Great Machine...When It Works
Written: Aug 17 '00
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Pros: Fast, great THX sound, good graphics
Cons: Hard drive died, problems fixing it
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| goclimb's Full Review: Dell Dimension XPS T800r |
Let me start out by saying that I saved a long time to get this machine...about 6 months of scrimping and saving so I could replace my 6 year old Gateway and get a hot new Dell computer. I use Dell computers almost exclusively at work (as a Software Test Engineer), and have had nothing but positive experiences with them.
But, I guess that karma doesn't apply to getting a personal machine from Dell. I ordered my machine using their web site, and upgraded some of the features - got a DVD drive, a CD-RW, 256MB RAM, 40GB HD, and the Altec Lansing THX speakers (which totally rock!!). Ordering went fairly well, but they ignored my request to NOT have Norton Anti-Virus installed (I don't like how most Norton products seem to invade a system).
Anyway, it got everything hooked up, which was super easy. Got it booted up, and was playing happily with my new toy, when all of a sudden AOL crashed with a kernel error. Not a good sign. But I rebooted, and played some more. Things were going fine for about a day until I got a blue screen that said "Error writing to drive C:\. Some data may have been lost."
That was the beginning of the end. After running scandisk numerous times, and coming up with more bad sectors than I had on my previous computer in 6 years, I called tech support and got some diagnostics to run. The gist of it was that my hard drive was about to die. They were going to send me a new one...which arrived about two weeks later. In the meantime, I was relegated to trying to use my computer, but spent most of my time being forced to run ScanDisk because Windows crashed and shut down incorrectly. Sometimes it would take about 4 hours for me to boot up. I was not a happy camper.
I FINALLY got the new hard drive, and just when I was about to tear open the package, I noticed that it was a refurbished hard drive. That means it was used at one point, but for whatever reason was returned, tested, and then sold again. Now, I kinda think that a new computer should have a new hard drive in it...not one that has been used before. I called tech support, pleaded my case, but they wouldn't take back the refurbished one and replace it with a new one. That's an epinion for a different day!
Anyway, I just completed rebuilding my system from scratch...reinstalling the OS, all drivers, and all software. Major undertaking, but at least now it works. Dell tech support has been helpfull, to a point, but I am very angry that I've had to go through all this just to get a working computer. I can only imagine what my mom would do in a situation like this!
So as to not leave you with too terrible a taste in your mouth regarding this computer, I must say that, when it works, it works well. The graphics are fast and clean, the hard drive huge, and I like the DVD player and CD-RW a lot. It's a great machine, but the problems I encountered, from day one, have made me think twice about ever purchasing a Dell computer again.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 2300
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium II
Processor speed: 701-800
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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Epinions.com ID:
goclimb
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Member: Mark Fleming
Reviews written: 12
Trusted by: 1 member
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