Dell Accused of Selling Faulty Computers

Faulty Dell

Documents from a three-year-old lawsuit against dell were recently unsealed.  Dell was allegedly aware of their computers having faulty capacitors and knew the computers were likely to break.  Documents show that Dell shipped computers from May 2003 to July 2005 that were at risk of breaking, as they contained the faulty capacitors made by Nichicon.

The Dell OptiPlex computers containing the bad capacitors were mostly sold to business and government customers.  The bad capacitors are reported to break and potentially leak chemicals inside the computer, which in turn could also be potential to start a fire.  In a study by Dell, in a three-year span the bad capacitors were likely to cause issues up to 97 percent of the time.

Despite the growing complaints to Dell still continued to sell the faulty computers.  A Dell hired contractor conducted an investigation on the situation and discovered that Dells initial estimate of failing computers was off by ten times.  The contractor reported that Dell was also replacing defective motherboards with other defective motherboards.

In some released documents about how to handle questions around the faulty Dell systems, Dell salesman were instructed “not to bring this to customer’s attention proactively” and “Emphasize uncertainty.”  In another email from a Dell Employee to a Dell customer it was stated” We need to avoid all language indicating the boards were bad or had ‘issues’ per our discussion this morning.  So, it seems Dell employees were deliberately trying to conceal the growing capacitor problems.

The Dell lawsuit has not yet gone to trial.  Dell did not recall any of the OptiPlex Computers, and with the newly released court documents Dell may end up receiving many more complaints.  There are potentially a number of customers who are unaware of the issues that plague their Dell OptiPlex computers, or even why their computers had failed to begin with.