Real DELL Service?

[JHZR2]

Hi,

I have a dell precision workstation 620 (I believe, Im not at home right now). It was pretty high tech, with a PIII Xeon (could take dual, but I took one out because I didnt utilize it enough), 1GB RAMBUS memory, dual SCSI U160 HDs., burners, an extra HD, etc., etc. It runs win2k.

I bought it on the dell refurbished site then it was still one of the new models (may 2001 or so). I think its MSRP was close to $5k, and I got it for about $2k - refurb but looked brand new, as if it was never turned on.

I got a LOT of excellent service from that machine, and have been extremely pleased with it. But something happened on the motherboard, and first it lost its date and time - so I replaced the battery, but it runs at a crawl - slow as can be. It worked fine on friday when I shut it down to go away for the weekend, and when I turned it on on Sunday, it wouldnt work hardly at all. I got all of my data off via ethernet - as that allowed file transfer at normal speed. every time I boot up, the motherboard configurations give me errors, and I cant figure it out.

Dell actually suggested I take it to best buy for service. Those geek squad guys dont know jack when its anything beyond super-simple. I need REAL DELL service - so they can give me real OE parts, do real diagnostics, and make my computer work properly again.

WHat is my best bet? Even the power supply is non-standard, so its tough to get anything tested on it. Is there a better way to get dell to fix my machine?

Thanks,

JMH

 

[kloppilt]

When the power supply of my friend's Dell died, he raplaced the case, motherboard and the power supply with standard parts. Almost everything in a Dell is propritary, and can cost big $$$.

This is the reason I've never bought complete computers - assembling one from scratch may be a little more expensive but you always know what's going on with your system.

 

[1 FMF]

unless you buy a dell warranty or service, you'll need to look around for repair houses who know their stuff. even with dell warranty, all they do is contract it out to local service places so that technician who comes to your house may not be that qualified. All they do is bring spare motherboard, video card, hard drive, etc and swap parts till its fixed.

I have precision 650's at work, running win2k. I know it's the win2k slowing ours down, but it's not at a crawl like you describe yours. Without specific definition of crawl, best I can recommend is watch the 4 green led's A-B-C-D where the usb port is on the front. They give error codes. If all is well there, first step is probably to go with winXP or at least a hard drive reformat and reload win2k cleanly. If you don't have the OS on cd and have to buy it, then go xp.

www.support.dell.com and click on product support tab. Enter your service tag and dwnld your product and service manual, one of those will have the ABCD error codes.
their support site also allows you to let them to scan your pc for problems. Don't expect a miracle, but it's free and can't make it any worse.

 

[sprintman]

DELL is a four letter word!

 

[michaelc80]

I can't say that I'm very impressed with either Dell or Gateway right now. I've had several smaller Dell servers with hard drive failures (non-raid), lots of Dell workstations with hard drive problems as well (working with a customer on one right now).

Also had a customer that purchased 58 Gateways last spring. Of those, 10 had dead CD drives out of the box, 21 other CD drives have failed since they were installed, and a couple on-board network adapters have failed.

I'm just glad that I didn't spec and purchase the machines in either case.

 

[Scott P]

Is it possible the motherboard is shot?

 

[kenw]

slowness usually indicates software/firmware issues, not hardware. like: too many background applications running, often unbeknownst to you. Virus scan stuff, some long-forgotten app trying to upgrade itself, etc.

offload all the stuff you can't replace, then reload from the "restore" CDs that came with the computer. Many of my IT friends do it once a year.

 

[wander2039]

Dell service

There's no such thing in my opinion, and I have worked on alot of dell workstations and laptops. Dell has been replacing alot of motherboards on a lot of different models. When I worked in the industry 10% of all dell's that came were defective, compared to compaq/hp at maybe 1 to 200. Since then i've been to at least three businesses where dell had to replace all of the motherboards, 100+ at each. What were the configuration errors are you getting? With a machine that new the battery should not go bad. I'd go through and make sure everything is seated properly, ram processor etc. I think dell has lights on the back to help diagnosis. Should be three if I remember right, your manual should tell about the readings. I don't know how correct my info is since I haven't worked on them for years. You could probably find a cheap motherboard on ebay if it goes that route.

 

[eljefino]

It's possible something in the BIOS got reset when you replaced that little button battery.

Turn off your CPU caches, fast HDD modes and things really start slowing down.

Hit ESC, F1, or whatever to enter setup as soon as the machine is turned on, before windows starts. Then there should be a "load defaults" or "load best performance defaults". Now that your data is backed up you have little to lose.