John,
YOur mistake was using comp usa. I have several friends who have had
pcs custom built and they are working just fine after more than a
year of service. My problem with mainstream services is that they
give service grudgingly and they don't allow you to fully customize
your system or upgrade it without a lot of cost. If you look at the
upgrade paths offered by the companies you love and compare them with
what you can do on your own, you see that the cost difference is
fenominal. My advice though to anyone buuying a computer right now
who has money to spend is insdtead of fooling around with pcs, get a
mac and if you need, put or have windows put on it. Yes, they cost
more than a dell box unnless of course you want to max out the del
box and they have the mac os and unix running on them, but they are
stable and reliable for the most part and they are fast even with
windows running on them. The beauty of this idea is that you never
have to know that it's a Macc unless you want to.
So, you can see that there are as many opinions out there as there
are people. I have worked with a lot of computers over the years and
have seen no difference in failure rate between home brewedd systems
and those made by chains. I might say though that if a chain puts
out a bad batch which can happen sometimes, things can get really
sticky. If you buuild your own, fixing it is easier since you can
just replace what you are havingg problems with.
On Mar 9, 2007, at 9:15 PM, John McCann wrote:
Hello Missy:
I am going to support what Mike Pietruk wrote to the max...underline
max! I
would have said everything he said had I gotten to my keyboard before
he got
to his. In 2003, after my existing system had failed to be sufficiently
rehabilitated after having been ravaged by a virus, I did exactly what
you're now contemplating doing, i.e., wrote down all these great
specifications for my dream computer, and then went to Comp USA to
have them
put the system together. I paid two thousand dollars for the system, and
barely got a year of marginally satisfactory use out of it. For
example, the
sound card never worked right; I was never able to get on talk sites
with
it, such as "for the people". It crashed at least tent times a week,
making
my plans to run my own email server a joke. Since I had other things
to do
with my life than engage in a protracted fight with the vendor, for
fully a
year I very grudgingly accepted operating conditions far below those
I had
planned for. After a year, in total disgust, I decided to attempt
putting
the machine in service as a linux server. The same problems occurred,
so I
ultimately gave the thing away to be canabalized for whatever parts the
recipient thought were worth having. I replaced that horror box with
a Dell
8300, which has given me fantastic service lo these past three years.
My strong, strong advice; go to a mainstream company like Dell, HP,
Gateway,
perhaps Compaq (though I haven't heard that name recently); give them
your
requirements and specifications; then, in consultation, have them put
together your dream system. You can be relatively sure of two things
with
this approach, as Mike has pointed out: (1), all necessary drivers
should
work, and you can be quite confident that all the components will work
together; i.e., they'll get along and play nicely together, and, (2),
that
if they don't, or if there's any other problem, you have one point of
accountability, a company with a good reputation which they're
invested in
protecting.
HTH!
John
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Pietruk" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 8:33 PM
Subject: Re: [VICUG-L] New subscriber seeking advice
> I have hesitated responding as what I am about to say may not be
> viewed as
> positive.
> Five years ago your approach made some sense; but these days,
> almost any
> middle or top of the line system will give what you want and need
> for a
> third to a half of the money you've budgeted.
> Buying a pc is no longer rocket science; most adaptive equipment works
> perfectly well with most pcs out there.
> And, I believe, you are more likely to run into problems with a
> personally
> designed system rather than a commercially sold one.
> Just make certain that the system has the basic specs you want such
> amount
> of ram, video, size of drives,
> types of drives, number of usb ports, et al.
> What it doesn't have -- or you later decide it needs to have -- can be
> then added.
> and what happens when this custom system runs into a problem, you
> cannot
> find a driver upgrade, whatever.
> If you buy from hp, Dell, Gateway, et al, you have someone to go to
> and
> 3rd party techs know how to work with those systems.
>
> with the custom built system, you may have a harder time later finding
> drivers, replacement components, whatever.
> Thhe last desktop we bought was for around $700; and the latest
> notebook
> we bough was for $900.
> While you may decide you need to spend more, I don't think all that
> much
> more.
> And there are plenty of people who bought $500 pc packages for
> Christmas
> this year that have no complaints.
> In my opinion, you are making a mountain out of a molehill and overly
> complicating the process.
>
>
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