Why do Dell owners have so many problems?

pseymour said:

This has a lot to do with it. There’s a big difference between the business class machines and the home machines. Latitudes are pretty solid. You can probably whack a burglar with a Precision and keep right on with whatever you were doing.

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True. I've only bought business class machines from Dell (Latitude, Vostro, Pro 14) and have rarely run into hardware problems. Yeah they don't look as slick as the consumer machines but I don't buy one for looks. I only buy business class because I know they're gonna be fairly solid and reliable. And I'm willing to spend more upfront to get one than most other people aren't ready to do.

Oh yeah, I'd buy Dell again.

spapakons said:

I didn't attempt to generalize to all Dell. I just suggested it might be the same BIOS update that tries to install again and again because it cannot complete.

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• Too many BIOS updates means poor testing by Dell.
• They release a new BIOS before it is ready.
• Then they discover a bug, they release a new version to address the bug. Then they discover another bug and so on.
• Maybe they do it on purpose.
• Maybe they try to make your laptop gets damaged and force you buy a new model.

spapakons said:

So why your model has too many BIOS updates? I don't buy the "security" reasons excuse.

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It doesn't matter at all whether you buy it or not. You can read the release notes to see what is fixed for each version. Some times it's a security update, some times it's a "the help screen doesn't display correctly if you're left handed and it's Tuesday" type of thing.

spapakons said:

I think Dell should test the BIOS better before releasing. Everyone knows that a failed BIOS upgrade might break your system and render it bootless. Yes, newer models have a BIOS recovery function that reinstalls the previous version if the new one fails, but I would not risk that too many times.

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The Dell BIOS rollback hardly ever happens, and when it does, it's successful basically every time. I think I've only ever seen a couple devices that needed recovery BIOS in the almost 20 years of supporting Dells.

You said, "Are you sure it is a new BIOS version every single time?" That person never said it wasn't and was in fact surprised by the reliability. You assumed it "probably" is the same version, when no one said that. As I said, there have been over 20 UEFI revisions for that model.

Granted, I haven't done break-fix since about 2000, but my group works closely with the technicians who do. I can't speak for consumer Dells, but business Dells is something with which I am quite familiar.

Just looking in the inventory, I have well over a thousand devices in my purview that are Latitude models. How many do you have?

I think some of the issues people have is because Dell uses slightly lower quality hardware for drives then puts the machine in raid mode instead of AHCI to improve the performance.

Normally you do not run a machine in raid mode if it has a single drive but Dell does.

I'd say some of the Dell bloatware software and drivers/UEFI updates are a factor. I'm speaking from the Alienware side of the house. I finally gave up on the Dell Support assist software and removed it after seeing the huge amount of ram and resources it tied up constantly. I get the driver's straight from their website anyway. Same for a couple other Dell services that ran in the background as long as they aren't needed for the Alienware Command Center to run. I do need that app to control the lighting, macro keys, and a couple other features.

FrancoDT said:

I'd say some of the Dell bloatware software and drivers/UEFI updates are a factor. I'm speaking from the Alienware side of the house. I finally gave up on the Dell Support assist software and removed it after seeing the huge amount of ram and resources it tied up constantly. I get the driver's straight from their website anyway. Same for a couple other Dell services that ran in the background as long as they aren't needed for the Alienware Command Center to run. I do need that app to control the lighting, macro keys, and a couple other features.

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Thanks for being on topic!

kelper said:

Is it because Dell sell so many computers?
Is it because they customise the BIOS heavily?
Is it because Dell owners use their computers more heavily?
Is it because they are built-to-order and this makes quality control harder?

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Not really,

Dell is very large and quite likely people have used them in the work scenario. However the majority of users don't care about the inner workings thus it is an inertia buy for home users.

I used Dell at work as that was the company the IT department used and could control the "Office networked PCs" and only approved Applications could be installed.
Some Dell Desktops used to have non-standard parts and in some cases poor design.

Thus in retirement never considered a Dell desktop because of that.
Laptops have different considerations.

This message is free of AI ...

KevTech said:

I think some of the issues people have is because Dell uses slightly lower quality hardware for drives then puts the machine in raid mode instead of AHCI to improve the performance.

Normally you do not run a machine in raid mode if it has a single drive but Dell does.

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Ummmm. HP's default to RAID mode on single-drive PC's. On other PC's you can't even disable RAID mode.

All the big PC companies use Intel RST controllers because what other mass-market controller chip is available? There are other brands, but they're all made by specialty RAID suppliers. It's like why does everyone have Realtek audio chips? Are they best, or did Realtek corner the market for those?

If you're a large PC company and have to ship hundreds of thousands of PC's a year, the supplier options aren't always that good.

Companies want have reliable hardware support for each computer they buy, and this is hard to do for PCs built from parts. So they always buy new or refurbished OEM pre-built computers. Well known brands here in Greece are Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo. As you can imagine buying pre-built systems has a lot of compromises. You either choose an economic or mid-range model but is not that fast or quality of some parts is debatable, or you pay more for a high-end model. By more I mean it is generally more expensive than a similarly speced built-to-order computer in which you can choose the individual components.

Try3 said:

Do Dell owners have so many problems?


Denis

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No other brands are mentioned so often here.

pseymour said:

There have been a little over 20 UEFI updates for that model since its release, if my quick counting was correct. No one said anything about failures. Also, no IT person in their right mind that manages Dells would use Windows Update over Dell Command | Update.
Ah, okay, so your botched update on one HP laptop equates to someone else's Dell laptop, or Dell laptops in general.

There have been a little over 20 UEFI updates for that model since its release, if my quick counting was correct. No one said anything about failures. Also, no IT person in their right mind that manages Dells would use Windows Update over Dell Command | Update........
The entire post is wrong. The poor testing accusation, releasing updates before they're ready, not covered by warranty.... all of it.

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Agree with all of that..

I have personally owned probably 15 used Dell Optiplex or Precision devices and back when I did a lot of refurbishing to resell they were all I bought, too. I don't own laptops, only PCs. And the business grade devices are workhorses, plain and simple, and like the energizer bunny, go on and on. Had I a need for a gaming machine, I would have built one, but nether I nor the people I sold to were gamers. We wanted dependability.

When 11 was released none of my machines were compatible so I got a wild hair to have one new machine before I died and found this one on Dell's "Scratch & Dent site" which had probably been a return. It had a few really weird issues but it had 3 yr. warranty. That ordeal turned into being a real trip. It was during the worst of Covid and Dell support in Round Rock was shut down. I couldn't get past foreign Tier 1 support and ended up writing a letter to Michael Dell who assigned me an engineer who was working from home..
They sent a tech out multiple times, changing the Mobo each time, which never fixed it.

He discovered they did not have my model in their lab for him to test with.. I guess he realized I knew enough to change parts so he sent me swap parts until we got it all worked out. Turned out it was a frankenstein machine with the wrong ram and PSU combination. It was time consuming on my part but I couldn't go anywhere anyway and I learned a lot. He later told me that my event viewer reports eventually resulted in a bios update for some reason or another. He even let me keep all the extra parts.

The only real peeve I have with Dell is the proprietary stuff but back when I was doing computer repair for others, I can count on one hand the number of times a PSU or Mobo was bad. I can't say the same for the other OEMs.
JMO and I'm sticking to it.

pseymour said:

Also, no IT person in their right mind that manages Dells would use Windows Update over Dell Command | Update.

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and yet........my corporate overlords exist......

I'm wondering if business class Dells are better made and better supported. In the EU, Dell is No. 3 for business sales but No. 6 for private ones.

Aye, as glasskuter mentioned with the OptiPlex, and I think Andrew mentioned the 3060 specifically.... the business machines are solid. We have about 75 OptiPlex 3060 devices left. They're being replaced, but only because they're eight years old at this point. They still work just fine.

Almost every employee where I work is mobile, either working from home some days per week or they move around "the compound." When their devices get replaced, you can tell they've been dropped, kicked, mutilated, the employee's kids doing who-knows-what, and yet they soldier on.

As I mentioned before though, consumer models, I have no idea.

kelper said:

I'm wondering if business class Dells are better made and better supported. In the EU, Dell is No. 3 for business sales but No. 6 for private ones.

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This is true for all brands.

Similar to using nvidia production driver* vs the game ready driver+.
(*business line) solid and dependable (+gaming, consumer line) newer features, more up to date with some possible issues

This doesn't mean the consumer ones suck, it just means the more money and development is pumped into the business line products. A consumer line sucks or has a major issue? No problem, not that many people bought that specific model, and if it comes to court, the consumer walk away with $10 or a voucher upgrade.

Your business line sucks? Your company gets blacklisted. Spreads around the industry. That affects your bottom line. Much more of a problem.

kelper said:

No other brands are mentioned so often here.

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Probably because it's the most popular machine here in these forums? ----------Maybe, yeah?

kelper said:

I'm wondering if business class Dells are better made and better supported.

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They are.

I buy only their business-class laptops and have extensively used their desktops at work.

kelper said:

No other brands are mentioned so often here.

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Please post your data.


Denis

Try3 said:

Please post your data.


Denis

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I can't export from my brain, it's just my perception. I did not know that Dell had fanbois!! (TIC)

In the past 25 years my main machine has always been a Dell XPS premium laptop. I use only laptops because I prefer being mobile and can't be tied down to a single location. My current System One is the 7th Dell XPS laptop I've owned. I've stayed with Dell XPS premium laptops because of my excellent experience.

TraderGary said:

In the past 25 years my main machine has always been a Dell XPS premium laptop. I use only laptops because I prefer being mobile and can't be tied down to a single location. My current System One is the 7th Dell XPS laptop I've owned. I've stayed with Dell XPS premium laptops because of my excellent experience.

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Do yours use a RAID?

kelper said:

Do yours use a RAID?

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I always buy a single 1TB SSD.