From the article: Gateway - Technical Support Profile
If you have used Gateway's products and needed to deal with their support department for some reason, please feel free to write down how that experience was and any information you that may be beneficial to others who have Gateway products. Similarly, if you are looking to buy an Gateway product, this information may be helpful in deciding if you should go ahead or look at another company. Share Your Experience
"Driver Update" Won't
- Once upon a time, a customer E-mailed Gateway for support because the Gateway "Driver Update" program wouldn't start the update after connecting to the Gateway server. First response: "Please send the correct serial number." The customer referred the tech to the Gateway website page explaining their serial numbering system. The second response explained fee-based support options with NO offer of any "fee-less" support. This company is in the private sector and can run its company pretty much any way it wishes, reacting to customer criticism. However, consider: the customer's first computer was a Windows 3.1 purchased in 1992; upgraded to a Gateway XP in 2002. Just how likely is it that this customer will upgrade again with a Gateway? Even more importantly, how do you think he will respond to potential customers' requests for advice about the Gateway products? Well, I am that customer, and you can bet the farm that my advice will be that Gateway now sucks.
- —Whizzerb2
Tuner Card
- I purchased a DX4300 for my Church. We went to hook up a camera to the tuner card. Supposedly this is supported. We found that the card had no drivers loaded. I tried to find drivers and found that this card is some generic piece of junk. I sent in an online support request to Gateway. I was told that there is no tuner card in the machine. I sent them a link to their site describing the machine having a tuner card. They told me to download the driver. They gave me a site with about 2 dozen different drivers. None of them worked. They then told me that there is no tuner in the machine. I get that response about every third time from them. Again I supplied the link to the system information. They then told me to contact their paid support service. This has been going on for a long time and I think I will just have to return the machine. No one at Gateway seems to know anything about their equipment and nobody there seems to want to help.
- —Guest unhappy
horrible customer support
- i usually do not respond to these types of comments. I have never had some many problems with a company. They are horrible and the computers aren't great buy HP.
- —Guest JesterLafz
Gateway SUX
- Hate is the word that comes to mind when I thing of gateway sales and esp. what they call service. I will pay more but I'm moving to Apple.
- —Guest Never again
Tech support ...sort of
- My warranty support of Gateway supplied Windows 7 upgrade can only be correctly installed by paying a min of $59.00...not much of a warranty I'd say. The install disk just sits there, can't tell if it's working or not so I went to bed. Next morning nothing had happened. I chatted on line with tech support whose only answer was to pay (A minimum of) $59.00 to get (their words) highly trained support person. So unfer warranty I guess you can only get lowly trained support person. I could "clean install" Windows 7 from the disc but all of my data (email addresses, word docs etc) will be lost. I was told to back up but they could not tell me how to do that ( I guess that info is not in the script they read)All I want is for the Gateway supplied wizard upgrade disc to work so I don't lose my data...and I'd like that to be "UNDER WARRANTY" as the computer is about 45 days old...is that too much to ask of Gateway ? My experience with their tech support was totally unsatisfactory and useless
- —Guest Nikkor
Gateway support horrible, horrible
- bought my laptop in June with the free upgrade to windows7 & can't get anybody to talk too. Worst exp. Have 3 Dells & have never had problems like this. Will never buy a Gateway again & I hope that people will tell other people about this. They are the rudest people to deal with.
- —Guest Jim
How to reach a real person
- I was in the situation where when I sent the product it was in warranty, and then expired; e-mail support was useless. After contacting the Better Business Bureau, I got this phone number to call: 800-395-3817
- —Guest alvarso
Driver updates - don't think so.
- I have been fighting with Gateway support for about a month now with driver support. I have been routed to everyone in the support structure. Today I got someone in America who basically said it was not worth the money for them to provide updated drives for there P series gaming laptops. My laptop is less than a year old. When I asked why nvidia drivers were not updated, I was told because nvidia doesn't provide them to them. They put out drivers when the laptop was released because they tested them and they work then. They can't test or provide support for drivers that do not work properly with games installed after you buy the laptop. I find it strange that every other vendor does this except for gateway. But they will send you to their pay for support to try and google you some drivers. Buy anything but Gateway.
- —Guest I hate gateway now
MP3 Player Support
- I have called tech support for 3 days now about an MP3 player purchased from them. It has never worked and they keep having me call a number that is not even a valid working number. Then it directs me to call them back where I run into the same problem with the foreign techs that are useless! Now i'm stuck with a $250 item that will not even turn on.
- —Guest Gary
gateways support is the worse ever
- cd/dvd/ drive went bad in March, did not received new drive from gateway until May. When I tried to install the new drive, it would not accept discs. I notified Gateway 3 days before my warranty expired that the drive was bad. I have confirmation email from gateway showing my computer under warranty. they took three days to get back to me and by then the warranty had expired. Now they say its not under warranty and they will not fix it.
- —Guest toni
Gateway Products & Technical Support
- To put it plain and simple, I will never buy a Gateway computer again. I bought a Tablet PC from Gateway about 3 years ago. Along with it I purchased the most comprehensive warranty package they offered (lucky me). A year later I was having problems with the computer operating extremely slow, it wasn't spy-ware because I check for it frequently. I had to send it in for a month to get it fixed. The most recent problem with the PC is the hinge. The springs inside have given out and the monitor connections were frayed. I called Gateway tech support and they told me I had to send it in, but I also had to be ready to have my hard drive wiped. I got everything sent in, then they sent the package to a previous address without notifying me (I had asked to make sure the address was the proper one before). When I saw this on a Fedex tracking number I called and got it changed. It still was shipped to the wrong address. Total Incompetence.
- —Guest Gary
Usless online support
- I purchased an Gateway laptop model T-6859u recently. Twice I have asked simple questions with multiple followups trying to explain things - and basically I get a polite non-answer response. One question was "how do I turn on the illuminated media controls" - and thier answer was - they don't know - but they said I could pay for "Answers by Gateway" to solve my question.
- —Guest Dave
Horrible Customer Service
- I was using my laptop that was still under warranty, and out of the blue the backlight failed. So I contacted gateway through the e-mail support, and it took me over 15 e-mails of me repeatedly telling them it was a hardware failure, not software, to be completely ignored. I followed through with their "troubleshooting steps" nonetheless, but the troubleshooting they had me do was not only rediculous, but very impractical considering the backlight had failed! When I got tired of it and asked that this be forwarded to a supervisor anything to that effect was COMPLETELY ignored. I am FINALLY getting it sent to a repair centre, but I still have to pay one way shipping, for a job I could fix myself if I didn't want to void the warranty. NEVER AGAIN.
- —Guest Clint
Poor interior construction and layout
- A major deficiency exists in the design of the Mdl FX6710-01 case and placement of the interior components. The HDs do not have enough airflow. I installed a tray based software package to monitor the hard drive temperatures as a precaution. Soon, the HD alarm was triggered as the “C:” drive, the Hitachi 750 Gb drive, hit 131 F degrees F, which is the default alarm level in the HD monitor. HD Tune 2.55 – Hard Disk Utility. Having an 80 MM case fan, I attached it to the hard drive cage retention screw and the little handle used to extract the cage, at the bottom of the cage. Attachment was via rubber bands. Yup, necessity is the mother of invention. After about 2-3 min. the HD utility reported the operating temp at 89 degrees F. The HD has been stable at 89 degrees several days. Today, I will make a template and cut the side panel of the “new” case to create an opening, onto which I will mount an 80 MM fan externally on the case side cover. Booooooooooooooo to Gateway.
- —Guest TedTNJ
Incomplete factory assembly - FX6710-01
- Purchased PC the other day. The next day, I tried the hot-swappable hard drive bays to then discover that both hot swappable bays were inoperative. In as much as I built my prior PC, I felt I could diagnose the problem before calling Gateway. So then took my hard drive and plugged in a spare SATA cable to both the HD and an unused I then traced the power cable from the backplane of the HD cages to discover, after removing the other side (right) cover, that the backplane power cables were not connected to any power supply leads/connectors. They were flapping in the breeze so to speak. I then mated the backplane power connectors (2) to the power supply connectors (2), inserted my hard drive and all worked. In this regard, I squandered much personal valuable time which could have been accomplished in the assembly facility in thirty seconds. But, all should know clearly I am disappointed in the quality of the product which of course was delivered to me in a factory sea
- —TedTNJ
Gateway Technical Support - really bad!
- This would be a long story. Let it suffice to say that the outsourced Indian technical support is really horrible. Somehow they dont understand that when a hard drive has completely crashed within a couple of months then we can no longer access a particion on the damaged drive. Very difficult concept to explain to them. Gateway do not supply a disk with the OS, and they charge $20 to have such a disk sent to you. Eventhough you have already paid for the software once. I mean, seriously, a disk like that cost them $0.10 to make. Their S & H fees for the disk are also ridiculous. We will not ever again shop with Gateway. In the future we find local technicians to build machines for us. Cost is usually not that much more and they usually take pride in their work. Gateway does not understand such a concept.
- —Guest Malene
