We had a customer's Dell 8250 in here, and Dell, in their infinite wisdom, dispenses with the industry standard beep codes for non-booting systems and uses cryptic LEDs called "A,B,C and D" on the back of the computer. We had one that had A,B, and C in green, D was amber. So we tried Dell's tech support to find out what was up. The snide comments in red are ours.....

12/10/2005 03:45:21PM Session Started with Agent (Monika_01110046)

Monika is a popular Indian name.....you may not be aware that Dell's tech support isn't American?

12/10/2005 03:45:21PM Skunk-A-Rific: "ON THE BACK OF THE COMPUTER A B &C ARE GREEN D IS YELLOW WHAT IS WRONG?"
12/10/2005 03:45:27PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Thank you for contacting Dell Consumer Hardware Warranty Support Chat. Please allow me a moment to review your question. While I review your question, let me inform you that you might get an invitation to participate in a survey at the end of this sessi"

The sessi.......that's not a typo on our part. And it wasn't the last....

12/10/2005 03:45:31PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Also please provide us with your name,phone number and e-mail Id as on our records."
12/10/2005 03:48:03PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Are we connected ?"
12/10/2005 03:48:45PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Yes you can use it if it works but legally its not allowed."

WTF? Here Dell is telling a customer to do it (whatever it is...), but it is not legally allowed!?!?!

12/10/2005 03:48:47PM Skunk-A-Rific: "Yes"
12/10/2005 03:48:58PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Sorry for typo"
12/10/2005 03:48:59PM Skunk-A-Rific: "????"
12/10/2005 03:49:04PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "not for you."
12/10/2005 03:49:13PM Skunk-A-Rific: "O"
12/10/2005 03:49:18PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Please provide us with your name,phone number and e-mail Id as on our records."

Since it is a customer's computer, we have no idea what the Dell's records contain...and we have an iron clad privacy policy. In the past, we have made up fake names and they validate that....looks like they are just collecting data to spam us with...we dunno.

12/10/2005 03:50:04PM Skunk-A-Rific: "We don't know what your records contain"
12/10/2005 03:51:08PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "we have the information that you have registered while purchasing the system."

Agian, we don't know, but we are a shop. We also just wanna know what the amber light means....

12/10/2005 03:52:10PM Skunk-A-Rific: "can you just tell me what the amber light means?"
12/10/2005 03:53:54PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Are you talking about system tower amber light?"
12/10/2005 03:55:30PM Skunk-A-Rific: "no on the back of the system, above the ps2 ports are four different lights lettered a, b, c, and d. a-c are green and d is amber"
12/10/2005 03:56:16PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Ok."
12/10/2005 03:56:19PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Please give me a 2-3 minutes as I go through the hardware details of your system."
12/10/2005 03:57:33PM Skunk-A-Rific: "ok thanks"

Finally, Monika is going to help us. Maybe that 10,000 mile away "tech" is good for something....we'll find out (exciting, isn't it...).

12/10/2005 03:57:49PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Thank you for contacting Dell Consumer Hardware Warranty Support Chat. Please allow me a moment to review your question. While I review your question, let me inform you that you might get an invitation to participate in a survey at the end of this sessi"

Eh.......

12/10/2005 03:58:04PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Sorry for typo"
12/10/2005 04:01:11PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Thanks for your patience."
12/10/2005 04:01:41PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Could you please tell me the colour of power LED of system tower?"

We were asking about the BIOS/board lights on the back of the system, not the color of the power button light...but it gets worse. We just got a message that says "xbye"....we also have never seen that in our 60+ years of collective experience....

12/10/2005 04:03:01PM Skunk-A-Rific: "never mind that: what does xbye mean?"
12/10/2005 04:04:09PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "I am sorry where is xbye written?"
12/10/2005 04:04:32PM Skunk-A-Rific: "on an alert"
12/10/2005 04:04:47PM Skunk-A-Rific: "its a checkpoint"
12/10/2005 04:06:36PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "I am sorry I am not getting your question."
12/10/2005 04:09:04PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Are we connected ?"

Ummmmmm.......

12/10/2005 04:09:33PM Skunk-A-Rific: "i booted the system and it gave an alert: previous attempts at booting this system"
12/10/2005 04:11:05PM Skunk-A-Rific: "have failed at checkpoint [xBye]. For help in resolving this problem, please note this checkpoint and contact dell tech support"
12/10/2005 04:11:05PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Ok."
12/10/2005 04:11:44PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Don't bother for that."

What? IT JUST TOLD US TO CALL DELL!!!!!

12/10/2005 04:11:56PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Could you please tell me the colour of power LED of system tower?"

Why the hell is she so fixated on the power LED light? They are ALL green!!!!!

12/10/2005 04:12:18PM Skunk-A-Rific: "green"
12/10/2005 04:12:38PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Is it blinking or solid green?"
12/10/2005 04:12:51PM Skunk-A-Rific: "solid"
12/10/2005 04:13:00PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Ok."

And who cares, anyway, just answer our question, Monika!

12/10/2005 04:13:24PM Skunk-A-Rific: "why is that important to know?"
12/10/2005 04:14:23PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Please tell me when you boot the system Do you see any error message on monitor?"
12/10/2005 04:15:02PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "For troubleshooting we need to know this information."

Don't you also feel like you're beating your head agaisnt a wall?

12/10/2005 04:15:11PM Skunk-A-Rific: "i told you the error message in previous typings"
12/10/2005 04:16:14PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Previous attempts at booting this system is the error message."

What?

12/10/2005 04:17:46PM Skunk-A-Rific: "booted the system and it gave an alert: previous attempts at booting this system 5:11:05 PM You have failed at checkpoint [xBye]. For help in resolving this problem, please note this checkpoint and contact dell tech support"
12/10/2005 04:18:04PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Ok."
12/10/2005 04:20:38PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Are you sitting next to that system?"

DUUUUUHHHHHH

12/10/2005 04:23:31PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "Are we connected ?"

Congratulations, Monika. You are the weakest link!

12/10/2005 04:24:42PM Agent (Monika_01110046): "I have not received a response in over a minute. To ensure that we are connected, please respond within the next minute to allow me to continue our chat."

Well, we said what needed to be said.....

12/10/2005 04:24:48PM Skunk-A-Rific: "u"
12/10/2005 04:24:52PM Skunk-A-Rific: "s"
12/10/2005 04:24:53PM Skunk-A-Rific: "u"
12/10/2005 04:24:54PM Skunk-A-Rific: "c"
12/10/2005 04:24:55PM Skunk-A-Rific: "k"