At 10:57 AM 1/8/99 -0600, you wrote:
>This is why I've stopped trying to build systems for friends and relatives.
> I cannot afford the time to build a system and give free support when the
>person can probably get the same functionality and some support from
>professionals.  The last system I built for a relative or friend earlier
>this year was a Pentium 100 with a 420MB hard drive, Windows 95 and Works
>and it cost me $600 for the complete system.  For the same money, she could
>have gotten a faster machine with a bigger hard drive and a guarantee and I
>would not be getting support calls three times a week.

This is the big issue for me.  While I love helping out family and friends,
just yesterday I upgraded my sister's HP Pavillion 5030, I felt guilty giving
her the bill for the hardware.  Two 16MB 72-pin EDO SIMMS and a Western Digital
6.4GB Hard drive cost her approx. $280 (before rebates).  In the store I bought
this hardware from, they had a named brand system for a low price of $219 (no
monitor).  Granted this was Cyrix CPU, but the thing had more memory and an
equal hard drive for what is about $60 LESS.  Believe me, I was half tempted to
just buy the whole system and swap stuff around with a few other systems I have
to get her the same net result.

Bottom line is I agree here.  There is no way IMO to build a system for less
money than what you can buy a pre-packaged system for.  With that said, there
is NO WAY I would buy a pre-packaged system.  Most of the cheaper systems are
proprietary (Compaq and HP come to mind...oh and Packard Bell too).  I guess
you get what you pay for!


Eric

                Curious about the people moderating your
                   messages? Visit our staff web site:
                     http://nospin.com/pc/staff.html