Have you had a lot of problems with your dell computer?

Oh yes. In fact, back in November my hard drive completely busted leaving me with hardly anything b/c my last back up failed.

I'm not really a fan of the dell, but that's what my school gave me. I think I'll get a new one when I graduate in May.

 

I personally love my dell. However, I have a latitude laptop (Business / School line) given to me by my university, and it has not failed me yet.

 

I've got a Dell XPS M1710 in August 2006, and it's been absolutely fine! =) I'm running Vista on it now, but it came with XP MCE.

 

My aunt brought me a acer computer for graduation present. It started out working pretty good now it just freezes up a lot and its slow.

It had a mess of spyware on it a few weeks ago and i got the bsod (blue screen of death)
so i put vista on it so i wouldn't lose anything. And its much worse if it wasnt for me getting rid of the internet on my main computer this machine would been formatted.

I think the best computers are Emachines and Compaq

I had a dell computer before and that damn thing crashes every other week. And i lost a lot of stuff I took it apart and upgraded my compaq computer

Only plus about dell is its pretty fast. But i would prefer emachines because it fakes forever to fill it up

And compaq's are like a honda they last forever


Sorry for the long post

 

We have several Dell PCs and have previously owned several more, and have had very few problems (the only problem I remember was a failed DVD-RW drive and I just bought a new one from PC World as we needed to use it).

I also used to work in corporate IT looking after about 100 PCs. The majority were Dell and again were as reliable as 100 of any brand of PC would be. We had a few parts fail, a few hard drives, a couple of CD/DVD drives and the odd power supply, but nothing unexpected with that number of systems and the general abuse that users (especially of laptops) give them. Dell support was very good with getting things sorted, though we did have access to different support channels than home users.

ok455's problem with spyware is nothing to do with Dell or even Microsoft. It is due to not having a decent anti-virus and anti-malware program installed. Dell PCs come with McAfee or Norton Internet Security with a 3 month subscription that you can renew cheaply. It may also be due to using a USB modem rather than a router and relying on just the Windows firewall.

Hard disks fail sometimes no matter what brand of PC they are in. It's the same hard disk whether Dell, Compaq, Medion, eMachines, Apple or whoever make the PC. Hard disks are the most unreliable part of a PC and also the most potentially disastrous if they fail. Regular backups are essential, and should be tested to make sure they are actually readable.

Data can be recovered from faulty hard disks by companies like OnTrack but it's expensive (about the cost of a reasonable PC). If the loss is that serious though (such as a couple of years college work) it may be worth the expense to get it back. If you are going to do this though, don't try using utilities to fix it yourself. They often make things worse and make data recovery more problematic or incomplete.

As for decent brands of PC, my inotial thoughts are Dell, HP/Compaq, Toshiba, Sony (try first though as they have weird keyboards), Acer, Lenovo. Look at the brands that businesses buy in quantity - they won't buy junk.

In the UK, brands I would avoid (because they are made with lower quality parts or are poorly supported) include Packard Bell, Advent, eMachines, Medion and any of the own-brand or unknown brand things sold by PC World, Currys or Dixons (all three of which are part of Dixons Store Group or DSG). A lot of these are actually made by NEC, and a clue is to look for DSG or NEC on the Windows licence sticker.

 

The only Dell I personally own is an old ex-company surplus "white" PIII Optiplex. I bought it when it was already 5 years old, and it hasn't given any problems.

My uncle swears by Dell. He had an old Dell desktop (close to 10 years old) that gave up the ghost after a lightning strike. The modem had been replaced numerous times before because of lighting but this time it finely did it in.

He's also had a Dell laptop for quite a while. There were some problems at first, but the warranty service was quick. He finally replaced it with a new 15.4" Vostra just because the old one was getting old.

My father and brother have Dell Dimension desktops. Both are about 4 years old and neither has given any problems.

My father has a work Lattitude laptop that hasn't given any problems. My brother had a work Precision that the only problem he had was some keyboard / trackpoint issues after a pop spill incident. He left the company and recently bought himself a Vostra 14.1" laptop which he's quite satisfied with.

In my unquantifiyable opinion the business lines are made to a slightly higher standard than their home systems, but I don't think the quality of Dells are any worse than any other brand. There are some issues, like I think the Mobo and PSU might be proprietary making out of warranty replacements more expensive than a component built system, but this is the same with any brand. I do like Dell cases and find them easy to work with. I've worked at a few companies and schools that had 100's of Dell desktops and I've seen few hardware breakdowns.

I know a lot of companies use Dell not only for the good prices, but the service contracts. My dad's work has a service contract for the servers where Dell will be on site within hours. If Dells were junk, they wouldn't be so popular in the business world because IT departments wouldn't put up with that many breakdowns.

I also have a 8 year old eMachine that actually hasn't given any problems, and was an incredible deal at the time. I know someone else that has had good luck with them as well.

I've seen a number of business class HP/Compaq machines that haven't given any problems. I also bought an HP laptop and in 6 months it hasn't given me any problems. Though I know a couple other people with similar model laptops. One had the onboard wireless burnout out of warranty (though he ran his computer on his bed) and another had the motherboard fail though replaced no problem by warranty.

Of any computer equipment I've owned, the only hardware that's given me problem are PC-chips motherboards. Which seems to be common practice.

As Paul said hard drives are the most unreliable part of a computer, and regardless of the PC manufacturer, there's only so many Hard drive manufacturers (Quantum [acquired by Maxtor] Seagate, Maxtor [now Seagate], Western Digital, Fujitsu).

I can't stress the importance of backing up your data. Fortunately if your hard drive fails, it's one of the easiest to replace component in a computer (even laptops).

 

Dell computers have given us endless amounts of trouble in past years.. but, it's not so much the computer itself, as viruses targetting the guts that keep it working. One time we had soundcard problems, and another time it dumped some of our information in a system crash... but thats the family computer. My personal computer has never given me any trouble though.. except for this recent one, but its more bothersome than a problem.

 

You cannot blame Dell for that. They make the hardware and sell it with Windows installed. If you choose to run as administrator the whole time or have inadequate anti-virus software then that's not Dell's fault. Dell even include a 3 month trial version of McAfee or Norton anti-virus with their home user machines, so they are setting the right example.