My experience with Dell support has actually been quite good. The motherboard on a laptop my client lent me died while the machine was under whatever corporate support plan my client has. I spent maybe 10 minutes with Dell tech support using their chat support and the next day a tech was replacing the motherboard in my kitchen for "free". Andy. -----Original Message----- From: hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net [mailto:hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net]On Behalf Of Mary Malmros Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 6:24 PM To: hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] Thanx... next question... I think the reality is that the "manufacturers"...aren't, any more. They're assemblers. That being the case, I'd look less at the brand and more at where/how you can get it serviced. I've got a no-name laptop purely because I can get it serviced locally without having to ship it away to even get someone to look at it. -- Mary Malmros malmros at verizon.net Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug