In the last 5 years I've watched as call centers for these companies slowly die. I remember a day when if I had faulty hardware in a company machine I would call Dell/HP, give the techie a brief rundown of my troubleshooting, and 99% of the time I'd have new hardware there next business day no questions asked. Then I started getting Indian accents.

I remember my first one vividly. I had a corrupt BIOS. I couldn't get past the initial screen, not even into the BIOS settings let alone having the computer search for a device to boot off. A few attempts at resetting the BIOS and I decided it was time for a new motherboard.

After the 15th attempt at trying to explain to him that the computer didn't even get as far as searching for a boot device so it was not possible to boot off the Dell supplied CD and reload the OS from it, the computer in question ended up in a bin.

These days I do what I can to avoid having to call them. I know I'll waste a full day (if not more) attempting to explain things to their techies and running irrelivant tests simply because it's in their scripts. I've voided many a warranty by running across to Dick Smiths for parts, cutting wires, soldering parts in etc just to avoid wasting my time on these so called "help" lines, and I am yet to regret it.

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