Who makes the best CUSTOM PCs? Would like to hear your experiences while I share mine - Page 2

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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).

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

I always buy minimum RAM with Dell and then max out the machine with a purchase from Crucial. Even if you can't move the unused RAM that comes with the box, you'll still come out ahead.

And you can always upgrade hard drive, optical drives or add PCI cards. The only thing that comes close to being proprietary is that certain components (sound, USB, NIC, etc.) are usually built into the motherboard, but those can be disabled in the CMOS settings and replaced by PCI cards anyway.

As for what Ron has, I wouldn't recommend running Pinnacle Studio at the same time as any other 2-3 system intensive programs. That thing is a resource hog.

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

There's nothing in there that sounds like it should be much of a resource hog, with the exception of Adobe Photoshop and Pinnacle Studio 10.

If you're experiencing slowdowns, and you're careful about computer viruses, my first guess would be that you have a fragmented hard disk. The cure for that is to run a disk "optimizer" (defragmenter) every so often -- this is slow; so you may want to walk away (or sleep) while the program is doing its job.

Another strategy you could use is to purchase an extra hard disk just for use in storing temporary photo and video files. To defragment the temporary HD, just format it between projects.

Is there any particular application that seems to bring on "bue screens" more than others?

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

If you're still on your search for a custom PC, there's a firm called EndPCNoise.com which builds custom machines, including two new ones designed by Mike Chin of SilentPCReview.com. They would be extremely quiet, and one of the two models is in a home theater PC case made by Antec. The other is in an Antec Solo mini-tower case. Both look very good, but I've always built my own. The silence of these computers would make sense for home theater use, though.

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

From my experience buying cheap has worked. I spend anywhere from $300-$700 everytime I upgrade. My last PC died after 6 years of heavy work. That was a low budget machine put together by some small computer company. I forget their name. That one died due to my own stupidity, too much dust in the power supply, they are not a good combination. It was quite a light show. I don't do anything hard core such as gaming or video editing. Mostly business related work, i.e. sales, tech work, music, etc.

So I guess my point is that the low budget machines are a good choice for those that don't have the $$ and don't neccessarilly need to top of the line computer. You just need to find a respectable company that tests all their systems before they send them out. I know pricewatch.com has a scoring feedback system that pretty much tells you whether you're going to get junk or not. Customers who have positive or negative experiences can attach them to the sellers or businesses account. I've used it for years. The biggest part is looking at the companies to figure out who is a fly by night operation or one that has been around for 10 years and will be around for another 10. Make sure the company you are ordering from has a tech line that you can get thru to. Just call them before you order just to see what there tech is like. If you get thru fast on a monday at 12 noon then you're good. If it's voice mail move onto the next company. It just takes a little effort to find a respectable small company that has to price low to get business.

Thanks for the info on the Cyperpower, I'll stear clear of them. And for those of you with the "fast" computers, I'm jealous!!!

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

In reference to the Dell issue. Form my experience I would stay away. They are proprietary from my experience. Of course, things change but they mostly stay them same. Save your money and spend it elsewhere unless you want a headache. Being able to expand the system was also an issue from what I remember.

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

In response to the blue screen. I haven't seen one of those since Windows 2000 professional. Did they start at any specific time, such as after an upgrade from Windows, or an update from a software vendor? MEMTEST is a good program that thoroughly tests the entire RAM memory. It's not a quick test my any means and takes several minutes but you'll find out if it's your RAM. From there it could be a cooling issue? Do u have temp sensors setup? Check all of the fans to make sure they aren't covered in dust or maybe are not spinning up to speed. Any area that can be cooled should be. i.e. case fan, video card, CPU, hard drives, etc.

Good luck!!