I was installing a new Dell Vostro 420 desktop at the office this morning.
One of the first things I do in the BIOS is enable POST messages, so I can see when there’s something wrong. That resulted in the following boot screen:
Hmm, what is wrong with this picture…? Perhaps that the BIOS has a notification telling me: EVALUATION COPY, NOT FOR SALE…? And the fact that Dell IS selling machines with this BIOS? 
(Actually, it turns out my case is not unique. Google found me similar cases here and here.)
And Dell being Dell, the only way to get this ‘problem’ fixed is a swap of the motherboard…
On december 16th, 2007 Marianne ordered a Dell Inspiron 1720 at Dell Norway. On these last days before Xmas Dell was giving some of their customers a 10% discount, so it seemed like a good idea at the time…
Expected delivery date would be on/before January 7th, according to the order confirmation. We were also supplied with a URL where we could track the order status ourselves.
In the last days of 2007 we noticed the expected delivery date had been changed, to January 17th, 2008. Well, things like that can happen, I guess…
But just now it has been changed again. Now we can expect the laptop on/before January 28th… :-/
My prediction? This will not be the final date either… Dell may be producing good laptops, but one has to be patient… very patient…
UPDATE: Well, I don’t know whether it’s a coincidence, or whether Michael happened to come across my posting here, but today, on the 9th, the status of this order changed about every hour, until it finally reached the status on its way. Tomorrow we should be able to see an ETA on the site of shipping company Schenker. I stand corrected. Now I do think it will be here before the 28th.
Good job, Dell!
