I miss my Dell computer

I've been having some problems with my home computer (a sweet 'little' 17.1" widescreen Inspiron 9400/E1705 laptop). It's something related to the graphics card and driver.

My #1 IT guy has been propping it along for the past 6-8 months with some hacked versions of the drivers (something about Dell only having propriety stuff, but, stuff that won't work correctly).

We've finally had to give up on that route, as it's no longer good enough and he has been dueling with the Tech Support personnel for a five weeks now.

He's gamely walked through every 'script' they have, and he's also had techs remote into the pc and get the same results he's been getting.

So, they sent out a tech who also couldn't get it to work properly.

They finally sent out a box via DHL, and he packed up the machine and had it sent off with their assurances that we'd get back a working machine, one way or the other.

Well, we got it back quite quickly... that was nice.

Um, what was not so nice? The note inside. Assuring us that they'd tested it six ways to Sunday and found NOTHING WRONG!?!?! Also in the note, claims that they tried to contact us for further information but were unable to do so (which is just BS, because I have no emails from them, and he's had no calls from them, so I don't know if they sent carrier pigeons or what). There was another note that they'd checked the support ticket history for further information and found nothing... and finally ended with the notation to call Dell Tech support for assistance in installing the driver.

:-/ Um. Yeah.

When he called back to complain about them having returned a broken computer to us, he was immediately bumped up the chain of command and the supervisor that he talked to did apologize PROFUSELY and after checking the ticket himself could NOT understand why it was sent back when the problems were clearly documented. He is sending out ANOTHER box for us to send the computer back.

We're happy with his response, but, obviously, we're more than ticked off at the tech who did not make every effort to fix or replace my computer.

I didn't intend for this to be a rant on the Dell service center, but, the point is... I miss my computer. I've been without it for a few weeks now.

I've got work to do.
I've got finals next week and I have papers to prepare.
I need my personal email!!!
I miss having the world at my fingertips while I'm preparing dinner.

It's painful, it really, really is. I twitch at the iTouch commercials where folks are browsing the web and getting maps and telephone numbers so quickly.

~sniff~

Now, it seems that my #1 IT guy has been contacted by a Dell employee who saw his twitter posts... erm, tweets. So, we'll see if that helps.

Hopefully I'll be back up and running soon, very soon.