I do the same thing, and it pays off. Afew months ago, my Dell computer was being really laggy. I had a maintenance contract, and when I called them, I gave them a detailed description of the behavior and a list of exactly what I had tried before calling (it was extensive and exhaustive). I could hear the gears in the support repository head grind to a half momentarily and then restart in another mode altogether, and she jumped right to advanced troubleshooting. It was a great moment for both of us,.