Misadventures in Tech Support

Hardware Support: Trial and Error

• Products: Desktop PCs from Dell, HP, and Polywell; a notebook computer from IBM
• Easy problem: Unplugged power cord
• Difficult problem: Bad hard-drive IDE cable (loose drive link in the notebook)
• Good news: On our first call, the Polywell rep was efficient and knowledgeable--and from a third-party contractor, no less.
• Bad news: HP's tech agent nearly had us ship our PC back to HP to fix a bad IDE cable. Polywell's contractor took 2.5 hours to call us back about our second problem.

Our three desktop machines were midrange Pentium 4-based systems with between 512MB and 1GB of RAM. The laptop came with a 1.4-GHz Pentium M processor and 256MB of system memory.

It usually didn't take too long for us to get through to the hardware vendors: IBM and HP answered in less than 2 minutes, while Dell picked up after 12 and 13 minutes, respectively. Polywell's call-back service responded to our first phone call after 29 minutes, but took 2.5 hours to answer our second call.

Dell, HP, and Polywell aced the "Oops, I left the computer unplugged" challenge--all immediately asked us to check the power cord. For the IBM notebook, we weren't so lucky. We unplugged the system's AC converter block to mimic what might happen if you repositioned it on your desk. When we called IBM's tech support to complain of a battery that seemed to be draining, the agent was quick to suggest that we check both the wall outlet and the back of the machine for loose connections. However, he never thought to ask us if the converter block itself had come unplugged.

Instead, he assumed we had somehow undercharged our battery, which was not the case. His solution: Remove the battery and hard drive from the laptop, press the power button ten times in a row, and then hold the power button down for 15 seconds. This bizarre routine apparently drains the PC's capacitors, at which point we were to run the PC for a couple of hours to see if the battery held a charge. Of course, that didn't solve our problem, so we called IBM the next day. The second IBM technician resolved the situation in less than a minute.

Our second problem proved more difficult for the support reps to solve, because they had to diagnose a system that would not boot up. Our goal was to have the support rep discover the bad cable and send us a replacement. With our three desktops, the reps for Dell, HP, and Polywell immediately recognized that the problem was related to the hard drive. However, this task separated the script readers from the true technicians, in part because broken IDE cables are a rare thing, especially in new computers. As a hint, we offered that we may have tugged on or clipped the IDE cable when working inside the case.

HP's rep, located in India, offered some wooden readings from a script. She barreled through corporate boilerplate about having a new drive sent out or possibly having us ship the PC back to HP for repairs. Communication sometimes broke down with this agent: She tended to speak at a rapid-fire clip, and she was lost by our attempts at humor. Our conversation included a lot of repetition.

The news wasn't much better at Polywell, where the tech had us reseat drive cables and attempt a disk restore from a hidden partition--neither of which solved the problem--before giving up.

Our calls to Polywell show that two calls to the same company at the same location can yield very different results. Our first call to Polywell's third-party provider, Integrated Automation International, was arguably the best of the entire test. That technician was friendly, energetic, funny, and--most important--knowledgeable. He happened to be a hardware nut who builds his own systems. Though he handled only the no-brainer question, his tech knowledge, confidence, and calm manner came through loud and clear.

Two days later, however, our second call to Polywell went unreturned for 2.5 hours. When a technician did call back, he seemed reluctant to work with us.

Only Dell came through with flying colors in this test. The knowledgeable tech identified a bad cable as a possible culprit, prompting us to say that we had an old one lying around. Ten minutes later, the "good" cable was installed and the problem was solved. One plausible reason for Dell's success: The two techs we talked to at the company said they had nine years and six years of tech support experience, respectively. Their expertise bore that out.

Since we couldn't swap IDE cables in the IBM ThinkPad, we simulated a disk failure by removing the hard drive from the Ultrabay housing. This time, the IBM tech quickly diagnosed the problem--a possible loose drive connection--and had us remove and reseat the hard drive.

Hardware Answers Online

All four of the hardware vendors we dealt with recommend that their customers search for solutions to their problems on the companies' Web sites prior to calling tech support. These sites offer step-by-step troubleshooting guides, as well as searchable knowledge bases. Unfortunately, the volume of information they offer can be daunting, especially for novice users. The online troubleshooters are still more time-consuming and difficult to use than calling the vendors' support lines. Also, if your machine isn't working, the sites' automated troubleshooting tools won't do you any good.

Of the company sites we visited, IBM's provides the most proactive online support, including browser-based diagnostics that detect your PC model and steer you toward relevant troubleshooting solutions. The site's Hints and Tips page helps guide users to solutions for problems with specific products or situations.

Neither Dell nor HP can match the helpers on the IBM site, but their support sites provide detailed information for all of their PC models. Dell's support pages are easier to navigate than those on HP's Web site (see FIGURE 1). Among the useful resources on the Dell site are a knowledge base, online tutorials, and several discussion forums. Polywell's online support is sparse by contrast, consisting primarily of a brief FAQ section, a driver download page, and a technical support request form.