Dell and nVidia SUX…

OK, so I spent 3 hours with Dell tech support this morning trying to get EverQuest II to work with my new system. I LOVE my XPS 720, but, the nVidia 8800 GT does not have drivers that are approved for EverQuest II.

I ordered the system with Windows Media Center, I also ordered a copy of XP Pro because I need some of the things that Media Center does not come with. Fine and dandy sorta…After searching for the right drivers to actually boot from the XP Pro CD and install on a SATA drive I get everything set up. Great…BUT when I try to play EQ2, half the models end up being wireframe with no textures and I can’t enter some zones without crashing. I had to get the nVidia drivers for XP from their site since Dell did not ship the machine with the correct drivers for XP on the driver CD. Well, as I have experienced with nVidia in the past, the latest drivers DO NOT WORK. I have always been an ATI fan because they’re stuff ALWAYS WORKS. I decided I would give nVidia another shot since Dell seems to want to build everything with nVidia cards and everyone thinks the nVidia cards are good now. Well, it’s not the case. Anyways, so after I spent 3 hours on the live chat with Dell tech support I came to the conclusion that I needed to just go and get a card that works with the driver version SOE has approved for EQ2 and 2 of my friends also use.

…this is where I get pissed off. I try the live chat with customer support at Dell, and well they disconnected the session on me twice. So, I call them and get transferred around to 4 or 5 different people, get told a bunch of different stuff and waste another couple hours on the phone with them. Finally I get the return authorization from Dell on the card I have now and get an nVidia 8600 GTS ordered. I’m now out another $250 and I just paid $1,700 for this XPS system that I can’t use for another week. I had 2 techs at Dell tell me that “Well it shipped with Media Center” well, yah! and I’m telling you Media Center is the same damn OS as XP Pro, just XP Pro Lite…It doesn’t matter because what you sent me for drivers on the re-installation CD aren’t even the drivers for the card you put in. One tech tried to get me to install the drivers for the 8800 GTX…well, let me let you in on a secret…the GTX is not the same card as the GT with more RAM, it’s a completely DIFFERENT CARD. Not only does the driver installation not recognize the card as something that will use the GTX drivers, the CHIPSET IS DIFFERENT…

I’m really irritated right now. Glad I didn’t format my old machine, I’m going to have to use it to play EQ2 this weekend and most of next week.

Sucky…I’m thinkin I won’t be buying from Dell again either after this poor customer service experience. I spent probably a total of 5 or 6 hours just trying to get this crap to work.

Whatever you do, DO NOT BUY AN nVidia 8800 GT, the cards suck as well as the drivers for them.

~ by g0thicicecream on December 1, 2007.