A Farmer in the Dell...

[GomJabbar]

The New York Times: In Faulty-Computer Suit, Window to Dell Decline

After the math department at the University of Texas noticed some of its Dell computers failing, Dell examined the machines. The company came up with an unusual reason for the computers’ demise: the school had overtaxed the machines by making them perform difficult math calculations.

Dell, however, had actually sent the university, in Austin, desktop PCs riddled with faulty electrical components that were leaking chemicals and causing the malfunctions. Dell sold millions of these computers from 2003 to 2005 to major companies like Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo, institutions like the Mayo Clinic and small businesses.

“The funny thing was that every one of them went bad at the same time,” said Greg Barry, the president of PointSolve, a technology services company near Philadelphia that had bought dozens. “It’s unheard-of, but Dell didn’t seem to recognize this as a problem at the time.”

Documents recently unsealed in a three-year-old lawsuit against Dell show that the company’s employees were actually aware that the computers were likely to break. Still, the employees tried to play down the problem to customers and allowed customers to rely on trouble-prone machines, putting their businesses at risk. Even the firm defending Dell in the lawsuit was affected when Dell balked at fixing 1,000 suspect computers, according to e-mail messages revealed in the dispute.

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[AIX]

the school had overtaxed the machines by making them perform difficult

It's clear, they are not using them right

[pianowizard]

Internal documents show that Dell shipped at least 11.8 million computers from May 2003 to July 2005 that were at risk of failing because of the faulty components. These were Dell’s OptiPlex desktop computers — the company’s mainstream products sold to business and government customers...A study by Dell found that OptiPlex computers affected by the bad capacitors were expected to cause problems up to 97 percent of the time over a three-year period, according to the lawsuit.

OMG, I have two OptiPlex GX280's and both were shipped within that period, Oct 2004 and Jan 2005! Fortunately, I just checked their capacitors and none of them show any chemical leak (yet).

Here's a Nov 2005 CNET article on this issue, saying specifically that the OptiPlex GX270 and GX280 were affected: http://news.cnet.com/PCs-plagued-by-bad ... 42647.html

[virge]

Here's a Nov 2005 CNET article on this issue, saying specifically that the OptiPlex GX270 and GX280 were affected: http://news.cnet.com/PCs-plagued-by-bad ... 42647.html

My favorite quote in that article:

"Dell declined to identify any of its component suppliers but did say that despite periodic system shutdowns, data loss was not a factor in the workstation PCs with the faulty capacitors."