Just got my 2 Dell 2005fpws, lots of pics.

Yep, I got the same impression. Some departments were very helpful (might I say the Irish & Scottish ones), technical support etc, yet others didn't want to hear my problem.

I actually rang technical support and got some Scottish guy, very helpful, yet he said he would have to foward me to the correct department for a refund. I was on hold for ten minutes and an Asian woman picked up. I said "what department is this now?" and she said "technical support, can I have your service tag please". I was going round in circles...

Rest assured i'll be posting back about the non-refunding of these screens, mark my words...

I ran through the same deal with Dell about 3 months ago. I got in on a deal for a 2005FPW for $384 + tax. It took 4 monitors to get one that was acceptable. It happens to be the one that said refurbished on the box. Oh well, I was guranteed that this one held the same warranty. Over all it took about a month to get it all sorted out. Dell lost a lot of respect during that ordeal.

deuM! talk about luck - when i order my 20.1 i was So worried since i ordered it from dell USA and i am in central america i figure i would get some LCD with dead pixels and all - turns out i got a perfect one, ahs soem back light issues but i dont notice it erally.

Sorry to hear i would keep going to the top until you get someone who has the power to say hey full refund or we will ship you one and tyou keep that one

there is NO reason why they sent you some piece of used crap with no box - either UPS or what ever demolished the box and figure hey try to deliver it anyways! or like wtf!!!

Well, I've made a formal complaint to Dell through their online complaint form.

If anyone wants an overview of the whole sad story, read away:



To whom it may concern.
Please, please, take the time to read this. It's quite lenghtly, but it truely is an amazing situation.
I have all ready been on to Dell support over this issue and you could suppose it is "resolved" from Dells point of view, but I am very angry over this and I wish to make a formal complaint in writing.


This is concerning two Dell 2005fpw LCD screens I bought from you on the 21st of July 2005. They arrived a week later all boxed and well.
I was using one of them for two weeks until I got around to setting up the other screen. On powering up the screen, I noticed the panel had a backlight issue, in that the screen appeared white in the bottom left corner, a common problem with this screen.

I rang up on the Firday, 19th of August and described the problem to technical support, they were helpful and arranged for my screen to be NEXT DAY REPLACED, as my warranty stated. After days of waiting and no calls or sign of the screen, I made a call on the following Tuesday and was informed of a stock problem. They said the screen would arrive the next day, the Wednesday. Another day passes, no sign of the replacement screen. I rang again, the stock problem was solved but it wouldn't be delivered until the next few days. It finally arrived late on the Friday, problem solved.

But. I brought the faulty screen out to the courier, fully boxed, protected, documented, with cables and CDs.
He took a worn, battered, unmarked box from the van, and took out the screen with the stand attached, wrapped in 1 layer of bubble wrap.
THAT'S ALL. The replacement had NOTHING ELSE WITH IT. I had to keep my own power cable and USB cable because the replacement had nothing with it.
The courier departed and I took the screen inside.

On unwrapping the screen, I noticed SEVERAL problems. The screen was obviously scuffed and scrapped on the casing on the left of the panel. The casing on the top was cracked and creaking when touched, the rear of the screen was scratched ALL OVER the place, and there was a second scratch on the left side of the case.

I could not believe it, this was supposed to be a new screen, I was assured on the phone that it would be a new panel.
I was raging. I rang Dell support that moment on the Friday 26th of August without even turning it on and told support that I was not accepting it.
The assistant agreed that it was not acceptable and said he was sending a "high priority" memo to customer care and they would ring me back that day or the Monday after. Guess what? No-one rang.

I rang up on the Monday and asked why no-one had rung me back on the Friday or Monday. I was informed that Monday was a UK bank holiday and that someone would definitely ring me on the Tuesday.
No-one rang.
I rang up again on the Wednesday and explained for the millionth time what had happened. I got transfered from department to department, each time having to explain what happened.
At this stage all I wanted was a refund for the damaged screen. I did not want to risk getting another screen in the same condition (the replacement screen also had a backlight problem I might add). I did not want to get another screen with the same backlight issue that caused the problem in the first place and I did not want to get another screen that had dead pixels on it.

When I asked for a refund, I was intially denied as it "had been more than 7 days". I then got told I had to be transfered to the "business department" as they deal with refunds. I was on hold for 15 minutes and when I got through I was back in technical support with a woman i could not understand. I asked for a refund and explained what happened and how unhappy I was. She had to go off to her manager to ask about a refund. Her manager returned and said "Sorry for the trouble you're having" and asked what he could do. I asked for a refund and he initially said no (I found it hard to understand him most of the time), he could not do it and did not sound happy at my request. He tried to persuade me several times to accept another replacement screen and I kept saying I only wanted a refund for the damaged one.

I explained that the 3 screens I recieved all had a backlight issue and the issue with the replacement I recieved, and that I did not want another replacement.
He said that he would get customer care to ring back that day or the next.

This is the good bit.
30 minutes later he rang back and said that he could only give a refund if BOTH OF MY SCREENS were returned. He sounded almost angry at this stage, and kept saying "you got 1 screen for free, you bought 2 and got 1 for free". I said I did not, I got 2 screens and 1 with 50% off. He said "no no, you got 1 for free". He really did not want to listen.

So I said to him "So you're telling me that if I want to have just one of these 2005fpw screens, I have to give back BOTH MY SCREENS, you refund my money, and then I have to buy another one from you?" He said "yes, that is what you have to do".
I thought God almighty, what's going on here?
So now, my "refund process" has started since Wednsday the 21st of August, and will take up to 15 WORKING DAYS to complete, plus whenever Dell have to pick up my screens.

NOW I HAVE NOTHING!!!

I was delivered 2 screens, one was faulty, it was replaced, the replacement was late, faulty and damaged. I was kicked around for days with support, then to be told both my screens are being taken away!!

This is absolutely unbelievable. Have you ever heard anything like this?

Well, i don't know what to do now, if i ever get this refund.

And the worst thing off all this, is that NO-ONE APOLOGISED at any stage, apart from the lame 6 word attempt by the manager.
Everyone was acting like it was MY FAULT. There was no "We sincerely apologise for all of this", no reasons given as to why I was treated badly, no reason given as to why the screens were defective, no reasons given as to why I got a damaged replacement etc etc etc.
I am so angry now thinking back on this.
I just thought Dell should know about this issue..
Thanks for taking the time to read my complaint.

Regards, one disgruntled, former, Dell customer.

Stephen Hickey

eheh nice. did you include some of those photos of the screen they tried to give you as a replacement? That might get someone over at dell thinking a little.

There is no way that they should send you a refurbed screen as a replacement for a brand new one. That's insane.

Hola.

No, i didn't, there's no option to attach any pics etc. Maybe I should have emailed them, but hey, I doubt it will make much difference anyways...

Well, things are on the up.

I got my refund there on Monday i think it was, and Dell currently have 20% off all 2005fpws in Ireland, so i put an order in today over the phone and got one for €572.00.
He wouldn't let me have anything off, so I just asked him to increase the priority on the order considering my previous misfortune. And this is quite important, because there is a 3 week + waiting list for these screens. I 'm expecting mine in about a week and a half.

Anyways, please god pleaseeeee, let it be okay, or there will be WAR!

For all that trouble, they should just give you one for free. It'd be a pocket-change loss for Dell to do something like this for you.

Wiggles said:

For all that trouble, they should just give you one for free. It'd be a pocket-change loss for Dell to do something like this for you.

Click to expand...

And if they did it for everyone?

Lol, very true. Altough i wouldn't be dissappointed if they gave me one for nothing!!! Some chance...

I explained my previous experience with Dell and the salesperson seemed unconcerned with my somewhat irrelevant dealings with Dell.

I said that I had been offered a discount previously with the two previous panels, but he said that he could not offer me a discount on one panel.

Hmm, seems to me that I should have hung up and rang again, but I doubt that I would have got more than €20 off.

Hello to all!

Update time.
I got my new 2005fpw to replace the 2 that I had to send back. It arrived, fully boxed you'll be glad to hear, in about a week, which I was pleased with seeing as there was a 3+ weeks lead time.

Well, take a look for yourself:



There is a small amount of backlight bleeding in the top right, and a medium sized amount of bleeding in the bottom left corner. But I think i'll live, just.

It's not that noticeable when watching DVDs that have an aspect ratio that is close to 16:9, because the black bands are so small, example:


Even when the ratio is large, like 1:2.40, it's tolerable, altough it still annoys me...


There are no dead pixles, which was a big worry for me, but we're okay on that front.

The LCD looks very well in my new room, so i'm well pleased with the way it looks:



But it eats me up inside that I STILL dont have a fault-free screen, bare in mind that this is my FOURTH 2005fpw, and they have all had a backlight problem, in some shape or form. The panel I have now is probably on a par with one of my original ones, all the others were worse, and one of them had a dead pixel too.

But i reckon i'm gonna have to live with it, the chances of me getting another 2005fpw with no dead pixels and no backlight bleeding are extremely slim, so I think I might leave it.

Anyways, it's good to be back in widescreen again!

PS, Boo Dell, boooooo, hisss

voodoomelon said:

Hello to all!

Update time.
I got my new 2005fpw to replace the 2 that I had to send back. It arrived, fully boxed you'll be glad to hear, in about a week, which I was pleased with seeing as there was a 3+ weeks lead time.

Well, take a look for yourself:



There is a small amount of backlight bleeding in the top right, and a medium sized amount of bleeding in the bottom left corner. But I think i'll live, just.

It's not that noticeable when watching DVDs that have an aspect ratio that is close to 16:9, because the black bands are so small, example:


Even when the ratio is large, like 1:2.40, it's tolerable, altough it still annoys me...


There are no dead pixles, which was a big worry for me, but we're okay on that front.

The LCD looks very well in my new room, so i'm well pleased with the way it looks:



But it eats me up inside that I STILL dont have a fault-free screen, bare in mind that this is my FOURTH 2005fpw, and they have all had a backlight problem, in some shape or form. The panel I have now is probably on a par with one of my original ones, all the others were worse, and one of them had a dead pixel too.

But i reckon i'm gonna have to live with it, the chances of me getting another 2005fpw with no dead pixels and no backlight bleeding are extremely slim, so I think I might leave it.

Anyways, it's good to be back in widescreen again!

PS, Boo Dell, boooooo, hisss

Click to expand...

FYI, Nothing is perfect.

Well, I would have expected to get at least one screen out of four without a backlight problem.

Dell obviously haven't fixed the issue like they said they had, and have no intention of it either...

voodoomelon said:

Well, I would have expected to get at least one screen out of four without a backlight problem.

Dell obviously haven't fixed the issue like they said they had, and have no intention of it either...

Click to expand...

Almost all LCD's on the market have backlight problems. Even high end HDTV's do. Dont sweat bud. Now dead pixels though, thats a big issue, and I wouldnt blame you for being angry about that.

Didn't want to start a new thread just to ask this, so bit of a revival.

Has anyone that has a 2005fpw used a DVI cable other than the one that came with it? Or would it make the slightest bit of difference using an expensive cable?

I have no intention of buying another one, i'm just wondering why some DVI cables are so expensive...

Obviously some use higher quality components, but does it actually make a difference??

Na it won't make a difference unless it was some poorly shielded DVI cable and you'd get interference. Otherwise, digital signal is a digital signal, weather you send it on a $1 cable or a $100 cable, one might just have a better name on it thats all.

I'm using the basic DVI cable that game with my Dell monitor and it works just fine.

death's right....small issues like this are not the cable...if you had totaly whacked out colors then it would be cable. digit is digital, it's iether close to +5 or 0V. some people have trouble believing it, but even with high end audio equiptment (where the argument first kinda got started) someone showed that a coat hanger was as good as a 100 dollar coax as a 1 dollar coax.

voodoomelon said:

Didn't want to start a new thread just to ask this, so bit of a revival.

Has anyone that has a 2005fpw used a DVI cable other than the one that came with it? Or would it make the slightest bit of difference using an expensive cable?

I have no intention of buying another one, i'm just wondering why some DVI cables are so expensive...

Obviously some use higher quality components, but does it actually make a difference??

Click to expand...

Actualy to a point yes it would make a difference, mainly on how much sheilding, and material in the cable, like pure silver or whatnot.

Ah, cool.
I thought as much. No point in spending bucket-loads on a cable that makes no difference. The Dell cable is nice and thick so I presume it's well shielded.

Got my 2005 with some rebates to replace a 7 year old 15" crt that my dad found laying around in his office on day Talk about change! This was the most noticable upgrade ever, i have no words to express my love for this monitor. And best off all, no dead pixels, and on a complete black screen i need 10 minutes to try and indentify any sort of backlight issues.

I deeply regret any of you who have had problems with this monitor or dell in general. Hopefully you all will get the stuff resolved and may your next purchase be as good and successful as mine was.

^^ what the hell? i sound like.....i dunno, not me. Love does that to ya.

Good times