OK, I messed up. I went off on vacation and stupidly left the power transformer at home. Now that was the root cause.
In my attempts to “fix” my problem, singularly DELL stands out as my personal villain in this particularly morality play. Based on my prior experiences with them, I was not expecting a good results. In the list of things that I tried, they were my next to last option. True to form, they not only managed to disappoint me, but they actually teased me with a promise and then managed to dash my hopes.
Strike One: My luddite friend attempted to identify the replacement power supply from the DELL website with my service tag. (The LUGGABLE’s unique identifier.) But, the site would not recognize the tag. (That would have been too easy!)
Strike Two: I called from the hotel and, with the very same service tag, Nicholas was able to id my system, find the needed power supply, and place the order. I, very carefully, (this call is being recorded for quality assurance — my ass), expressed the fervent desire to have the power supply in my hotel in Las Vegas. I even joked that he should be sure NOT to send it to my home. He assured me that “it could NOT happen”. He insisted on sending me an email confirm with everything I needed to track the order. I explained that without the power, I had no way to check that email address without the power cord. Sigh.
(Needless to say, I pestered the heck out of the hotel bell staff about my package.)
It was amusing when I got the phone message from home from DHL telling me that they were trying to deliver my package. I called DELL and they acted dumbstruck that I wanted the package at my hotel. No problem! They could redirect my package and I could have my package on MONDAY! I calmly and quietly pointed out that I WOULD BE AT HOME by then. Then, the helpful DELL person said she have the delivery delayed until Monday and I could have it them. Argh! (No, I didn’t tell them to stick it where the sun don’t shine.) After we debated the merits of their assertion that it was “not returnable”. They transferred me to “customer (dis)service” who would decide if credit would be issued. For security purposes, I had to give my name, address, city, state, zip, phone, and email. (Security my a double Q) “Let me put you on hold while I look up your case!” Double Argh! The vocabulary just drove me nuts. Eventually, after a half hour on my cell phone, it was all straightened out.
Strike Three: The next day, I got a strange phone call on my phone. Which when I answered, they hung up. Later I picked up a long nasty voice mail from DHL saying that “they could not complete the delivery and that the extra charges would be charge to my credit card”. (This I can’t wait to see that!!)
Note for the record: the email has ship to home address. Argh!
CONCLUSION: DELL really sucks. They may sell computers cheap, but don’t depend upon them for anything after that.
(I was reminded, during my call, that if I had purchased the four year extended warranty that they would cover the power supply. “barbara streisand”!! They forget I’m a methodical record keeper –like I’d forget this one!! About a month into the new warranty, the wire to the LUGGABLE power block went bad. They did nothing but moan ‘n’ groan about replacing it. The wire would not deliver enough power to boot the box, but you could boot the box on the battery, then plug in the power supply and it would recharge the battery. I was supposed to send them the power supply with the wire, and then in two weeks, they’d let me KNOW if it was going to be replaced. So how full of it were they? I forget the power supply and they under the warranty will send me another? “barbara streisand”! By the way, that four year extended warranty would have cost as much as the machine did. When they originally tried to sell it to me, I said “I should just buy two”! And, they wanted to sell it to me. No joke!)
If you think I am really frosted, you’re right!
I have a long list of lessons learned. But the principle one is don’t depend upon DELL … ever!
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UPDATE: With apologies to my favorite Luddite (because deep in my heart I thought he might NOT have been up to the task), I too today entered the the Luggable’s Service Tag 3KZZ571 into the Dell website and it responded “service tag not found”. So, a relatively easy task, enter tag, find part, and order same, turned into the nightmare. Argh!
UPDATE: Another friend said he had DELLs and could have sent me the power supply. But I knew from my prior power problems that a lesser DELL power supply would not have worked.
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UPDATE:
My recent disaster has led me to do a slew of thinking about it.
BTW, I was not thinking clearly in LV. I could have used the hotel’s browser at 12$/hour, done gotomypc to Frau’s machine at home, where I could have reached my backup of the fob’s password file. With that I could have then done anything I needed to.
Argh! I hate when I am dumb.
So, from the hotel’s browser, or any inet connected screen / keyboard, I can now g.ho.st.
Sunday night, I should have bought the notebook at Sams for $600. I could have then used the inet from the room for 10$. At that point, I had my fob. I could have then retrieved ALL my data from MOZY. The next day, I could have gone to the verizon store and updated my vwbbie to a usb model. And, I’d have been really essentially back in business as usual.
Sigh!
Hindsight is always 20/20.
I coulda taken my employer’s notebook on vacation with me.
I should have had the replacement power cord delivered to a real person and reshipped it.
I should have brought my old dell with the bum battery.
I shoulda … remembered the cord.
The shouldas, couldas, and woulda will kill you.
Sigh!
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Posted by reinkefj 
Reinke Faces Life 
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