Acer Fails at Customer Support

If I upgraded all the computers in the house, only one is guaranteed to cause problems: my wife’s. Sorry honey, it’s true. Computer after computer you’ve proven yourself to be the technological problem child (through no fault of your own, life is dangerous on the cutting edge). But hey, I’m only the first level of support, we can always escalate. So, after exhausting my Google and Bing searching skills, I threw in the towel and contacted Acer:

“I recently upgraded to the final release version of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and I'm experiencing problems with external USB drives. They seem to work initially but on long file transfers, I experience delayed write failure errors and see Event ID 51 in the event log. I've tried the latest BIOS and drivers from both Acer and NVidia (NForce Drivers) but nothing seems to help. I did not have this issue under Vista. I was wondering if this is a known issue and if so is there an available or planned fix?”

Here’s the stellar response I received:

“Please do the steps given below to drain the power.
Turn off computer and unplug power cord.
Disconnect everything except monitor, mouse and keyboard.
Press power button and hold for 10 to 15 seconds.
Plug power cord back into computer and press power button.
Check front panel LEDs (lights) on bezel (front face) or optical drives and listen for power supply fan.
If LEDs are on or power supply fan starts spinning, watch for boot screen on monitor.
If computer begins to start, turn it off.
Reconnect any external devices.
Press the power button and make sure the computer starts.

1>Could you please check the status of device manager?
Start->Run->devmgmt.msc->OK.
2>Do you see any splats, question marks, or red X in the device manager?
3>Since when are you facing this issue?
4>Was the system accidentally dropped or did someone drop it?
5>Has your computer experienced any power surge?
6>Have you recently changed anything?
7>Have you installed more memory, a new hard drive, downloaded or installed new software etc?
Please note that Acer does not support changing an Operating System.  Changing the Operating System may cause driver conflicts.  You have the option of upgrading or changing your Operating System at your own discretion.  However, it is preferred that you keep to the original configuration of your system so that all the programs and applications in your computer will recognize all the hardware installed in it.”

First of all, the Comcast people try that “drain the power” thing every time I call. It’s a trick. I think they get a bonus every time someone reboots a cable box. Don’t fall for it. Did I drop it? It’s a desktop system. I’m not in the habit of carrying it around the house. Have I recently changed anything? I’m pretty sure I mentioned that I upgraded from Vista to Windows 7. Finally, notice the bit about them not supporting changing an operating system? Does that mean no upgrades (which is what this was)? What about service packs, are those supported?

If the only goal was to close the support incident out as quickly as possible, then mission accomplished. Next time I’ll just by a Dell.