The case of the missing laptop RAM
One of the best tech support programs in the industry for years has been the ProSupport program from Dell, which routinely answers within 10 seconds and offers excellent techs who actually try to help. They have married that effort with a next-day onsite repair offering (delivered by Unisys), which is also impressive.
But no program is perfect. The problem with these combined services is that when things get screwed up, it's next-to-impossible to identify where the fault lies. That disclaimer now fully disclaimed and that caveat all caveated, let me share the story of my latest tech support nightmare surrounding a Dell laptop.
It started with the laptop's inability to handle Skype and Zoom calls, with both the microphone and the audio system failing. (That's especially problematic in this pandemic-forced, remote-work world.) After toying around with it for a few hours—including lots of restarts and switched cables and different headsets—I reached out to Dell Pro and quickly connected.