Reason #19568 Why I hate Gateways

I had a customer bring in his Gateway computer and was complaining his computer wouldn't boot to Windows. After nemerous tactics to get it to boot it was format time so I called him and ask him if he had a restore or recovery disc and he said yes he did. After about an hour he called back and said either he didn't get one or he had lost it. During that hour I had formatted his disk. So he comes in and buys a Millenuim disc and I told him it shouldn't be any problem to get the needed drivers. So I proceeded to Gateways website and entered in his serial number and about 10 differnet video drivers, 7 different sound card, 5 network card etc drivers came up for this one computer. So I e-mail Gateways tech support and the reply was "oh, you need the video drivers" and sends me to an ftp site to get them and they work fine so I replied back and said I need the rest of the drivers and this is an follow up e-mail--
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Hello Steve,

Thank you for your e-mail reply. I understand that the Customer lost
the Recovery CD and you require all of the drivers. I apologize
however, the only drivers for this computer on our Web site are for the
monitor. All other drivers are on the Recovery CD.

We apologize for the issues that you have experienced. As outlined in
your Limited Warranty, we can only send software or components that were
not received when it is reported within the first 30 days of receiving
the computer.

If you have not done so, please double-check all of the packaging and
manuals that shipped with the computer.

Gateway has to abide by our licensing agreements with our vendors. We
are very sorry that we are unable to send software beyond the 30th day
of owning your computer.

Another option you have is to send the computer to our Sioux Falls, SD
facility for service.

There will be a charge for any replacement parts and shipping. If you
would like, you can be contacted and informed of the total cost before
any parts are installed.

If you would like to proceed with the service request, I will need the
following information:

Bla Bla

Note: For Visa, Discover, and Amex card holders please include the CID
number.

Note: Don't send the monitor, keyboard, speakers, etc. Only ship the
case itself. The service technicians may need to format your computer's
hard drive during service. Please back up any important information to
a floppy disk or other media before sending your computer in for
service. Please include a letter with the computer containing a
detailed problem description. This will help our technicians in
diagnosing and fixing all problems.

Thank you.

xxxxxxx
Online Customer Support Team
Gateway
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Such wonderful tech support...Now my customer is mad at me and really mad at Gateway. :mad: :mad: I don't understand what needing the drivers has to do with licensing if he already has the licensed operating system. And to make things worse, everything in the computer is integrated!! :eek: :rolleyes: :eek:

i hate how they do this. i had an issue with a compaq a while back that was like this...

a friend who owns a compaq needed his disk formatted. I formatted, and installed windows 98. everything goes smooth, the install finishes, and i test the install by test booting the system, it works. Note: I left the CD in while test booting. so i pop the cd out and send it back to the freind. he calls me back and says it isn't working. i say, whats it say he says non system disk or disk error. i say take the floppy out of the drive, he says there is none. he brings it back i try booting it, it doesnt' boot. I pop the win98 cd in, and it boots.

turns out compaq screwed with the MBR, you need compaq windows to get it to run. so i had to pop in the install cd, and that installed windows, and a ton of compaq crap. the real interesting part or this was that it took a ****load of time to install, and it wasnt' loading from the cd while installing, it was reading from the hard disk. apparently the hard disk was partitioned and the windows files were on this second partition that was made invisible to the user. I have no idea why they would make you need the restore cd for this system sinse the files are on your disk.

Had a very similar prob with a Gateway recently. Except the customer HAD the original recovery CD. I check the web site for any updates. I also check all the OEM sites and download the most recent driver.

The only driver I cannot locate ANYWHERE in the web is the sound card.

NO PROBLEM! I figure i'll use the drivers from the CD.

After fdisk/format and loading the OS I start loading the drivers. I save sound for last as this is the only one I don't have install manually.

I get all drivers loaded no probs. I run the little GW proggy on the recovery CD and install the drivers. Reboot the PC and get BSOD.

I go through the usual troubleshooting steps: uninstall drivers in safe mode, then reinstall, still get BSOD; reinstall drivers manually, still get BSOD. I'm starting to lose patience.

I recheck GW website for updated drivers...nothing. Thinking that it may not be driver-related, I format/reload OS & drivers. Reload sound card driver from recovery CD and I get another freakin' BSOD.

I give up and go to bed. Come back the next day and do a more extensive search of the Gateway site and come across a different sound card driver. I download the driver and compare the file dates to the date of the .inf files on the recovery CD. The driver from the site is older, but I figure "What the hell?" I load it, reboot and VOILA, everything works with no BSOD.

I've gotten so tired with all of that garbage that I've stopped recommending any manufactured computers to friends. Sure it means that I'll have to help them put the system together, but it sure is a lot better than letting your buddy step into all of this trouble!

Note: I'm not saying that all systems from big name manufactureres have problems like this, but to tell you the truth it seems like they all do.

Gateway's driver search page has a place where you can search by part number of each component.Crack the case read the #s and enter them in to the site it's that easy......

I have a gateway that I have rebuilt many times with both 98 and 2000. Some drivers I get from the recovery disk, others from either gateways or vendor websites. Never really had a problem with any of it. Just take your time, and look all over their website. I hear a lot of bad stuff from that company but I tell everyone to go with them or Dell. They can fix major things, and most small things I will help out with the small fee of beer or dinner.

I read your post and found that rather disturbing since I have more than once recommended Gateway and a couple of months back someone lost thier compaq restore and it was easy as anything to get Compaq to send another copy (with a $10 charge but that sure as hell beats sending your machine in). So why would Gateway not do this?
I spoke with a Gateway tech support supervisor and he says "That is absolutely not true. There is no reason why a tech would need to send thier out of warranty machine to Gateway." He even tried to get a serial number out of me so that he could prove it.

Now this is his word but thought I'd pass it on.

I finally got a reply from Gateway from someone that knew a little bit. He steared me to the remaining drivers that I needed. Ahcoraj, on your reply, everything on that board was integrated and the only numbers on it was it was an Intel chipset. Intel didn't support that model. That letter was the actual e-mail I got from Gateway!!!
:mad: :mad: After a wekend war wiith Gateway, problem solved....but no Major computer manufacturer should behave like that and expect to stay in business. I have told many people that of the major computer manufacturers, Gateway ranks at the bottom!!! :mad:

Gateway is the new Packard Bell. I remember a time when you could open a gateway and see a sb16, a usrobotics modem, a good hard drive, and a good motherboard.

Now they've shifted their engineering model to integrated, cheap, and short life span hardware.

When my Mom bought a gateway and I cracked it open to upgrade the processor I realized that it was already maxed the day she bought it.

Since then I've stopped recommending them.

I'm starting to find that alot of my customer's are buying the fully integrated models. The one that look like "Book PC's". What happens when the customer's modem goes bad. You surely cannot install a new one. This will be like when a customer has a bad PC-Chips motherboard. You will have to sell them a new case, video card, modem, nic, sound.

we just lost a bid to gateway. This place had 5 bids and 4 of those bids were around $38,000, and good old gateway under bided all of them by $6,000. It is going to be interesting on how good these computers are built, and what is going to happen when they are out of warranty.

[quote]Originally posted by iateyourcat:
<strong>Gateway is the new Packard Bell. I remember a time when you could open a gateway and see a sb16, a usrobotics modem, a good hard drive, and a good motherboard.

Now they've shifted their engineering model to integrated, cheap, and short life span hardware.

When my Mom bought a gateway and I cracked it open to upgrade the processor I realized that it was already maxed the day she bought it.

Since then I've stopped recommending them.</strong><hr></blockquote>


Same here. My dad picked up a system from them about 3 years ago. All decent components (i went over the specs with him by phone since we live 2000 miles apart). Back then, they were pricey, but good quality.

This summer my sister's family bought a gateway 733 celeron system...desktop case, integrated video and sound, and NO CASE FAN except for the tiny psu fan. Additionally, its modded case comes with legs so you can set it on its side, and little clips on the cd plater to hold the cd in place. Cheese.

Worst of all, after 30 minutes or so of use the sucker gets so hot that the case itself reaches 120 to 130f, all because there is crappy ventilation and no attempt at case cooling. They are Packard Bell reincarnate.

i dont like major computer manufactures, i never worked on a gateway, from what guys tell me i hope i never do.


the pc i hate the most is compaq they screw over people royally.

there HD has a system save partition when you do a full format restore and pull out that partition the restore cd is then useless ( for some models)
you have to buy a new restore cd or use a regular win cd.

these pc manufactures rip off people royally and build the biggest piece of crap and put a high price tag on it.

Gateway used to be a name of quality. Then the original CEO quit and some dumba$$ took over. This yutz was so focused on sell sell sell sell sell, $$$$$$$$$$$$, and numbers that the focus on quality products, service, and support were lost. And Gateway suffered big time for it.

The yutz was canned or quit, and the original CEO is back. He acknowleged that Gateway had gotten away from the things that made it great once. Support, service quality etc. He vowed to bring those things back.

So maybe with a bit more time, Gateway will be back to being a mchine that we can recommend to people and not get backlash by those that would get screwed by them.

[quote]Originally posted by AbSoLuTeZeR0:
<strong>i dont like major computer manufactures, i never worked on a gateway, from what guys tell me i hope i never do.


the pc i hate the most is compaq they screw over people royally.

there HD has a system save partition when you do a full format restore and pull out that partition the restore cd is then useless ( for some models)
you have to buy a new restore cd or use a regular win cd.

these pc manufactures rip off people royally and build the biggest piece of crap and put a high price tag on it.</strong><hr></blockquote>

IBM does that too. My first day on the job, I did a full format and wanted to build my machine from scratch, you now, kinda show the boss what I can do and how fast I can do it. That was a mistake from hell. Restore disks had no drivers, Windows wouldn't accept any of their network drivers, and the IBM drivers for the network card were like 10 megs. Ended up spending most the dang day because I couldn't get to the stinking drivers easily. Don't like that company any more either.

I think Gateway is a good company but when people spend $600 for a complete system what they get is a $600 system, Gateway's highend systems are quality but you have to pay for it. There phone support has a lot of halfwits working them but if you get someone who doesnt know what there talking about do what everyone else does and hang up and call back. As for the desktop systems that look like books if the modem dies get a new pci modem and clip the metal on the card and any pci card will fit in the system, you can also buy new driver and os cd's for $25. If your too incompetant or getting drivers is too dificult for you to figure out then go to one of the 300+ Gateway stores and they will download the drivers for you, free of charge.

I think you should re-read the e-mail message from Gateway tech support. THEY said the only drivers avaliable for that model on their website was for the monitor. That customer brought his computer into my shop and I wasn't going to tell him he needs a new modem, video card, sound card just because he neeed the drivers and he has a cheap sorry a** computer. The website asks you for a serial number so you can download the correct drivers for that particular model....only problem was it showed several different manufacturers for the components and even more drivers. I'm NOT going to download all of them and do a trial and error installation until I find the right one. And as far as going to the nearest Grateway store to have them download the drivers for me........I live 240 miles from the nearest one. It would be incompetent do as thier first two tech I made e-mail contact with suggested. If any of their three techs i delt with would have mentioned you could buy a recovery CD from them I would have ordered one, but if you would have read the message, they won't ship software for a computer that's more than 30 days old. :eek: :confused: :eek:

I had a similar problem with a Compaq Presario laptop. I had to get a new hard drive installed because the original drive had committed suicide. The customer wanted a clean install without any of the extra software and second partition. I got the OS installed and started installing the drivers for video, modem, etc. I got to the sound driver and there isn't any listed for this model. I tried looking for similar models to see if they have the sound card listed. Nothing!
I called Compaq tech support and he wants to send me to the fee-based line. Screw that!
A friend of mine decides he wants to raise a little heck, so he calls and gives them a big speech about being an ASE (Compaq's term for network specialist) and the tech points him to an FTP site for a specific file. Wrong file!
I ended up having to tear the machine apart (almost literally at this point) to find the sound chip mounted underneath the PCMCIA card slot. It's an Analog Devices SoundMax chip. No problem, I'll just download the appropriate drivers from Analog Devices. Wrong again!
Analog Devices doesn't have the driver for that particular chip posted on their website. I'll have to download the driver from the OEM company's website. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
After several hours searching for the file on the FTP site for Compaq, I got the sound drivers I needed. Thanks for all the help, Compaq. :mad:

It's been a log time since I have posted here, but I was bored today and thought I'd go find some good laughs at tech tales.

My comments are about the bashing that major computer makers are taking here. While I will totally agree that the consumer level computers that these companies is usually total crap. There is light in the tunnel.

Compaq and HP both have lines of computers rated for "business" use (IE: Compaq Deskpro). These systems come in all flavors and options. They are far superior to the Office Depot brand of Pavillions and Presarios. The software is much cleaner and free of adware and other junk. Since I don't get my kicks from building clone systems for family and friends (only myself), I generally recommend that they buy these upgraded business class systems. The warrantys are usually for 3 years. The drivers are generally very easy to find and the components are better quality.

I have worked and repaired many systems from Compaq, Gateway, HP and various clones. While the cheap systems are well... cheap. These higher end systems will usually last the lifetime of the warranty, and at that point its usually time to buy a new system.

If you must recommend a brand to someone, make sure they buy these higher end systems. If they can't afford it, maybe they should hold back on buying a computer. I compare it to buying a KIA (car), when maybe you should wait and buy a [insert you favorite car here]. No offense to Kia owners intended.

I'm actually on a gw right now and I hate it. Half the stuff in it has been replaced because it died or sucked. The only original things in the whole thing are the mobo, processor, sound card, and modem. When I went to put in our new hdd, I had a hell of a time getting the drivers working. We also upgraded to win 98 se at the time too. The damn resoration cd wouldn't install any drivers, or it would and they didn't work. I ended up having to format the hdd, install win 95, install the sound and vid drivers, then upgrade to 98se. And the usb still didn't work. Really, I don't understand why the drivers on gw's OWN restoration cd didn't work for the usb that came with the comp. oh well. thats why I'm building my own comp soon.