Mademoiselle NOBS

Anyone know what the average build time is for a new system purchased at Dell? Ordered one last week and since Wednesday it's been "stuck" at the initial Production phase.

ray

dell's online tracking system has NEVER been correct for me. it's always about 3 days too slow. I would guess your computer is in shipment.

M_A_C

I ordered mine a few months ago on a saturday and recieved it on a tuesday.

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bachviet

Dell online tracking system sucks! The best bet is to call the CR and find the status.

Mademoiselle NOBS

Thanks! Will call and find out then.

zippyjuan

I ordered a camera from them and the estimated shipping date they gave me was six weeks away. I signed up for e-mail notification for when it shipped and heard nothing- but the camera came in about a week on the free-ship option.

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Joshua

Yeah, usually the online tracking will still say it's in production and the UPS guy shows up at your door.

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djradam

i ordered a system about a week ago, shipping date was supposed to be the 10th of june, it came yesterday!

jermscentral

as a former employee of the dell call center in nashville, i knew firsthand how long it took to build those systems. typically, it would take anywhere from 1-3 days, though you're told it could take up to 2 weeks. it usually depends on the season and how many systems are in the queue to be built. they're cycled every 2 hours, so all old orders are done pretty quick. the only thing that would prolong a build time is if one of your system's parts is on order. it would say (at order time) if there would be a delay; typically, it is caused by new products or cheap products (like inexpensive LCDs, and when it was released, the 200 GB hard drive).

what usually takes the longest is the shipping process. to minimize shipping costs overall, dell waits till it has a truckload to ship before sending them to the delivery company. when i was there, i would have systems that were ordered in the summer ship as early as the same day (if you ordered by noon). you may not know it was delivered, though, until you got your tracking number, because UPS had to have a certain amount and only came by twice a day to pick up completed systems.

so technically, if you ordered one today, it should be on its way as of tomorrow or two days after the order.

Mademoiselle NOBS

CR @ Dell isn't being much help. She's regurgitating what the online system says, which hasn't changed since last Wednesday. She's also the one who sold the system to me, which got me wondering... I just noticed tonight that the 4600 is now being offered in 2.8 & 3.0 533 FSB flavours (at time of ordering only the 800 FSB w/ HT were being offered - that I could see.)

Now, although the 800 FSB w/ HT isn't specified in my 4600 quote, nor is any mention of any FSB. I started panicking at this point until I tracked down the product number of my processor which did match the product number of a 2.8 800 FSB w/ HT (the 533 product number differs slightly). But, this got me wondering if there might be some kind of related delay over Dell introducing the 533 FSB versions just as I placed my order... Hmm.

At any rate, now I'm less worried about it being late than I am getting a system with a 533 FSB. I'd just have to turn around and ship it right back and go through the Dell RMA madness... ugh.

Crossing my fingers that it arrives tomorrow everything as it should so I can stop stressing!

jermscentral

If you called into Dell and ordered your system (I'm assuming you went with the home line instead of small business, though ordering systems are the same), then you're at the mercy of the peon on the other end of the line. The software used by the sales reps is called Symphony, and the interface is exactly the same as the website (in fact, the code used to run Symphony pulls the Dell website into its memory any time it's updated). So when you're ordering something, you're essentially calling into a queue of reps that are just doing the same thing you would do with an online order (plus hassling you to get upgrades and peripherals so they can meet their metrics) -- that's why online ordering is the best. When you submit an order online or place an order online, your order number does not and will not change. It stays the same throughout the ordering process, and will be the same on your invoice. Nothing can be changed on that order slip without your approval, though the rep does have access to changing it (by the way, you'd have to call back into the same rep each time, as only the initial sales rep can change any order information). So if you think your system order number was mixed up, but the order number you were given still matches the one given to you by Dell, then there's a good chance that the rep changed something. Manufacturing doesn't have any control over it -- they just take a sheet of paper with the system's components and throw them in a box and ship it to you.

Mademoiselle NOBS

It took them 7 days to go from pre-production to production, and the actual production only took 4 1/2 hours to go from kitting to boxing. Since Tuesday, it's been stuck in the boxing phase and has not budged. I called in and spoke to several reps at Dell, but all I got was a response of "in transit."

Now it doesn't look like it'll even ship until next week, the third week since I placed my order. I guess I _really_ got unlucky when I placed my order.

For the curious:

I ordered a Dell Dimension 4600 2.8G w/ HT + 800FSB through Dell SB, and called it in only because my research in forums indicated faster processing times than ordering online. Well... never again! Sigh.