Don't buy DELL for audio use (or reliability!)

[SLiC]

As I am having to work from home I thought I would shell out on a top of the range DELL so I had something fast and reliable.

What a mistake. BSOD for 5 different reasons in the first week, then does DELL hardware error (no SSD detected). Also latency is so high I cant even stream video/audio reliably which is the primarily reason I bought a high end multimedia laptop.

Dell support has been extremely pure, like talking to a 'BOT', just sending me lists of driver to install and even asking me to install 3rd party monitoring software and soak check it and report to them...I did this for about a week spending hours of my time installing and uninstalling drivers as requested ..still BSOD every day, I asked them to swap the laptop and they said they cant now as it has gone over 14 days (whilst I was trying to fix it remotely for them!).

So now I have to wait for them to change both the motherboard and SSD (on a brand-new new laptop!) and them I will have to spend many days setting up again and reinstalling all my software and re-licencing to 'hope' its fixed (no guarantees).

And this is 'Premium Cover' on a new £1800 laptop...I have lost about a weeks productivity out of the 3 weeks I have had the laptop and it still has to be fixed.

20 years of PC use, first and last DELL.

[chk071]

Not to add insult to injury, but, I don't think such generalizations really cut it. Especially with so many different hardware configuration that Dell has.

And, AFAIC, this could well be a mainboard defect as well. I had that with one computer, and, had loads of blue screens as well.

[The Noodlist]

Hope you get it sorted.
I would run ram diagnostics, set bios to defaults, overclocking can cause issues, check disk and sfc.
I would also try an Ubuntu live USB to check if it's an OS issue.

[DrGonzo]

Back in my Windows days, I poured a bunch of money on a high-end Dell laptop. chk071 is right - there are too many configurations to make a generalization, but that laptop was the most problematic one I ever owned. That was the one that actually pushed me over to Apple. So yeah... it can happen :/

/C

[deastman]

I’ve had nothing but problems with my Dell Alienware laptop. Frequent BSOD and some other major issues. The whole computer will lock up at least once every half hour for 5-10 seconds, cursor frozen, any audio playing glitched out, and then back to normal. Possibly related to that one, my audio interfaces lose connection every half hour or so and need to be rebooted- I’ve tried this with multiple audio interfaces from different vendors.

I’ve had a few Dell laptops before this one, and had issues with every single one. I’m done with it now. I do 3D animation and need a system with a decent GPU, but this is the the last straw for me. Through my job, I also have an Asus Republic of Gamers laptop, which has been rock solid. I’m not using that one for audio, so it’s hard to say how it would perform, but next time I refresh my personal system I’ll probably go that way.

[Russell Grand]

I agree with many in this thread. Dell sucks; I'll never buy a Dell computer again. And I agree with deastman: Asus is good. Not sure that I'd depend on it for all things audio, but it'd definitely be much better than a Dell.

[SLiC]

Not to add insult to injury, but, I don't think such generalizations really cut it. Especially with so many different hardware configuration that Dell has.

And, AFAIC, this could well be a mainboard defect as well. I had that with one computer, and, had loads of blue screens as well.

This didn't work out of the box, I would, expect a high end PC to have better QC and I assumed they would have exchanged it for a working one...not (after weeks of of emails asking me to re-install everything) send someone out to try and repair it (next Tuesday.)

I am pretty sure there are lots of issues with lots of laptop's, but when you pay a lot for high end and next business support I think you have the right to expect a working computer after almost a month.

WRT DPC Latency it is a well documented fundamental 'bad design' issue, its confirmed by DELL. FYI I do have the next generation they confirmed would not have latency issues and they do.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-conf ... ng%20music.

[CodeMonkey]

i have to agree with SLiC here. sure, you can not prevent a hardware error to 100%. thats why you have quality assurance. you cannot even rule out that a broken laptop passes quality assurance. but IF this happens, with a 1.8k laptop (no matter if 1.8k pounds, dollars or euros), then i would expect that they give you a new one. or that they take it back and find out where the problem is, instead asking you to try some other drivers. it is THEIR job to find out where the problem is. if i buy a laptop or a complete desktop PC (which i usually do not, i just buy components), i expect it to work.

[SLiC]

Yes, and the latency issue (6000us plus) Is a published still unsolved design issue on What was advertised as a high end Multimedia laptop...it doesn’t just affect audio, it stutters streaming, video games etc. I’m surprised there wasn’t a class action!

[lfm]

I am writing this on a 16 year old P4 2.8 GHz Dell Optiplex 280 - and expect power supply or something finally give in. This has been powered up at least 10 hours a day for last 13 years or so. As former daw a bit less. A memory strip gave in a couple of years ago, so replaced that. A graphics card replaced, it broke. Repartitioned system drive twice, moved starting cylinders a bit further in - since FAT table and such a mostly worn and read, I guess.

A 10 year old Dell Vostro 430 is my current daw, also serving well. On for a day a week or two.

But looking to see if a new pc in the years as one breaks, I could not find my way around Dell's site anymore. Not sure what they did, or why - but feel more like assembling my own pc - not Dell. I was not able to customize to liking on the ones I have. Much better options on other sites.

So are Dell, downhill later years - seems that way to me. One size fits all policy or something. And that stupid division between being a company or private person - what is that about?

Who came up with the idea if you are a private person you should not have this or that computer?
I was even haunted a bit by a sales person over this - and they are brainwashed into thinking like this.

[Greenstorm33]

So far so good on my 2 month old Alienware laptop. DPC latency is pretty good, build quality seems really solid. I had to do some tinkering to get it to run cooler and prevent WiFi dropouts (which were caused by the garbage preloaded WiFi "enhancement" suite), but apart from that it's been a great computer. Fingers crossed I don't have any of these issues.

[legendCNCD]

Yeah, if I'd ever get a laptop for audio, it for sure would be something from Scan Audio or similar place... off the shelf ones are just crapshoot and tuning which I dont have time to do. I want to compose immediately

I've used a good Dell, it was 3000€ workstation with 2k screen and Xeon. That beast could do anything I threw at it, but alas it was a work machine.

[imrae]

Have also had good experiences with their Xeon workstations for demanding physics/chemistry simulation work. Seems like most of the bad experiences are laptops?

[mcnelson]

Gotta say, my current machine is from Scan Audio, but my previous laptop was a stock Dell Inspiron Core i5 jobbie - nothing flash but not bottom of the range either. Picked it up for about £800 around 2011; I needed to get the touchscreen replaced a couple of years ago, but it's still going strong as my day to day laptop, even though the case is cracked and broken in places.

[Dirtgrain]

My last, last Dell, was a Vostro. On arrival, the network card was wonky. I researched and found it was a known problem, but Dell kept on selling them without a fix. I imagine other companies do similar things. I built my last computer, but if I were going for a laptop, I'm not sure what company I'd look to.