A long Dell chat with Rahul and Mohammed
 

A regular client brought me an XPS M1530 laptop with symptoms of hard
drive failure. The system is under Dell's Complete Care warranty, so it
is entitled to a hard drive replacement.

People with warranties on computers contact me regularly because they do
not want to spend the hour I spent today to get them to send me a
replacement hard drive, but DO NOT schedule a Dell service tech please!

Rahul was misinformed that pressing Fn together with the Power On button
activates firmware diagnostics. I don't think so. They appear to be
the same ones from the diagnostic partition. He was also unable to
answer the question of what to do if the diagnostic partition is hosed.
He thought that there were firmware diagnostics. I did not know about
the Fn-Powerswitch key combination. Is this something found only in
newer Dell laptops, and if so, beginning when.

I also ran Western Digital's hard drive diagnostic, which told me that
117 sectors had been repaired, and it did not even attempt to run any
more tests. Perhaps the system took a hit or a bump or a jolt after two
years?

I wonder where Rahul and Mohammed are? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

An interesting hour, to say the least... Ben Myers

A long Dell chat with Rahul and Mohammed
 

"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...

snip
I wonder where Rahul and Mohammed are? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

Most likely India.

A long Dell chat with Rahul and Mohammed
 

"Helroy" wrote in message
...
"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...

snip
I wonder where Rahul and Mohammed are? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

Most likely India.

or in NYC with forged ID's (:)

A long Dell chat with Rahul and Mohammed
 

On 12/29/2010 1:20 PM, Ben Myers wrote:
A regular client brought me an XPS M1530 laptop with symptoms of hard
drive failure. The system is under Dell's Complete Care warranty, so it
is entitled to a hard drive replacement.

People with warranties on computers contact me regularly because they do
not want to spend the hour I spent today to get them to send me a
replacement hard drive, but DO NOT schedule a Dell service tech please!

Rahul was misinformed that pressing Fn together with the Power On button
activates firmware diagnostics. I don't think so. They appear to be the
same ones from the diagnostic partition. He was also unable to answer
the question of what to do if the diagnostic partition is hosed. He
thought that there were firmware diagnostics. I did not know about the
Fn-Powerswitch key combination. Is this something found only in newer
Dell laptops, and if so, beginning when.

I also ran Western Digital's hard drive diagnostic, which told me that
117 sectors had been repaired, and it did not even attempt to run any
more tests. Perhaps the system took a hit or a bump or a jolt after two
years?

I wonder where Rahul and Mohammed are? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

An interesting hour, to say the least... Ben Myers

fwiw, holding down fn and pressing the power key starts something called
"psa" diagnostics on the xps mxxxx series. i suspect what their problem
resolution script was taking them on a path to test the video which is
done by pressing 'n' after the above is done. this is done because of
the unfortunate common video failure in these models that could be the
reason for the callers 'no boot' complaint.

A long Dell chat with Rahul and Mohammed
 

On 12/29/2010 7:24 PM, Christopher Muto wrote:
On 12/29/2010 1:20 PM, Ben Myers wrote:
A regular client brought me an XPS M1530 laptop with symptoms of hard
drive failure. The system is under Dell's Complete Care warranty, so it
is entitled to a hard drive replacement.

People with warranties on computers contact me regularly because they do
not want to spend the hour I spent today to get them to send me a
replacement hard drive, but DO NOT schedule a Dell service tech please!

Rahul was misinformed that pressing Fn together with the Power On button
activates firmware diagnostics. I don't think so. They appear to be the
same ones from the diagnostic partition. He was also unable to answer
the question of what to do if the diagnostic partition is hosed. He
thought that there were firmware diagnostics. I did not know about the
Fn-Powerswitch key combination. Is this something found only in newer
Dell laptops, and if so, beginning when.

I also ran Western Digital's hard drive diagnostic, which told me that
117 sectors had been repaired, and it did not even attempt to run any
more tests. Perhaps the system took a hit or a bump or a jolt after two
years?

I wonder where Rahul and Mohammed are? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

An interesting hour, to say the least... Ben Myers

fwiw, holding down fn and pressing the power key starts something called
"psa" diagnostics on the xps mxxxx series. i suspect what their problem
resolution script was taking them on a path to test the video which is
done by pressing 'n' after the above is done. this is done because of
the unfortunate common video failure in these models that could be the
reason for the callers 'no boot' complaint.


Darn ignorant script monkeys. Rahul knew darn well that the problem was
not video from all the info I provided to him. And he was clueless in
stating that the BIOS had hard drive diagnostics built-in. If there
were any after pressing Fn-PowerOn, they were moot... Ben

A long Dell chat with Rahul and Mohammed
 

On 12/29/2010 3:20 PM, Helroy wrote:
"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...

snip
I wonder where Rahul and Mohammed are? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

Most likely India.

Well, Rahul IS a popular name in India, but Mohammed is as uncommon as
the small Muslim minority there. It was Mohammed's name that left me
guessing as to country of origin... Ben

A long Dell chat with Rahul and Mohammed
 

On 12/29/2010 10:17 PM, Ben Myers wrote:
On 12/29/2010 7:24 PM, Christopher Muto wrote:
On 12/29/2010 1:20 PM, Ben Myers wrote:
A regular client brought me an XPS M1530 laptop with symptoms of hard
drive failure. The system is under Dell's Complete Care warranty, so it
is entitled to a hard drive replacement.

People with warranties on computers contact me regularly because they do
not want to spend the hour I spent today to get them to send me a
replacement hard drive, but DO NOT schedule a Dell service tech please!

Rahul was misinformed that pressing Fn together with the Power On button
activates firmware diagnostics. I don't think so. They appear to be the
same ones from the diagnostic partition. He was also unable to answer
the question of what to do if the diagnostic partition is hosed. He
thought that there were firmware diagnostics. I did not know about the
Fn-Powerswitch key combination. Is this something found only in newer
Dell laptops, and if so, beginning when.

I also ran Western Digital's hard drive diagnostic, which told me that
117 sectors had been repaired, and it did not even attempt to run any
more tests. Perhaps the system took a hit or a bump or a jolt after two
years?

I wonder where Rahul and Mohammed are? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

An interesting hour, to say the least... Ben Myers

fwiw, holding down fn and pressing the power key starts something called
"psa" diagnostics on the xps mxxxx series. i suspect what their problem
resolution script was taking them on a path to test the video which is
done by pressing 'n' after the above is done. this is done because of
the unfortunate common video failure in these models that could be the
reason for the callers 'no boot' complaint.


Darn ignorant script monkeys. Rahul knew darn well that the problem was
not video from all the info I provided to him. And he was clueless in
stating that the BIOS had hard drive diagnostics built-in. If there were
any after pressing Fn-PowerOn, they were moot... Ben

they don't get paid to think.
video failure, which results in a motherboard replacement 'kit' (that
includes a new heat sink/fan/thermal pads) is far more common in this
model than hard drive failure. on a positive note, dell seems to ship
replacement drives for the xps mxxxx series with the os already loaded.
but the os is probably vista and replacing it with windows 7 makes for
a much better user experience (vista seems to randomly hand on these
machines for unknown reasons).

A long Dell chat with Rahul and Mohammed
 

"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...
On 12/29/2010 3:20 PM, Helroy wrote:
"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...

snip
I wonder where Rahul and Mohammed are? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

Most likely India.

Well, Rahul IS a popular name in India, but Mohammed is as uncommon as the
small Muslim minority there. It was Mohammed's name that left me guessing
as to country of origin... Ben

Muslims make up about 13.4% of India's population and given that India now
has about 1.2 billion people it's not like there wouldn't be millions of
Mohammed's in India. India has the third largest Muslim population in the
world.

Brian

A long Dell chat with Rahul and Mohammed
 

On 12/30/2010 2:59 AM, Brian Smith wrote:
"Ben wrote in message
...
On 12/29/2010 3:20 PM, Helroy wrote:
"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...

snip
I wonder where Rahul and Mohammed are? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

Most likely India.

Well, Rahul IS a popular name in India, but Mohammed is as uncommon as the
small Muslim minority there. It was Mohammed's name that left me guessing
as to country of origin... Ben

Muslims make up about 13.4% of India's population and given that India now
has about 1.2 billion people it's not like there wouldn't be millions of
Mohammed's in India. India has the third largest Muslim population in the
world.

Brian



Aha! Thank you. The decades of fighting with Pakistan over Kashmir led
me to the false conclusion that Muslims were a smaller minority. Why
can't we all get along? ... Ben

A long Dell chat with Rahul and Mohammed
 

On Dec 30, 6:39*am, Ben Myers wrote:
On 12/30/2010 2:59 AM, Brian Smith wrote:



"Ben *wrote in message
...
On 12/29/2010 3:20 PM, Helroy wrote:
"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...

snip
I wonder where Rahul and Mohammed are? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

Most likely India.

Well, Rahul IS a popular name in India, but Mohammed is as uncommon as the
small Muslim minority there. *It was Mohammed's name that left me guessing
as to country of origin... Ben

Muslims make up about 13.4% of India's population and given that India now
has about 1.2 billion people it's not like there wouldn't be millions of
Mohammed's in India. India has the third largest Muslim population in the
world.

Brian

Aha! Thank you. *The decades of fighting with Pakistan over Kashmir led
me to the false conclusion that Muslims were a smaller minority. *Why
can't we all get along? *... Ben

Hi Ben...I not sure how serious you are about an answer to your
question of why can't we all get along. This is so far off topic, but
I wondered that myself, so I some research a few years back. The three
Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are strong
monotheistic religions and being so makes them think that their view
of the Ultimate One is only true view even though the three religions
evolved from the descendants of the same source--Abraham. However,
compared to Judaism, Christianity and Islam are new religions, with
Christianity being an offshoot of Judaism beginning around the 1st
century.

Ironically prior the 3rd century (Islam came much later about the 7th
or 8th Century), there were many flavors of monotheism, most notably
the Christian Gnostics who believed that mainstream Christians
worshiped a minor god and the Gnostics themselves worships the one
true God. The Christian Gnostics claimed to have a secret knowledge
of the one true God. To confuse things even more, two early Church
fathers, Clement and Origen were Platonists with a strong mystical
orientation. Origen works were later condemn as heresy and his works
burned by the early Church in the 5th century.

Prior to the rise of Christianity in the third and fourth centuries,
mainstream religions in the Roman empire got along without fighting
one another. After the emergence of orthodox Christianity in the 4th
and 5th centuries, people began to lose their lives over the issue of
religions.

When Islam was found around the 8th century things even got more
heated. There is some idea that Muhammad was actually a Christian
monk before he had a revelation from God that led to Islam.

There is so much that has gotten lost in history.

Sorry for the off topic!

Larry