me the bracket rail and IDE cable that I needed.

So I opened up my computer AGAIN and called Dell's nightmare tech support department to walk me through installing it properly.

Well guess what, after 30 minutes on the phone we discovered that the salesperson who did not send me a bracket rail or IDE cable with this hard drive also sent me the wrong hard drive for my computer. I needed a SATA hard drive for the E310 but that is not what I received.

So then I had to wait another week for them to send me the correct hard drive.

Then I called their tech department again to walk me through the installation. And what a miserable nightmare that was.

For something that should have been so simple, I remained on the phone with their tech support for three hours. These people seem to waste my time every single time I call them. Every time.

First, without asking me any questions, the tech turkey told me to unplug my C drive. Luckily I questioned the idiot, otherwise he would have created a disaster for me. I told the tech turkey that I was adding an additional hard drive, not replacing my existing one.

To make an infuriating story short, four hours later after my new hard drive was NOT showing up in "My Computer" and after having to go into the system bios three times to find my new hard drive that was NOT accessible to me, the tech turkey tells me that he cannot help me at that point and that I need to call their software support department.

Was there a cost for that I asked, and of course their was. I declined his infuriating offer of time wasting stupidity.

Luckily I had 11 months remaining on my dial-a-tech service, so I called them. Within 10 minutes we discovered how to get my new hard drive to show up in "My Computer."

All it took was to go into the Control Panel and right-click on the unnamed hard drive and to click "initialize."

And for that the tech turkey insisted that I need to be transferred to another department of their circus clown operation to pay another fee.

The infuriating icing on this bad tasting cake is that the arrangement that I made with them for UPS to pick up the hard drive that they sent me initially, that was the wrong hard drive for my computer, has not happened.

And this is after getting a Return Authorization Number from them and calling them twice about getting UPS to pick it up.

Which means that they surely have not credited my credit card for the exchange for the new hard drive that I had to buy from them to replace the wrong hard drive that they sent me initially.

Again they are wasting my time and infuriating me with their clown circus ways.

And this story is so typical of dealing with them, in my experience of many years with their computers.

I hope you have more fun in their clown circus than I have had.