I bought Dell’s top of the line laptop XPS M1330 with Vista Business OS in August 2007. Service Tag –JBZ1R1S

In May this year the cover of the LCD panel was getting buckled at places near the Webcam and a few other places. After failing to get response from the on the toll-free line I registered a complaint through Internet. Case #: 200805110531711 dt 11th May 2007.

On 10th June when I started reporting the matter on your site, I got a call from one Roy of Dell exactly after 1 month! (Report No.1550129) After hearing the details he arranged to send a service engineer who visited my Lonavla residence and replaced the plastic cover. I was at Lonavla at that time.

In July I was in Kolkata when all of a sudden I faced the ill-famous problem of Blue Screen and my machine stopped functioning. I reported the matter to Dell. An engineer visited the Kolkata residence on 21st July 2008, SER No.790501319299. According to him the Motherboard had to be replaced and possibly LCD Panel as well as the connecting cable. Dell did not have these spares in India and they would be getting these from some other country. Till then my machine was shut and guarantee period was reduced further! I informed them that I would be back to Kerala within a few days and they should rather send the spares to Kerala.

Finally, an engineer visited Amritapuri on 7th August 2008 and replaced the spares. The machine was restarted with reloaded Vista around 18-00 hrs. in the evening. I used it for 3 hrs. and again blue screen appeared after Vista updates were installed having downloaded from the Net. Technically, my formal guarantee period expired on 6th August, 2007. Dell was not prepared to extend the guarantee period even though they delayed the repair of the machine.

Subsequently, I spoke to Dell XPS Support a few times and reloaded the OS as per their suggestions. It’s the same story and they washed their hands off saying it was Vista problem of Microsoft and not Dell problem.

Then I searched through Google and found that there are innumerable Dell XPS M1330 all over the world having the blue screen problem. Some people solved their problem by installing XP with appropriate drivers. I tried this after getting the driver details from one of the Bloggers sites. This I did after I failed to get a reply from Dell about the XP drivers.

When I installed XP it worked for a week except for the card reader port. But after one week, the machine gave the same problem.

After reloading XP 2-3 times with same result, I finally decided to go back to Vista by downloading the SP1. This was done on 22nd September. Vista was reloaded from the original DVD provided by Dell and then SP1 installed, then the drivers (updated versions wherever required) and later various application packages. The machine worked for 2 days 23rd and 24th. On 25th morning I am back to Blue Screen!

Dell engineers carefully avoid giving their telephone extension numbers. They operate in ‘Safe Mode,’ so to speak. If you dial their landline number, the recorded voice asks you to press the extension number or wait for the operator’s assistance. I don’t believe they have any operator to assist because I tried this a number of times and the line gets disconnected after some time. A ‘very safe mode’ operation indeed! The field engineers who visit are BPO contractor’s people. So, as an individual buyer dealing with Dell India means you are dealing with an Automaton without any human face! This is my experience. And whenever you get to talk to a Dell engineer through the toll-free number, you land with a new person each time and explain the whole background all over again!

I have been using computers since more than 20 yrs, and the XPS is my 3rd laptop. So, I am not a novice.

At 65, I don’t know what to do with this white elephant – XPS M1330. Can any of your members solve this problem? I feel cheated by Dell because the blue screen problem was known to them being a global phenomenon.

Bitter Lesson: Never buy a Dell product unless you want a showpiece and have spare money to get cheated!!!