Dell complaints

[DellSucksMonkeyNuts]

I purchased a new Inspiron 530S a little over a year ago and up until recently had no problems with it. I've installed updates regularly both from Microsoft and Dell. I run competent anti-virus software and pop-up blockers.
I first noticed that IE would freeze on me from time to time. No big deal - just ALT CTRL DEL right? Wrong. This wouldn't work no matter how patient one tried to be. In fact the machine was completely and utterly frozen when this occurred requiring a cold shutdown each time. Then Windows Media Player began freezing or crashing. Recemty I purchased a Digital Interface and studio software to record music on my computer. I placed the installation DVD into the drive and ... nothing. I couldn't get it to install. Then I noticed that the DVD didn't appear in the drive letter under My Computer. I was able to install the disc on another computer without a hitch so I know it isn't the disc. No matter what I place in the drive Windows won't recognize it. So I call DHell and was given the runaround for several hours before I reached an Indian gentleman who tried to sell me the warranty extension. Needless to say this will be my last Dell computer. For that matter, it will be my last PC. I'm going to buy a Mac.

[padraig]

No replies... that should tell you something.

[Tailmon]

No replies does not mean nothing. It means that people have not seen the post yet. Thanks for your lack of advice.

Can you post your system specs and the operating system. Not just Vista but which one? I think your hd puked but we kind of need more information.
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Former employee of Dell and can say that they
definitely Suck!

[poormanq45]

Sounds like a clean OS would help

If that doesn't work Id suspect memory and/or harddrive

[XWiseOneX]

I own a Inspirion 518. Its a x64 OS system of Windows Vista: Home Premium. Yeah I had this situation before, I found out it wasn't on DELL's fault, it was on Microsoft.

Basically what I did was that I just went on System Restore and uninstalled a few updates before the time Internet Explorer crashed or Firefox hanged. Yeah, my Firefox hanged. It kept living in the Task Manager and refused to die (End process really was a abuse trigger for me)

Also:

1) When the bootup is finished, and the screen shows your account and you must type the password, I found the password to be laggy when I typed it up

2) Shutdown and restart commands were delayed 9 minutes, even with the computer doing nothing at all

To be honest, I think it was that anti-junk email thing that Microsoft suggested me to download that was causing all the agony. I've tried installing different firewalls, no avail...

If you're on a x64 system, maybe this'll help. If not good luck. One thing that's amazing about System Restore is that if you have a restore point that had a program uninstalled "in the future present", you're going to see that program back if you're going to the "past". Once I sucessfully reverted back to the day of my computer (working one), I found my old firewall back up and everything was peaceful again.... =O

Btw, Windows Vista Service Pack 2 doesn't cause any problems. It worked for me.

I hope this helps. Microsoft isn't perfect =P

[HellComputer]

If the OS reinstall fails to help, then you likely have a bad motherboard. Browser add-ons are prone to cause problems, the worst of which, despite their great photoshop SW, is Adobe, which seems to be releasing updates without testing them much.

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

I should start a new website titled "ihateadobe.com". Everything they make is either bloated, contrary, or troublesome. I dread Google results that end in PDF.

Firstoff, with their text-as-graphics format, you're in for long load times on even the simplest document. Will you get a scrollbar? Will it skip entire pages? Will it indicate what page you're on? You never know.

Next, PDFs are essentially photographs of a vertical sheet of printer paper. Zoom in to where you can read it, and it cuts the edges off where you have to pan it. That's because the paper's aspect is 1.3:1. So is your monitor, but in the other direction, sideways. DUH, mister Adobe graphics expert.

Now there's the document itself. I got a PDF of my large, complex model helicopter--the only way the manual is available--and believe me, you NEED the manual to put the thing back together when you crash it. OK, do the Adobe thing, zoom it in to where you can read it. OOPS! The Chinese vendor scanned it on too-small a scale. The top of one line of text is compressed into a single pixelblob, then the bottom of the next line is compressed the same way. Just like a JPG when you zoom in too far, it becomes little boxes and stairsteps instead of an image. Adobe found a way to do that to TEXT.

Let's look at another Adobe product you really can't avoid no matter how much you wish you could. Flash player. Flash content is part of almost every website, in the ads if not the content. You can't just tell it not to display, it doesn't have that option. If this week's version of Flash editor doesn't match last week's version of Flash player, one of two things happens. Or rather, one of two popups.

The 'friendly' one insists you download and install the latest Flash player before you can proceed. The unfriendly one says "this program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down".



I HATE ADOBE!!
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

[incident_man]

I found an easy-to-use alternative for Adobe Reader, called SumatraPDF:

http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/download.html

It only works with Win 2000 or newer, though

Now if only there were an alternative to Flash............
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Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.