Good point.
The computer I was talking about was an Inspiron 3K..sounds like Dell has
done something right since the 3K started shipping....
CD? What CD? I would assume you mean that dell shipped you a cd with the
drivers on it to re-install a system. That's nice...they didn't and don't
do that for the 3K...don't know about the 3200, but on the 3K most of the
drivers are shipped on the HD and you use a disk maker program to make
floppies of those drivers. As I said, the Network Drivers were not
included and the CD driver shipped does not work with the 3K's cd drive.
I'm VERY glad to hear that AT LEAST the 7K if not the 3200 is shipped with
better support and a better system to reinstall than the 3K. It's good to
hear that Dell got some brains and moved up to the industry standard
(compaq, Gateway, etc have been shipping all their software drivers on CD
and even re-install cd's with their systems for YEARS now.)
Yes...the Psion Gold card would have been great. The problem with that
3c575-tx card is that 3Com detected a problem with the earlier versions of
the card and upgraded them. Unfortunately, Dell did NOT do that to their
cards, the result of this is that 3com drivers will not work for the Dell
card. Only Dell has the drivers necessary to support older 3c575-tx card
(I don't know if cards shipped from dell currently work with the 3com
drivers or if they are still "broken") and those drivers are not obtainable
through the FTP site, their web site, or 3com's web site. In other words,
you cannot obtain the correct drivers to support a 3c575-tx card (at least
one that was shipped in April of '98) without calling Dell Techincal
support and having a computer able to recieve e-mail and an ability to
recieve 400K attachments.
Finally, to address their Technical Support. I would not normally have a
gripe with their tech support, except for the fact that about 45 minutes
into the 1'st tech support call, and about every 30 minutes after that
(within the 2 tech support calls and the 5 hours it took to resolve the
issue) I told the guy on the other end that 3com had changed their 575
cards and that probably the problem with this is that the current 3com
drivers don't work with the card...and that it would probably just be an
easy fix if they would send me the drivers on disk or through e-mail. As I
said...tech support was full of great ideas on how to fix the card...but
when it came to what had been done to that card, I myself was way ahead of
the guy on the other end of the phone. My info came from earlier
conversations with people on this list. You would think that tech support
for Dell would know that their own network cards had been changed and that
the newer drivers wouldn't work. I've not yet even mentioned that at the
end of the first techsupport phone call (about 3 hours, in which I
mentioned the driver solution no less than 5 times) he told me to call 3com
tech support. After a 45 minute hold time 3com told me Dell supports that
card, not them, and I should never have been sent to call 3com...*sigh*
I do understand that even the best companies have their bad days, and i'm
not claiming that Dell itself is a bad company. I am however stating that
MY 3K has been so poorly supported by Dell that the company I work for has
forsworn ever ordering from Dell again because of the way we have been
handled. I don't know about the 3200 or 7K, i've heard some good things on
this list about them...and i'm sure that there are people out there with
good 3K experiences...I just would like people on this list...especially
those interested in buying a Dell computer...that they are a company VERY
like all the others out there...and that 90% of my experieces with the
Corporation (not their comptuers) have been very unsatisfying. When the 3K
works (and it does all the time since I took matters into my own hands and
reinstalled) it is a beautiful machine with a wonderful display and decent
network ability (still can't get the 100 base T to work, but that was the
whole problem with the older 575 network card, and the reason that 3com
changed their cards and drivers). I'm impressed with the system...but if
you arn't a techie or don't have the experience to fix your own problems no
matter what goes wrong, I'd not suggest a Dell Inspiron 3000 to you at all.
Douglas Wagner
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Stempel [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, November 30, 1998 12:02 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: re-installing Win98 on a freshly repartitioned machine
Hmm, this is interesting. I don't know whether you have a 3200 or an
7000, but my experience wasn't nearly so painful. I'm telling this
not to play devil's advocate, but rather to provide an alternative
view, as many people (including myself) read this list and lists
like it, to get an idea of what to buy, and use it as kind of an
electronic "consumer reports" type source. And if I would have been
going off the previous post, it's likely I would have chosen a
different notebook.
It took me about 2-3 hours to wipe my disk, repartition for linux
and win98, and get everything reinstalled for win98. It was fairly
painless, and the only noticeable difference I can see with my
install and doug's is that I used the psion gold card modem, with
no nic installed. AFA backing up things to disk, I only backed up
2 things, and it turned out they were already on the CD, so I didn't
need to back them up. Again, don't know about the nic, so no
comment there.
Right now I have linux and win98 installed, and they both run
beautifully, and the matsushita DVD drive is great, no problems
as a cdrom on linux, everything's running like a top.
AFA dell, I had absolutely no problems with them, and their reputation
as being one of the better tech support/customer service shops in
the industry held true in my case, although probably not in doug's :)
Just remember that even the finest restaurants have bum nights
where the food isn't always up to par...
oh yeah, that's an interesting p.p.s line below... Don't take offense,
but you ought to kick back and have a beer after going thru what
you went thru, rather than venting on the list right away - you're
apt to scare some people away from an otherwise fine notebook. :)
Brian
On 29-Nov-98 at 22:47, Douglas Wagner ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
[snipped]
[Snipped again..:) ]
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