Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine (1 Viewer)

[Adam Bluhm]

I'm another person who can give a Cyberpower nightmare. The short version of the story is it took six weeks to get a video card RMA'd, and that was after a FULL DAY of calling just trying to speak to someone. I continually got an answering machine. I think I finally got ahold of someone on the 20th+ try. Funny how their sales phone picks right up but their customer service phone rings off the hook.

My brother also had a bad experience. His PSU died after about two weeks, which may not be their fault, but they RMA'd him a USED power supply. He called them and they denied it. He explained that it was totally covered in dust on the inside and they didn't believe him.

He never did hear back about his RMA'd CD-RW drive. That was about five years ago.

Cyberpower IS the reason I began building my own systems. I wanted a custom system and saw they offered some at awesome prices, but the service was terrible, so I taught myself how to build and work on PC's. It's all history from there. I now have a slick dual core gaming machine with a 7800GT video card, 2 gigs memory, etc. Just picked up a 22" Westinghouse LCD from BB for $200 on Friday. Cool stuff. I'm just now researching what it'll take to watch HD-DVD's or Blu-Ray discs on here. I don't think neither my video card or LCD have HDCP, so I might be up the creek.

Anyway, sorry that this is a long answer to stay away from Cyberpower. I've heard good things about Falcon Northwest. I didn't read every reply to see if it's already been mentioned, but if it hasn't give them a look.

Actually, I see Anderson mentioned them. I've talked to a few people who love them.

 

[DeathStar1]

I would also like to know a company that is good for this. I'm thinking of upgrading in 2007 hopefully once the Blue-Ray/HD DVD junk has been settled, and for that I'll probably need all new equipment anyway.

I've never had a problem with Dell, but their outsourcing is highly annoying. You'd think that they would realise they are loosing customers this way. Can someone answer WHY it's always more expensive to do stuff in the US? It can't be that much more than aggrivating thousands of customers.

I find it interesting each time I Have to reformat and call the XP activation hotline. I've gotten someone from France, then India, and now I just got someone who sounded like they where from Pakistan.

All very knowledgable and friendly people, but you'd think they'd keep it as local as possible to please customers.


*Edit* To Ron, It takes roughly 30 minutes to build a custom PC, once you have everything together.. You also have to wait another 30 or so if you are attaching the heat sink to the chip for the 'glue' to dry up. After that, it's another 1 hour to reinstall the OS and software. Super Easy so long as all the equipment is compatible, and my first one has been running like a charm since I built it last October. I mostly did it as a PC Upgrade challenge.

Double Edit = I noticed that AMD 64X2 may be a bit cheaper than Intel Duo, but I've heard Intel Duo dosn't over heat as much. I've experienced the heat/excessive fan noise from my AMD powered Laptop, but got used to it. Which one is the better one? Also, if I wait till next year, would a Quad Proccesor be the one to go for?

I, like Ron, think that we should have gotten to the point where we can run a Video Editing program, and a program like Adobe Audition simultaniously with no slowdown, and have an instant bootup PC, without having to see the Windows -Kitt Scanner - XP screen for about 40 seconds as it loads stuff..

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Neil,

I wish I knew how to build a PC. It may be as easy as finding the
right book, but I'm not particularly handy nor have the confidence
in doing the job.

Also, for the very reasons you state above, I would never buy a
Dell product again. It's hard to say this without someone thinking
I'm being racial, but there's nothing as annoying than getting tech
support from someone overseas. The language barrier makes it
impossible to communicate in an efficient manner and every call
I have ever made to overseas tech support sounds scripted. Once
I started buying computers from more upscale companies such as
Lenovo and Velocity Micro, the level of support from
someone from your own Country is worth the additional expense alone.


I have been very happy with Velocity Micro, though I will
warn prospective buyers that you are going to pay more!

Quality of my computer from Velocity Micro was top-notch.
You could tell that hands put this unit together and that it was
carefully inspected before being shipped. Every piece of extra
cable, screws, wires, manuals and other "doo-dads" that came
with the soundcard, TV card, etc. were all included in a separate
bag along with the computer.

Now, this may sound discouraging at first when I say I had
problems with the computer. One of my raptor drives died and
a year later, my secondary drive also died. Customer Support
never blinked. They shipped me out new drives overnight and
even had a tech come to my home to install it.

Lately, I have been having problems with "blue screen" crashes.
Velocity Micro shipped me a box with prepaid shipping to return
my computer so they could fix it.

Of course, the additional Customer Support (beyond the initial
warranty period) cost me about $200-$300 for 2-3 extra years of
total care, but it has been worth it. I have called their tech
support at odd hours anytime I had questions or problems with
an install. Recently, after I flash updated my motherboard, my
computer started acting strangely. Customer Support walked me
through resetting a half dozen items in my BIOS that fixed everything.
I know everyone at Velocity Customer Support and they know me.

As I said, you pay a premium for this type of service, but if you
don't know how to build your own computer and you don't want to
fall into the traps of companies like DELL, the extra expense is well
worth it!

 

[Chris]

What??? Unless you're using Thermal Epoxy, thermal paste seals upon heat, which generally comes from turning a PC on, which is why Intel & AMD ship retail box fans that use thermal tape pre-applied. If you're using thermal sealant, like Artic Silver, then it's applied in a grain-size drop and gentle spread across the CPU, and it should form a bond, but it's not a glue so that you can remove the CPU fan at a later point.

Thermal Epoxy, which is glue and rarely used anymore unless you've got special applications (some water cooling solutions) seals near instantly, within 10-15 seconds, which is why most are a two part epoxy to make sure that when applied you have a bonding seal that sets quickly.

Nothing should take 30 minutes.

 

[DeathStar1]

Ahh, OK. I believe I used Arctic Silver. I was so nervous after all the money I spent on building this thing, that I felt the safe thing to do was wait thirty minutes before turning it on.

Other than that, being VERY careful with all the screws, screwdriver and pricey equipment, it took me 30 minutes to jostle everything in, tie up the PSU cables, and make sure everything was nice, secure, in it's proper place, and not missing a cord. New Egg got about $1300's worth of my money that month, and I definetly was going to take it slow .

Add on to that question..

My current specs are
Asus A8N Premium
AMD Athalon 64 3500
1Gig + 256 MB Memory sticks
250 GB Sata Hard Drive
16X LG DVD-RW Lightscribe Drive

Would I see much of a difference if I upgraded to the highest Core Duo chip, or Athalon 64X2, or should I wait for the Quad proccessors?

Also, How hot do those media center PC's get considering the small size? Are they worth it for the space saving alone?

 

[Chris]

Unless you want to swap motherboards, ram, and CPUs, which is a big expense, you aren't jumping to Core2Duo. Core2 is very nice, but honestly, it gets into a very interesting situation as for many applications, only 1 core is used and while Core2 is definitely the top performer, I don't know if you can justify pitching all your hardware to switch.

You might look to score a 4200+ Dual Core AMD 939, which would match the board you'd have so you'd have only that as an expense. Is it worth it? IMHO, yes. But, YMMV.

As to Media Centers: a properly done media center ventilates itself very well quietly and can stay pretty quiet. I keep a multi-terabyte NAS setup connected to my MCE's to keep a central storage of all programs, etc. Works out GENIOUS.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

If I do buy a new computer in the next few months,
it will be the Pentium Extreme Quad Processor.

The prices are awfully high right now with QUAD processors
costing about $1400 more than Core2Duo in many of the systems
I priced. Those prices should rapidly drop in the next few months.

 

[Marko Berg]

Hi Ron,

You may want to read the following article before deciding on upgrading to a Quad processor: http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q4...0/index.x?pg=1. Current software support for such advanced technology is limited to say the least.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Marko,

Very much appreciate the link, thank you.

I was amongst the first to pay a premium to buy the
first dual-core processor PCs almost two years ago, and
at that time the situation regarding limited software support
was the same as it is now for the Quad processors.

I suppose that I see myself investing in future technology
that will be current a year or two from now.

 

[DaveF]

Ron,

I won't dissuade you from dumping Windows for a Mac system, if that suits you. I've considered the same. But I believe your crashes are not caused by Windows per se. As Kimmo said, WinXP is very stable -- I'll assert it's as crash free as Mac OSX is. (Virus issues aside, which I consider a non-issue for a sensible home-office user.) For that matter -- OSX can be crashed. In limited use with my wife's computer, I've seen wonkiness that doesn't happen on my XP machine.

And while you like Velocity, your experience is discouraging: in the first 18 months you had two hard drive failures and major system reliability problems. Perhaps you got the sixth-sigma machine. But anecdotally this doesn't say "quality" about Velocity's product.

Finally - what are you really trying to accomplish? Office, Email, and Screen Capture will run smoothly on a ten-year old PC under Windows 98 But if you're trying to edit 10 Mpixel pictures in Photoshop, while editing HD vido in Pinnacle, with your Doctoral Thesis open in Word and your Thesis Defense open in Photoshop, while emailing 100MB attachments -- well, that's going to tax most any machine.

I know you like bleeding edge, super fast machines. But since you upgrade every 2 years or so, I wonder if you'd be better off buying one step down from the top. Instead of the Quad Processor Extreme, buy the Core 2 Duo Extreme (E6700?) system. You will sacrifice minimal actual performance. You might even be more stable by not being at the bleeding edge. And the savings would let you buy, say, a MacPro of iMac for same net cost.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Dave,

You are absolutely correct. If I am upgrading my PC every
two years perhaps getting the best duo-core I can buy without
getting into the quads would be my best option.

As far as the problems I am having with Velocity...

Two failed hard drives don't concern me only because I know
how unreliable hard drives can be. At least Velocity replaced
them with brand new counterparts without a fuss.

Also, as far as the recent problems are concerned, I can't
really hold that against Velocity either as long as they are
more than willing to fix it, which they are.

I think my experience with them will be more defined once
I get my desktop back. If they fixed the problem, I'll be
happy to purchase from them again. If problem persist, I
think I'll be looking at a Falcon-Northwest as my next PC.

 

[DaveF]

Ron,
If you're looking for high-end with good service, check Dell's business packages. If you can get their Gold warranty (I think it is), you'll get domestic call centers, short phone service queues, and Dell's hardware pricing.

It could be this is only a service available to corporate buyers, but I've seen it on a one-off PC purchase for a smaller company. It might give you what you want.

 

[nolesrule]

I use Dell for Small Businesses and purchases a warranty with onsite service to cover how long I plan to use the computer, which is about 3 years. I would never purchase a computer where i couldn't get onsite service. I had a hard drive failure and received a replacement next day. I had a notebook screen die and 2 days later had a new one installed in my home by the onsite tech. When the keyboard on the notebook started acting flaky, I had a new one shipped to me next-day (and that was with 6 days left on the warranty).

In all of those instances, I never spent more than 20 minutes on the phone, including hold time. I even used their online chat support for one of the "calls", and I always got the replacement parts within a day or 2. I would never ship off a computer and wait days, weeks or months to get it back. That's just ridiculous.

I have so far bought Dell for Small Business computers on 3 occasions, and the service continues to be excellent when called upon.

Or just build your own. If you know exactly what you want, do it yourself. If you take the proper ESD precautions and are careful not to snap off capacitors and resistors, you'll be fine. Of course, I do that kind of computer maintenance work for a living, so it's second nature.

 

[DeathStar1]

Hmm, I just built one with Dell and Falcon Northwest.

With FN I get a decent system with a 3 year warrenty for a bout 1700, with Dell, I get a semi-decent system and a Dell 24" Widescreen for 1900 one year warrenty. It also seems that they don't offer ATI AIW with the Business packages..

Also, question on those mid tower ATX cases. Can you get the same power from the smaller motherboard as the big ones?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Damn you guys for making me even look at Dell!

Yeah, cheaper than the other companies...but...it's a Dell! :frowning:

Their business computers don't allow for a second optical
drive in the configuration, but I'm certain I could add one.

My problem with Dell is that all their stuff is proprietary.

Do I really even want to consider a Dell?

BTW, noticed their 30" monitor dropped in price to under $1500.
That's something I am going to keep my eye on and will buy a
compatible video card to match.

 

[DeathStar1]

Sorry, we're evil that way .

The Dell 24" is considered by some way too big, so imagine how big a 30"er is ..
I saw one on display, and that thing is huge! (Different company, same size).

 

[DaveF]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

They are upgradeable with normal parts. I just popped open a Dell bought earlier this year: normal bays for internal and external drives; a couple free PCI slots; normal RAM slots.

Do you do your own upgrades your PC? If not, it doesn't matter if it is upgradeable.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

What I have always been led to believe it means, Dave,
is that Dell uses their own brand of product in their computer
and doing any sort of upgrades -- be it memory or otherwise --
can be a problem.

What would I upgrade? For one, their business computers only
come with one optical drive. I would add another. I might also
upgrade a sound card at some point or perhaps add memory.

I just want to be sure that I don't get stuck along the way
because Dell does their own funky configuration that restricts
upgrading.

My apologies, in advance, if I am misunderstanding anything
about this process.

 

[DaveF]

I'm not a PC expert, but I've owned and upgraded Dells, and it's always been possible, if perhaps a bit more expensive than with a generic PC. RAM can be bought from Dell directly or from e.g. crucial.com. Dell may require a non-generic type, increasing cost a bit, but that's the only real difference.

For an additional optical drive, so long as the PC has open bays, it should work just like any other PC.

And when I talk of Dell, I expect the same to hold for any major brand like HP and Gateway.

Or, rather than adding an extra yourself, do it during the purchase process. I've never seen a Dell configurator that prevented me from having at least two optical drives. Or call them and ask for your desired setup.

I don't mean to push Dell. I just don't like seeing people make decisions based on faulty data

I don't know your business nor your PC needs, but my suspicion is you need much less computer you're buying and could save yourself upwards of $1500 and still get your job done with aplomb.

Another option would be to hire an IT consultant, explain your work needs in detail, and have them create a system for you to buy. You might end up saving money while getting exactly what you need.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

what dave said. ALL of dell is certainly not proprietary. you will have some difficulty swapping out power supplies without buying a dell, but most of it is upgradeable with off the shelf parts.

i'd say he already owns too much computer, based on the software he runs. if that computer is sluggish, it's windows. but it's tough to talk yourself out of buying something you have already decided on, even it you don't freely admit it. running photoshop, pinnacle studio, and office, that computer should be plenty fast for a couple of years.

CJ