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My Complaint Letter
The following is the exact letter that I
sent to Dell. This letter is only
posted to show you some extra detail that I
put in my personal letter. Please do
NOT copy and paste this particular letter.
To Whom It May Concern:
Over the years, Dell has been known to have top-notch
customer service, and as such,
you have always been my first
choice when purchasing a
computer for myself or
recommending to family and
friends. Hopefully, this
commitment to customer service
has not changed and Dell can
help me with my problem,
frustration, and anger, and
maintain my family, my friends,
and myself as loyal customers.
Prior to purchase of a Dell
Inspiron 5100, I felt like a
loyal customer who would always
recommend your company to family
and friends. Heck, I would jump
at the chance to recommend Dell,
so much so, that friends would
joke with me, saying that I was
a Dell salesperson. And my
recommendation mattered, because
I have always been known as "the
computer guy," as I have build,
maintained, and repaired
computer hardware and software
for years. However, after
my purchase of an Inspiron 5100
and dealing with the following
problems, my opinion has greatly
changed; perhaps you can rectify
that.
Approximately three months after purchasing my Inspiron
5100, it began to automatically
shutdown. No warnings.
No messages. No beeps.
No nothing. Just shuts
down. Although I suspected
heat was a problem, I decided to
call technical support, cause
hey, that's what they are there
for. They had me run a few
tests, such as the fan test and
sensor test, in order to verify
that everything was working
correctly. Of course
(you'll understand this "of
course" below), all the tests
passed. The technician
then seemed to stumped as to
what the problem was and
suggested that I do this test,
and that test, and this.
Coming from a technical
background myself, I could
easily tell that he was just
shooting in the dark. As
such, I gave him some excuse as
to why I had to leave, thanked
him, and hung up the phone, with
the intention of calling Dell
back and speaking to someone who
would hopefully be a bit more
competent.
In the meantime, because I was comfortable and fluent
in fixing computers, I decided
to go research the problem on my
own, which led me to the Dell
community forums. To my
surprise, and thankfully, I
found several posts on the
subject of the Inspiron 5100
overheating. What I found
was horror stories of people who
had the same problem, called
technical support, spoke to
incompetent technicians who
suggested replacing this part
and that part (shooting in the
dark), all to have their
computer, six months later,
still experiencing the same
problem. Most users
explained how technical support
was recommending a motherboard
replacement. And several
users explained that they had a
motherboard replaced, then
computer works fine for three
months, then the auto-shutdown
problem would return, then call
Dell support, have another
motherboard replaced, then
computer works fine for three
months, then the auto shutdown
problem would return, then call
Dell support, have a third
motherboard replaced, along with
a cpu, video card, and other
misc. "shoot in the dark" parts,
then computer works fine for
three months, then the auto
shutdown problem would return
for a fourth time. If you
wish to read the posts from
these users who have had three
motherboards replaced, go to the
following page:
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&message.id=112325
Honestly, it was terrifying to think of myself
experiencing this same problem,
having to do deal with techs who
are just guessing, replacing
parts several times, and all to
just end up a few short months
later with a, for all intensive
purposes, dead laptop. As
such, I made a decision to
research this issue and
immediately made a post on
Dell's forum with a passionate
appeal to all "techies" in the
forum to help diagnose this
problem. At the same time,
I called Dell, spoke to another
technician, who was also just
guessing and set me up for a
return-to-depot to have my
motherboard replaced. What
a surprise! I did not send
the computer for two reasons:
having read other customers
experiences on having several
motherboard replacements, only
to have the same auto-shutdown
return after a few months, I
knew this was not the answer,
and more so, we were making
headway in the forum and were
getting close to a few possible
solutions. Here's a link
to the post where we were trying
to figure out the problem:
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&message.id=139712.
Several weeks later, we, Dell
customers, NOT Dell technicians,
diagnosed this problem and found
a "solution", mind you, all the
while, Dell technicians were
still suggesting motherboard
replacements. I then made
a post called "Inspiron 5100
Shuts Down Automatically because
of Well-Known Overheating
Problem - The Problem, The
Cause, and The Solution", where
I outlined the details to the
cause of the problem and the
solution. Here is the link
to that post:
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&message.id=144502
What is the problem? Dust. Yes, dust.
For further information, please
refer to the above mentioned
post. Bottom line, the
problem is that dust collects inside the
computer, on the heatsink,
thereby inhibiting its ability
to transfer heat off of the
processor. As such, the
computer overheats, and for
safety reasons, automatically
shuts down. I then called
Dell support and spoke to
several supervisor technicians
who agreed with the problem.
Sure enough, just a few days
later, Dell technicians were
suddenly telling users that the
solution is to simply use
compressed air and blow out
their computers, which was
exactly what I posted on the
forum and told the supervisor
technicians. However,
blowing out the computers would
not totally fix the problem.
Why? Simple. By
blowing the compressed air
through the vents, we have
successfully ridden our
computers of the loose dust on
and around the heatsink.
However, imagine if you have a dirty desk
with layers and layers of three to four
month old caked on dust. Then you use
compressed air to blow off this dust in an
effort to clean the desk. Would your desk be
dust free? Would it be clean? No, of course
not. The loose, lighter dust would be gone.
However, the thick, now dense, caked-on dust
would remain, and even if that were to have
been blown away, at the very least, small
remains of dust would still remain on the
desk. The same goes for the heatsink, and as
such, although the
auto-shutdowns do stop after
blowing compressed air through
the vents, the computer
temperatures are still 15-20
degrees (Celsius) above normal.
The only solution to this is to
have the heatsink replaced or
cleaned by a Dell technician,
and then upon receipt of a new
or cleaned heatsink, we, the
customers, must "air" our
computers weekly in order to
avoid this problem in the
future. So I called Dell
support and set up a return to
depot in order to have them
replace my cooling assembly.
I have since had my computer
fixed and returned to me in good
operating condition.
So after spending weeks talking about and diagnosing
the problem, all of us were
excited to have the problem
halted and partially "solved";
however, the overwhelming
consensus among 5100 users was
that weekly "airings" of
compressed air through the
computer is not a solution and
is not acceptable. Why?
Well, we shouldn't have to air
our computers in order to have
them working efficiently, but
more so, compressed air costs
money, and it is totally
unacceptable for Dell users to
spend $1500+ on a new computer,
only to then have to spend $5,
every two or three months, on
compressed air, in order to keep
their new, $1500+ computer
working efficiently. Also,
when I called to get the
heatsink replaced, I spoke to a
very helpful technician who
acknowledged the bad design
problem, and said that Dell is
working on a fix for it.
Was this the truth? Is
Dell really working on a fix?
I don't know, as the fix would
have to include a redesigned
heatsink or a new filter, which
would then prevent dust from
accumulated on the heatsink.
Most customers have felt that
Dell is ignoring the problem,
waiting for our warranties to
expire, thereby leaving the
customers to deal with a faulty
computer. If this is the
case, then Dell, according to
the statements of hundreds of
users, will lose the business of
thousands and thousands of
current customers. Dell
has always been a company known
for its customer service, and as
such, I do not expect that this
would happen. I do expect
that Dell will make a solid
attempt at rectifying the
problem.
So at this point, the ball is in your court. What
can Dell do? Well,
hopefully they can think of
that. Here is the
recommendation that I posted on
Dell's forum. Immediately send ALL 5100/5150 users
a letter explaining the problem in
design with the 5100, apologizing for
the inconvenience, and stating the
normal stuff about how you want to make
the situation right. Offer to have a dell technician come
out to their house to replace the
cooling assembly and completely clean
the unit. This should happen for
all users, regardless of the level of
support the purchased, because this is a
Dell design flaw, and they should go
above and beyond to fix it. Send a $50 check to all 5100
customers, which at $5 per can, would
allow for several years of compressed
air. Since this is Dell's fault,
the user should not have to purchase
compressed air with their own money. At this point, Dell would have shown
me that they have satisfactorily tried
to rectify the situation. The have
fixed the machines and paid for a couple
years of compressed air. HOWEVER,
they would not have re-earned my
business, simply because of the LARGE
inconvenience that we were put through.
As such, if you wanted to earn our
business once more, you should lastly
do something more, something extra,
something that will possibly prompt me
to order from you again. What is
that something? I don't know.
That is for Dell to figure out.
Perhaps a gift certificate, valid for
one or two years, for $200 off your next
Dell purchase over $1000. Perhaps
free upgrades, over and beyond the
typical "sales", on your next Dell
purchase. These are just ideas.
Really, it is up to you guys to
make the necessary decisions
that will hopefully lead to
Dell's re-earning of my business
and the business of thousands of
other users.
I have made a site at to explain the problem and to
allow for a place for users to
come and post that they have had
or are having the same problem.
Here's the address for that
site:
http://www.oocities.org/i5100dustproblem.
That's about it for now. Feel free to contact me
using the information listed
below.
Hoping to have Dell satisfactorily rectify this problem
and retain one of their most
loyal customers,
NAME
ADDRESS
PHONE
EMAIL
TAG NUMBER/EXPRESS SERVICE CODE
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