'Dell knowingly sold faulty PCs'

[OhioChick]

Source: New York Times

New York Times, Jun 29, 2010, 12.08pm IST

After the math department at the University of Texas noticed some of its Dell computers failing, Dell examined the machines. The company came up with an unusual reason for the computers’ demise: The school had overtaxed the machines by making them perform difficult math calculations.

Dell, however, had actually sent the university, in Austin, desktop PCs riddled with faulty electrical components that were leaking chemicals. Dell sold millions of these computers from 2003 to 2005 to major companies like Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo, institutions like the Mayo Clinic and small businesses.

“The funny thing was that every one of them went bad at the same time,” said Greg Barry, president of PointSolve, a technology services company near Philadelphia that had bought dozens. “It’s unheard-of, but Dell didn’t seem to recognise this as a problem at the time.”

Documents recently unsealed in a 3-year-old lawsuit against Dell show that the company’s employees were actually aware that the computers were likely to break.

Still, the employees tried to play down the problem to customers and allowed customers to rely on trouble-prone machines, putting their businesses at risk. Even the firm defending Dell in the lawsuit was affected when Dell balked at fixing 1,000 suspect computers, according to e-mail messages revealed in the dispute.



Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/hardware/Dell-knowingly-sold-faulty-PCs/articleshow/6105118.cms

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Lawsuit: Dell knowingly shipped 12 million faulty computers

Last updated about 8 hours ago
Capacitor leaks are serious business. When a capacitor blows out, not only does the device in question die an instant death, it might even catch fire.

So when the New York Times reports on freshly unsealed documents from a lawsuit alleging that Dell, over the course of two years, sold almost 12 million Optiplex machines with leaky capacitors to companies large and small, you know there's pain ahead for Dell whether the company wins the suit or not.

The newly unsealed documents allegedly show that Dell was aware that capacitors from Japanese partsmaker Nichicon were almost certain to fail in the machines they were selling. But the company continued to sell these parts to everyone from Wal-Mart to Mayo Clinic, opting to focus on damage control rather than quality control.

At one point, 1,000 computers that Dell delivered to the law firm that was defending it in the suit started failing, and the computer maker allegedly "balked" at fixing them.

Even when Dell did get around to replacing faulty motherboards, a contractor that Dell hired to look into the issue found that Dell's replacements were themselves faulty. Dell apparently learned that Nichicon's capacitors caused problems in 97 percent of cases over a three-year period, and that the quality problems were ten times worse than the company had originally estimated.

More: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/06/suit-alleges-that-dell-shipped-12-million-faulty-computers.ars

[Make7]

1. Well, they did have MicroSoft operating systems.... ( n/t )

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. Haven't seen a Dell PC yet that wasn't a cheap piece of shit

but what else would you expect from a company whose CEO brags about being BFF's with a Chimp?

[Warpy]

3. I've got a reconditioned one

because I needed a cheap XP machine after mine went up in smoke <koff koff>.

It's got some quirks, it's an old machine, but it's a honey for the money.

[swishyfeet]

6. My last 3 or 4 corporate Dell computers have been flawless

A couple desktops, a couple laptops. Not one single problem. I work in software and use them all day long.

I wouldn't deny they're cheap, but they have some interest in making them trouble-free, and I think for the most part they are. Their home computers tend to be more cutting edgy and probably less stable long term.

[laconicsax]

7. Laconicspouse is running an 8 year old Dell laptop with no problems.

The Samsung HDD gave out about 3 years ago. When we replaced it, we installed Linux and it's still going strong.

How's that for a cheap piece of shit? I hear that MacBooks have problems with the logic board crapping out with no warning, those are supposed to be high-quality products.

[Carnage251]

12. I guess I'll stay away from Samsung

My Samsung HDD in my desktop broke.

[madokie]

23. Hey now

my 2001 dell is still going strong. Since I made the change to linux I see no reason to buy a new one either.
Michael Dell's politics sucks and if I'd known about that prior to buying this one I wouldn't have bought it but now that I have it I see no reason to spend good money buying another. Pretty much all the components come from either china or Tiawan anyway.

[Blue_Tires]

24. my desktop from '03 has been pretty reliable

but in recent months I've seen a couple of students' new Dell laptops and I could not believe it was from the same company...shoddy, flimsy, faulty outlets -- looked like Dell spent a total of $10 on design and assembly...

[Dappleganger]

43. LOL!

Do you have any idea how many pc's Dell has sold? I don't think that Dell's pc's are any worse or better than other manufacturers, only that they sell more and that makes them more easily targeted.

[Sebastian Doyle]

45. Britney Spears sold a lot of CD's

Doesn't mean they weren't pieces of crap, does it?

Dell makes a lot of their money through government contracts. What's even more ridiculous is that some state governments who buy their crap could (and should) be buying better PC's made in their own states, by people who didn't help finance the Bush Crime Family.

[Dappleganger]

46. They got those contracts

because they are a very large PC company who can deliver the goods. Any other very large PC company could have probably done the very same thing.

I am not saying the Dell is great, just that they are no worse a company than HP, Sony, IBM or Toshiba. Most all of their parts are made in the same sweatshops in China and Viet Nam, anyway.

[No Elephants]

52. You may be right about newer Dells.

My 1990 Dell desktop has never given me even one moment of trouble, though, and still works. Cannot say anything remotely similar about any computer I've bought since.

[frazzled]

4. Bad "lifestyle choice" there

:smoke:

[Hawkeye-X]

5. I just finally dumped the last of the Dimension 8000's

Worthless piece of crap.

And I needed it to build a simple Linux-based firewall, and it chokes on everything I try to put in...

Replaced it with a refurbished HP dx5150 but it may be returned for something better (I bought it $120)

[alp227]

8. The only Dell equipment I have? A flatscreen monitor.

Go to hell, Dell! Yet more glory of capitalism, following poor safety standards by BP and Toyota. My family's using HP computers now, and I use a Toshiba laptop. Glad I don't use Dell (and last time I saw my father using a Dell laptop was in 2007 or so IIRC)

[Initech]

9. I bought a Dell that had a defective pixel out of the box.

And the assholes tried to say it was a shipping error and I had to fight them tooth and nail to get a replacement screen.

[sakabatou]

10. I'm not surprised

[itsrobert]

11. I had 2 Dell Desktops and 1 laptop

All didn't last at all. Faulty power supplies and other problems. And the Dell Desktops at work are always crapping out.

I now have an HP laptop..Excellent. And me and my son built him a gaming desktop ourselves. (flawless)

[McCamy Taylor]

13. Who knew Dell makes "Girl Computers" with math phobia? ROFLMAO

:rofl:

[formercia]

21. The computers were overwhelmed

They went on strike for bigger cooling fans.

Math is hard work.

[backscatter712]

14. Gotta love the capacitor plague.

The backstory: For much of the last decade, many PCs (as well as other electronics) were built with faulty capacitors. Because some capacitor manufacturers used a faulty electrolyte formula, the result was caps that gradually (or quickly) degraded, didn't perform to spec, bulged, and sometimes burst with a loud bang, lots of smoke, maybe even a fire.

As it turns out, Dell dealt with the capacitor plague by blowing off and lying to their customers instead of making things right. Fucktarded behavior on top of fucktarded parts.

[earcandle]

15. I have a Deminsion 4500 and it keeps saying that the fan is not working and it isn't . But it isn't

hot at all.  I am baffled, but I am sure to turn it off if I
leave the house or go to sleep at night. 

$150 on craigslist.  Works well. 

[Drops_not_Dope]

19. You're lucky

my fan overworks making it hot as hell, then the computer shuts down right in the middle of my work.

[formercia]

22. Bean Counters

They're a fucking curse on the World.

[lumberjack_jeff]

28. Had an HP pc - had exactly that problem.

I actually bought a big box of replacement capacitors to solder into the mb. I'm kind of a clumsy solderer, so I apparently shorted something out doing the repair. Doh.

[backscatter712]

30. Some entrepreneurs actually made some money by soldering new caps on motherboards.

They'd take customer's motherboards, unsolder the factory caps, replace them with known high-quality caps, and assuming there were no mistakes, a crappy, flaky, crashy motherboard instantly became rock-solid stable.

[earcandle]

50. cool! looks like they got their thinking caps on....!

[ProudDad]

16. Big Whoop. M$ has been selling shit operating systems for years (n/t)

[ProudDad]

17. And I tried not to buy computers from HUGE g.w.bush supporters (n/t)

[Grinchie]

18. Hah! Capacitor Plague Strikes again!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

This is very, very old news.

Once they became aware of the Counterfeit Capacitors that contained the incorrect dielectric, we saw a plethora of "Extended Warranties" appear on the market to protect themselves from the known, random defect.. I say random, because they receive Capacitors for many different sources, and the counterfeit look just like all the rest.

Instead of actually admitting that the supply chain had been compromised, they socked the consumer and had them pay for it.

Very slick if you ask me...

However, I ran into this with my Dell computer in 2005/2006. It started with Memory appearing to go bad, so I spent 20 hours on the phone arguing with India as to why their Memory Cards had a lifetime Warranty, while the memory in my computer did not.. After months of perserverance, I received new memory (Honestly, when has memory ever failed?, it will go obsolete first.)

It didn't help, even though that was the symptom on the startup code.. Well, it was Capacitor Plague, and they finally barfed all over the motherboard and destroyed the delicate surface mount devices and the motherboard itself.

Strangley enough, I still have an Atari 800 that works like a charm... The electronics arwe big and bulky, the engineering is brute force and simple, yet it lives... It runs the security system in my house...

8 zones, programmable sound, adequate graphics, okay speed for the task - near real time, just like a Radionics system.

I think I paid $25.00 for it, and 50 bucks on the sensors and resistors.

Recently, I tried to find software to make sounds as good as the Atari on the PC.. I found it.. It was an Atari Emulator that recreates the fidelity of the decrepit old Atari 800 on My high fallutin PC. Go figure. I cannot find anything on the PC (For Free) that can create simple tones and harmonics.. We fell in love with Video games in the 80's, and now we can barely reproduce these sounds that they used to seduce us.

That emulator software is pretty cool, as well as DosBox.. Some of the music on the old dos games beats any techno available today..

Thats my experience with Capacitor plague.. And notice how this Story comes at the end of the cycle where it first appeared..

An After the fact Mea Culpa..

[backscatter712]

27. I still have an 8-bit Atari too!

My very first computer when I was a kid was an Atari 400. Unfortunately, that old machine died long ago, but I still have an 800XL that works.

[Kablooie]

33. Atari 800 here too. I've got 2 of them. One was 10$ at a church sale.

The other was $1700.00 at a computer store in 1981.

[AtheistCrusader]

20. Not isolated to Dell by any means.

But yeah, any Dell machine made around the time of the socket 478 P4 is suspect as hell.

Other component manufacturers used these same crappy capacitors as well, but at 12 million suspected units, hard to ignore how many Dell machines failed as a result.

[uncommontime]

25. Aren't they a big Republican contributor? nt

.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

31. Correct

Michael Dell is a devout Republican who spends his money where it will yield him the highest return.

http://www.newsmeat.com/billionaire_political_donations/Michael_Dell.php

[Festivito]

34. And they seem more and more Republican as time goes by.

I'm not surprised.

[area51]

26. Why am I not surprised?

They're one of the companies that offshores; they don't give a sh#t about their quality or Americans.

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

29. Had a Dell Inspiron that lasted about 2 years when it "died" unexpectedly.

Piece of shit, though I'm still using the monitor (hubby bought a bare bones computer and built one from scratch for me). :)

[Kablooie]

32. On "Tech Guy" radio show Dell refused to fix a brand new computer...

A few months ago a guy called in and said he had bought a new Dell Inspiron at Walmart.
It was defective out of the box so he called Dell but they said the warranty period had expired.

They claimed the warranty period started when Walmart received the shipment not when he had bought it.

Then the Dell service person hung up on him.

[SunnySong]

38. OMFG that is incredible... nt

[AtheistCrusader]

40. What is it, bio-degradeable?

Since when does a warranty start when the retailer receives it?

[Xithras]

42. Lots of people have had that problem with Dell.

Technically, Dell doesn't have resellers. They "sell" the computer to WalMart, warrantying the computer to WalMart, and then WalMart resells it to you. The same thing happens when you buy a Dell at BestBuy or anywhere else. Unless someone does a formal warranty transfer, Dell starts the warranty the moment the PC ships, and warranties it to the original purchaser (Walmart, Sears, Best Buy, etc).

All of these retailers are supposed to be offering their own warranties and service plans to support the computers after they're sold. Sears will send a third party technician to your house, and Best Buy offers its own 1 year warranty (Geek Squad) on all Dells it sells. Walmart offers a warranty as well, but exercising it is an exercise in futility.

Which brings up an interesting question. Which evil corporation can really be blamed for this? Dell, or Walmart?

[Blandocyte]

35. Onnnly thinng wronng with minne is that a key sticks sometimes

[newscott]

36. Who do they think they are? Toyota?

[BrklynLiberal]

37. Wow. have to send this to all my friends that have DELLs

[ellenfl]

39. my last 2 'puters were no-name.

i bought from diy-ers, one at a computer show and one from ebay. haven't had a lick of trouble. before that, i took home a few from work and they were 'hand made' also. i got tired of the proprietary hardware of brand name computers. when 16mb of ram cost $100 for an outdated compaq, i decided to buy elsewhere. not that i wouldn't buy a mac if i didn't have so much pc software and hardware.

ellen fl

[Xithras]

41. Capacitor Plague has struck many PC manufacturers and homebuilders.

I'm not shocked to hear that Dell is dodging responsibility for fixing them, but the ultimate source of the problem can be traced to cheap-ass Chinese manufacturers who have tried to cut corners when making capacitors. There's one infamous case where a Taiwanese capacitor manufacturer STOLE the plans for a capacitor from their American competitor. The stolen design didn't include the necessary stabilizers, so the Chinese manufacturer made and sold millions of under priced "clone" capacitors that eventually failed.

If you bought a computer from a major vendor, or even a third party motherboard for a homebuilt system, between 2000 and 2006, it's literally a coin flip to determine the odds of you having one of these bad capacitors. I had a home server that I built myself, running on a quality Asus motherboard, that croaked out after a cap blew.

The difference is in how the problems are handled. Asus swapped my motherboard without complaint. When my old HP died due to a cap failure while under warranty, HP swapped it out without complaint. Dell, while trying to cover its a**, has dodged responsibility and is trying to lay the blame for its failure at the feet of its customers.

I'm not shocked by this though. Dell has always been about building cheap computers, and cheap computers are built with cheap parts. Their name has never been synonymous with quality...they're the Packard Bell of the 2000's.

[Karenina]

44. ___ KNOWINGLY SOLD

faulty, contaminated, defective, unsafe, poisonous, lethal ___.

[Greyhound]

47. SOP at HP as well. n/t

:kick: & R

[Heywood J]

48. Honestly, having worked with Dells for some time and having

disassembled their power supplies, I know they're using shitty parts. Where I used to work, I would often be asked six or seven times a day by customers about replacement parts for Dell machines that had failed quite catastrophically, or to recover data from them.

Not surprised at all. But then again, so do HP, Lenovo, etc. Everyone's gone to the shitty parts so they can squeeze another penny into the CEO's bonus.

[christx30]

49. I worked at Dell

for 12 years building and/or boxing computers. Computer systems were dropped, motherboards suffered trace damage from screwdrivers (which didn't fail testing and went out to customers) and were tosses around in the boxing area like it was a very expensive game of dodge ball.
And that was when they were being built in the United States. They have since closed down manufacturing in this country and now are being built in Mexico, and shipped back up here for distribution in Austin.
I would never buy another Dell computer. I discourage anyone from buying one.

[western mass]

51. Dell customer service / tech support = terrible

Their tech support is incompetent, unhelpful, and rude. Notoriously so - search any internet forum. Even if you like the hardware, pray that nothing goes wrong.