dell, getting tired of

So you all may have heard that I had to replace my hard drive that went wonky. Apparently it suddenly developed some bad things on it (or so the diagnostics told me) so I ended up having to replace it which turned out to be alright. This made me slightly bitter because the HD manufacturer has a standard 3-year warranty, but since it's OEM in a dell product, the manufacturer wouldn't touch it. At the time, the system was *just* over the 2 year dell warranty cut-off, and they won't honor the standard 3-year manufacturer warranty. Thanks, dell.

So I thought my problems were over, right? Nope! I now have the infamous "flashing amber light of death." My system will NOT even attempt to boot up, the power button just flashes this lovely amber light. After a bit of online research, it seems that a simple replacement of the power supply isn't always the solution to this issue. I really can't afford to replace the power supply in hopes that it fixes everything. What gives, dell??? This computer is 2.5 years old and now has had a second *major* problem. Aside from this, I've been marvelously happy with the system, it has never done anything weird or buggy.

This amber light thing sounds more like a defect in their systems...the dozens of forum posts I've been finding are indicative of a larger issue than a few power users simply overtaxing their systems. I used mine on a pretty average basis for the first year, but in the second year, I had my laptop and hardly ever used the desktop system but a few times per week.

The computers I had while growing up all made it to a good 4-5 years old before we tired of their incompatibility and slowness, however, they continued to keep trucking on even at point of disposal.

So, dell, what gives? I'm not likely to be a customer of yours again.