Surprised that a $70 unmanaged 16 port switch has a one year next
business day replacement warranty, I called up Dell Support about a PowerConnect
2016 switch that I have that flakes out (all the lights come on and it
stops
moving packets) on a regular basis.
Tangent: Dell has apparently started using call
managers to route calls. It is their job to collect enough
information to route your call to the appropriate place without needing to
spend 10 minutes going through a phone maze. The first ironic point was
that I spent five minutes in a phone maze before talking to a call
manager, and another few minutes in a phone maze after speaking with them.
The second was that I had more troubles understanding the call manager
than I have had with any other Dell employee (I think it is time for me to
learn a phonetic
alphabet) and thus spent several minutes repeatedly correcting the
lady on the other end of the line.
Once I finally got to a support technician, he quickly acknowledged
that my switch had a problem and then told me his connection to the
support databse was broken. This is not really something I should care
about, but it meant that he might not be able to submit the shipment
request to get me a new switch the next day. He did apologize and
indicated he would email me immediately with his contact information and
would email me again when he was able to setup the shipment. I note that
12 hours after my call (most definately after the end of the technician's
shift) I have not recieved that second email. I also note that standing
in place of this $70 switch right now is a $3000 Cisco
Catalyst 3550.
