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Gateway Computer Reviews

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This file is filled with individuals' opinions and experiences with the Gateway, which sells a wide line of computers and products. The most recent experiences are at the beginning of this file.

If you have bought a computer from them and have not yet made your contribution to this list, simply fill out this review form about your experiences with this company and your review will be added to the top of this file. Thank you and good luck!

Other Experiences with Gateway Computers (Most recent first):

First off we bought a gateway and the thing to over a month to get to us. Of course I was not told about the parts delay until I called. Then they send out Quickbooks separate. We received it 3 weeks after the order. It took me a week to call them because I just wanted to exchange it and its unopened because we had made a MISTAKE. But because it had been 30 days from purchase they wouldn't even switch out the software. I guess at GW you can't purchase software and return it a week after it is received. What a joke of a company. They would have lost a total of $100 dollars instead they've lost my business. Pure stupidity.

Hi well I bought two Gateway computers from HSN both were the E series... you can not tell me these are not lemons. Both have come down with???? they over heat and shut off. I could go on and on... but I would not buy a Gateway again.

I hate gateway. If I ever need to elevate my blood pressure and get so spitting mad I call them. Before you lose interest let me tell you, if you have a legitimate complaint call the federal trade commission. They are really nice, and if they have enough complaints they will press charges. OH WHAT A HAPPY DAY!!!! here is the info: www.ftc.gov/ftc/consumer.htm or 1-877-382-4357. Pass this info around and lets see those bastards in court!

I am thouroughly disgusted with Gateway. In February I bought a top of the line Media Center PC. Overall the performance has been pretty good.
However there are a whole bunch of small annoyances that I'm sure could be ironed out with tech support, but why should I have to? It's a NEW PC?
Today, the transmitter for the wireless keyboard, USB device deciced to work only intermittently.
HERE's the KICKER..I bought the unit through HSN on TV. They provide an 800 number to them which routes me to Gateway for service.
HOWEVER Gateway Tech support says they are not set up to service this unit because it has an alphanumeric serial number and that I have to call their toll number. WHAT, HSN agrees that the tech support agreement as they advertised it was to include TOLL FREE support.
Apparently Gateway feels they DO NOT have to honor even their corportate agreements. HSN suggested I can send the unit back, since I've not reached my 30 day free return date yet.
I"LL NEVER BUY GATEWAY AGAIN

difficulty connecting to internet

I purchased my Gateway M320X Plus Jan 2005. I received it promptly, and was quite satisfied with it. 3 weeks later, my combo drive stopped reading Data and Audio CD's. DVD's would still work. I called Technical support, and within 30 minutes, I had confirmation that a replacement combo drive was on order. This is where it goes down hill. I called for a status after 7 days, and was told it was on backorder, but it wouldn't be long. Over the next 5 weeks, I have had CSR's tell me that it's either on Back order, or it's in stock and awaiting processing and shipment. I can call back twice in a day and get different answers. It's been almost 6 weeks now since my drive went out. I basically have a expensive paperweight as I was not able to load all my software before it died. I have nothing against Technical support. My gripe is with the CSR's who seem to have an answer of the day. Funny thing is that they said that the computers are in demand, so drives are hard to come by. If they are still selling them, there has got to be a stash of drives that they can pull from to replace mine. It should be that simple

There's been a few responses from Gateway TSRs (Technical Support Representatives) defending themselves and our product. This will be a similar commentary.

I've been working with PCs and Macs for over 13 years, and I have been representing Gateway for one year. I won't make any claims that I know everything about computers; yet I can assure you that I am an exceptional tech, and I know my a fair bit about hardware and software issues. I can't help but feel disappointed with some of the commentary and conduct that I see being expressed by consumers. Gateway does not produce inferior products! Before making comments about the products being crappy, look at your abilities and knowledge of computers.

I'd like to address the issue with systems arriving DOA - or those that malfunction shortly after purchase. Before any Gateway computer leaves our facilities they are tested to make sure that they are functioning properly. Gateway does not send out defunct systems. Many if not _all_ of these issues result from the fact that the systems are shipped out using a courier service, or the customer disregards the "Handle With Care" labels on the boxes. If during shipping your computer gets bumped or banged around, hardware can become loose or damaged, resulting in computer problems. This isn't Gateway's fault - it is the result of poor handling practices. This even happens when customers move to a new home and package their own systems - calling in... "It was working before I moved. Now it doesn't work!". We can understand your frustration, but why is it _our_ fault? We'll help you get the problem fixed. But, if you insist on being difficult, irrate and abusive; we'll document your conduct and we'll disconnect the call. If it is a brand new machine and doesn't work out of the box - you have three options:

1> We'll help you find and fix the problem.
2> We'll exchange the system. (within the first 15 days)
3> You can get a refund for the system. (within the first 15 days)

Those are your options - they are non-negotiable. If you think you can leverage your position by swearing or threatening to sue, or cause physical harm - you're wrong. Just because it is a computer, and not a car - doesn't mean you get to bend the rules of the warranty and support policies. Unfortunately, there are instances where a few bad PCs get into the public. We make good - we'll replace the parts or the system (depending on the scenario outlined by corporate office).

I'd also like to address warranties. All desktop systems come with a standard 90-Day Parts/Labour/Tech Support warranty. You can upgrade the warranty either at the time of purchase, or within the 90-day period to either 1 year or 3 year. Laptops come standard with a 1 year Parts/Labour/Tech Support warranty. Which can be upgraded to 3 years, or 1 or 3 year with ADP (Accidental Damage Protection). When your system runs out of warranty for Parts/Labour/Technical Support - you have no right getting upset or hostile with the tech on the phone. It isn't their fault your warranty expired! Do you think Ford/Chevrolet/Dodge turn a blind eye and fix things for free if your vehicle has no warranty? You know they won't! It's time to open up your wallet/purse and get that credit card out! Here's a shocker: Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM, Toshiba... they all do the same thing. By commenting "I should have bought a Dell" makes no difference. You'd get no different treatment - despite what you may believe.

Let's talk about your warranty support. When you purchased the system, you agree to all the terms within the warranty - otherwise you'd have returned the system. This means - you will agree to assist the TSR in troubleshooting the system, whether it is removing and installing hardware, or reloading the operating system. NO WHERE IN YOUR WARRANTY DOES IT SAY THAT WE WILL BACK UP YOUR INFORMATION. THAT IS SOLELY YOUR RESPONSIBILITY! You can PAY somebody to do it for you, if you don't know how. Technical Support cannot and will not assist you in personal data backups. If it is deemed necessary to service your system; YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR SHIPPING CHARGES! Don't give us BS that DELL or Whoever doesn't charge for shipping. We know they do, you know they do! If you want someone to come and install the hardware for you, and it isn't in your warranty to do so - it costs you $199.00 That's non-negotiable. A mechanic doesn't fix your car for free, if it isn't part of a warranty agreement. Computers are no different than cars.

Your warranty does not support the removal of viruses or spyware.
Why? They're customer induced damage. Gateway doesn't sell you a system full of viruses or spyware. Something you did, or did not do: put them there. It is your responsibility to ensure that your system remains virus/spyware free. We'll offer you software solutions if you would like protection. We'll even offer you a support service that you can use to remove the virus/spyware problems, but technical support cannot directly do it for you. Some agents are assisting in this matter, and they are wrong. We never have and never will support these issues. Neither do _ANY_ of our competitors. The fact that you have an antivirus scanner, does not mean that you cannot be infected by a virus. Learn the difference between downloading virus updates and running a system scan. The year is 2005 - virus definitions from 2002 will not protect your system against new viruses. This is not Gateway's fault! As the consumer, it is _YOUR_ responsibility to maintain _YOUR_ equipment.

I don't feel that all customers are rude and irrate. I've had many conversations at length with many great people. They've enjoyed talking with me, and I with them. However, there's a few of you out there that are outright rude, and should be ashamed of yourselves. How can you honestly say _we_ are the jerks, when it is you that is the one that is anal? There's also the issue with trying to belittle the TSR that you're talking to. You're not impressing anyone by pretending to be smarter than the tech. If you're really that smart, hey - that's great. You obviously don't need our help! If you're doing it to be a jerk, you're wasting your time, our time, and prolonging getting your computer fixed.

I won't assume that all customers work - but those that do, most likely work in an abuse free environment. We as techs work in an abuse free environment too. That applies to conduct over the telephone too! There's an age old saying - you'll attract more flies with honey, than with vinegar.


Steve,
Gateway Tech, Canada

Called them to order additional memory for my laptop. Tech told me that i was ordering the wrong thing. I disagreed; tech insisted that he was right - so I ordered what he told me I needed. (I provided him with the serial number to my computer to insure that i was getting the correct thing)
Memory arrives, and it's wrong....so I call Gateway, and they tell me that the memory I tried to order in the first place was correct. So I place an order - but find out that there has been a price increase in the last few days. They absolutely refuse to honor the original price, even though it was their mistake. After the 5th e-mail and third phone call, I was told on the phone that I could not return the incorrect memory, but at this point have not been given a reason.
If you buy from Gateway, keep your fingers crossed that you don't ever need customer service. Eight communications with them have yet to produce a simple answer to a simple question!

Not all gateway techies are bad you know. Some of us are actually qualified for the job & we do it well. I constantly have people tell me I'm the best techie they're ever spoken to, probably cause I know my stuff but if I don't, I learn quickly over the phone or ask for assistance.

Those of you who compain about Gateway Techies - put yourself in our position to deal with a person who's got your attitude.

Gateway Sucks!

They have the worst service I have ever experienced. If you are going to call their tech support, you should just as well get a baseball bat and ask your neighbor to bash you in the head with it. That will give you the same level of frustration without all the hassle.

Matt, Nacogdoches,Texas

It's been 7 weeks since we sent a computer to Gateway to be repaired since it was under warranty, this was suppose to take 4 weeks at the most. To make a long story short, 4 weeks ago I called, they told me they had fixed it, but wanted to send it to Office Depot, (since the pc was purchased there). I had to make a ownership tranfer. Next time I phone, they wanted to reformat the hard drive...told them no, send back to me asap, DO NOT FORMAT....Last week, they could not check to see if the computer had been sent back, their computers were down. Now yesterday, they could not find my computer....

I shall call them again today...What will they tell me next? This is the worst service and waste of time I have ever experienced. I swear if that computer is not shipped back this week, I'll go down to Dallas and pick it up myself...

Just feels good to write this, I am now taking a deep breath before I pick up the phone to call them....I know my blood pressure is about to sky rocket again.....I feel like I'm in a bad dream. Never again will we do business with Gateway.

I just came across this board while lokking for compter parts to upgrade my Gateway computer. I'm rather shocked that people have had so many problems with their Gateway. Now I've never had to use Gateway's Tech Support so I have no idea whether it's up to par or not. However since there seem to be so many posts of problems with Gateway I thought I would post the good experiences I've had with mine.
I bought my Gateway new in 2001. It's a P4 1.6. When I bought it I was replaceing a 500 MHz computer that had been built by a friend. After I got it I found that it wasn't much faster than my old computer. After formatting the hard drive and reinstalling windows I had no more problems at all. It was a fast computer. Other than this little quirk I've had no problems what so ever.
Four years later and it still works great. I've added more memory and a better video card and am about to install a bigger hard drive and more memory and once again updating my video card. These are just things that need to be replaced every few years to keep up with the advances of the computer software.
I'm fairly computer savvy and work on computers for friends and co workers. The biggest complaint is, it's too slow or I don't know what's wrong with it. I get it and as soon as I turn it on there are 10 different programs running in the taskbar. Well, that's going to make it run slow. Generally, I back up what they want to keep and format the hard drive and reinstall windows. Problem fixed.
I'm not saying that some of the people on these posts haven't had legitimate problems. Alot of these problems probably could have been fixed however with taking the time to learn a bit more about their computers before saying that Gatways sucks. I've been very happy with mine and when I decide to buy another I'll definately buy another Gateway.

Wow. I read this, and just had to reply to it. You people have nothing to do but bitch about how much gateway sucks. I know a lot of people who have read this, and did nothing but laugh about it. Maybe all of you people should take the time to actually learn how to use your computer before fuckin around with it, and then calling tech support, cause you have a virus, and it's full of spyware. Get off the porn sites, and rent a movie. You call in saying there is something wrong with your computer, and then we have to open it up, and reseat components, and you bitch about it. In your warranty agreement, it states that you are required to call gateway tech support, and troubleshoot the system with us, even if that means opening it up. And for those of you who say that you are going to sue gateway, maybe you should actually read the warranty agreement, because it states that if you don't send a letter of complaint, or return the system, that you waive all rights to sue gateway. Good luck on that, cause no lawyer or judge in their right mind is going to take on gateway in court. You people have probably had bad experiences with tech support, because you are talking to the people in the middle east, or florida, these people aren't the brightest bulbs. Some of them do have half of a brain, but not a whole lot of common sense. Not trying to brag about canada, but we seem to be cleaning up the mess of everyone else in the tech support area. Don't call us, bitching because you broke your computer, because we aren't going to sit there like zombies, and let you yell at us. How would you feel if we started telling you that you are a moron, and you should just send the system back, because you haven't got the slightest clue about computers. And another thing, the big thing that you turn on, isn't you modem, it's your tower. The modem is what you use to call aol to get on the internet. And when we tell you that you need to call aol back about you not being able to connect to the internet, believe us. Usually something is aol's problem, but they are just way too stupid to understand anything about a computer. When you get the computer, take five minutes to read the limited warranty, and you won't be calling us every ten minutes asking us stupid questions that we aren't going to answer. When you call us, and are actually troubleshooting something, if you don't know what the hell is going on, then just ask questions. You can learn about your computer a lot just by asking us what we are doing with you. Don't bitch at us because you entered the serial number into the phone, and we don't have it on our screen. The only reason you have to enter the serial number into the phone, is so that you get directed to the appropriate tech support team, and most people either punch that in wrong, or don't punch it in at all.
So, maybe you should just take some time to read this, and maybe you will better understand what the hell is going on, and you will stop bitching about how much "gateway computers suck". face it, COMPUTERS SUCK IN GENERAL. Just like cars. They all fall apart so you have to keep putting money into it, because all companies are out to make money from you suckers.

Well, I just purchased a Gateway M675 PRR... wish me luck!

I purchased a Gateway Computer in Dec. 2004. It came with their new BTX tower. There is an extra slot for another DVD CD burner or reader. The problem is that the tower design is curved in front. I've tried six manufactors and none fit properly. The reason I had to even try six brands is because Gateway won't sell me their product. I was even told by there Rep., was that I should have bought it with two burners the first time. No wonder I'm finding so many complaints against Gateway on the Web. Wish I would have checked first.

I work as technical support in the Canadian Gateway Technical Support Centre and I have a few things to say. First off, as technical support agents, we do not have any control over warranties or policies... so those of you who bitch at us for what the company does, stop. If you want to write a letter of complaint you can do so, just give us a call for the address as I don't remember it fully right this moment. Or, call Client Relations, NOT Technical Support, and argue the warranty or policy with them, and they can explain it fully. If you really want to know what you're getting when you get a machine, read the warranty on Gateway.com at any time. With your computer, go to http://support.gateway.com & enter your serial number then click "My Support Documents" then "My Warranty Information" and you can see what you've got.

Sure, if you have to send a system in to be serviced, you need to pay, in all cases with desktops, and in most laptop cases, unless it's a known issue with Gateway at fault. We as technical support agents CANNOT give you free boxes for shipping. It's out of our hands & up to our supervisors. Supervisors do not respond well to people bitching at them, so if you think attitude will get you what you want, you're wrong. Be calm, and explain how you feel, our supervisors will do their best to help you. They too are bound by Gateway's COMPANY policies & boundaries. Sometimes we'd love to help, but the company itself denies it. Yes, it sucks but thats life.

Some people out there, no offense to anyone here, don't deserve to own a computer, as they lack common sense. When you ask a person for their computer serial number & they ask you if you need the computer serial in return, come on now, I want to say "No, your home stereo serial number." Or, you ask someone to follow instructions EXACTLY as explained on screen and it says for example: "Press ESC to continue." and nothing else, I've had people ask me 3 times if that's what they have to do. It gets quite annoying.

Sometimes I get calls with people who have actual problems, who are pleasant to talk to, and have a great sense of humor. I love those calls, and if I could prolong them to last a whole shift, I would. Unforunately we have to get calls done as quick as possible according to our higher-ups. I'll come right out and tell a person how much I've enjoy speaking with them, if I truly have, and some people, I just hate so much due to either attitude or stupidity, and those are the ones I can care less about helping because they make me feel like shit, or I feel like they are trying to purposely piss me off.

Sure, Gateway has alot of problems as a company. So does Dell, as I've personally had to go through a few fiascos' with their technical support, dealing with a family member's laptop. HP has issues, as well. It's business people. The whole threat of "I should have bought a DELL" or "If I knew you were closing your stores I would have bought a DELL" ... stop with the threats, as we don't give a shit, it doesn't hurt us. Just go buy a Dell and see for yourself. More often than not, with ANY software based problem, it's user fault so you'll get the same thing happening on any brand of computer. Learn to use the machine and maintain it properly, and shell out the extra $100 for computer security programs, and you'll lessen the chances of these issues and keep yourself happy.

Would I personally own a Gateway or Dell PC? Yes. However, I'd format my hard drive right away, and install my actual Windows XP Professional disc and the software that I want, not the crap that comes with these systems. Brand name software & recovery disks SUCK. Stick with the official Microsoft Operating System and you're going to have an amazing machine. Any copy of XP will work, so if you buy a PC from Gateway with XP Professional, format the hard drive, and borrow an official XP Professional disc from a friend that is not branded by a company, and you'll save tons of frustration.

Most of my experience with gateway computers has been good. but, only because nothing went wrong. Its not the system but the support. Gateways' support sucks. Whether is is technical support or customer service you might as well be talking to a tree stump. Do not buy any all-in-ones they are unserviceable. It took 4 weeks for my computer to be serviced and it came back unrepaired (after they finally found it with tracking numbers). Their wait times are enormous especially if any thinking is involved. I have been given the run around for up to two hours at a time being switched from one department to another. The company and people do not care if your computer works or not. The long for the 15 day return policy to lapse then they do the bare minimum. The computers are ok but gateways people and management style suck.

I bought a solo 9550 two years ago and have had nothing but major problems with it since day one! The tech support people are very rude. Never Buy A GATEWAY!!! p.s. they want to charge me $150 just to send it back to me and its paid for already!

Compared to most other people on this site, I have had mostly good experiences from Gateway. Now, I build my own computers, but the first gateway I got was in 1997, a 200 MHz MMX Pentium. It didn't have many problems, customer support isn't that great (long hold times), but overall the computer was good. The hd died only a week or two after the warranty expired. I got another in 2001, A Performance 1000. It hasn't had really any problems, and still is working great today (in fact, I'm typing thi on it). When reading over other people's experiences with Gateway, it seems like I got lucky. A friend also purchased a Gateway in 2000, and it still is working good today. It's been reformatted a couple times, but it's not Gateway's fault (he had some problems and it was getting slowed down, so he reformatted it). Overall, I have had good experiences with Gateway, but maybe I've just gotten lucky.

If you ever have an oppertunity to buy a gateway, don't. I had a big fiasco with gateway in November, 2004. About a month after i got my new M320 notebook, i noticed a weird spot in the screen. It looked like dead pixels although i had never seen them. Then there were two, then three. I called gateway and they were very nice. "oh, send it in, no problem. We'll have it back within 3-5 buisness days" NOT! After 6 days, i called them again. I had some people tell me they had lost it, i had some tell me that it was shipped, and then, they transfered me to the manager. She tracked it down and told me it was on hold. She said the marks in the screen were pressure marks. She said that someone had to have poked the screen or sat something on top of it. Now, i am very carefull with my things. I never touch the screen, and i certainly don't sit stuff on top of it. That was bull ****! They were just trying to get out of fixing it because they knew they would have to put a brand new screen in it which would have cost them a lot of money. I finally said just send it back. I couldn't be without my computer anymore. I got it back in 2 days unfixed and haven't decided what to do about it yet. Any suggestions?

I bought my computer from Gateway while I was living in Italy. I found them great to work with. When my father called to order the computer they got my information and then called me IN ITALY. I was then given a number so I could get a hold of them my self. (800 numbers don't work on international calls) I recieved my computer a short time later and have no problems at all. I have read a lot of people have had problems, but I have had none. Also when I've had questions I have found their support techs to be very polite and helpful. I have found that most of my problems have come from my own lack of knowledge with computers. While a computer is able to run multiple tasks, you still run the chase of freezing your computer. I all has to do with the programs you are running at the same time. Also those of you who are having problems should first evaluate the software you have. Adding internet updates is great, but if you don't have the hardware to backup the update there's no point unless you want to slow your computer down.

Horrible experience. Purchased Gateway 7320gz lasted 15 days would not reboot, kept freezing up/ media covers kept falling out. Service said send it back. Best buy stinks said over 14 days cant help you unless you purchase their $250-500 warranty plan then they can help you. Stay away from this computer and Best Buy.

I have a propleme with my minitor Getaway2000(Model 5000s) and I want a programe to fix it Thanks a lot

TERRIBLE!!!

My computer a 505 Notebook, is less than 1 year old and I've had problems with it from month 1. Since then gateway has wiped out my hard drive twice....it has been returned to them twice, about to be returned again and every time it comes back to me, it is STILL NOT REPAIRED.

I'm having both audia and video difficulties with this computer and gateway can't FIX IT.

The supervisors are ALL PROGRAMED to be cold and unresponsive to your needs. They are ruder than the staff.

Whatever you do.

DO NOT PURCHASE A GATEWAY COMPUTER. YOU WILL GET NO SUPPORT FOR REPAIRS. THEY DO NOT HAVE A RETURN POLICY, SO YOU ARE STUCK WITH YOUR LEMON COMPUTER!!!!!

Never buy a Gatway computer!

I bought a Gateway computer in 2003 and I have had 4 hard drives
crash, one video card go bad, and many other problems with
the sound card, speakers, and the CD burner.

Please don't make a hugh mistake. Save yourself some time
and money and look into other companies.

All of the emails on this board should give you a warning not
to buy Gateway.

We bought a Profile 5 from Gateway in April 2004. It gave us nothing but problems so in early October 2004 we sent it back for repairs. Gateway gave us a return number and it was sent via FedEx. They received the computer but did not return it. After many phone calls we learned they do not call back though they say they will. We learned to stay on hold until someone gave us an 'answer.' Each solution/resolution turned out to be lies. Some people said they lost the computer. One person said they found the original computer and would ship it out. A lie. A supervisor said they would send a new one. They lied too. We have spent over 30 hours on hold.

Today (2/4/05) another supervisor again said they would send a replacement with an ETA of 2/18. We shall see. In the meantime, their piece of garbage is not worth the loss of productivity in our office for the loss of a computer, let alone the 30 + hours hold time and tremendous frustration.

We hate Gateway.

~Dec 15 03 bought 42" Plasma HD-ready TV ~$4500
~Dec 24 04 TV picture degrades, verify all connections. No issues- bad picture. Turn TV off, wait 3 seconds, turn on, picture is clear.
This occurs repeatedly for 2 days until picture cannot be restored.
Call Customer Service. Repair visit - replace image board and tuner. Issue appears resolved for 15 minutes and TV fails again.
Called custoner support with Tech still on location.
Tech support gave address for Customer Service Escalation and told me to write a letter describing the issue. I do not feel confident this will produce any results.
Don't buy Gateway,

I purchased a Gateway FMC 901 Media Center with a 42” Plasma screen on March 22, 2004. I paid $5,924.29 for it. Recently I became interested in adding an extender, which allows one to connect to a network and add a screen in another room to watch recorded videos or play recorded music. The currently available extenders I could find require the media center has the Windows Media Center 2005 operating system. Mine came with the earlier operating system, so I contacted Gateway to see about upgrading. They responded the only way to upgrade the operating system was to buy a new computer with the new operating system installed at a cost of $1,595.98. I asked if they would give me a trade-in and they said at most $100.00. I since learned that HP, who offers a similar system, provides OS upgrades for $10.00. Microsoft can’t or won’t help, because, they say, it’s a proprietary OEM version of the OS.
This all took place over a live chat with their sales people, and I saved the entire text of the chat in case they should deny it took place. So, if you want to buy a media center (I think it’s really cool), stay away from Gateway – they don’t support their product as they should and as HP does.

I bought an E-Series Gateway from QVC over Christmas of 2003. Had all the bells and whistles I thought I needed - problem is the dang thing conks out so often because of 'thermal events,' I can barely use it! Prior to this Gateway, I had only owned "built" computer systems, and they always worked flawlessly. I am thoroughly disappointed with Gateway, and have told everyone I know, and am telling all of you, bypass Gateway and have a system built, or go with a reputable company like Del! Happy 2005!!

I PURCHASED A GATEWAY M520 FROM HSN SHOPPING IN AUG OF 2004.
I HAVE ALWAYS TRUSTED AND SHOPPING ON TV, AND HAVE NEVER HAD
APROBLEM WITH ANYTHING PURCHASED. I HAD HEARD ALL THE GORY STORYS
ABOUT GATEWAY, BUT I FIGURED THAT IF HSN SOLD THERE PRODUCT THEN THEY
TRUSTED WHAT THEY WERE SELLING. I RECEIVED THE GATEWAY AND IT SEEMED
TO WORK OKAY.( I STILL HAVE YET TO USE EVERYTHING THAT IT IS CAPABLE
OF DOING, BUT IT STILL WORKED OKAY. I PUT IT IN THE BOX ,BECAUSE I WASN'T GOING TO BE USING IT FOR ABOUT A MONTH. WHEN I TOOK IT OUT OF THE BOX I SAW CRACKS ON BOTH HINGES AND COULDN'T BELIEVE THAT A NEW
COMPUTER WAS BREAKING UP SO EASILY AND SO QUICK. ALL I DO IS OPEN AND CLOSE IT. WELL I CALLED GATEWAY VERY DISTURBED AND DISAPOINTED,
THAT MY WORST NIGHTMARE WAS TRUE,THAT GATEWAYS ARE LEMONS AND ALL THE MONEY I'M PAYING IS A WASTE. THEY WANT ME TO PAY 49.00 FOR A BOX
THO SHIP IT TO THEM IN ,I WANTED TO KNOW WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM WITH
THE BOX THEY SENT IT IN.THAT RIGHT OFF IS ABIG RIPOFF TTO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.
THEN THEY WANT ME TO SEND IT TO THEM AND THEY SAY I WILL BE SHIPPPED BACK OUT IN TWO WEEKS. I HAVE NOT READ COMMENTS FROM ANYONE WHO SAYS
THAT THERE COMPUTER WAS RETURNED AS PROMISED. I AM AFRAID TO SEND IT TO THEM FOR FEAR THAT THEY WILL NOT RETURN IT OR LOSE IT AS HAS HAPPENED TO SO MANY CUSTOMERS. I AM VERY SORRY I SPENT MY HARD EARNED MONEY ON GATEWAY. I AM CONTACTING THE BETTER BUSUINESS BUREAU
ABOUT THEIR BUSINESS.I WISH I HAD SEEN THIS SITE BEFORE I PURCHASED IT, ALL I CAN DO IS TRY TO GET SERVICE AND MAYBE I WILL BE ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES.

We have purchaced a Gateway M675PRR notebook back in Oct 2004. The notebook arrived when they said. (The one and only good thing.) 2 days after receiving it, it started screwing up, shutting down, restarting, blue screen of death, you name it. After 4 weeks (count 'em) with calls to Tech support it was determined that the problem could not be resolved over the phone. So.... several calls to Customer supoort later they said that they would send out a replacement chassis (no hardrive, cd-rom, or floppy). They gave us an arrival date. It came and went. So we called again. They updated the arrival date, again. It came and went, again. Several more calls to Customer support, "Oh, it looks like the parts are on backorder." It is now December. We call every other day trying to get an answer, when it is coming in? We finally are told that to expect the new computer (fully functional, not a chassis) by 12-29-2004. Came, went. Called again, got transfered back and forth from tech support to customer support, nobody willing to talk to us. Today is January 10th, 2005. Gateway is going to call us back within the next 24 hours (yeah, right).
If you are considering on buying a laptop, notebook, or desktop computer, DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY! This cannot be stressed enough.
DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY!
DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY!
DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY!
DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY!
DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY!
DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY!
DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY!
DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY!
DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY!
DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY!
DO NOT BUY FROM GATEWAY!

I use a Gateway 500 windows 98 but I would like to know how moch it is worth.

Called Gateway on the 16th of November and ordered one of the near top of the line desktops--the 7200X. Added to this 1GB of RAM, 250 GB hard drive and 3.4 Ghz processor. Chatted online with sales rep and found him to be helpful. Computer came a week later and after trying to get sound out could not. Called and found out the sound card was on the motherboard and my digital speakers would not work with this arrangement. The sales rep had told me they would in the online chat session. Called and e-mailed him and he actually sent a Soundblaster card at no charge. Once again Gateway was very helpful or so I thought.

While setting up the computer the very next day the hard drive quit and the computer would not boot up. I called the tech support line and told them I thought it was the HD. They apparently did not care as they took me through the "scripted menu" of such things as did you unplug it, did you try re-starting and other items they were obviously reading from some form. The tech then said that it was the drive and they would send me a new one and that it should arrive in 3-7 business days.

It is now the 2nd of January and still no hard drive. I have sent in dozens of emails and made dozens of calls to Customer Service and they are absolutely the worst group of Customer Service reps I have ever dealt with. I got several different answers as to when the HD would come. First it was Dec. 7th, that became Dec. 15th, became the 17th, became the 21st, became the 29th, became Jan. 4th and now is estimated to be Jan. 14th. Take their scripted forms from them and they don't have a clue. In fact, one day I wrote two seperate e-mails and got two answers as to its delivery date. One was it was in the warehouse and the other had it still on backorder. Where they both looking in the same database?

On several occasions I asked to speak to supervisors and this in itself proved to be very difficult. I had one supervisor named Maria who told me it was in the warehouse (on Dec 17th) and she would see that they shipped it next day. Since it was a weekend she said that it would not be pulled until the 20th and that it would come the 21st. No HD came, no one called from Gateway saying either they were wrong or there was a problem. I asked several of the supervisors if I could escalate my complaint and they all pretty much told me the same thing; that I could use the website. This pretty much was nothing more than geting right back to Customer Service.

I then started to surf the web and found a place where I could lodge a formal complaint with the corporate executive response team. I made contact with a rep named Shannon and he stated he would look into why I had not received the HD. I told him that I would like to get the 15 day evaluation period extended because I could not really evaluate the system without running it. I also asked about extending the 3 year extended warranty I bought as once again without the HD it's pretty hard to have anything else go bad. He agreed to the 15 day period but I have heard nothing about the 3 year deal.

At one point I wanted to look into the HD issue myself and e-mailed Customer Service about the HD manufacturer. The rep told me it was Gateway Accessory Store and I told her that wasn ot it and it had to be something like Maxtor, Seagate, Hitachi or Western Digital. I had to pull the HD myself to get that information. Each time I e-mailed them they never read the whole message because they would give me information I never asked for or information not related to what I was asking.

The sales rep e-mailed me back and suggested that I just get a new tower. I resisted at first but now think that this is the way to go. I am a little bit leary that it may not actually be a new tower but a rebuilt as I have heard some horror stories from other Gateway customers. During the questioning of one Customer service supervisor I was told that the replacement drive I was expecting might not actually be new but a rebuilt one. I find it hard to believe that as many PC as they build they don't have HD's around there. I explained they could take it out of one they were building and that way they would be causing problems for a "future perspective" customer rather than a current one. This did not sink in very well with the rep as I was told this "is not our policy". Once again if it is not scripted the reps can't be resourceful.

I have no faith the tower will come any time soon as have lost complete faith in Gateway. I bought one of their top of the line PC's and it's like "we got the money and oh well". What will they do when they want the old one back in a timely manner like their policy says?
Can I tell them I backordered on the return box or backordered on gas for my car to get it to the shipper? What if I hold it from them for over month and half like they held the HD from me, will they contact me then? Gateway Customer Service is really poor and must change or Gateway will lose much of their business especially from me.

To all with bad experiences with Gateway: You must configure your system to work! If you do not, you will have JUNK! For some reason they insist on loading up their machines with a bunch of proprietary crap that is not compatible w/ Microsoft. So, just reformat, load your OS only, and presto, FIXED. Case in point. We bought our G6-350 Pentium II in Dec. 98. We had nothing but problems. After I became friends with a gentleman who was computer savvy, he helped me with some upgrades including a fast hard drive. This machine is still our primary machine. It FLIES! 6 years hard use, no retirement in site. We will keep it until we just can not get parts. Intel says mean time to failure on the mobo is 176,000 hours. We have about 30k now. So many years to go. Gateway put the best of everything into their machines in the 90's. Don't know about now. Quit whining, get an used Gateway, start tweeking, be HAPPY!

Ok this is Gateway's tech support in a nut shell. No matter how much you people complain you will never realize what Gateway does for its clients. Yes it is hard to get a replacement system. Why because that costs Gateway lots of money seeing as how must of you want a replacement system on an outdated model (discontinued). Also with over half of the problems you are receiving it is all software which has absolutlely nothing to do with Gateway. For example a customer has called in because a certain game he is playhining reboots the system in mid game play. Resolution: Buy more RAM for your system because you only have 256mb RAM and the game requires 256mb RAM just to run. So lets figure this out. Windows XP takes 128mb RAM to run so 256-128=128 left, right? ok now include that norton internet security which is also 128mb but lets just say its 64mb, so 128-64=64mb. Now you only have 64mb to go around for this game that NEEDS 256mb RAM to run. Now yer video card is 64mb RAM where as the game alone needs 64mb as a minimum requirement to run, which in turn means you have to turn all graphic extras off on the game (shadows, how far you can see, and just plain quality). Ok so after all of this you have 64mb of RAM to run this game. a 64MB video card trying to run a game at full graphic ability. Now who's fault is this? would it be Gateway's fault that there isn't anything we can do to help but to offer the parts you need? Or is it your own fault for not doing your simple math. I'm sorry but I'm getting sick of you irate people calling in and expecting us to do some kind of Magic and say "POOF! your computer works!" after all we cannot see exactly what you see on the screen, or the computer itself. If you would like a good Gateway experience don't call in expecting us to work some magic. Call in expecting us to do our best to help, like when we ask you what it says on the screen don't say "Duhhh something about low memory?" I mean what kind of screen just says "Low Memory" it usually says other things. Or if we are helping you take apart and put something into the computer don't say "Whats this thing?" Gateway agent: "What thing? Can you describe it?" You "Its a white thing plugged into that black thing by the circut board thing." I mean honestly how are we supposed to go "Oh that thing?? Thats your IDE cable.". You people who have bad expierences with Gateway, all I have to say is, on behalf of Gateway we are sorry for the inconvenience and sorry to hear that you have to put up with Dell, which means complete India tech support. Where as Gateway we are station in India (Minor part of us) Florida, New York and Canada (Our biggest area fr tech support). Well for all of you who are pretty muchly telling me to go fuck myself, I probably already did, also just remember, when you actually run a buisness you will realize, it isn't all about replacing things right away, because you don't want to replace the wrong part first and get an even more irate client. All of you can either grow up and learn a thing or two about buisness, you can also be cooperate when we ask you something, or you can go to Dell. And just remember for 1 irate call i get a day saying they hate Gateway and we should burn in hell, I get roughly 45 calls on that same day with people praising Gateway :) . Hope you liked my post reply to it so you can tell me either where to go or what light socket I should stick my thing inot. Thank you for calling Gateway technical Support and have yourself a nice day! :)

October 2003, I purchased a Gateway 510 from a local Gateway store, which as everyone knows, closed shortly after that. October 2004, that computer just stopped working. Would not boot up, nothing. I had purchased a service contract, for the first time, but with no stores, after numerous lengthly calls with tech support, at my expense, I had to send the unit back to Gateway.

After 3 weeks waiting and calling, trying to find out what was up with my unit, Gateway finally confessed they had LOST my computer. Totally gone, kaput, no where to be found.

They offered to replace the unit with a Gateway 5200XL with the same equipment I had on the previous unit. Okay, I had lost a lot of data, but was getting another new computer. And, since they lost my computer, they even went as far as to reissue my service contract for another 3 years. Things "seemed" like they would be alright.

It's now one month and 5 days since I received my replacement computer, and guess what? Oh, you guessed correctly. It's broke! Just like the last one, this one will not boot, nothing, kaput. You hit the power switch, the light comes on but that's it. No fan, nothing. Oh, upon receiving this unit, it wouldn't start. I found out that the hard drive was never hooked up from the factory! That should have told me this wasn't going to be a good experience.

So once again I got on the phone with tech support. For over one hour, they tried to trouble shoot the problem, especially the monitor. Why the monitor, I have no idea. But, for over an hour, the India tech support rep had me unplug this and that to no avail. Finally, I was told I would again have to ship this unit back for repairs!

I am trying to get Gateway to simply reimburse what I paid for the original unit, let me sent this one back and just get away from them. Buying a name brand computer such as Gateway means nothing these days. They 'used' to make a good computer and offer good tech support. Neither of these are true today.

Stay away from Gateway! Save your money and buy a Wally World computer. It will last you just as long and you'll save a lot of money.

In general, I'm not a fan, although my experience has been limited to 2 or 3 desktops. Most recently the E-3200 NLX workstation. (PIII 450Mhz)

Even when it was in it's heyday, it had major limitations. I realize it was an economical business PC, but others in the same class, like those from Dell, had it beat by a mile....

Anyhow...

In response to Scott Fitzgerald:

Firstly, yes you can see updates and downloads by adding the serial number of the PC to the following link:

http://support.gateway.com/support/srt/docs.asp?sn=

Once you do that, you should see specs etc.

Secondly, you're right, there's no way to overclock, as the BIOS is locked with the motherboard at 100Mhz FSB. :(

If you ever find a way around that, let us know...

To Justin Bell:

No, no overclocking (that I've ever heard of), but with the most recent BIOS from Gateway, the mobo supports ALL 100Mhz Slot 1 processors.

Ancient, I know, but you CAN run a 1.1Ghz CPU if you can find it, and get a Slot T adapter (preferrably a powerleap model) and run faster Celerons etc.

The maximum memory supported is 768MB.

Insofar as AGP cards go, it's an NLX system, so that means only half-height cards are able to fit. (which stopped around 16MB or so)

I did a case mod to allow an ATX card, but it looked awful, and the nVidia RIVA TNT ULTRA (32MB) card I installed would hang xp up anyway, so forget about gaming on this.

If anyone else still has one of these PCs, then I sympathize.... ;)

Dear Gateway Employees and Management, Fleet Capital, and all others,

As I have said in my previous emails:

"At this point we have not only given up on Gateway as a company but feel that each and every individual we have dealt with at Gateway completely and utterly failed us. We have already replaced the system with a Dell and have turned over the matter of a refund to our legal council (full text of previous email below).

To think that I was convinced to give Gateway a try in place of my previous vendor...

It has now been some 90 days since we asked that issues with our Gateway laptop be resolved (we only had the laptop for 90 days before it broke). We have been given 3 ETA's and spent litterally HOURS on the phone with various persons of little help. We have been transferred more times than I can count and I can honestly say that each and every call to Gateway's general line have ended by being hung up on.

For our part, this is not something that has been put on the side burner and ignored. I have diligently, methodically called Gateway about this for 90 DAYS! For whatever reason, Gateway obviously cannot replace my computer that they have sold me. We were told tales of moving inventory and merging businesses and that is fine but give me a computer (a sampling of these lies are in the thread below).

This is ridiculous and nothing less than legal action is acceptable. I have turned this matter over to legal council who will take up the matter with Gateway\Fleet Capital as you have essentially stolen my money and time.

I can honestly not imagine any company staying in business with practices such as yours. I tell my story to each and everyone of our 2000 customers with whom we do business. I have included our Dell sales representative on this email for his reading enjoyment and intend to continue forwarding it along with a timeline of your ineptitude to anyone that will listen. And I do mean anyone.
Jeremy Evans
Sepialine - the Platform for Cost Recovery
150 Post Street, Suite 615
San Francisco, CA 94108
(800) 404-9558
www.sepialine.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Vos, Beth [mailto:Beth.Vos@gateway.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 6:29 AM
To: Jeremy Evans
Subject: RE: 36328618 Gateway


Good Morning:



I don’t have the tracking number yet…..which means it’s on the final legs of being built and as soon as I can get one…you will be the first to know. I will also send an email to the lease company maybe they can help out on the bill issue.



Beth Vos

SMB/Consumer Sales Associate

x30133

M-Fri 8am to 5pm CST


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jeremy Evans [mailto:jevans@sepialine.com]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 5:28 PM
To: Vos, Beth
Subject: RE: 36328618 Gateway



Beth,



I have not received the new laptop yet? Is there a tracking # that you could provide me with? I am staring at more Lease bills to pay (3 now) and the laptop remains in a pile under my desk.

Jeremy Evans
Sepialine - the Platform for Cost Recovery
150 Post Street, Suite 615
San Francisco, CA 94108
(800) 404-9558
www.sepialine.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Vos, Beth [mailto:Beth.Vos@gateway.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 9:25 AM
To: Jeremy Evans
Subject: RE: 36328618 Gateway

Hello again:



Here’s what I did. I am perming the 36328618 order with the bad notebook and sending you prepaid labels to put on the box and ship it back to Gateway at no charge to you. Do not worry about returning this until you receive the new notebook. I placed a new order 37530213 for the new notebook to replace this one and extended the warranty to the 4th year instead of the 3 year warranty you originally had at no cost to you. The EAD on the new system is 11-29-04 and I have to quote you that but I will do everything I can to get this built correctly and out the door sooner. If you would like I can watch it and give you updates.



Let me know if this is not acceptable.



Thank you,



Beth Vos

SMB/Consumer Sales Associate

x30133

M-Fri 8am to 5pm CST


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jeremy Evans [mailto:jevans@sepialine.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 10:38 AM
To: Vos, Beth
Subject: RE: 36328618 Gateway



yes





Jeremy Evans
Sepialine - the Platform for Cost Recovery
150 Post Street, Suite 615
San Francisco, CA 94108
(800) 404-9558
www.sepialine.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Vos, Beth [mailto:Beth.Vos@gateway.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 8:37 AM
To: Jeremy Evans
Subject: RE: 36328618 Gateway

Is this serial# 0033269390??



Beth Vos

SMB/Consumer Sales Associate

x30133

M-Fri 8am to 5pm CST


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jeremy Evans [mailto:jevans@sepialine.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 10:29 AM
To: Vos, Beth
Subject: RE: 36328618 Gateway



Vos,



Yes, Dmytro Bazulin works for Sepialine. At this point we have purchased another system for him and his 'new' laptop is under my desk here in San Francisco. It has now but non-functional for almost 50% of the time we have owned. As such, we have been paying on a lease and receiving nothing.



We spent a combined 6-8 hours on the phone with Gateway trying to resolve this anyway your company saw fit and the net result was a resounding nothing.



I would like the system replaced ASAP and I would like my warranty to be extended to make up for my lost ownership time. The laptop is at the following address. Please advise.



Sincerely

Jeremy Evans
Sepialine - the Platform for Cost Recovery
150 Post Street, Suite 615
San Francisco, CA 94108
(800) 404-9558
www.sepialine.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Vos, Beth [mailto:Beth.Vos@gateway.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 6:40 AM
To: Jeremy Evans
Subject: 36328618 Gateway

Good Morning Mr. Evans:



I received an email from Ann Marie and will apologize right upfront for no one following through with your issue. I do have a couple of questions…Does Dmytro Bazulin work for your company? Any last do you still need this system replaced??



If you would let me know at your convenience, I would be happy to follow through with this.



Thank you,



Beth Vos

SMB/Consumer Sales Associate

x30133

M-Fri 8am to 5pm CST



-------------------------Wed 11/10/2004 2:41 PM---------------------



Ann Marie,

At this point we have not only given up on Gateway as a company but feel that each and every individual we dealt with at Gateway completely and utterly failed us. We have already replaced the system with a Dell and have turned over the matter of a refund to our legal council.

I must say that in all my days I have never been treated as poorly as Gateway has treated us throughout this process. I have never been transfered, put-off, and even hung-up quite like I was with Gateway.

You can be sure that we will not be working with Gateway in the future and that we intend to get our money back. If you have any suggestions of how to make the process of a refund easier I would be happy to hear from you.

We will be sure to tell others our story of Gateway's customer service whenever possible. We have already prepared and document and will be submitting it to Gateway management. This document includes times, dates and persons responsible for this absolute disaster.

- Jeremy Evans

Stay away from Gateway. Horrible service and outright lies seem to be standard for Gateway. I anticipate that I will have to proceed in court.

My M500S Notebook failed to power on. I had no way of accessing my hardrive (for backup purposes). I sent it in for repair, asking specifically to safeguard my harddrive (even wrote a note taped to the laptop at the time of shipping). The service rep that I spoke to gave me the wrong shipping address, and the laptop got sent to a Gateway service center where they disassemble laptops for spare parts! My data is lost. Gateway won't put the effort into finding my harddrive. They are sending me a new laptop with a verbal apology from their executive response team, which in no way covers the store of priceless data in my harddrive.

My M500S Notebook failed to power on. I had no way of accessing my hardrive (for backup purposes). I sent it in for repair, asking specifically to safeguard my harddrive (even wrote a note taped to the laptop at the time of shipping). The service rep that I spoke to gave me the wrong shipping address, and the laptop got sent to a Gateway service center where they disassemble laptops for spare parts! My data is lost. Gateway won't put the effort into finding my harddrive. They are sending me a new laptop with a verbal apology from their executive response team, which in no way covers the store of priceless data in my harddrive.

I have had harrowing experiences with Gateway. My laptop (450) has been sent to Texas three times in less than two years for the same problem (the video card.) Each time it was sent back, it took at least two weeks. The third time the computer broke, I was told by tech support that if it happened again, I would most likely get a new computer. When it broke the fourth time just this month, they told me I would not receive a new computer, but that the parts would be sent to my home and onsite tech support people would come to my house within 24-72 hours. That was last week and a total of 17 days since my computer broke and nothing has been done. The company is inconsiderate, inconsistent, and offers inferior products at extremely high prices. I will never purchase anything from Gateway again.

I've had good experiences with Gateway for the past 5 years. I have brought one desktop and 3 laptops from them with no problems at all excluding some minor issues, the monitor went out on the desktop but it was covered under warranty. The last laptop I order was Monday (M320), They told me it would be 10 business day. I received on Wednesday, two days later, Great service.

Experiences have been good. Computer is dependable and works well.

Good. Good and dependable. Works fine.

Good. Good and dependable. Works fine.

I purchased a Gateway Desktop in 97' and had nothing but good experiences with the company so when i wanted to buy a laptop in 2003 i chose GW again. NOTHING but trouble!

Their customer service (not tech support) are ignorant and not helpful. All of their tech support is not outsourced, so their is not responsibility when something goes wrong. All they care about is getting you off the phone as soon as possible. I had repeated experiences when GW made mistakes (presumably because they are not GW employees and not well trained) and I had to call and call to get the problem fixed.

For example, my laptop is broken and I have to pay $50 to get a shipping box sent to me so I can sent it out. Fine, I paid. I called on the day they said it would arrive and Customer service said call at the end of the day, its coming but I need to call Tech Support. I called Tech support and they said the order never when though. So that’s two in CS who did not know the order never when through. Then the tech support guy placed the order, and I called the next day to make sure, it has the wrong address AND is on hold. Another tech support guy put the order through. Guess what? Never when through, something I had to find out when I called again to see why it did not arrive. Meanwhile I have a completely unusable computer during midterms.

Ok I can excuse some mistakes, but systematically screwing up and then making the customer jump thought hoops to fix it. In addition, they are complexly unresponsive to the customer. They have ZERO system for following up and taking care of stuff. I got a name of the ONE head of customer support in the GW center in South Dakota- left messages WROTE a letter and never heard a word (this was over another ridiculous issue that took forever to get resolved). I was told that I would get a call back in two weeks if I wanted to talk to a manager. I even gave my cell number, I have Voice mail and no one else answers that phone, I got NO call back. This was over 6 months ago.

Oh and they closed all their stores, they are only available over the phone and computer now. Incidentally, I found this out after tech support told me to take it into the store.

If nothings goes wrong, you might be fine. But if there is ever a problem where mistakes are made or anything you need to get help with, expect NOTHING. You get a gateway, you take that risk and hope nothings goes wrong.

I will never ever again buy a gateway. My next computer will be from compUSA or Best Buy where I at least have the chance to walk in the store and throw a fit and get some service so they can shut me up.

I purchased a Gateway Desktop in 97' and had nothing but good experiences with the company so when i wanted to buy a laptop in 2003 i chose GW again. NOTHING but trouble!

Their customer service (not tech support) are ignorant and not helpful. All of their tech support is not outsourced, so their is not responsibility when something goes wrong. All they care about is getting you off the phone as soon as possible. I had repeated experiences when GW made mistakes (presumably because they are not GW employees and not well trained) and I had to call and call to get the problem fixed.

For example, my laptop is broken and I have to pay $50 to get a shipping box sent to me so I can sent it out. Fine, I paid. I called on the day they said it would arrive and Customer service said call at the end of the day, its coming but I need to call Tech Support. I called Tech support and they said the order never when though. So that’s two in CS who did not know the order never when through. Then the tech support guy placed the order, and I called the next day to make sure, it has the wrong address AND is on hold. Another tech support guy put the order through. Guess what? Never when through, something I had to find out when I called again to see why it did not arrive. Meanwhile I have a completely unusable computer during midterms.

Ok I can excuse some mistakes, but systematically screwing up and then making the customer jump thought hoops to fix it. In addition, they are complexly unresponsive to the customer. They have ZERO system for following up and taking care of stuff. I got a name of the ONE head of customer support in the GW center in South Dakota- left messages WROTE a letter and never heard a word (this was over another ridiculous issue that took forever to get resolved). I was told that I would get a call back in two weeks if I wanted to talk to a manager. I even gave my cell number, I have Voice mail and no one else answers that phone, I got NO call back. This was over 6 months ago.

Oh and they closed all their stores, they are only available over the phone and computer now. Incidentally, I found this out after tech support told me to take it into the store.

If nothings goes wrong, you might be fine. But if there is ever a problem where mistakes are made or anything you need to get help with, expect NOTHING. You get a gateway, you take that risk and hope nothings goes wrong.

I will never ever again buy a gateway. My next computer will be from compUSA or Best Buy where I at least have the chance to walk in the store and throw a fit and get some service so they can shut me up.

I will never buy a gateway again the worst computer maker of all time.

I purchased a 610 Media Center this July, my third Gateway. I had the thing about a month and the monitor starting acting up. I called Gateway, talked to a tech and we had got it taken care of, or so we thought. About two days later it happened again, this time we not able to resolve the issue over the phone. I was told I could send it back for repair. At first the man said it would be 45.00 for the box to ship it back, as turned out I didn't have to pay. They sent me the box which I got the next day(Friday). I sent it back out that night. I called them on Monday and the person I spoke to said they were still awaiting delivery. I called back Tuesday they had the computer and they were working on it. I was told to call back Friday. The odd thing of it is,the doorbell rang the next morning and it was FedEX, delivering my repaired computer! I had trouble getting the wireless mouse and keyboard to sync up but by calling tech support the person and I were able to get things going. The only thing of it is they didn't have any record of what had been wrong with the monitor and what was done to repair it.

I just got of the phone with Gateway and was inspired to google "gateway sucks." That quickly brought me to this site. They have had my computer for close to a month with no end in sight. What was once a decent company is now no more than a joke. My only hope is that I get my computer back before they go bankrupt. Think twice, make that three times before doing business with them.

I bought an E Series computer from Gateway 6 mos ago and have had nothing but problems. I have spoken with dozens of useless technicians, supervisors etc. They sent a new hard drive to me, which took two weeks, for me to install, which didn't fix the problem, only made it worse, now it's completely unusable. Now I have to pay to ship it to them so they can diagnose the problem, no guarantees of how long it will take and then they'll "fix the problem". I find them completely impossible to deal with, everyone is very apologetic, however noone is willing to step up and take responsibility for the numerous mistakes made by them. Basically, you are out of luck if you want help from them.

I bought a solo 5300 laptop in april of 2004. I have had nothing but problems but this is the best one to date.
I sent it in for repairs in august because of a motherboard problem. they said it will be fixed in 5-7 days. It is oct 12 and I still do not have it back. They say they are waiting for parts and cannt tell me when I will get it back. I think gateway sucks and would not recomend buying anything from them. They do not care about their customers STAY AWAY FROM GATEWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My parents bought me a Solo 5300 as a graduation gift in July 2001. I was going off to study computer engineering, so they shelled out the extra money to get me a laptop. 900mhz p3 processor, 20gb hdd, 512mb ram. In October 2001, my screen went bad. It literally looked like a rainbow had melted across my screen. I called tech support, and they said to send it in. So I did, only the USPS damaged my computer along the way. In order to make a claim to the USPS to recover the insurance money, Gateway had to send me both my computer and the box it had arrived in. I spoke to a Gateway supervisor about all this, who assured me they'd do just that so I would have the money to get my computer fixed. A week later, the computer arrives WITHOUT the box, but with a Post-It on my computer instructing the packer to send the original box. I call Gateway again, and I'm told they no longer have the box and there's nothing they're going to do about it. 2 weeks and I don't know how many phone calls later, Gateway finally agrees to replace my computer (I reported them to the Better Business Bureau and then told them so). So in November 2001 I receive my second Solo 5300. It is now on it's third CD burner and second harddrive. It's been in for servicing about every 3 months pretty regularly since I received it. Last month, the warranty expired (and they don't renew warranties past 3 years). Frequent lockups, a penchant for losing files (always the ones I need, too). Now I'm having trouble getting it to boot into windows (today was a good day - it booted into safe mode, let me do a system restore, and then actually booted normally on the third try). I called tech support, and he tells me it's a virus. I point out to him that I reformatted last week because it was doing this, and it's still doing it, so how is it a virus? He can't answer that, but continues to insist it's a virus and if I reformat, the problem will be fixed. I took it to Best Buy for a second opinion. Their diagnosis: the harddrive's going bad again. I'm now looking at Dell, as I'll be needing a new computer soon. I'm really disappointed in Gateway. My first computer was a refurbished one my parents bought from Gateway back in 1994. That thing is still running strong (except for the fact that the processor's so old we can't even "upgrade" to windows 95). That computer is the entire reason my parents purchased my laptop from Gateway. They're really screwing up because, since I studied computer engineering, my friends and family are always asking my opinion when they want to buy a new computer. I will never again buy a Gateway, and I will have everyone I know do the same.

My parents bought me a Solo 5300 as a graduation gift in July 2001. I was going off to study computer engineering, so they shelled out the extra money to get me a laptop. 900mhz p3 processor, 20gb hdd, 512mb ram. In October 2001, my screen went bad. It literally looked like a rainbow had melted across my screen. I called tech support, and they said to send it in. So I did, only the USPS damaged my computer along the way. In order to make a claim to the USPS to recover the insurance money, Gateway had to send me both my computer and the box it had arrived in. I spoke to a Gateway supervisor about all this, who assured me they'd do just that so I would have the money to get my computer fixed. A week later, the computer arrives WITHOUT the box, but with a Post-It on my computer instructing the packer to send the original box. I call Gateway again, and I'm told they no longer have the box and there's nothing they're going to do about it. 2 weeks and I don't know how many phone calls later, Gateway finally agrees to replace my computer (I reported them to the Better Business Bureau and then told them so). So in November 2001 I receive my second Solo 5300. It is now on it's third CD burner and second harddrive. It's been in for servicing about every 3 months pretty regularly since I received it. Last month, the warranty expired (and they don't renew warranties past 3 years). Frequent lockups, a penchant for losing files (always the ones I need, too). Now I'm having trouble getting it to boot into windows (today was a good day - it booted into safe mode, let me do a system restore, and then actually booted normally on the third try). I called tech support, and he tells me it's a virus. I point out to him that I reformatted last week because it was doing this, and it's still doing it, so how is it a virus? He can't answer that, but continues to insist it's a virus and if I reformat, the problem will be fixed. I took it to Best Buy for a second opinion. Their diagnosis: the harddrive's going bad again. I'm now looking at Dell, as I'll be needing a new computer soon. I'm really disappointed in Gateway. My first computer was a refurbished one my parents bought from Gateway back in 1994. That thing is still running strong (except for the fact that the processor's so old we can't even "upgrade" to windows 95). That computer is the entire reason my parents purchased my laptop from Gateway. They're really screwing up because, since I studied computer engineering, my friends and family are always asking my opinion when they want to buy a new computer. I will never again buy a Gateway, and I will have everyone I know do the same.

My parents bought me a Solo 5300 as a graduation gift in July 2001. I was going off to study computer engineering, so they shelled out the extra money to get me a laptop. 900mhz p3 processor, 20gb hdd, 512mb ram. In October 2001, my screen went bad. It literally looked like a rainbow had melted across my screen. I called tech support, and they said to send it in. So I did, only the USPS damaged my computer along the way. In order to make a claim to the USPS to recover the insurance money, Gateway had to send me both my computer and the box it had arrived in. I spoke to a Gateway supervisor about all this, who assured me they'd do just that so I would have the money to get my computer fixed. A week later, the computer arrives WITHOUT the box, but with a Post-It on my computer instructing the packer to send the original box. I call Gateway again, and I'm told they no longer have the box and there's nothing they're going to do about it. 2 weeks and I don't know how many phone calls later, Gateway finally agrees to replace my computer (I reported them to the Better Business Bureau and then told them so). So in November 2001 I receive my second Solo 5300. It is now on it's third CD burner and second harddrive. It's been in for servicing about every 3 months pretty regularly since I received it. Last month, the warranty expired (and they don't renew warranties past 3 years). Frequent lockups, a penchant for losing files (always the ones I need, too). Now I'm having trouble getting it to boot into windows (today was a good day - it booted into safe mode, let me do a system restore, and then actually booted normally on the third try). I called tech support, and he tells me it's a virus. I point out to him that I reformatted last week because it was doing this, and it's still doing it, so how is it a virus? He can't answer that, but continues to insist it's a virus and if I reformat, the problem will be fixed. I took it to Best Buy for a second opinion. Their diagnosis: the harddrive's going bad again. I'm now looking at Dell, as I'll be needing a new computer soon. I'm really disappointed in Gateway. My first computer was a refurbished one my parents bought from Gateway back in 1994. That thing is still running strong (except for the fact that the processor's so old we can't even "upgrade" to windows 95). That computer is the entire reason my parents purchased my laptop from Gateway. They're really screwing up because, since I studied computer engineering, my friends and family are always asking my opinion when they want to buy a new computer. I will never again buy a Gateway, and I will have everyone I know do the same.

My parents bought me a Solo 5300 as a graduation gift in July 2001. I was going off to study computer engineering, so they shelled out the extra money to get me a laptop. 900mhz p3 processor, 20gb hdd, 512mb ram. In October 2001, my screen went bad. It literally looked like a rainbow had melted across my screen. I called tech support, and they said to send it in. So I did, only the USPS damaged my computer along the way. In order to make a claim to the USPS to recover the insurance money, Gateway had to send me both my computer and the box it had arrived in. I spoke to a Gateway supervisor about all this, who assured me they'd do just that so I would have the money to get my computer fixed. A week later, the computer arrives WITHOUT the box, but with a Post-It on my computer instructing the packer to send the original box. I call Gateway again, and I'm told they no longer have the box and there's nothing they're going to do about it. 2 weeks and I don't know how many phone calls later, Gateway finally agrees to replace my computer (I reported them to the Better Business Bureau and then told them so). So in November 2001 I receive my second Solo 5300. It is now on it's third CD burner and second harddrive. It's been in for servicing about every 3 months pretty regularly since I received it. Last month, the warranty expired (and they don't renew warranties past 3 years). Frequent lockups, a penchant for losing files (always the ones I need, too). Now I'm having trouble getting it to boot into windows (today was a good day - it booted into safe mode, let me do a system restore, and then actually booted normally on the third try). I called tech support, and he tells me it's a virus. I point out to him that I reformatted last week because it was doing this, and it's still doing it, so how is it a virus? He can't answer that, but continues to insist it's a virus and if I reformat, the problem will be fixed. I took it to Best Buy for a second opinion. Their diagnosis: the harddrive's going bad again. I'm now looking at Dell, as I'll be needing a new computer soon. I'm really disappointed in Gateway. My first computer was a refurbished one my parents bought from Gateway back in 1994. That thing is still running strong (except for the fact that the processor's so old we can't even "upgrade" to windows 95). That computer is the entire reason my parents purchased my laptop from Gateway. They're really screwing up because, since I studied computer engineering, my friends and family are always asking my opinion when they want to buy a new computer. I will never again buy a Gateway, and I will have everyone I know do the same.

My HS school brough 10 Gateway E-series loaded with MS Office Professional. The boxes came with no manual nor CD from Gateway and MS. After registration, try to run EXCEL, WORD or any MS application, popup ask for the Product Key. But there is MS package nor CD nor manual. Called and email to their sales, technical support, no responses at all. It has been 2 months and I can't use WORD. NEVER buy anything from Gateway. They should be in Chapter 11!!!. BUt then these studip people from my district ordered them.

Bought my laptop back in 2002 and it has worked great until this last August when I started having keyboard problems. After talking to c.s. they sent out a new keyboard. They said that if I had further problems to call back. Unfortunately, that did not fix the problem. Customer service then arranged to have shipping materials sent out so I could have it fixed under warranty. They said that it would take at least ten business days for the repairs to be completed. I shipped the computer on a Monday and to my surprise, it was returned the following Thursday. All is working great now. Through all of this, Gateway was fast, friendly, and prompt.

Bought my laptop back in 2002 and it has worked great until this last August when I started having keyboard problems. After talking to c.s. they sent out a new keyboard. They said that if I had further problems to call back. Unfortunately, that did not fix the problem. Customer service then arranged to have shipping materials sent out so I could have it fixed under warranty. They said that it would take at least ten business days for the repairs to be completed. I shipped the computer on a Monday and to my surprise, it was returned the following Thursday. All is working great now. Through all of this, Gateway was fast, friendly, and prompt.

Bought my laptop back in 2002 and it has worked great until this last August when I started having keyboard problems. After talking to c.s. they sent out a new keyboard. They said that if I had further problems to call back. Unfortunately, that did not fix the problem. Customer service then arranged to have shipping materials sent out so I could have it fixed under warranty. They said that it would take at least ten business days for the repairs to be completed. I shipped the computer on a Monday and to my surprise, it was returned the following Thursday. All is working great now. Through all of this, Gateway was fast, friendly, and prompt.

I've had my Gateway 450 laptop for a little over two years now, and just recently the screen went dim. When I called customer service at 10pm on a Friday night I instantly got someone on the phone who was great at diagnosing the problem and arranged to have shipping materials sent out so I could have it fixed under my extended warranty. Needless to say, it was a nightmare waiting for the box to arrive; after almost two weeks I found out that there was some sort of "tax hold" on California orders and that there was no estimate as to when the boxes would ship out. After taking matters into my own hands and sending it by UPS, I was shocked to discover that not only was my laptop fixed the day it was received, it was sent out to UPS that night and arrived at my door the next day. Who knew that after all that waiting I would be rewarded with great service?

Never Buy a Gateway unless you want to waste many hours trying to get someone from there customer service to do anything for you. I own a Gateway labtop and after a year of service I decide to have them fix my keyboard before my warrenty expired. THAT WAS A BIG MISTAKE. They screwed up replacing my keyboard which lead to 4 months of argueing with gateway before something was done and my labtop was fixed. Then a few months later my cd drive died so they orderd me a part. Of course it's on back order and suppose to be in my hands by Sept. 17th. September 17th rolls around, no part so I call. Guess what? Now it's suppose to be in 27th and I am suppose to expect a phone call on the 24th. 24th and no phone call I call them. "What order?" They ask, as I explain to them. They lost my order and all they can do now is reorder it, and it's again on backorder! The expected date in now is 15th of October. One month later. Apparently they dont keep anything in stock, and it's "not their fault." What kind of company has no control over their stock of merchandise, or has no control over when said item will be made and shipped? I'll tell you, a company filing for Chapter 11.

Never Buy a Gateway unless you want to waste many hours trying to get someone from there customer service to do anything for you. I own a Gateway labtop and after a year of service I decide to have them fix my keyboard before my warrenty expired. THAT WAS A BIG MISTAKE. They screwed up replacing my keyboard which lead to 4 months of argueing with gateway before something was done and my labtop was fixed. Then a few months later my cd drive died so they orderd me a part. Of course it's on back order and suppose to be in my hands by Sept. 17th. September 17th rolls around, no part so I call. Guess what? Now it's suppose to be in 27th and I am suppose to expect a phone call on the 24th. 24th and no phone call I call them. "What order?" They ask, as I explain to them. They lost my order and all they can do now is reorder it, and it's again on backorder! The expected date in now is 15th of October. One month later. Apparently they dont keep anything in stock, and it's "not their fault." What kind of company has no control over their stock of merchandise, or has no control over when said item will be made and shipped? I'll tell you, a company filing for Chapter 11.

Never Buy a Gateway unless you want to waste many hours trying to get someone from there customer service to do anything for you. I own a Gateway labtop and after a year of service I decide to have them fix my keyboard before my warrenty expired. THAT WAS A BIG MISTAKE. They screwed up replacing my keyboard which lead to 4 months of argueing with gateway before something was done and my labtop was fixed. Then a few months later my cd drive died so they orderd me a part. Of course it's on back order and suppose to be in my hands by Sept. 17th. September 17th rolls around, no part so I call. Guess what? Now it's suppose to be in 27th and I am suppose to expect a phone call on the 24th. 24th and no phone call I call them. "What order?" They ask, as I explain to them. They lost my order and all they can do now is reorder it, and it's again on backorder! The expected date in now is 15th of October. One month later. Apparently they dont keep anything in stock, and it's "not their fault." What kind of company has no control over their stock of merchandise, or has no control over when said item will be made and shipped? I'll tell you, a company filing for Chapter 11.

Bought a 1450 laptap for my daughter's 16th birthday in June of 2002. Purchased an extended warranty for it. Good thing too, I think!! She goes to college and her hard drive crashes. Gateway does the diagnosis (over the phone) and says they'll get a replacement out right away. Still don't have it. Going on 6 weeks. Can't believe something this simple can take so long. Only thing I get is the typical run-around. Customer service is useless. All they say is the part is on backorder and estimated date is... Trouble is everytime you call, estimated date changes.

Don't know what happened to this company but last Gateway I'll buy. Too bad because I buy computers for work, though admittedly Dell has gotten our business up to now anyway.

Local Gateway store closed. Sounds like the whole company is about to do the same.

As I write this, I'm on hold waiting for a "supervisor". 27 mins and counting.

Computer failed utterly after three months of ownership. (3 year warranty purchased).

Sent computer in.

They lost it.

Black hole.

Going on 30+ phone calls and many many weeks of no computer.

Gateway is going out of business.

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I have one Gateway Notebook, SOLO 9300.
It has been around 3 years since I bought it.
I found it not too bad at all. I use it to do my uni work,
chat online, listen to music, watch movie, play games, etc.
The reason I bought this computer because its bigger screen and
also its the biggest computer company in USA at that time
(my friend told me).
But Gateway company in Australia had been gone in 2003.
Once I called gateway tech support to upgrade my memory
and hard drive.
I was calling to the customer support in Malaysia and they helped me
with all my questions answered.
Now I am still using it and do not want to sell it for unreasonable
price.
So thats the end of my story!

HI NAME IS STEPHANIE THOMAS.I NEED A CD-ROM FOR MY COMPUTER MY CD-ROM IT IS BROKE I NEED A NEW ONE.I CAN'T BUY A NEW COMPUTER WILL YOU HELP ME.I NEED MY COMPUTER UPGRADE OR A NEW COMPUTER.

when i bought my first gateway in 2000 i was thrilled. faster
than a speeding bullet. no service calls. then, right after
warantee ran out, all hell broke loose.

fortunately there was a gateway store in hot springs, ar where i
live.

they "fixed it" but charged me $50 or so per virus removed. they
found four. (it had been scanned before the visit and none showed up
with updated symantic software. i later found out gateway got their
hands in about 20 other's wallets i knew for viruses that did not
exist. next thing i knew they left town in the middle of the night.

i wrote and called them in SD explaining the situation. they
routed me to a recording. no more gateways for me, thanks.

rick

Gateway I have only had a few problems with. I bought my Gateway about 1 and a half years ago. It was from Rentway. It has a CD-RW drive, an Intel Celeron or Pentium 4 which I don't remember, and came with xp. My problems with started a year after I had bought it. It seems that Gateway computers are designed to have Windows 98SE re-installed every few days. I got Windows 98SE because something wiped my Hard drive out. So, I

We were satisfied for years but now find it impossible to receive the
pictures our family try to send of our grandchildren as we dont have
Acrobat Adobe plus for certain items we notice on the screen we are
not able to receive as it requires aol 98 and we have 95.We need to know if it worth our while to have this one updated of would it be
cheaper just to buy an inexpensive computer that provides all these items we dont have.Please advise us on this. sincerely,Ron Nogle

I recently purchased a Gateway 710 Series desktop computer which is supposed to be Gateway's top of the line. When I received the computer and set it up, I couldn't believe how noisy it was. There is a small fan inside the tower that cools the mother board, and it hums terribly. I spoke with Gateway several times about it, and they told me that they know of the problem, but they don't have any cures. Gateway said, "They all do it!"

After getting as frustrated as I could get, I told Gateway that I wanted to return the computer. Now they are telling me that I missed the 15 day return window, and that I can't return it!!! I can't believe that a company of their size will not stand behind their product. I will never order another Gateway product, and I would surprise if they are in business much longer.

the gateway computer is amazing its simply great and i suggest all the computer user to use gateway computers it has very good speed and has ht processor in it,ggod computer on the whole and it is value for money

I bought 10 new-in-the-original-box Astro all-in-ones on eBay a couple years ago for $319 a piece. After the auction, the seller (who bought them at an Austin, Texas Gateway "inventory liquidation auction") informed me that he checked out a couple to find that the were DOA. He also said that he just called my local Gateway Country Store and he was told that the store would fix them for $145.62 each including tax. Minutes later, I verified it with the same store manager who said to go ahead (buy the 10 for $3,190, less a refund of $1,456.20 from the seller) and bring them in when I get them. I did just that and took in the first five the day that UPS delivered them.

After several weeks, I hadn't heard from Gateway so I stopped in. NOTHING HAD BEEN DONE, EXCEPT THE LOSS OF ONE OF THE BOXES. "You brought it in without a box," I was told. Yeah, right, butthead. I brought in four with boxes and thought it would be fun to mess with your head by claiming I brought ALL FIVE in boxes.

Anyway, they punched in the serial numbers and didn't find them on the Great Computer, so I was SOL. We can't fix your pieces of garbage that we should never have put on the market because we refuse to acknowledge that we ever made these. God knows, we wish we hadn't manufactured these...if, in fact, we ever DID manufacture these.

Thanks, Gateway for the doorstops and, after many hours, eBay commissions, UPS ground shipping and piece-mealing the accessories and CPUs, they only cost me about $1,000 net.

GATEWAY, YOU ASS-TRO-HOLES, I WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER AGAIN BUY YOUR TRASH OR BELIEVE YOUR LIES. YOUR NEW PROFILE 5 AT SAM'S CLUB LOOKS SWEET, BUT I WALK RIGHT PAST THE $1,500 DISPLAY. CONSIDERING THAT IT WOULD DIE IN A FEW WEEKS OR MONTHS, THE ASTROS ACTUALLY SAVED ME A NET OF $500!!!

Well dear souls tell ya what learn from other peoples
mistakes, DO NOT NOW OR IN THE FUTURE OR EVER, buy
a Gateway computer.
I have had two so far in my short,illustrious computing career.
Got a letter the other day informing me they were merging with
"we dont need no stickin techs" computing company.
Also in the letter they ARE closing all Gateway stores.
The reason the stores are closing is and this was a total shock.
THEY ARENT PROFITABLE.
Now if thats not a sure sign God is coming in my lifetime I
dont know what the hell is.
ALSO, get this,future Gateway buyers they have a new CEO.
I assume the old CEO took his stock options and fled to Belize.

I bought GATEWAY with wondows XP MARCH 3 ,2004 - total cost 1050.00 CASH . I have yet to be able to use it- 1st problem could not keep it on - sign in ,it shuts down, starts up automatically -then sign in --closes down - power is off -then power was on- called every tech at the company --after 15 days I can't get new computer --not even all my money back must pay shipping to Ark. 79.00 just to get part of my money back( restocking fee) .I can not reload windows ERRORS such as :-it does not reconize the cd as a microsoft product--dummped memory--illegal cd does not reconize plus about 10 pages of other error messages-the only thing i get now is Gateway logo and it is restarting windows but it must restart them in reverse because --i see nothing!!!It was rip off from day one.Windows 98 could be deleted and reprogramed but now this COW--its full of bullshit,supposed to take 39 minutes to finish when and IF it gets down to 20 min. remained -complely dumps and says you have eror--gate way is an error waiting to explode.

I bought a Gateway Profile 5 two months ago and right out of the box it didn't work. It would not "communicate" with my cable modem. Of course Gateway tech support tried to tell me that the modem was bad, the cable was bad, my cable co. was bad, etc. I would tell them again and again that all I had to do was unplug the profile 5 and plug in my laptop and it would work so it couldn't be the modem or cable. Two weeks later they finally admitted that the NIC card was faulty. That is when they also tell me that there is no on-site support for this unit (probably can't afford the staff due to the quality). I have to ship it to Arkansas for service. Two weeks later I get it back and when I plug it in the video won't work. Again, a full week of tech support hell and after I had to diagnose the problem, and then convince them of it, they decided the motherboard was faulty. They promised they would send one in 3-5 business days. Nine days later, after twice being told it was already shipped, they tell me they are out of stock and will take a couple of weeks to send. I have about 30 emails telling me they are sorry and this is not typical for Gateway. I had already bought another Gateway previously and had similiar problems (shame on me for being fooled twice). My suggestion, don't buy Gateway and maybe they will get the message.

I received a Gateway 2000 in 1997 as a Christmas gift. I have had some problems with the computer, but overall not that much. The first year I had problems, I contacted Gateway and had no results. I finally resolved to learning how to take care of my problems, which I did. The Gateway monitor that came with my computer was not worth the money. I threw it out and invested in a ViewSonic, which I really like. I am still using my Gateway, which I reformat every so often and then runs like new. I do not seem to be having all the problems that I have read in the reviews that others seem to have. I have upgraded my computer's ram memory, added cd-rewriter drive, another larger hard drive and all seems to be working okay. When I do plan on purchasing another computer, I will buy a Dell since the support is so much better. Luckily, I am able to resolve my problems by trial and error and doing a lot of reading. This is the only reason that I am still with my Gateway. My family members have the Dell computers. I am thinking that Dell may be the best overall.

Like an Idiot I bought a Gateway laptop about 16 months ago. I was under the impression I was getting top of the line product and service. For $1800 it should be.

In late Febuary while on a business trip my computer crashed. Would not load into Windows at all. When I returned home I took the computer into a gateway store. I paid the upfront price for system recovery of $99. Agreed to pay $59 a disc to have memory back up done, and payed an additional $59 to have the computer go straight to the bench, instead of waiting like 17days to have it repaired.

So two days later I have not heard from gateway, and I call them & find out from a techy that they have not even began work on the computer, so I'm pissed and tell them I want the $59 for priority service refunded, he tells me no problem. About a half hour later I get a call from the Michigan, Ohio Regional Service Manager, Josh Hill. He explains to me that the computer had been on the bench and it will be finished in the afternoon, so they don't need to refund the $59. I'm like ok whatever, I'll stop by to pick it up.

So I drive to the gateway store to pick up the computer. I argue about the $59 priority service and get that taken of the bill. Take the computer back to my office turn it on, and find that there are no programs on it anymore. Just a bare XP without word, exel, anything. Now had it been explained to me that a system restore does not mean they reload files, that would be fine, unfortunately that was'nt explained, and I lost all my start up disks. So now I use Office 2000 since my company has the disks. So office 2000 is loaded I insert the back up disks, and come to find out there not mine, they belong to some day care center.

After several trips to the gateway store, the backup disks were lost, so years worth of files are lost. Gateway offers to refund what I paid $158. And give me a $100 store credit, which I told them to stick in their ass. I don't want there products anymore even if they are free!!!

So we're to this $158 credit. Which store manager says will be credited to my Visa in 24 hrs. A week later no credit. I call Gateway (getting ahold of accounting there is like trying to contact the president; impossible) and they tell me I won't be credited until March 22, like a month after I took the computer in.

Ok so today is March 25th, still have not been credited $158. I find out on the phone today they mailed my check to Colorado (where I used to live) and never wrote down my change of address. So my battle continues to get my money.

How this company is still in business baffles me, I guess good marketing, all I know is that I will never get another Gateway, I don't want there $100 store credit, and I would'nt wish my worst enemy to even have a gateway. The name is'nt worth the paper it is printed on.

Final foot note; the tech that worked on my computer, who incidentally lost the memory. Was none other then the Regional Service Manager Josh Hill. If there Regional manager can't fix a computer right, then good luck to people with Gateway products.

Everyone that I know that has bought a Gateway has wished they didn't. Can you say LEMON? For the price you pay for a Gateway it certainly isn't worth it. Back in 2000 (sept.) my boyfriend bought a Gateway Essential 633c. The motherboard has had two to be replaced, a new hard drive had to be replaced, 3 keyboards because they would short out, 2 power supplies had to be replaced. I could go on and on. Anyway, we took really good care of it because the dang think was expensive. Even when it would start to thunder out...we would unplug the computer and the phone line that ran to it. I will never ever buy a Gateway again. Their customer support sucks. I flat out told a supervisor that I bought a lemon and was displeased. She acted very rudely so then I told her I would buy a Dell and we did and have had no problems what so ever. Buy a Dell and stay far away from Gateway's piece of trash computers.

I received a Gateway Profile 5X for Christmas. Less than 2 months later, the disk drive reported it was inoperable. OK, stuff happens.
After some hassle, it was decided that the disk drive was under warranty. Would I please download a diagnostic, and load it on a floppy that was not formatted on a WinNT, Win2K, or WinXP system?
What planet are these people from? Every computer in block runs one of those systems. Further discussion revealed that the diagnostic is also on one of the Gateway CD's. Fine. After the diagnostic confirmed that the S.M.A.R.T. drive said it was broke, they sent me a replacement drive. They are keeping my credit card number hostage in case I don't send the broken drive back fast enough.

I was pleased to find that the disk drive was preloaded with Windows XP. All I have to do is update the drivers, right? I ran the update procedure, and 5 devices, including the Ethernet controller, do not have drivers. They are presumably on the Driver CD, but it cannot find them.

I work with computers every day. I have an advanced degree in Computer Science, and I am not too proud to RTFM. It says that reformatting and reinstalling WinXP from the Gateway XP CD will load many of the drivers. OK, in for a penny, in for a pound.

After hours of watching Windows XP do it's thing, it says to insert the red Driver CD. I can do that. As I watch, it cheerfully installs all sorts of rubbish, but when the dust settles, I still have 5 devices without drivers.

Fortunately, the Profile also has a wireless interface, so I let it on the network, and headed for Gateway support. Am I in luck! You can type in your serial number, and it says it will list all the drivers for your system. Except mine. When I ask for the drivers,
it tells me that the page is unavailable, and to contact the system administrator.

I still have to find out what bizarre devices Gateway has put in this box, and find drivers for them. I swear I will never buy another Gateway, or even accept one as a gift. When you build a system, at least you know what's in there.

I purchased a Gateway system 3 years ago and six months after I got it I was wishing I bought a Dell. Every thing that could go wrong with the system did. I called many times for tech support and found that most of their tech's were dumb as dirt or they treated me poorly because I was a woman. I sent the system in and had them work on it only to get it back just as bad as before if not worse. After many calls and hours of argueing they did send a Tech to my home but only to have her leave about 10 minutes after getting here telling me that it should be sent back and that I would be hearing from them as soon as she cleared it with the company. Only I never did hear from them instead I had to go through the hours of calling and fighting with them on the phone to be told that they had to get approval first before I could send it in for repairs. They continued to put me off until the day my warrenty expired. Then at that point they were more then willing to help me out. What a joke that is because I sure is heck aint going to pay them to fix what should have been fixed when they first had it in for repairs. So now I have a pc that is a piece of junk and over $300.00 of educational software that I have not yet been able to use that they sold me because the pc that they sold me was messed up from the start. All I can say is if you want a very large paper weight buy a Gateway!!!!

This isn't just about Gateway, but about the whole lot of these companies.

Ladies and Gentlemen, do yourself a HUGE favor and build your own machine. It ISN'T that hard, trust me. If you are still skittish about it, chances are VERY good you know someone that can do it for you. Worst case scenario, go to a local mom and pop computer repair store and pay them to put the pieces together for you.

Advantages:
1) Even if you pay someone to put it together, you save hundreds of dollars.

2) You get what YOU want, not what these companies THINK you want

3) If meets your needs 100%

4) You don't end up paying for unhelpful tech support that tells you to call Microsoft or someone else that they pass the buck on.

5) Upgrading is EASY and possible. Most of these company made machines are not very upgradable. Want a new video card? Buy a new machine.

Disadvantages to building your own:

1) You don't get cool bootup screens like the Black and White cow looking thing that says GATEWAY

2) Trying to think of more, gimme a second

3) Still trying to think of a disadvantage

I bought a wonderful Gateway laptop computer (M500) in October 2003. My daughter spilled a soda in the keyboard. After checking the machine out, I was lucky as in that only the keyboard was damaged. However, whenever I tried to order this part I was informed that because I did not have the accidental coverage, I could not have the part sent to me. They informed me that I could send my laptop to them and pay a flat hardware fee of $299 plus the shipping fees. They also informed me that most likely the motherboard was damaged as well and would need replacing.

This is a rip off. I am perfectly willing to buy the part but Gateway would rather charge me $299 to replace the broken keyboard that is only worth $45.

Bought a Gateway Solo 5150 about 4 years ago. In deference to the reviewer who thinks people who complain are stupid, stuff it. I did my research, and Gateway was supposed to be the standard in quality, value, and customer service (which is M-F, BTW, and oh, you can get to it 24-7 on the Web, kind of hard if your computer is broken). When the FIRST hard drive blew, I had to ship the computer to Texas to have it fixed (I'm in Kentucky, and that was the closest service center). The computer was still under warranty (this was about 3 months after I bought it), and they replaced the hard drive, the monitor AND the keyboard. I had to PAY to have it shipped and it took about 3 months to get it back. In the meantime, bought a cheap HP desktop that sufficed until the Gateway made its return. In their defense, the CD-ROM drive is not made by Gateway, and can't remember the company that does make it, but it's crap. It never worked right from the beginning, and since Gateway doesn't make it, the warranty didn't cover it. So, crappy, partially working CD-ROM drive. The computer worked beautifully for about a year or so, and then the hard drive crashed again, and since then, it's made a lovely $2,000 paperweight on my living room floor. Have just been looking at buying new parts for it (the case is great), and stumbled on this site.

Bought a GREAT Dell desktop, it's flawless, has been for a year, bought a used Dell notebook on half.com and it's never behaved anything other than beautifully.

DO NOT BUY A GATEWAY!!!! You might as well take your money outside and throw it away on the wind, because you get NO support, NO refunds, and pretty much NO computer most of the time............

i have a gateway g6-300 and have a hard time upgrading a cd burner, can anyone help me suggestions?ive heard that the motherboard isnt compatible .. all help much appreciated

My expeiriance with gateway was horible. my girlfriend and I have two new gateway computers both of which we spent just about $2000 on. neither of them are operational right now. we have done everything to get them up and running but still one thing after another. We also bought her mom a gateway and its in the closet too. reciently we purchased 2 new DELL's, one laptop and one desktop. Both of the DELLs run flawless. I dont know how dells tech suport is as I have never had to use it. Gateway refused to help me as I didnt buy the extended warrenty and they are just over the limit. Please dont buy a gateway, they are crap!

I recently purchased a laptop from Gateway. I naively thought
that the number of complaints with them was only sour grapes
or inexperienced users unwilling to admit their own failures.
My apologies to you all.

Gateway had a fixed set of laptops available. Of them, I
chose one and asked them to change certain things on it (a
larger hard drive, and a DVD/CDRW instead of CDRW). I gave
an explicit list of what I wanted and was told they would
fulfill it.

I received the machine via courier and opened it. Okay, XP
is a piece of crap, but I should be able to repartition and
keep Linux and DOS on separate installations...WRONG! XP
hoards the entire system to itself, preventing other OSs
from being installed. (A warning to those thinking of
downgrading to XP.)

Now to gateway's screwup: I open the computer and plan to
start sorting old CDs, uploading files onto the HD and then
burning them onto new CDs...I said "burn them onto CDs,
please"...WFT?!?~!!?! It was DVD/CD*R* drive, not a writer.
Not only is it not what I wanted but the drive which was
replaced was a writer. *Why* would I not want a CD writer
in this day and age? On top of that, I had to *ask* for it
and *pay extra* to have it installed.

That's annoying, but I was willing to give gateway the benefit
of the doubt and assume it was an honest mistake.

I sent an email to the person I was contacting, and at his
private address. I write again. And again. *TWO* weeks
pass and STILL no response from this clown. Of course,
*before* I had paid, he was willing to respond to my emails
within hours. Now, nothing.

On top of that, when I tried several times to FDISK the HD
and install other OSs (linux, DOS, Lose95 - hey, it works,
so why not...) but the computer hardware chokes on anything
but DOS. Nothing runs. New hardware, this NTFS crap, isn't
meant to be compatible? Okay, then why wasn't I told?
Before I bought the damned thing, I asked about multiple OS
setups; gateway's liar told me "no problem, it'll work".
Instead, only partitions that works are XP and DOS, and DOS
only works if I boot from the floppy disk.

So I'm thinking, "Okay, Mr. gateway toadie dimwit, you want
to ignore me? Fine, I'll collect every damn email address
at gateway and let them know what you did in full." Over
one hundred addresses got a full explanation of every blunder
and bit of idiocy I encountered. So far, they have begun to
respond, realizing that I'm not going away and that I expect
them to refund my money.

I still stuck with the machine, I'm still fighting to get my
money back, and I'm pissed off because the mental midgets at
gateway didn't answer my questions. *All* the problems I'm
having with it, I asked them beforehand to ensure there would
be no problems; instead, I encountered either baldfaced lies
about what the computer could and couldn't do, complete
incompetence at responding in a reasonable time and responding
properly, and worst of all, their outright dishonesty by twice
claiming I received what I asked for: first denying that I
gave them a list of specifications, then lying again before I
sent them a list of serial numbers and model numbers of the
wrongly inserted parts.

Plain and simply said: don't buy from gateway. It's clear to
me that their sole concern is getting your money in the door,
not whether they have met your needs, your requests, your
order or their obligations.

I have used computers most of my life, since I was about 4, and I have never had as much of a problem with any as I have with Gateway. Now to be fair, I do not own a Gateway computer, I own a Dell. My monitor blew and I bought an older Gateway 2000 1024 NI monitor. This is where the problems start. The monitor is supposed to be able to handle 1024X(whatever goes here). I expectantly plugged it up. Loaded the drivers and boom, squiggly lines all over the place. I was dumbfounded. I reloaded in safe mode and loaded again. Same problem. I cannot get this stupid monitor to play in 800X640 much less higher. I can barely get it to play in 640X480. I cannot load the correct drivers for it as they do not work. I have reformated twice with no luck. I actually have to load the wrong drivers to even get it to show 640X480.

POINT----------------------
DO NOT USE GATEWAY!!!!!!!!!!!

i own a gw2k, model p5-75 for 3 years and it never gives o problem. the only problem is that the hard drive is losing programs, but i guess it would since the system is 9 years old. this system has a 400mhz processor and 2gb hard drive but still works like a dream com true. it is so great that i burn cd's(had to install the burner my self) , edit music and a whole lot of other stuff that some of the latest computers(with intel pentium 4 processors)can't do. if u r to buy a new pc dont go dell or hq or compaq or sony, buy a system from gateway. trust me u will be amazed.

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