Dell Certification, anyone have it?

Matt_Smi

For my new job I need to get Dell Certified, DCSE I think. I am not too worried about it as I have heard it is easier than A+ and I found A+ to be overall easy. I believe I have to take the test a week from now. I am getting trained next week and then I think on Friday I am taking the test. I was just wondering what to expect, thanks.

Megadeth4168

I spoke with a tech whereas the company he worked for was contracted by Dell to do computer repairs on Dell machines in our area....

He told me that it is pretty much as easy as teh A+ but requires you to recertify often... The tests also get specific about dell products from what I understand.

laneh

Where I work, we do a lot of Dell warranty work, so I had to get certified on all 6 or 7 of the areas (desktop, laptop, server, printer, etc). They were all open book tests, taken online, but are only good for one year. The first set was free, but I'm not sure if you have to pay when you have to renew your certs. Guess I'll find out when mine come up in July!

Matt_Smi

I took my Dell tests today, and for anyone wondering they are easy. Through my company I can take as many as I want for free, and have three tries to pass. I passed seven tests today, I failed one of the 5 questions tests once but that’s it. You need an 80% to pass for all their exams, so on the 5 question ones you can only miss one. Some of the questions are worded a bit weird; you need to read carefully but other than that them being open book makes them very easy. If they were not open book they would be very difficult because unless you have worked on all their machines many times it is hard to remember how everything comes apart and some of the question are very specific, and on the ones with more than one answer they never tell you how many to choose. I was only required to get six of them though my company, I was bored and had time so I took the wireless one for fun, the seven tests took me three hours total. I plan to take more in my spare time, but I guess I am a DCSE now, I am not really sure if just passing one test grants you that title or you need a certain amount, anyone know?

Ricka182

I am also a DCSE for work. First you become an Associate DCSE, under on of the following, desktops & workstations, portables, or servers. To stay certified, there is an annual exam, and then if any new products came out, there may be a new exam for that as well. There is also a Master level, which is obtainable only after you get Associate level on servers first. Then is a required hands-on course you must attend in Round Rock, Texas. You can get more info at http://dcse.dell.com

Matt_Smi

I have a total of around 16 certs from Dell now, I have passed all of the ones under Workstation, Notebook and Desktop (except for those warranty/customer only ones). Does that mean I am a DCSE for Workstations/Desktops and for Notebooks? I really have no desire to take the server, storage and printer tests since I don’t work with that stuff, yet anyway.

Ricka182

If you want to certify in Desktops, you will need to take the Associate V5.0 OptiPlex, Associate V5.0 Dimension and Associate V5.0 Workstations.
If you want to certify in Servers, you will need to take the Associate Server V5.0 Part 1 and Part 2.
If you want to certify in Portables, you will need to take the Associate V5.0 Latitude and the Associate V5.0 Inspiron.


Those are the actual cert exams, the others are prerequsites for the above.

Matt_Smi

Ok I see, are these tests that you must take at a testing center and not online? Because I don’t see them available for sign up online.

endersftd

I've got a DCSE in the Dell Latitude 2005 category. I needed this when I was hired under contract by Unisys to replace a bunch of laptop hard drives for an unnamed company. Unisys then provided me access to this certification. Now I would like to have more Dell certifications, but I don't see any kind of pricing, since I'm no longer under Unisys contract and DCSE's website doesn't show pricing. Any information on DCSE expenses?

Ricka182

DCSE is not cheap. In fact, with all the exams you can take, it could cost thousands. Some of the certs even require hands-on classes at the Dell labs in Round Rock, Texas. I think each exam is about $175 now, maybe more. You can get all the info at the DCSE website. They also have other exams which are required by Dell, regardless of which cert you hold.

ajs1976

From the DCSE FAQs: http://dcse.dell.com/faq.asp

Q. Is it $179 per exam? I've already paid for one exam and when I request the second part, I'm still getting the billing screen.

A. The $179 fee covers all Associate exams for all product lines. The system is set up to require billing information for every request as a tracking method. You are not charged after the inital fee.

QuestionTime

I have 1 dell certifiication due to supporting one type of dell product in my previous job. I was wondering if I complete all the Desktop / Laptop exam, will they send a real certificate to me ?
Coz all I got is just a sheet print off from the DCSE web site.
Are they officially send you a real certification ?

Non-Profit Techie

i have the dell cert for 7 different types of machines/printers ext... what a joke. i would never concider that a cert.

QuestionTime

Totally agree. Coz what DCSE gave you is just a piece of paper but not real cert. I really can print it out from their web site. That looks not really official or You may have to do color print in order to make it look real.
Everyone pretty much can make there own DCSE cert.

So that's why I wonder is there a real cert given by Dell instead printing it out by yourself.

garv221

endersftd wrote:

I've got a DCSE in the Dell Latitude 2005 category. I needed this when I was hired under contract by Unisys to replace a bunch of laptop hard drives for an unnamed company. Unisys then provided me access to this certification.

I run all Dell servers with 4 hr replacements. A Unisys guy has came out when my backplane failed, he installed a HD & Array controller. He was DCSE. I have considered it in the past with the amount of Dells I have. A direct line to Dells parts/service dept should come with. I hate playing the phone game when calling them.

endersftd

I did some contract work for Unisys earlier and they required me to get a DCSE before I could actually do the work - they were nice enough to pay for it though. Unfortunately, the DCSE is registered through them, and they don't technically want me to use that certification for non-Unisys work.

TheFORCE

Im currently studying for the DCSE but are they really open book? does the managment know that this test is open book? so tomorrow im going in the office and will try to pass this, i was studying ALL day today, from 10 to 5 i was infront of the pc reading and reading about DELL equipemnt all that information and my brain is fried. I had no idea that the exam is open book. even tho one of the guys there did tell me that. But im new there so i dont know if i should go with the flow and do what everyone else is doing.

so is this really open book? i mean i can download the zip file and look at the answers while taking the test. is that legit for this exam?

borumas

Yeah the test were all open book basically and you are given a link to a site where you can search for the answers, I had the certs in 2003 and 2004 in everything but the servers as we did warranty work for them. I also had a few Lexmark laserjet printer certs that were basically the same deal as far as open book, we did warranty work for them also. Hmm, I guess I could list that under my certs in my profile here, didn't think of that lol.

borumas

QuestionTime wrote:

Totally agree. Coz what DCSE gave you is just a piece of paper but not real cert. I really can print it out from their web site. That looks not really official or You may have to do color print in order to make it look real.
Everyone pretty much can make there own DCSE cert.

So that's why I wonder is there a real cert given by Dell instead printing it out by yourself.

Dell used to give out a real cert, now they are cheap, when I got my DCSE in 2003 I was mailed a real cert with a gold foil stamp, then in 2004 they got cheap and you had to print your own. Companies pay allot of money to Dell to get their techs DCSE certified though and if you fail the test and retake it they are charged $50- at least that's how we were set up.

TheFORCE

Yesterday i was infront of the Pc screen again taking the certifications. I took 6 of them. the 3 foundation 2005 and some other small ones.

Then i tryed to take the "customer representative V2" or something like that i think its called and the most i was getting was 75% and now the cert is marked with red and i cant take it as i have exceeded the attempts i can take it. what can i do now? is there any other way to do something so i can un-mark this cert and take it again?

Djmario30

TheFORCE wrote:

Yesterday i was infront of the Pc screen again taking the certifications. I took 6 of them. the 3 foundation 2005 and some other small ones.

Then i tryed to take the "customer representative V2" or something like that i think its called and the most i was getting was 75% and now the cert is marked with red and i cant take it as i have exceeded the attempts i can take it. what can i do now? is there any other way to do something so i can un-mark this cert and take it again?

This is all the certs i have at the moment:
Certification Status
ID Certification Date
640 Client DSP - Customer Experience V.2 Certification 6/22/2006
619 Portables - Latitude D820 / Precision M65 Product Certification 5/22/2006
620 Portables - Latitude D620 - Product Certification 5/22/2006
552 Associate Server Self-Assessment V7.0 1/25/2006
551 Associate Server Certification V7.0 1/25/2006
424 Servers - PowerEdge 600SC Product Certification 1/16/2006
215 Servers - PowerEdge 500SC Product Certification 1/16/2006
280 Servers - PowerEdge 1500SC Product Certification 1/16/2006
602 Portables - Inspiron 630m XPS M140 1/11/2006
603 Portables - Inspiron 1300, B120 B130, Latitude 120L 10/27/2005
600 Customer Experience Certification 10/10/2005
542 DSP - Mini-Tower V.2 Chassis Certification 10/10/2005
548 Foundation 2005 Inspiron 9/25/2005
547 Foundation 2005 Latitude 9/24/2005
568 DSP - Desktops V.2 Chassis Certification 9/23/2005
543 Foundation 2005 Desktops 9/22/2005
447 Point of Sale Product Certification 9/22/2005
544 Portables - Latitude D810 / Precision M70 Product Certification 9/20/2005
564 DSP Portables - Inspiron 1200 / Inspiron 2200 / Latitude 110L Product Certification 9/20/2005
545 Portables - Latitude D410 Product Certification 9/20/2005
546 Portables - Latitude X1 Product Certification 9/19/2005
571 DSP - Small Form Factor V. 2 Chassis Certification 9/19/2005
436 Dell Soft Skills - Certification 9/19/2005
523 Dell ESD - Certification 9/19/2005

The nice thing about my company they let me take it as many as i want and if i used all of my try's my company will have them reset it.They did send me 3 certs from dell through the mail when i was done too. As for the customer v.2 test good luck on that one because i beleive a drunken monkey wrote that one lol.E-mail your company and let them know you need the test reseted.Pm me if anybody has any questions about this.

Ricka182

TheFORCE wrote:

Yesterday i was infront of the Pc screen again taking the certifications. I took 6 of them. the 3 foundation 2005 and some other small ones.

Then i tryed to take the "customer representative V2" or something like that i think its called and the most i was getting was 75% and now the cert is marked with red and i cant take it as i have exceeded the attempts i can take it. what can i do now? is there any other way to do something so i can un-mark this cert and take it again?

To have an exam reset, you'll need to send an email, from your company email address. The subject line must read, "Exam reset please". The body of the email should only contain your name, your DCSE #, and the exact name of the exam to be rest. It takes upto 48 hours, they will reply once it has been done. For the record, that Customer Experience exam completely sucks. I haven't passed yet either. The questions are somewhat absurd.

kaos200

I Need some help. I keep failing this one test and it is really frustrating because some of the questions are either not in the study material or I just cannot find it. Is there and practice exam out there were I can review the answers I am getting wrong???

Ricka182

If you look under IFR self study materials, there is a section which covers the Client V2 exam. I know it's ridiculous. I actually gave up on it for the time being. I know people who just sat down, and guessed their way to a 90% or better.....

ssrmann

Ricka182 wrote:

If you look under IFR self study materials, there is a section which covers the Client V2 exam. I know it's ridiculous. I actually gave up on it for the time being. I know people who just sat down, and guessed their way to a 90% or better.....

I hate to ask a stupid question, but I don't see the IFR self study materials. Is there a link on the dcse site that I am missing? I see the foundation 2005, portables, printers and servers self study links but no IFR links. Could you direct me in the right direction? Thanks.

Ricka182

ssrmann wrote:

Ricka182 wrote:

If you look under IFR self study materials, there is a section which covers the Client V2 exam. I know it's ridiculous. I actually gave up on it for the time being. I know people who just sat down, and guessed their way to a 90% or better.....

I hate to ask a stupid question, but I don't see the IFR self study materials. Is there a link on the dcse site that I am missing? I see the foundation 2005, portables, printers and servers self study links but no IFR links. Could you direct me in the right direction? Thanks.

Once you log in, on the left sidebar, close to the bottom, is the link for IFR_Self_Study materials, for all the current certs they have....I can't make a direct link, because you would have to log in to see that sidebar.

ssrmann

All I have in the left pane is: Main Page, Class Calendar, My Profile, Change My Information, Foundation 2005, Self-Study Materials Servers 7.0, Self-Study Materials Dell Printers, Self-Study Materials Online Testing.
Im am registered as DCSE under the Change My Information, would I need to be under Warranty Parts Direct maybe?

ssrmann

All I have in the left pane is: Main Page, Class Calendar, My Profile, Change My Information, Foundation 2005 Self-Study Materials, Servers 7.0 Self-Study Materials, Dell Printers Self-Study Materials, Online Testing.
Im am registered as DCSE under the Change My Information, would I need to be under Warranty Parts Direct maybe?

reposted due to commas in the wrong place

Ricka182

I just compared mine with yours. They are the same, sans the IFR link. Maybe it has something to do with my company, or former company. I'll ask some others if they know anything about it......

ssrmann

Ricka182 wrote:

I just compared mine with yours. They are the same, sans the IFR link. Maybe it has something to do with my company, or former company. I'll ask some others if they know anything about it......

Thanks for checking on that. I may try to email their support, but I have found in the past that responses are few and far between.

auroxico

i have a problem with the Small Form Factor V. 2 Chassis Certification .
All the time i failed but the other one exams i passed.
I wan't to know if anyone have the questions answered for that exam.
I had read the irf documentation.
It is very important to me.
Thank you