7 Brand new computers all intermittently blue screening, I'm at a loss here.

[hiddenpcmaster]

Also by the way, the issue is fixed. It was Dell Support Assist causing the blue screens.

Send Dell a bill for your time and effort fighting their buggy bloatware.

 

[SAFCasper]

We deal a lot of Dell equipment and I wouldn’t consider Vostro commercial grade. They sit somewhere in-between consumer and entry-level business.

One one side they have some business grade features:
- Supported for longer than your average consumer device with updates to BIOS, Firmware etc.
- Options for extended and on-site warranties.
- Come with Windows 10/11 Pro

But on the other side Vostro laptops often have flimsy plastic casing, weak hinges that can snap, components glued in place making repairs difficult, those horrible over-sensitive touchpads that are practically unusable... basically, all the lovely things we come to expect from consumer grade devices.

I also don't believe tools like Dell Command | Configure work on the Vostro range, although I could be wrong here.



EDIT:
As with most things the more you pay the more you get. Most of the things I described above are in the Vostro 3000 range of laptops (eg. Vostro 3520, Vostro 3420).
The 5000 series from what I've seen are quite nice however the price is very close to a similar Latitude 3000 series so I rarely make that choice unless stock/delays forces me.

 

[thecomputerguy]

Well now you jinxed it. That’s what we thought when you pulled the RAM. *runs away*

Please no

 

[Big Jim]

If you do put the ram back in I would suggest not mixing the RAM types in each machine given that you have the option to pair them here by pulling the factory ram out of half the machines.

 

[HCHTech]

It's hard to make any margin when you are buying an Optiplex with an i5 8/4gb of ram and 256gb hard drive for $850

Unless your customers are price-shopping you (which means you probably don't make money on them anyway), you just add your desired margin to your cost and that's the sale price to the client. We add a flat margin to every computer we sell (it's graded, $X for <$1000, $Y for >$1000, < 1500, and $Z for >$1,500). We don't put model or part numbers in the quote, we just list the specs & show the final price. We get very little pushback and that guarantees our margin. Same for residential.

 

[brandonkick]

Unless your customers are price-shopping you (which means you probably don't make money on them anyway), you just add your desired margin to your cost and that's the sale price to the client. We add a flat margin to every computer we sell (it's graded, $X for <$1000, $Y for >$1000, < 1500, and $Z for >$1,500). We don't put model or part numbers in the quote, we just list the specs & show the final price. We get very little pushback and that guarantees our margin. Same for residential.

Agreed.

I'd not go with a middle grade lineup to make my margin. An injustice to both you and the customer, as those lesser quality machines will only hurt both of you.


The optiplex line has been rock solid. I LOVED the previous generation chassis Optiplex machines. I'm pretty sure I could drag them behind my truck on the way to the clients locations and they would still keep on tickin. Easy to work on (for the rare instances you ever had too), and aside from the factory WD Blue drives they came with.... they were just crazy reliable.

I oversaw a fleet of 20-25 odd Optiplex machines. Put in service in 2014. The final few were just retired recently. Most made it an easy 6 years with nothing other than a SSD swap out for the original WD Blue spinner. Two had exhaust fans go bad. One developed a dodgy ram slot (that one was retired two years ago so almost 7 years of service).

In a situation where these things get retired and swapped out in acceptable time frames (2-3 years big business, 3-5 years everyone else) I don't know that I'd have had a single hardware related service call in 5 years outside of maybe 1 of those exhaust fans. Knowing what I know now, call the SSD upgrades preventative maintenance which has an icing on the cake bonus of making the machine much faster for the customer and much faster for me to have to work on software wise.


The TL;DR is: I'd do exactly what you do. Spec the better business grade stuff, add the margin on after if the margin from the supplier sucks.

 

[thecomputerguy]

Just an update ... the issue is resolved ... 2 weeks no blue screens.

Thanks Dell Support Assist