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"It is probably no fluke, for example, that Dell scored in the highest category of all three consumer surveys."
Pat, I am glad that Dell owners are not so frustrated that they are smashing their computers. Although that is one way to sell more Dell's, it is not advisable if you want repeat business! :)Leigh
Rescuing a downed computer
By Doug Bedell / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, TEX., February 24 - When all else fails, support technicians sometimes suggest a humorous way to end the frustrating problems reported by new computer owners. It's called "using the floor tool," meaning you lift your confused box overhead and smash it on the ground.
TO PREVENT such extreme measures, experts at numerous computer specialty magazines and Web sites offer wide-ranging, detailed evaluations of major computer manufacturers' fix-it abilities.
Three of the most established are the annual surveys by PC World, PC Magazine and Winmag.com. Each is available in detailed form on the Internet and can prove a valuable resource for anyone considering a new home computer purchase.
Other free consumer feedback can be gleaned from individuals posting problems at newsgroups. Users can also search Deja.com www.deja.com with the brand name and the word "service" to tap others' experiences. And, if the manufacturer winds up failing, a growing number of for-fee support services stand ready to offer their advice.
But the data collected by the three magazines is a good place to start.
It is probably no fluke, for example, that Dell scored in the highest category of all three consumer surveys. Others getting top marks include Apple, IBM, Gateway, Micron and Sony. At the bottom of these customer satisfaction rankings, Packard Bell shows up twice.
Here's a brief look at each magazine's methodology and findings. A list of some of the free and for-fee tech support services is included below.
PC Magazine
Letter grades from A to E were assigned by respondents who answered one of 17,000 questionnaires sent to randomly selected PC Magazine subscribers. More than half returned the surveys. Users rated up to three desktop PCs, three notebook PCs and three printers used in the last two years.
Subscribers were asked to rate their satisfaction, using a scale from 1 to 10, for overall reliability, repair experience and technical support. They also indicated the number of times their PCs needed to be repaired in the past 12 months. Also ranked were overall satisfaction, satisfaction with technical support and satisfaction with specific types of technical support.
Readers' Choice awards were given to those vendors that ranked better than average in satisfaction with reliability, repair experience, technical support and the number of machines that had to be repaired in the past 12 months. In that overall ranking in 1999, IBM received an A for the seventh straight survey and Dell took its fourth consecutive A; Quantex received a top mark for the first time in the survey's history.
In the specific category of home desktop tech support, Apple, Dell and IBM scored best.
Winmag.com
The online publication - formerly known as Windows magazine when published in printed form - is in its third year of tallying results from its PC Reliability and Support survey. The 1999 version received responses from 16,538 people who were asked about PCs they had purchased in the last three years.
Manufacturers were ranked on 10 key factors, including whether the system started up right out of the box, how many problems required repair, how satisfied users were with tech support and whether they'd buy the same brand again. Based on their cumulative score, the magazine's editors grouped vendors into four classes: excellent, good, fair and poor.
For the third year in a row, Dell scored in the top echelon with responding users. Gateway moved up a notch from 1998.
Quantex ranked excellent after an insufficient sample kept it out of consideration last year.
IBM and Micron earned a ranking of good - the same that they received last year, while Hewlett-Packard moved down a notch from excellent to good.
Acer rated fair, the same as in 1998. NEC moved up a step from poor. And Compaq, which had been in the good class last year, dropped to fair.
Packard-Bell and TigerDirect were at the bottom of customer satisfaction.
PC World
The PC World Reliability and Service survey received 15,416 reports from verified PC World subscribers describing their PC's reliability and their experiences, if any, in getting service.
Using this data, a team of PC World editors and research experts analyzed the reliability and service performance of each manufacturer's home, work and notebook PCs based on 12 measures, then ranked each company from best to worst.
In the specific category for Home PC service and reliability, Dell was the only computer maker to garner the top rating. CyberMax, Gateway, IBM, Micron, Quantex and Sony were just below.
Free and for-fee help
Online help from the major manufacturers is spotty at best, according to Winmag?s findings. Survey respondents reported that they used online help less than 20 percent of the time when they had problems with their computers.
And the results were not heartening. Ten percent said they never received any answers from messages left at company Web sites, 34 percent got a response that didn't help, and 31 percent got a response that helped but didn't solve the problem.
Worse, only 24 percent of the online help center users said the process resulted in a fix.
For independent free advice, Ask-A-Tech www.ask-a-tech.org promises e-mail answers to questions. Experiments with this Web site have produced knowledgeable responses within a day or two.
Experts Exchange www.experts-exchange.com offers dozens of message boards where about 5,000 registered
"experts" answer posted questions, which visitors then rate for accuracy.
And Tom Pabst's Tom's Hardware Guide www.tomshardware.com is a highly rated spot for up-to-date information and advice.
If the company and free advice sites don?t help, it might be time to reach for your wallet.
Intel AnswerExpress Support Suite is available in software form at the local computer store.
To use its online services, it will cost you $20 per question, $50 for three months for unlimited questions or $100 annually for unlimited questions. Call 1-888-795-7357.
And PC Techline can be reached at 900-225-4357. Techies there will answer questions there at a cost of $2 per minute.
For questions that seem to have no answer, remember: There?s always the floor tool.
Staff Writer Doug Bedell can be contacted via e-mail at dbedell@ dallasnews.com.
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