No, its not about their Indian accents :). I used their Dell Online chat. At first they tried saying my particular problem was with the software (impossible, it does the same thing in Linux and Windows, and even in the BIOS screens when no hard drive is even attached!)
Took me an hour to get some sense into the tech’s brains that it was a hardware issue. I have a Dell dispatch number now. Going to have them pick up my old laptop for repairs. When I get it back, time for some fun :). Get my mom to start using Ubuntu or something.