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

post #1 of 46
Thread Starter 
I decided long ago to stop buying name-brand computers
like Dell, HP, Gateway, etc.

There are certainly many "plus" factors as far as buying
computers from these manufacturers in that you get the
best "bang" for the buck.

What drove me away from these companies was the fact
that the innards of these computers are mostly proprietary,
often have "shared" memory, and hard-drives that are shipped
with all sorts of "junk" shareware that companies pay to have
included on your PC. Furthermore, instead of giving you a
copy of Windows XP on CD, they put a backup on the hard drive.

The worst part of owning a PC from many of these companies
(though I can't vouch for all) is the outsourced Customer
Support. Nothing aggravates me more than calling Customer
Support and wasting valuable time working with the language
barrier.

I decided that from now on I'd spend more money and hopefully
get better support in the end.

Thus far it has worked out rather well. This year I bought a
Lenovo laptop. I had a few minor initial problems that were
immediately addressed by Customer Support in Atlanta. I had
replacement parts shipped to me next day, and spoke with
people that were easy to communicate with.

Now I am possibly looking at a new desktop for 2007

My last desktop I purchased through Velocity Micro.
It cost me a pretty penny, including the $200 or so I paid for
2-year additional on-site and in-home support, but it was well
worth it. I lost two hard drives in my 18 months of use, but the
company overnighted me replacements and had someone come
to my home to install the drives.

Whenever I have a problem, I just call the toll-free support
and I am connected with a very friendly and knowledgeable
support department located in (I believe) North Carolina.

So, naturally, I am looking at Velocity Micro once
again to build my next computer. Only problem is, though they
are always highly rated by the various PC magazines, they are
also rated as the most expensive company to purchase from.

Anyone have other suggestions as to other companies that
I can do a custom build from their website and be assured that
I am dealing with someone that will put together a quality
computer for me and supply me with domestic support should
anything happen to it?

PS: Please don't respond that I would be better building a
computer myself. My response is that I can't, nor do I have
the time to do it myself.

PSS: I would also consider a Mac Pro at this point.
post #2 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

www.monarchcomputer.com is supposed to be good

ps- your avvy kicks ass
post #3 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

Ron, can you share w/ us what you want to use the computer for? You say you're willing to think about a Mac Pro, but even though I myself own a Mac (new Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo) I wouldn't point you in that direction unless I know what you want to do, and that the Mac is the best platform for those uses.
post #4 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

Exactly what software is it that you'd need to run on the Mac? There's also Linux as an obvious alternative as well...or perhaps Vista though that remains to be seen. IMO the hardware you have now is still current and very capable so I wouldn't look at buying a new PC so that means either.
1) getting XP to run properly on your existing hardware and upgrade to Vista
2) install Linux on your current box
or 3) sell it and buy a mac pro.

With options 2 or 3 you're obviously going to have a learning curve and either OS may or may not do what you want...esp. if you're into gaming.
post #5 of 46
Thread Starter 

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

Carlo,

Right now, I own a Dual-Core 3.20GHz PC with 2gb Ram, 256
video memory and 10,000 rpm raptor drives.

I want a computer that's super fast. I don't want to wait
on programs to load.

I want a computer that allows me to freely multitask, even
when running memory-intensive programs or burning a DVD.

I want enough memory where I can run up to a dozen programs
at startup with no slowdown.

My current PC does that with flying colors. The problem is,
the computer is having a lot of issues as of late including
"blue screen" crashes. I have just shipped the desktop back
to Velocity Micro at their expense. They are going to try to
fix it.

The reason I am thinking of a Mac is that I'm tired of Windows.
It's an awful operating system that's vulnerable to viruses and
hacks. I'm also very tired of "blue screen" crashes where the OS
tells you nothing about WHY it's suddenly dumping memory.

The only thing I have against the Mac is that it still seems quite
foreign to me since I have used a PC for more than 20 years. I
have tons of Windows software that will never run on a Mac
unless I plan to run Windows on it, which in that case, sort of
defeats the purpose of buying a Mac.

Look forward to your observations.
post #6 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

youre experiencing windows troubles. you dont need another computer, yours is plenty fast. if you buy another one, you'll just have more windows problems unless you go to mac or linux.

CJ
post #7 of 46
Thread Starter 

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

Andrew,

Software I am running?

Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Nero, Trillian, Paltalk,
Poco Email, Flash FXP (FTP), MIRC, SnagIt (screen capture),
Pinnacle Studio 10.

I am not a gamer.
post #8 of 46
Thread Starter 

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

Christ,

That's exactly what I'm thinking, that is, unless the Windows
problems are related to hardware issues with my current PC
which I will find out soon.

Again, owning a MAC is an interesting idea, but I would be
using it to basically run Windows just because of all the software
that won't run on it otherwise.
post #9 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share

There is a place here in KC that does some of that. I bought a liquid-cooled 8800GTS rig from them recently. They have a storefront down on Merriam, but they seem to do mostly Ebay stuff.

KC TechHeads

Anyway, very happy with mine. I got a 8800GTS / X6800..

Just pedal to the metal. Cool people too. I like buying local.

The best advice I have for anyone is to try and find some local shop, because they will try and do you well plus if you run into anything, you can normally go down the street to them. I've found good shops in a lot of the areas of the country, from the south/north/east/west. You can find good people in your hometown, and they are basically dealing with the same parts as anyone else. May be a little more or less since you'll pay sales tax, but support is infinitely better.
post #10 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/Default.asp
http://www.abs.com/index.asp
also www.ibuypower.com

these are some of the better built systems out you can get and they allow you to select
what you want too use, I know you know this but make sure to get a good PSU.



these guys do reviews on companies that build pc's all of the time, I highly suggest you take a gander before you purchase from anyone, because they will tell you a ton of pro's and con's of each company.

http://consumer.hardocp.com/
post #11 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

Frankly, blue screens on Windows should be a fairly rare thing on XP.

I haven't seen one in... I can't remember when last a machine actually bluescreened. No wait, I had installed the wrong driver and that caused bluescreening, but that was totally due to operator error. It went away when I removed the bad driver and installed the proper one.

If your machine is bluescreening and doing so more than once every few months on the outside then there is something wrong. Either the windows install has gotten damaged, or you have installed rotten drivers, or your hardware is flaky. Insufficient cooling, a marginal memory chip, even bad CPU...

A normal PC, with productivity software only, should not be exhibiting such problems.
post #12 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

Ron,

If you're primarily going to do Windows, I wouldn't recommend a Mac. A lot of the programs you run do have Mac counterparts (and in the case of Adobe, a lot of the programs run better on Macs), and if you were getting into a lot of A/V, digital editing or music work I would say to switch to a Mac, but it sounds like you should stick to a Windows machine.

A blue screen on a Windows machine is just as likely to happen as a blue screen on a Mac running Windows. Windows problems will most likely follow that OS over to a Mac machine running it. I had my Mac bootcamped, but eventually migrated away from Windows (I still use it at work) and reclaimed that HD space by deleting the Win partition.

I just started using Garageband and now ProTools and I don't know if I'll ever boot into Windows again for personal use. I have Office for Mac, iWork 06, iLife 06, Toast for my burning needs, and when the new version of Adobe Creative Suite comes out (that is Universal Binary) I will buy that and then call it a day.

But if you're going to keep using the Win programs, then I'd say just stick with Windows.

The Mac Pro is intriguing, especially with rumors that in early 2007 they'll be announcing the quad core processors on it (meaning 4 cores per processor, 2 processors per Mac Pro). 8 freaking cores! 8 RAM slots (hopefully they'll move away from FB DIMMS which have higher latency) for 16GB of RAM. I bet that thing wouldn't bog down with all of your apps running!
post #13 of 46
Thread Starter 

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

What is PSU?

Is that Power Supply?

Tell me more as to why I need a good PSU and what
I should specifically look for when considering a PC?

Carlo, thanks for the rundown on Mac vs. PC.
I think you are right -- it might just be a better idea to
stick to a (ugh!) PC.
post #14 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share


I can never recommend cyberpowerpc; I purchased a laptop from them and they attempted to screw me over pretty bad on it.

Short story is that when I first got it, it was damage; fine, I rma'd it back to them. After calling them after several weeks of not hearing anything they basically told me that I broke the laptop and then ignored me, of course without returning either the laptop or my money. I had the credit card company step in, after 30days of them trying to ignore my credit card company, I won the dispute by default and was given my money back.

Their customer service and return ratings at reseller ratings pretty much back me up on them being a scam: http://www.resellerratings.com/seller6897.html
post #15 of 46
Thread Starter 

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

Tekara,

I have heard awful things about Cyberpower.

I'm not surprised at the problems you reported nor the
fact that I just customized a PC on line and it comes in
at almost $1500 cheaper than other vendors. You get
what you pay for.
post #16 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

PSU is a powersupply. Basically, you want to get a power supply with these features:

SLI Support - even if you aren't going to do SLI, SLI support power supplies offer you the option should you later require a card with multi-inputs, like an 8800GTX, or the upcoming AMD/ATI DX10 card.

Dual Rail-12V - higher quality Power Supplies have dual rail on the 12V line, as a way to make sure your board gets good power with fewer issues.

550W or better. Don't get anythiing with less then a 550W PSU. A 600W or better is commonly recommended at the moment.

Name brands - don't go for junk that you've never heard of. Good brands like Antec, ThermalTake, PC Power & Cooling, Ultra, OCZ and others are out there with solid reviews and a good track record plus warranties. Don't find yourself with some red box PSU from Tiawan (oh, it's a Deer PSU! Great! ugh) A no-name PSU has basically no warranty and you can tell it's low quality by the fact it has very little weight. Or has terrible cabling to it.
post #17 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

Ron:

Yes the PSU is the power supply and a beefy power supply is needed to power up your dual core CPU, video cards, etc. What is the size of you power supply now?
post #18 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

My PC is a HTPC from a HTF sponsor called 2partsfusion. It has 2 gigs of memory and a 500 gig HD. It is super quite and came with gyrating mouse and wireless keyboard. Also built in HDTV tuner card etc.

I think about adding memory and HD space, saying I have a terabite of HD would sound pretty cool :-)

I am very happy with it.

Gregg
post #19 of 46
Thread Starter 

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

My PSU is a 550 Watt Antec w/dual smart fans
post #20 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

I've purchased ABS before, and while the PC was decent, I wouldn't call the quality of the materials or construction top of the line. (This was about 6 yrs ago though.) I was also displeased that they sold me a Win modem while advertising a h/w modem and that the "flat screen" monitor was not. (I realized it after the 30 day period and was too lazy to take any 3rd party action.)

I now have a Falcon-Northwest. And while the materials and construction are top-shelf; I had to wait 12 weeks for a PC to be returned to me for motherboard warranty work. (Their excuse was they were shorthanded over Christmas.) I have dealt with them by phone 2 or 3 times for minor issues and they were very good in that regard.

I have to agree with others though that your problems seem more to do with Windows than the need for a new PC. You may want to have someone do a fresh install of Windows. That should buy you a year; and in the meantime Vista's SP-1 will be out. (Don't be tempted to let Vista v0 try and solve your problems!)
post #21 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein
Tekara,I have heard awful things about Cyberpower.

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.
post #22 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein


PS: Please don't respond that I would be better building a
computer myself. My response is that I can't, nor do I have
the time to do it myself.

PSS: I would also consider a Mac Pro at this point.


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..
post #23 of 46
Thread Starter 

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

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!
post #24 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

Quote:

*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.

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.
post #25 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share

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?
post #26 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

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.
post #27 of 46
Thread Starter 

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

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.
post #28 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

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.
post #29 of 46
Thread Starter 

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

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.
post #30 of 46

Re: Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine

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.
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