Friday, August 24, 2007

Computer Follow-Up: Never As Good As The First Time

So, I took my computer back home and went online looking for a Dell power box thingie. This is a technical term. I went online to the Dell website, entered my special number that identifies my computer, and looked up a replacement.

There was one. Refurbished.

Now, keep in mind that this computer is only 2.5 years old. Maybe 2.75. At any rate, it's not obviously old. It does not have floppy drives. It does not run in gray scale. It has USB ports rather than all those old pin ports. It is NOT the computer equivalent of a 8-Track tape player.

It does not have parts, apparently.

So, to check, I called the customer service for out of warranty machines. (N.B.--the current financial advice is not to buy extended warranties. If we had one, would I have gotten a better service rep?) I identified my machine, asked for a power box. After being off the line for a while, my service rep checked and found they had NO power boxes to fit my machine. But I could call this long distance number and ask them.

Who are they?

They sell a lot of Dell parts.

Do you order your parts from them?

No, but they do sell them.

I got the name of this place, looked them up online. Their stock listing had nothing on it that matched my machine.

I went ahead and ordered the part from the Dell website. They promise shipping in 1-2 weeks. WTF?!?!? WEEKS? Do they have to go searching for it or something? Maybe. We'll see. Stay tuned for further updates.

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