I am an IT consultant who recommends tens of thousands of dollars of computer products for my clients each year. This year alone, we recommended our clients purchase over $150,000 in equipment from Dell. I choose to not sell equipment so that I can remain unbiased with my recommendations.

Over the last 17 years of my professional career, I have dealt with and purchased from all of the major venders and resellers that are available. For the bulk of the last 5 years, I have been recommending and working with Dell. Frankly, I think if you dive deep enough into any of the big pc manufactures customer service requests, you will find a relatively equal amount of satisfied customers as dissatisfied. I refuse to go back to using custom built PCs because they just can’t match the post sale hardware support offered by the "big 3" (Dell, IBM, and HP). It’s worth the extra expense over the white box systems available out there.

I’ve recommended Dell because we’ve found their post sales support to be predictable (eg. easy to work with and navigate) and their support website makes it easy to look up old equipment and provide answers for our clients. I also enjoyed reading Michael Dell’s book "Direct from Dell" and felt he understood what mattered to consumers like me. I also like his philosophy of "Under promise, over deliver".

I recently became acquainted with and partnered with a Dell reseller in LaCross Wisconsin – CR-Solutions. Buying the same hardware through CR solutions, as a client would have normally bought direct from Dell has saved them 10-15% due to the volume discounts that CR-Solutions receives. It’s the same hardware; and support comes from Dell, so it is a "win" for everyone involved.

I should also mention that I take my dealings with large companies (like Dell) with patience. I understand that they cannot turn on a dime and things can take longer, but if you don’t fight the process and are patient, everything works out in the end. Although I am very frustrated, I deliver my message in the most calm and respectable way – and my email threads to/from Dell show that.

On to the issue at hand…

Recently a customer needed to purchase 6 computers for their dermatology practice. I recommended the Dell Optiplex 960 SFF computers with the All-In-One 22" UltraSharp 2208WFP monitors. These units are pretty slick because they combine a small form factor computer and monitor into one unit that saves on desktop space. We had CR-Solutions quote the order, all is good. Then we found out that the monitors were on a shipping delay, so I looked for another source and found them available on the Dell Outlet website.

The customer ordered the PCs from CR solutions and the monitors from the Dell outlet on August 7, 2009 and we were off to the races.

The monitors arrived on August 12. For anyone unfamiliar with the Dell SFF computers and the All-In-One monitor setup, there is a cable cover that goes on the back of the PC and attaches to the All-In-One stand which completes the look of this unit (Photo1, Photo2). I was expecting that the cable covers would have been included in the monitor boxes since the only application for the covers is to use them with the monitor. It would be less likely to use the cover without the monitor because it wouldn’t fully "clip on" without the stand which is a part of the All-In-One monitor. I think to myself "no problem, they must be coming with the PCs".

The PCs arrived on 8/18, without the cable covers. I contacted my friends at CR-Solutions to see what they recommended. They were unable to find the part in their reseller portal and recommended that I contact Dell. I contacted Dell and was referred to a Customer Care rep, Michael (Case #803677589), to try and locate the part. They responded 3 days later (on 8/21) with an incorrect part number (they gave me the part number for the whole stand, not the cover).

On 8/26 I receive a reply from Michael’s "Case Manager", Ailleen, informing me that they have to go to their manufacturing department to try and find the part.

On 9/7, I finally hear back from Michael with the correct part number (TJ821) and a recommendation that I purchase the part from the support website.

Now, at this point, the end user is rather frustrated that he doesn’t have the covers. I suppose that I could have not told him about them, but if it were my money, I’d want the covers. The cost per cover was going to be $80 (or $480 for 6 of them). I decided for the sake of making sure I took care of this, to order the covers myself. So I went to the Dell website and processed an online order for the part Michael recommended. I completed the transaction on 9/23. My order arrived on 9/28.

On 9/29 I dispatched a technician to our client’s office to install the cable covers. He returns to tell me that they don’t fit. For no other reason than the amount of time I’ve spent on this stupid issue, I decided to double check for myself and on 9/30, I went back to the client to check them for myself. Sure enough, they didn’t fit. They sent me cable covers that would have gone on a Optiplex 760 SFF not the covers for a 960 SFF (the 760 is smaller).

Here we go AGAIN!

On 10/1 I emailed Michael and cc’d his "case manager" Ailleen about the error. They opened a new case number (# 80377589). I was informed that they would request a return and try to get this issue resolved for me.

On 10/7, I received an email reply from Ailleen saying that the returns team rejected my return request. She was going to escalate this to a "higher approver" and get back to me because she felt that I should be refunded.

On 10/13, Ailleen emailed again to say that the higher approver rejected it and she was going to escalate it to the highest level and get back to me.

On 10/21, Ailleen informed me that they are rejecting my return request because I’m beyond the return period.

I am beyond frustrated at this point. I have invested at least 7 or 8 hours of my (unbillable) time on this issue. I’ve also paid $480 for a bunch of cable covers that my customer isn’t going to pay for and I shouldn’t have to either.

So I’m left to writing this blog post, sending it to twitter and digg in hopes that it gets someone’s attention and that justice is served. I want to continue to purchase and recommend Dell products, but wont unless my customer receives their cable covers and I get my money back. Stay tuned – leave a comment if you have any suggestions for me. Thanks!

Update 10-27-09: Still no response from Dell. Scott Hanson via twitter (@DellServerGeek) recommended I contact @LisaG_atDell, which I’ve done several times via twitter and she has ignored my posts. I’m sending a final email to the Ailleen’s manager. Added photos of the (incorrect) parts I received.

See my post on Experts-Exchange.

I need to be able to run x64 Server operating systems in a virutal machine on my desktop comptuer. Can anyone out there help?

Here are the specs of my PC:
Dell Optiplex 755
Intel E8500 Processor (3.16GHz, 6M, VT, 1333MHz FSB)
8GB of RAM
Host OS: Currently Running Vista Business x64

Needs:
I would like to run virtual machines on my PC for testing server configurations and troubleshooting issues. Vista, Xp, Server 2003, SBS 2003, and Server 2008. In addition (and what is giving me problems), I would like to run SBS 2008 which is an x64 OS. I only need these loaded for testing purposes – this is not for a production environment. Also, I need the ability to use internal VM networks so that SBS does not see other DNS and DHCP servers on my internal network.

What I’ve tried:
Everything I can think of. VirtualBox (x64 edition), Windows Virtual Server 2005 R2 (x64) w/ KB948415 applied, VMware Server 2. I’ve tried Google searches for each, but cannot seem to find the relevant information needed to fix this problem.

Each time when I boot a VM with SBS 2008 CD1.ISO – I get the error “Attempting to load a 64-bit application, however this CPU is not compatible with 64-bit mode.”

The Microsoft FAQ about Virtual Server 2005 R2 lists SBS 2008 as a compatible guest when the KB948415 update is installed.

When using VirtualBox, I had Windows server 2008 x64 selected as the gust OS type.

I *think* I had the options set correctly in VMware – but of the three, it seemed the most complex.

I receive the same error above when I try to boot Win 2K8 x64 edition.

I receive the following error when I try to boot Win 2K3 x64:
“Attempting to load a x64 operating system, however this CPU is not compatible with x64 mode. Please install a 32 Bit x86 operating system. Setup cannot continue. Press Any key to exit.”

.. I don’t see an “any key” on my keybpoard… just kidding.

For each of these tests, I had the appropriate OS set in the VM Properties… Win 2K8 x64, and Win 2K3 x64.

Here are the settings of my VM in Vmware Server:
Processors: 1
Memory: 3gb
HDD: 50GB
Network: Host only
CD: <my iso file>
SCSI Controller 0: LSI Logic SAS
Virtual Hardware Version: 7
Disable Acceleration: not checked
Support VMI Paravirtualization: Grey’d out.
Virtualized CPU: Allow the Host to Dermine Automaticlly
Configuration Parameters: Whatever was setup by default… Perhaps there is a setting I could add here? I don’t see any for the CPU or anything that references x64.

So, what would you recommend or have you used to acheive what I am trying to do?