Are Some PCs Born Bad?

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine told me about his wonky laptop. It was a familiar story. His newish Vista box had, without much warning, begun collapsing into a blue-screen funk on almost a daily basis. He went on to explain that he'd spent countless hours on the phone with Dell support techs, all of whom were kind, polite, and intent on being helpful. The problem, of course, was that none of them had actually helped at all.
"When did you get this?" I asked. "April," he replied.
We were near my friend's office, so we stopped in so he could show me the laptop. I was startled by how new it was.
It was early June. The PC was not even three months old. The blue screens had begun within a few weeks of owning the Dell XPS M1530 laptop—one of PCMag's favorites (Cisco Cheng gave it four out of five stars). I asked my friend the usual questions: Had he installed any unusual apps, visited any odd sites, or opened an e-mail attachment that he probably shouldn't have?
His response: "No. It happens when I use the browser."
That seemed somewhat specific. In my experience, it's usually pretty hard to recreate a blue-screen experience. But my friend walked me through a simple series of steps…
"I start it up, open the browser, visit this site [one chosen from his favorites in IE7], and then…."
He trailed off as the system lapsed into a blue-screen coma. I was stunned. Rarely had I seen a consumer so expertly recreate a PC malfunction.

Holding a sheaf of papers in his hand, my friend pointed out notes from six different multi-hour support calls. He'd recorded the names of the support techs, as well as the time, date, and duration of each call. Each support tech had tried something different. For example, even though the PC came with security software, one had him install new protection from Trend Micro. In fact, there was a lot of utility installing and uninstalling. None of it worked.
(full story)