Dell Support Assist: Is it legitimate?

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Lately a screen has appeared which has the Dell symbol on the right and advice to Engage Support plus Issue detected. “Support Assist has detected an issue on your system. A hardware component needs to be replaced” etc. I copied the screen but am not sure how to upload the graphic.
Any thoughts?39440-Dell-Support

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This looks like the sort of automated alert issued when there’s something like a product recall, e.g. laptop batteries. In my opinion you need to continue to the next screen (i.e. Step 2) so you get more information… probably an email telling you what the issue is and how to resolve it.

Without further details of your Dell device (PC? laptop?) it’s a bit difficult to provide more advice. However, in addition, you may wish to consider going to the Dell Support site (of whatever country you live in) and inputting your Dell’s Service Tag to see whether any part recall information is displayed. The Service Tag can usually be found on the rear of a Dell PC or on the underside of a Dell laptop.

Another alternative is to phone Dell Support for the country you live in and say you’ve received a Dell SupportAssist alert on your device and would like to know how best to respond. You will be asked for your Dell Service Tag or Express Service Code. Both are found on the same sticker attached to the device. From your Dell, have a look at Find My Express Service Code for more info.

Yet another alternative is to run Dell Diagnostics, if available, on your device. Again, without more info about the device, i.e. model no., it’s difficult to advise further.

Hope this helps…

(MODS – Does this topic need to be moved to Other Technologies > Hardware?)

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I have a Dell desktop, Vosotro 230.

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A Dell Vostro 230 appears to be an early 2010 Mini Tower PC so I’m guessing it’s running Windows 7 – probably Home Premium x64.

I had a look on both the Dell Support (US) and Dell Support (UK) sites for Vostro 230 (I’m just guessing here) and couldn’t see any product recall announcements nor did a Google search for “vostro 230 recall” bring up any hits.

I suggest you carry on to Steps 2 and 3 then report back if you don’t get any further or helpful info from Dell about what issue is being reported by your PC.

Alternatively, run the quick test for common hardware problems on the Vostro 230 support pages.

quick test for common hardware problems for Vostro 230 (US)

quick test for common hardware problems for Vostro 230 (UK)

Hope this helps…

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The online quick check requires me to turn over more control and info than I really wish to. Maybe if I were a geek I could handle it

The screen which I uploaded previously continues to appear fairly often. What puzzles me is this: if there is truly a hardware problem why must I go thru hoops to determine the problem? Why not be forthright and give some indication of the alleged problem.

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The online quick check requires me to turn over more control and info than I really wish to.

In that case it’s probably best to continue with Step 2 onwards in the Dell SupportAssist alert.

What puzzles me is this: if there is truly a hardware problem why must I go thru hoops to determine the problem? Why not be forthright and give some indication of the alleged problem.

You would need to ask Dell this question.

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What puzzles me is this: if there is truly a hardware problem why must I go thru hoops to determine the problem?

Clicking Next twice is not really jumping through hoops.

Why not be forthright and give some indication of the alleged problem.

What does it say on the Step 3 of 3 Summary?

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Flu complications have slowed my response. I just ran a Dell test that was available on the PC itself without *apparently* compromising any personal info and did not require going online. Everything passed. The whole thing boggles my mind. I’ll try to upload the results.39480-Dell2

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For info, neither your PLS DH-16AES CDROM drive, Western Digital WD10EZEX-08M2NA0 hard disk or Seagate ST500DM002-1BD14 hard disk is SCSI-based. They all have SATA interfaces… which PC-Doctor should have detected.

You may wish to use something like HD Tune (either the trial Pro version or the free version) to check the S.M.A.R.T. status of your hard disks as these are probably the most likely bit of hardware to develop faults.

Hope this helps…

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For info, neither your PLS DH-16AES CDROM drive, Western Digital WD10EZEX-08M2NA0 hard disk or Seagate ST500DM002-1BD14 hard disk is SCSI-based. They all have SATA interfaces… which PC-Doctor should have detected.
…

The drives are represented in the OS as SCSI through the storage controller driver. PC-Doctor can often tunnel through the SCSI layer to speak ATA to the drive using a SATL passthrough, in which cases the drive will have ATA-based tests (including SMART) and ATA system information. Even in these cases the name of the device is taken from the Windows Device Manager so you see “SCSI Disk Device” in the title. An alternative could be to build the device name using the ATA Model Number to avoid confusion.

This view in the UI hides which tests are running on devices to prevent overwhelming most consumers. You can determine if the SMART tests tests ran by viewing the detailed test log. Go to the ‘View Detailed Report’ link at the top-center of the above page scroll a bit to find the disk drive. The report will show which tests ran after the drive’s system information. If the drive was accessible as ATA, then you’ll see the SMART Status test and either the SMART Short Self-Test or SMART Extended Self-Test in the results.

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Conundrum – I should have written “which PC-Doctor should have shown’. My point was that the PC-Doctor ‘report’ is for end-users who are usually non-technical… which is why they visit forums such as this. 🙂

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I have the same message appearing on my Dell as well. It requires me to give my Dell username and password before moving forward. When I tell it I don’t remember my password (which is not true), it tells me it doesn’t recognize my email address so it can’t send me info to reset my password. When I go to http://www.dell.com I can log in without any problem using that email address – and the password, which I *do* remember, but am not about to divulge to just any pop-up that shows up on my computer. So, like PCLearner, I am suspicious. I’ll call Dell and post the result of the call.

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Dave7 – Have a look at SupportAssist for PCs and Tablets FAQs for info about what happens. At a guess, SupportAssist needs a username and password for one of Dell’s Technical Support servers rather than a web server like http://www.dell.com. To check, you could ask in the SupportAssist end-user forum.

Hope this helps…

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Thanks for the quick reply. I just got off the phone with Dell, and they had me run through the hardware diagnostics (by rebooting and tapping “F12” to start the computer in diagnostics mode and automatically start the test). No issues were found and the guy I spoke with couldn’t even verify whether or not a pop-up like I was seeing is part of the Dell “SupportAssist” utility. I see this same thing from some people posting on the support forum on Dell.com. They don’t reach any conclusion on those threads, however, it typically ends with the Dell expert asking for some specific info and then it seems the conversation may move off the thread at that point. The tech I spoke with suggested I ignore those pop-ups, and offered to help get rid of them for a fee since my computer is no longer under warranty. If it keeps popping up, I’ll be back online searching again.

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Thanks for the additional info. I find this pop-up as suspicious. If it were authentic why wouldn’t Dell techs know about it?

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Dell Support Assist has created problems with my CPU fan, and I am not alone on the web.

I had to remove this application…

Julien

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I finally removed a Dell Support utility(?) and have no more problems with a warning and the PC is working fine.

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I finally removed a Dell Support utility(?) and have no more problems with a warning and the PC is working fine.

That was the way to do!

Glad it worked for you too.

Julien

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The screen shown is an authentic one. It runs diagnostic checks on your system and foresees any issues that may occur to any of your hardware devices. You can proceed with the next steps and according to your warranty, you would be eligible for a free dispatch.

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I agree it may be legit but I object to it not IDing the issue and simply offering to coordinate to send you (sell y0ou) something. No guarantee the OP is still under warranty. Plus this is a 2 month old closed issue.

I agree the OP should determine what the issue was if legitimate. But they are free to keep assistant off their system if they choose. It takes up some CPU cycles.

Dell Diagnostics and Support Assistant to run the real deal:
https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/SLN114988/EN

https://www.dell.com/support/contents/us/en/04/article/Product-Support/Self-support-Knowledgebase/software-and-downloads/support-center

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