Oh noes! Dell Dead Line
/Call you what you will, dead line pixels, LCD defect/failure.
I woke up last night to use my laptop to do some emails, and behold, what's this wierd blue line vertically down my screen?
And wait, there's another one!
I popped on Google and sure enough, there's actually quite a few Dell customers that have already complained of this issue.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/23/dell_vertical_lines/
http://www.spectrumz.com/z/dell_vertical_line_letter.html
http://www.spectrumz.com/z/dell_vertical_line.html#res
The good news is that Direct2Dell has acknowledged there is an issue, and they will offer replacements for up to 3 years from the date of invoice.
http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/04/09/10675.aspx
But the general response on the forums is that you'll have to dog hound Dell support until they agree to send out a repair tech to visit you, but after that it's smooth sailing. (This mirrors my previous experience with replacing a Dell part under warranty as well).
So anyway, with my fingers crossed, I contacted Dell support. I'll be blogging the process.
Apparently the same issue plagues the Apple laptops, but to this date, Apple has been deleting/locking threads of their customers who are complaining about this issue. So Dell is supposedly one step ahead in the customer support area.
I remain hopeful, because it is day one.
This is day 1. There are 2 lines on my screen.
UPDATE - the BAD news
I called up Dell support and they absolutely refused to repair my laptop (after 1hr of talking and transferring). This is despite what their own website says. Apparently they have already done a recall of the affected laptops in Australia and my name wasn't on the list.
I think it's a bunch of poop really. There was no recall mentioned in the article. Since this problem does not affect all laptops immediately, there's no need to recall the product unless it is reportedly broken. I doubt the so-called "recall" even happened.
Anyway, here's the email of the guy I spoke to at customer-care: [email protected]
Perhaps someone can educate him about the procedure in Dell. He hasn't even heard of Direct2Dell.
Why is Dell support so painful to work with.
