STRANGE but NOT FUNNY

[new2pc]

Hi guys/gals:
I am planning to buy a DELL 4550.
I called DELL to find out what is the S-spec for the P4s that are being shipped.
The person who answered was from Hardware section and she transferred me to Sales.
As soon as I asked about the S-spec, he told me the following:
You have raised a "Red Alert" by asking this question"
I asked "Why?". He replied "because no one else has ever asked this question"
Then he said "Our security officer wants to talk to you. I am going to transfer your call."
The security officer said "This information cannot be disclosed."
He went on to say that I should try to buy the computer from some other company.

Does this look ODD to anyone?
I am puzzled. What did I ask to raise a RED FLAG?
Anybody wants to comment?
Thanks,

 

[Lucky]

Anybody wants to comment?

Yeah, what the hell is an s-spec?

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: Lucky

Anybody wants to comment?

Yeah, what the hell is an s-spec?

it's a string that's printed on the CPU, with it you can identify the stepping, among other things

 

[daction]

Whao, that's crazyness. :Q

 

[Tab]

LOL! Dell is the devil! Call them again and ask them if they work for the goverment or something.

 

[Rankor]

That is funny.

It's not like you were a threat to internal security or something.

It's probably information that they cannot disclose to give the competition a leg up.

Red Alert (?), Security Officer(?); Hilarious, though.

Another reason why I custom build my systems.

 

[MadRat]

They are just trying to out guess overclockers and tweakers. Less RMAs and support for them.

Don't worry, they don't have any way to flag your call to prevent you from buying one of their PCs. That is if you'd ever want to!

 

[Sunner]

Personally I thought it was pretty damn funny

LOL

 

[TBird151]

hehe...I'm sorry, but this is kinda funny. You ought to try it again, but this time record them saying that. hehehe

 

[new2pc]

Would have looked funny before 911.

 

[dkozloski]

My guess is that they don't have a clue what S-spec means and assumed it had something to do with data encoding or cryptography. Never attribute anything to a nefarious plot, that which can be explained by pure stupidity.

 

[everman]

The sSpec should not be kept confidential imo. Shouldn't the customer be allowed to know exactly what they're buying? I kinda want to call them up right now just to ask them and see what they say!

 

[DrVos]

The sSpec should not be kept confidential imo. Shouldn't the customer be allowed to know exactly what they're buying? I kinda want to call them up right now just to ask them and see what they say!

do it! do it! I'm curious to find out bu dont have the juevos to do it myself. do it do it![

 

[AluminumStudios]

I've been dealing with Dell for years because of my work at academic institutions. Dell is a very "canned" company. They can never give me very technical info., and while their reaction was really odd, I'm not too surprised.

If you want to know your specs., be able to tweak, overclock, etc., don't buy a Dell. On the other hand if you want a box that just works well Dell is a decent compnay.

 

[new2pc]

Please do, and let me know how you were able to get this info.
Thanks and good luck!

 

[CrazySaint]

Originally posted by: new2pc
Would have looked funny before 911.

What has 9/11 to do with Dell acting silly when somebody asks about s-specs?

 

[MadRat]

Ask them which exact harddrive model, manufacturer of memory, and brand of CDRW you will get. They hate answering specifics in general.

 

[CrazySaint]

Ask them what BIOS options the motherboard has

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: CrazySaint

Originally posted by: new2pc
Would have looked funny before 911.

What has 9/11 to do with Dell acting silly when somebody asks about s-specs?

Some companies and the government are paranoid about anything now that could possibly pose the slightest inkling of a probable unconfirmed potential threat.

As for my comment on the Red Alert thing - that's just strange. I'll have to keep that in mind; maybe I'll try asking about the nanosecond rating of their RAM, the CPU stepping, the core stepping of the videocard, BIOS romsize...
Assuming I'd ever need to call Dell for any reason, which is not likely.