Homepage of Michael Wessel

2011 - 10 - 4 : Intel Customer Support - Worst Support Ever!

My Intel Solid (Silicon??) State Disc in my laptop had just crashed. After installing SuSE 11.4 and an unsuccessful hibernate to disc, all what was left of my SSD's was an 8 MB (!) boot partition, called "In tel Boo t loader" (strange spacing also). None of the Intel SSD tools was able to recognize the SSD any longer - it was messed up beyond recognition, even for Intel tools. Even firmware update was impossible. At first, Intel support appeared to be very forthcoming. But soon, they started to simply ignore any further inquires and contact attempts. The third email from Intel support asked again for things I had already supplied to the webform when I asked for support:

Datum: 04.10.2011 01:33
 Von: SUPPORT.REPLIES@mailbox.intel.com
 An: michael_wessel@gmx.de
 
Dear Mr. Wessel,

The issue you described, may be unrecoverable and if so, it would not
be possible to save any data stored on the drive. If the SSD is faulty
beyond repair, the only option is to replace the SSD.

However, in order to verify if the issue cannot be resolved, without
replacing the drive, we would like to have additional information.

- Please sent us a screenshot of the screen where the SSD is shown
with only 8MB of storage.

- Manufacturer and Model of the second system (or board) you have used
to test the SSD.

- Please describe in Detail what exactly happens when you try to
update the Firmware, and what Firmware version you tried to install.

- Can you provide the link of the website where you have downloaded
the firmware from ?

Finally, please confirm your full adress.

Kind regards

However, one screen shot wasn't enough for Intel, and also, my address needed to be confirmed (for the third time??):

Please confirm following:

- Manufacturer and model of the testsystem:

- Please describe in Detail what exactly happens when you try to
update the Firmware.

- Please sent us a screenshot of the Intel SSD Toolbox.

Kind regards

What is wrong with you, guys? You don't understand the description "the SSD is *not* recognized by the Intel firmware update tool"? After shipping a dozen more screenshots, including BIOS AHCI SATA settings, Intel SSD tool, test system, SATA controller of test system, as well as Intel firmware update tool, and Windows partition manager showing the 8 MB "In tel Boo t loader", I never heard from Intel support again. It seems the Intel support guys are running the following strategy: bug the customer with redundant and irrelevant tasks (like making screenshots of Intel tools) as long as possible, hoping he will go away. If not, simply ignore him. Don't answer. Ever. Don't allow him to contact over the "Intel Support Chat" either, as soon as the ticket number is detected. Wow, great support Intel! How disappointing... if the support doesn't know how to handle the problem, it should at least have the decency to say so. I guess my next CPU will be coming from ARM (how many thousand €'s have I spent for all these Intel CPUs in the last 20 years??) There is only one thing which is worse than Intel SSDs - their customer "support".

2011 - 8 - 1 : Holiday Pictures (Silicon Valley, Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas)

Has its own page.

2008 - 12 - 27 : 25 Years of Home Computing

Has its own page.

2008 - 4 - 14 : Disputation

Thanks for the pics, Kay!

Thanks for the great doctoral hat, STS!

1988 - 8 - 8 : My Logo

Since my childhood I was obsessed with symmetry. At the age of 3 or 4, I was delighted when I found a way to arrange my initials (MW) in a diagram which was mirror symmetric along the X- as well as the Y-axis (resembling a butterfly). Also my magic number, the 8, shows this nice symmetry, so it was readily integrated into the diagram - I was born on 8th of August. There are many occurrences of the 8 in this diagram, as in my life (e.g., I became 18 on 8.8.'88). So, this neat diagram became my logo, which somehow also resembles a mandala - "a microcosm representing various divine powers at work in the universe" ;-) The numbers 4 and 8 are very important for mandala design as well. However, my logo neither encodes religious, political nor whatever messages. It's just my logo.