Rather than view all the videos by downloading them individually I thought I’d make a page where I can view them all sequentially.

Here is the html I threw together. Guess it will look rubbish in anything but Firefox 3.5. Of course that’s no guarantee it will look any good in Firefox 3.5. Just, y’know, you’ll see the videos

                          

I previously blogged about the problem with the video card on my Dell laptop.

On the Friday I called Dell up having had no response from their website. They talked me through some tests which included reinstalling the device driver in Windows and reinstalling Windows itself. Neither of these I could do as I don’t run Windows. Besides which it was plainly obviously a hardware problem and not a driver/software issue. Anyone with just a few months of hardware maintenance skills on computers could figure that out!

As I previously blogged they arranged on the Monday for an engineer to come to my workplace on the Tuesday. On the monday afternoon I was taken ill and went home. Before I left I called up Dell and said that as I’d be at home on Tuesday – off work sick – could the engineer please come there to fix my laptop and not to my work address. The guy on the phone told me the engineer was already booked to go to my home address! Good job I was off sick!

So anyway he turned up and replaced the video card, so now all is okay.

Then today I get this email from Dell in response to my website contact. Firstly here’s what I sent to Dell via their website:-

***********************************************
System Label: XPS/Inspiron XPS Gen 2 Europe

Problem: Video Adapter
Operating System: Linux
Error Text: No error message.
Problem Description: The screen output is corrupted from the moment the computer is
powered up, before it gets to the operating system.
Trouble Shooting Steps: Run the Dell Pre-boot System Assesment Build 3017. It
technically passes the tests but the screen is badly corrupted. I have taken
photographs of the problem which you can see by visiting my gallery. The URL is

http://gallery.popey.com/gallery/DellInspironXPSGen2Problem

***********************************************

Here is their reply:-

Thank you for your email.

Click on start, right click on my computer, select properties from menu, click on
hardware tab.

click on device manager, click on plus to the left of display adapter, right click
on graphics driver,

select uniinstall, click on ok to unistall this programme.

restart computer and xp will re-install graphics driver.

check iff this resolves your  problem.

Thany you for your mail.

james.

xpx technical support.

Oh deary dear.

                          

After calling 2 different support numbers (gleaned from the website) I was told there’s a special number to call dedicated for Dell XPS systems – of which mine is one. I got through to a human being pretty quickly who started asking me questions about the problem. I pointed the guy at my gallery so he could see the problem for himself.

He asked me if I could install a different windows video driver, or reinstall the video driver. I replied that I don’t use Windows but Linux, but in answer to his question, yes, I have changed the video driver. (in my opinion of course this is irrelevant because the problem manifests itself immediately after boot up, not after the OS loads, but I’m willing to go through their questions if it means they fix it).

Next I was asked if I could reinstall Windows. I flat refused this, telling him the problem occurred before the operating system loaded, and that I could physically remove the hard disk and the problem would still occur. He reluctantly accepted this argument.

Finally he asked if the problem only occurred on the laptop display panel, or if the problem occurred when plugged into an external display. Unfortunately I didn’t have the laptop with me at the time (my bad) so I said I’d test that over the weekend and call them on Monday.

Today I called them again because I tested it and sure enough the corruption occurred on an external display also. Unsurprisingly I got through to a different guy who was valiantly trying to find a “decision tree” that matched my problem. I also pointed him to my gallery so he could see for himself the problem. After about 10 minutes with a few on hold he eventually managed to find a decision tree that matched. It’s interesting that one of the questions he asked had absolutely no right answers for my problem, and that caused a little confusion.

Finally after further discussion he organised a service call. He asked if I’d like to replace the part myself. I decided I didn’t want to take my laptop to bits so he said he’d send an engineer. He should be here tomorrow.

I still like Dell kit, and I still think their support isn’t as bad as some people make out.