Dell sucks :evil:
Not sure about their laptops, but the last couple of their low and mid-range desktops I've seen (the insides) are absolutely horrible. Bad chipset, bad memory config, bad upgradability, evil Intel Extreme Int. video, blah blah blah. Really, unless you buy one of their top-of-the-line XPS', you will get some really crappy hardware.
Not sure about their Tech support but sounds like it's horrid as well. :roll:
I would recommend checking out their forums and a range of other places around the web - someone must have a clue about it.
(that's how I've found out what the 5yr-old eMachines, which was given to me, had inside of it and what it could and could not support)

Edit: Looks like you already found a solution, nevermind >_>