My original discussion was with Dell Hardware Support at 2am on Sat Morning. When I spoke with Customer Service on the following Monday, I told them I wasn't happy with having a technician replace the motherboard, and told them I either wanted it replaced or I would return the entire system. Of course, they chose the former option and shipped me a replacement unit without peripherals. They quoted me an additional week, but it arrived that Friday. Unfortunately they didn't give me notice when it shipped and no one was around to sign for it.

I finally got the machine this past week and all is well. It's quite evident that something was really wrong with the other machine: as I mentioned, it powered up when I plugged it in even without manually turning it on, while the replacement behaves as one might expect. In the end, we reached the right result, but it shouldn't have been such a hassle. I should never have had to convince Dell that a machine that arrives dead needs to replaced, and the scripted tech support was painful (as it being thanked for every answer I give - enough already!).

I can see why Dell is struggling. As even budget computers become adequate for nearly all normal computer operations, Dell needs to compete on more than just price. This system was extraordinarily cheap in terms of financial cost, but it's getting to the point where consumers want more than that.