Dell FireWire Frustration

Have you ever owned a Dell product that needed tech support? If you have, you know how frustrating the process can become.

I purchased a Latitude D830 from them, which I liked very well, that is until it would not download my camcorder video.

My camcorder is a Canon ZR930, which I liked very well, that is until I had to talk to their support people.

We had been using the ZR930 with an older laptop (not a Dell) for all of our video downloading; however it was very slow because of its age so we decided to start using the newer, faster Dell D830. That is when all the fun started (only kidding).

When I plugged the ZR930 camcorder into the Dell D830 FireWire IEEE 1394 port, the Movie Maker popped up, just like it was supposed to. Then I told it to start capturing the tape. It started the film going in the camera but would not show a preview on the monitor. Then when I clicked on stop capture and then the finish button I received an error that stated my device was not configured properly.

This began my conversation with Canon. The first customer service representative told me that if the laptop engaged the camera (which it did) then it was not a camera problem and that I should contact Dell.

Okay, so I contacted Dell support, whose representative proceeded to tell me that because the laptop was running the camcorder, it was not a Dell laptop problem and I should give Canon a call again, which I did.

Canon then proceeded to tell me that because it worked on the older laptop and not the newer one, that Microsoft did not have the correct drivers loaded, so I called Microsoft.

Microsoft would not talk to me because I purchased the laptop through Dell; they told me I had to call Dell, which I did. Does this sound like it is starting to get annoying?

I called Dell and once again explained my problem. After the first representative could not figure it out, she placed me on hold. After being on hold for 40 minutes, I was so mad I hung up. I then called Microsoft back.

They said they would only help me if I paid them $39.00, and they guaranteed to fix the problem. I was so upset with everything at that point that I agreed. After spending over an hour on the phone with them, they could not fix the problem. They told me that there was no such thing as drivers for the FireWire port and that it was a Canon problem. So I called Canon again.

After 20 minutes with another Canon representative, they told me that the previous rep was incorrect, it was not a driver problem. They said that during video playback, the laptop powers the camcorder and it was a Dell problem.

I spent about another hour on the phone with another Dell representative (this time a specialist for the D830) who not only had me do a bunch of stuff, he also logged into my computer. After about 60 minutes, I told him he had wasted enough of my time and I wanted them to send an on-site technician to my office. I had paid for next-day, on-site service when I purchased the Dell laptop. He told me that unless I could determine what the problem part was, they would not send a tech. Can you imagine how upset I was with this process? Here was Dell, telling me that I had to figure it out (because they could not) before they would send out an on-site tech. What a waste of time.

So I decided to do try and figure some stuff out. I used someone’s older Canon camcorder (I do not remember what the model was) and it worked just great on my Dell laptop. So I called Canon again.

Canon then said that each camcorder is a bit different in how much power it requires from the laptop to download video; the ZR930 requires more laptop power. They said that since the laptop was not getting enough power through the FireWire port, I should call Dell. So I called Dell once again.

I spent another 50 minutes on the phone telling Dell what Canon had stated and also what I did with the different camcorders. I told them the bad part had to be something with the FireWire port or the Motherboard, since that is what sends the power to the FireWire port. The rep still would not send out a tech, so I told him to get his supervisor on the line, so I waited another 10 minutes on hold till the supervisor picked up. I then proceeded to tell him everything I had been though; he agreed to ship out a new Motherboard and an on-site technician.

The technician arrived and switched out the Motherboards. Do you think it worked? It did…it worked just like it should have from the beginning. The tech said the old Motherboard was defective. Was I ever glad to have this done!

I am sharing this in the hope that others, having problems downloading video from their camcorder via a FireWire port, are armed with more information.

Am I going to buy another Dell? Probably not. I think I may go out on a limb and try an Apple.