I have been told that if you call Dell's Help line, and are dissatisfied
with the help you get from the junior level guy who picks up, that you
can ask him to elevate the issue to second-level, or some such phrase.
In other words, you can ask to talk to his supervisor. As I recall,
this was Dell's response to the complaint that very few of their
Help-line folks actually speak English, and very few US customers speak
much Hindi. The second-level folks are in the US, speak English, are
well-trained, and (most important) are actually authorized to do stuff.
By the way, I own 8 Dells, and have been very pleased with all of them.
My only hassle occurred when the keyboard on one of the laptops quit
responding when I pressed certain keys. When I got past the first level
tech, who just couldn't figure out what I was talking about, the
second-level guy shipped me a new keyboard, no cost, next-day air.
Bill Jeffrey
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Art wrote:
Really hard to debate with their "off shore" call and help centre.
"Lorene" wrote in message
news:uvfKd.2848$Eh5.585@trnddc04...
I have a Gateway M305CRV two weeks out of warrenty that simply stopped dead
in its tracks.
I wasn't doing any thing out of the ordinary and all of a sudden nothing
worked. The mouse froze up. The CTRL-ALT DEL would not bring the Task
Monitor up or allow me to reset. So I turned it off and back on again.
Now it only lights up the LEDs above and to the right of the on/off
button.
In fact it circulates through the LEDs. The fan also comes on. That is
all
it does. Nothing on the screen.
It seems as if the BIOS is in a loop waiting for something.
I have tried the following not necessarily in this order without success.
Plugged the monitor from the desktop into the back -- didn't help.
Took the battery out and let it set for an hour. Plugged the AC line in --
didn't help.
Reseated the RAM -- didn't help.
Reseated the HD -- didn't help.
I took what I assummed to be the CMOS battery out and turned it on without
the CMOS battery -- din't help.
Put the Diver CD in the drive and turned it on -- didn't help.
My questions are"
1. Does anyone know what order the BIOS does its work?. I would assume
it
checked the RAM first. It knows when the battery is running low because I
let it set there circulating through the LEDs until the battery lite
turned
a blinking red and finally shut down.
2. Does the BIOS normally, or can it, write to the display without RAM
being
present. Nothing gets displayed at the moment.
3. Does anyone have a source for the Service Manual for the M305 laptop.
Do
I really have to pay for it. IT would seem to me if Gateway won't help
fix
it they should at least provide a source that tells you how to take the
thing apart correctly.
Please don't suggest talking to Gateway. I tried that and all my
arguments
fell on deaf ears. I believe I have a case for the machine still being
under
warranty since I had a months worth of trouble when I first got it. But I
get the distinct feeling from my conversations with their support people
that they really don't give a grunt.
Reading through the news groups and internet it seems like I'm not the
only
one whose laptop ended up in this state. But so far I have found no
solutions.
Right now I purposely took out the CMOS battery and let the main battery
run
completely down and am going to let it set for a day or two.
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