Dell :: Complete Care Exchange Of Like For Like Components

I have kept quiet about my exchange because I don't want to bring the wrath down upon me of people thinking I am trying to pull one over on dell. However, I now feel the need to vent a little.

I received my 1710 about a year ago. It originally shipped with the basic card but I upgraded through dell, having their techs come out and do the install, to a 7900GTX 512 MB. I was assured many times through the process that the upgraded card would fall under my complete care warranty should something go wrong.

Well something went wrong, 1.5 years later I have suffered from many heat issues and they have replaced the exact same 7900 card TWICE! Then we had an accident with my dog and a glass of Ice Tea. Needless to say the laptop is non-functional now. I was issued a complete care replacement machine and this is where the nightmare started.

They upgraded me to a 1730, saw fit to upgrade my processor to a 2.2, and gave me 4 (!) gigs of ram, but then crippled the system by including 1 8700m 256mb card. I immediately called Dell before the system shipped and implored them to look at my history, and see I upgraded the card. That I would happily exchange half that ram (for an 1800 dollar credit) towards the purchase of an equivalent card. The rep had sympathy but told me that my system doesn't have a service tag so they can't schedule a swap, he set up a call back from a manager for the next day where he assured me that I would be taken care of. That was Tuesday.

Wednesday came and went with no call, I called them after work and got someone who couldn't possibly understand why I didn't receive a call back, and he went to work in his area to try and solve my issue. It turns out that there is a call center in Oklahoma and a call center in Utah. The Utah office has the only staff that has the authorization to replace my card. He scheduled another call back for Thursday, assured me that everything was in the notes, and that I would receive resolution.

That evening the laptop was waiting for me. I knew there was a problem when I opened the box, as the laptop is missing the service tag sticker on the bottom. There is no power cord (only the AC adapter half) in the box, but no worries it's a standard PC plug and I have tons of those. I plug it in, open the lid and hit the switch... and nothing. No power, no lights, no nothing. I fiddle with the plug in the back of the case and I see lights flash. A lot of upward pressure and I have power! So problem number 2, Faulty AC Jack. I'm cruising along at this point checking things out, and I go to the invoice to check the parts list vs. what is physically there. Pop off the memory plate and there is only one 2 GB card in the case. Okay I'll call about that, fire up the machine... Boot error, open the hard drive bay... no HDD................