Consumerist Techniques Pay Off, Even With Dell

When the cooling block of Jeremy’s Alienware computer began to leak, the answer was obvious: call Dell to see whether they would fix what was an obvious and pretty terrible flaw. Dell’s answer was obvious in turn: tell him that the machine was out of warranty and he should go away. But Jeremy thought that a $2,500 computer shouldn’t destroy itself within two years.

In August of ’09, I purchased a brand new Alienware Area 51 desktop computer. The customizations included a liquid cooling block. The total cost of the rig was over $2,500.

This year, the computer started having issues. The PC would boot, get to the desktop and power down. Eventually, it came with a message at the POST screen detailing that the issue was the CPU overheating.

I removed the cover and found that the cooling block had actually leaked all over the MOBO.

A call to Dell got canned responses from tech support about the machine being out of warranty and being told that I could buy the requisite parts from a third-party website
(which the site didn’t carry).

Numerous calls to tech support got me nowhere. For a PC costing over $2,500, this was just not acceptable. I turned to Consumerist and found the email for Michael Dell.

Using that email, I was contacted by the executive service department of Dell. The department paid for shipping to their repair facility where they repaired the PC free of charge.

I was floored by the service they gave me. The entire repair process was very fast and was given updates by a representative who gave me updates throughout the entire process.

Reading Consumerist really pays off!

Happy ending! Thank you, Mr. Dell!