For info and advise on PCWorld

sirmarcus

Hi all,

Over the last 2-to-3 days, I have had problems with my DELL desktop PC. It wouldn't boot up and it looked as though there was a problem with either my mother board or the on/off siwtch at the front of the tower block.

My PC is over 5 years old and I have over 20 years experience working in IT.

I took the side panel off to make sure everything was connected okay. Couldn't see any probs.

Using a friends PC, I had a look on the internet to see if I could fix it. I tried a few things without any success.

Went to PCWorld, who advised me that it would cost me £70 to look at my PC and fix it. They advised me that they would return my money if they found the mother board was the root cause of my problem.

I have never liked or trusted PCWorld, so, in desparation, I phoned up a local PC man, who promised no call-out charges and no fees unless he could fix it. Via the phone, he advised me to try a few things, which didn't work. He turned up at my home later in the day and within 10mins had fixed it. He just took out my USB hub and took out my memory card & then refitted it. Hey presto...it booted up without any probs.

I have today got another USB hub as my old one wasn't functioning correctly. I will be returning the old one tomorrow to Staples as it is less than 12 months old and I still have the receipt. I will be asking for my money back.

The PC repair man advised me that the above was a common fault with the model of my DELL PC. He also advised me that PCWorld would have advised me that the problem was with my mother board for obvious reasons (i.e. PCWorld staff do not have the requisite skills, spend minimal effort in investigating/resolving faults, in interests of the store to advise customers to get an expensive mother board or buy a new PC, etc.) and, to be honest, I think that he is absolutely correct. For info, he also advised me not to buy any any Packard Bell PCs from PCWorld as they are 'absolute cr** !!'. He charged me £30 for his efforts, which I gladly paid out to him.

If anyone wishes to get a reliable PC repair man in the Poole/Bournemouth area, please PM me and I will provide you with his contact details. I was very impressed with him and his knowledge.:)

dispossessed

An interesting tale - thanks for posting.

Trevor

aliEnRIK

Its classic pc world. For some reason all faults end up with a change of motherboard!

SandLake

There are certain brands of PC to steer well clear of - and you name one very well

But having said that DSG (PCWorld/Dixons/Currys) do seem to be getting their act together a tad, I believe Advent is actually quite a respected brand now and the new tablets which are slightly overdue are not bad at all!

Do I need to wash my mouth out with soap????? Do I need to stick to paracetemol when I talk of tablets??????

AHAR

My own [STRIKE]advise[/STRIKE] advice for others in a similar situation would be to disconnect all non-essential devices to try to isolate the cause of the problem.
Also, make use of the troubleshooting help contained in the rather good manuals available from Dell's support site. If your Dell has diagnostic LEDs, these can also be very useful in diagnosing the problem - look up what the pattern means in the manual.

pstones578

sirmarcus wrote: »

Hi all,

Over the last 2-to-3 days, I have had problems with my DELL desktop PC. It wouldn't boot up and it looked as though there was a problem with either my mother board or the on/off siwtch at the front of the tower block.

My PC is over 5 years old and I have over 20 years experience working in IT.

I took the side panel off to make sure everything was connected okay. Couldn't see any probs.

Using a friends PC, I had a look on the internet to see if I could fix it. I tried a few things without any success.

Went to PCWorld, who advised me that it would cost me £70 to look at my PC and fix it. They advised me that they would return my money if they found the mother board was the root cause of my problem.

I have never liked or trusted PCWorld, so, in desparation, I phoned up a local PC man, who promised no call-out charges and no fees unless he could fix it. Via the phone, he advised me to try a few things, which didn't work. He turned up at my home later in the day and within 10mins had fixed it. He just took out my USB hub and took out my memory card & then refitted it. Hey presto...it booted up without any probs.

I have today got another USB hub as my old one wasn't functioning correctly. I will be returning the old one tomorrow to Staples as it is less than 12 months old and I still have the receipt. I will be asking for my money back.

The PC repair man advised me that the above was a common fault with the model of my DELL PC. He also advised me that PCWorld would have advised me that the problem was with my mother board for obvious reasons (i.e. PCWorld staff do not have the requisite skills, spend minimal effort in investigating/resolving faults, in interests of the store to advise customers to get an expensive mother board or buy a new PC, etc.) and, to be honest, I think that he is absolutely correct. For info, he also advised me not to buy any any Packard Bell PCs from PCWorld as they are 'absolute cr** !!'. He charged me £30 for his efforts, which I gladly paid out to him.

If anyone wishes to get a reliable PC repair man in the Poole/Bournemouth area, please PM me and I will provide you with his contact details. I was very impressed with him and his knowledge.:)

I'm curios what made the 20 years working in I.T relevant?

John_Gray

If his PC is over five years old, that might make it a curio, perhaps?

macman

A common enough story.
Curious though, with 20 years IT experience, why you went to PCW first, and then only 'in desperation' to a local PC Repair co? Shouldn't the latter always be the first port of call?
Sounds like all that had happened was that the RAM had become unseated.

davester

If anyone watches Watchdog, then the Tech guys was given the Weakest link treatment for being untrained to do the jobs, let alone the PC tech guys, installing someone elses !!!!!! on your hard drive

jayme1

but you have to remember that your pc guy saw your computer in its home environment and saw what you had plugged into it. if you had physically taken your computer to pc world or any other pc repair place/person you would likely have taken out all your devices, so would have fixed itself. and I doubt any pc person (let alone pcworld people) would have asked what you normally have plugged into your pc.

sirmarcus

macman wrote: »

Curious though, with 20 years IT experience, why you went to PCW first, and then only 'in desperation' to a local PC Repair co? Shouldn't the latter always be the first port of call?

I fancied a laugh to hear what PCWorld would advise of the potential cause and they provided the entertainment ! I also wanted to find out how much they would charge to fix it so that I could gauge and negotiate a fair price with the PC repair man, which I achieved.:):):D:)

I would have never taken my PC to PCworld to get it fixed. They are incompetent as the Watchdog programme reported last week or was it the week before ! :)

My desperation was that I needed to get it fixed as I need my PC for business purposes.:)