nickel

are you from India or another country and English is your second language?
i know you guys who are techs that work at help desks get sick of people who are totally ignorant when it comes to computers. i am not a geek, but i'm not computer illiterate either. so i am having issues with my BRAND NEW dell. i call dell and get someone with a thick Indian accent. i cannot understand him. he is trying to tell me what to type into a command box and i cannot make out the letters he is pronouncing.

to make it worse he is noticeably frustrated with me when i have to keep asking him over and over what he is trying to tell me. is this my fault? nooooo.
finally after hearing him sigh into the phone i said, "listen, you have to have patience with me because i am trying to have patience with you."

is it wrong of me to ask for a tech i can understand the next time?
and then i am sure i will get transferred and have to wait on hold for an ungodly amount of time again.

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ray

No, not at all. At my former job I would have to call Dell Small Business customer service when they were still based in India (those techs have since been moved back to the US since many of the business clients threatened to stop buying Dell). Whenever I didn't understand them, I asked to speak with a manager and had them reroute me to someone who could help.

nickel

it was Dell Small Business that i called, and i just don't want to be on hold and listen to that annoying woman giving me computer tips for a 1/2 hour while i get another tech.

i never got my problem resolved and hafta call back.

redcolours

what IS the problem with it anyway?

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gear02

What's worse than that are telemarketers who have thick indian accents AND are trying to sell you something. That's really annoying.

However, in recent times I've called a help desk many times and very few of those have I noticed a thick accent. Maybe those offshore call centers have good english speaking people, but I'm thinking more and more call centers that I call are still in the US, and that's a good sign.

nickel

internet issues. i had the net up and running like a champ for 4 days and i log on one morning and it won't display the page. after going around and around with TimeWarner-RoadRunner, my ISP, they determined it was a faulty file with WindowsXP. Microsoft defaulted my call to them to Dell since XP was factory installed. i was on the phone for 2 hrs with dell and got no where. i gave up, and thought i would try again on my next day off.

AlpineJay

There's a program called WinsockFix that may fix your problem. It seems like barring a hardware problem, the winsock or TCP/IP files got corrupted.

Just throwing it out there, just to try it so that you can avoid those wretched Dell reps.

Good luck!

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ufcrusher

DELL SUCKS!!!! Nickel, you have now entered the deadly black hole that Dell calls tech support. Dell doesnt stand by their product, builds and sells crap, and routinely tries to screw over their customers. I tell everyone to stay the hell away from them and wont patronize Dell ever again.

Their indian monkeys who read from a list are about as useful as a colander for carrying water. They know less about computers than my grandmother! I will gladly pay more money to another company to never have to deal with them again.

The discovery channel had a show about the outsourcing to India. They take ANYONE who comes into the interviews, puts them into a "school" to teach them english and try to mitigate their accent, have them pick an "Americanized" name (why you get bob or john or Bill when he obviously is really a purvesh). They then give them a manual and this is why they always go page by page, because they have no idea what you are talking about. Its why if you tell them that you did A - X already, they still try to get you to start at A again.

Frankly, I am probably on India's do not allow into country list and used as the training tapes at this point. I have told them repeatedly that they are useless and refused to deal with them. My good nature ran out after my first fifty bad experiences.

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Mike_N_Ike

I'll second that, although I don't give their American counterparts any more credit.

It's so annoying calling Dell tech support these days because they keep trying to get you to hang up and use the FAQ page or the "automated help line." I don't mean this in a cocky way, but if my question was on an FAQ page, I WOULDN'T BE CALLING.

Then the final brass knuckled punch to the gut, is when you finally get to talk to somebody and it is PAINFULLY CLEAR that all they're doing is trying to look up your problem on that same horribly useless automated system that they were trying to re-direct you to.

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eSDee

Nickel, sorry to hear about it. Why not do a System Restore to a couple of days ago when the internet was working? That could be your quickest solution. Go to Start-> All Applications->Accessories->System Tools->System Restore. Click on Restore My Computer To An Earlier Time.

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nickel

thanks eSDee, one tech i talked too, Bob, and he spoke great English, had me do that, and it wouldn't restore. we tried 3 times.

ufcrusher: NOW YOU TELL ME!!!!

lights

oh man,... this sounds strangely familiar. i recently had a very similar problem with time warner and went around and around,.... i knew it had nothing to do with my computer, but something had changed since i was no longer able to connect.

my suggestion is to call time warner and ask for a supervisor. i would tell you what fixed it if i could,... but i just don't remember because my brain (at the moment) is fried. something changed at time warner, so something had to change in one of the configs in my settings,.... and time warner didn't bother to tell their users. they've been doing all this dns updating/fixing/wth crap that's been pissing off a lot of clients,....

Jeffbx

Hey Nickel - post your trouble in the Software forum. There are a number of computer geeks in there that are willing to help, and even if they might have a funny accent, they all know how to type in English...

caribiner23

Sorry to hear about it, Nickel.

Reminds me of my experience with Palm Support. And the followup.

cheapie

lol biner. well-writen. i've gotten a "charles" before. i almost said, "your name is CHARLES?" give me a freakin' break.

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nickel

just got off the phone with my ISP and Bill seemed knowledgeable and spoke clearly.
he said i have a problem with my Windows winsock files and need a system restore. he referred me to Dell again. he actually apologized for having to send me there. he told me to ask the dell tech if all the drivers have been installed especially the network card driver.

does this sound like a plan? i think i have tried this already, but i might as well start from square one.

Jeffbx

Well, blaming winsock files is a handy way of saying, "we don't know what your problem is, but this will get you off the phone". Of all the things that can cause your connection to fail, the winsock files are near the bottom of the list, unless you're constantly loading & unloading network components.

I assume they had you try the standard things - all cables plugged in, you can see green lights on the modem, you can see green lights on the network card on your PC?

Do you have a router, or is your PC plugged directly into the modem? Do you have another PC you can borrow to test it on this line? That'll at least narrow down the problem to your PC or to the cable modem.

You can also force the re-installation of most files (including winsock) by applying (or re-applying) the most recent service pack. Stick with XP SP1 for now if you haven't upgraded to SP2 yet. This will re-write most system files without having to re-build the system.

nickel

yeh, that all sounds familiar. i'm quite sure we've done all that you've mentioned except:

Cantacuzene

Outsourced customer service is worse than outsourced techs. Customer service people 8,000 miles from the company headquarters have no authority to approve any requests or to handle things for you as an individual, all they can do is read off a book and tell you what you already know. And you cant ask to speak with a supervisor, because no one in their center has the authority to override anything anyway.

mechmike0034

Try these:

http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm
http://www.tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?pid=779&fid=4625

Running the LSP and Winsock fixes won't hurt anything, even if they don't help...

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cruelpupet

Being that you have interent access via another PC...might I suggest a solution...

Goto Dell's website a type in the serial # of the problem PC.

Look at the back of your PC...check where the NIC port is. If its in the area of your mouse,Keyboard, and sound cables its going to need the onboard drivers (most likely intel) If its where the PCI cards should be then there should be a driver for that.

Burn these drivers to a CD or put them on a flash drive, and run through the setup.

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AlpineJay

The WinsockFix tool I put up there for you should fix the winsock files if they are indeed corrupted.

mechmike0034

Jay, take a second look at the link you provided. Only UVa students can download that file from that location.

AlpineJay

Ah, my bad...

Here's a link that works for everyone. So sorry about that!

oblongmelon

LOL I have Time Warner Road Runner too-and believe me..I SWEAR I am having the same problems too-if you ask me, I think roadrunner blocks ALOT OF IP'S..seriously-half the time I can't even get on google. My cable modem sucks ass and about 5 times a night I have to reboot it-because the service keeps going down..I called and bitched and they dropped my price to 34 dollars a month for 12 months and credited my account 2 months-as of right now they owe me 31 dollars..LOL

nickel

well.... it was a windsocket problem. i called Dell, heaven help me, and this time got a woman with a not as strong accent. for a moment i thought she was Asian. i told her my ISP had diagnosed my problem and that they told me to call Dell and get instructions on fixing the Winsocket files. she walked me throught it, and yes i think she was reading a manual (read: i heard pages turning), but she was concise and clear.
also, i learned it is winter right now in India, where she is, and it's their rainy season.

she had me get into the winsock file and winsock2 file and save them to My Documents and then delete them from the original place they were saved to. after opening many boxes and checking/unchecking many boxes she had me reboot for the 6th or so time and WALA! i clicked on internet explorer and my home page came up.

horray!
i asked her why it became corrupt and she couldn't tell me why. i asked her how i could prevent it in the future, and she hadn't a clue.

but for now... all is well with my Dell.

*thanks all who tried to help me in this thread

mechmike0034

Nick, download the two files I referenced in my earlier post anyway, make a folder inside your My Documents folder, name it Winsock Fix, and put the files there just in case.

If and when it screws up again, you won't have to call Dell. You can just run the two files and be back in business.

Also, make sure you have a good virus/firewall/spyware defense.

nickel

thank you, i will.

and the system came with Macafee virus and firewall protection. i have spybot/adaware downloaded also. do i need anything else?

cheapie

ahahaha....sorry. voilà?

nickel

no wala like
walla-walla washington.

my brain was fried - it was after midnight cheapie. you were long snoring by then.