Don't buy from PC world- and Do I Ask for trouble?

OK, time to vent!

yeah, it's me being the idiot, but still!

I bought a new AMD64 system a couple of months back in an emergency. I never wanted to build my own system as they had a tendancy to break even though i was careful of ESD etc.

1) I chose to pay monthly since I didnt have the cash immediately. Since i took the monitor off the total came to £800 for:

1X AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+.
2GB DDR Memory
1X ATI x1300 GFX Card. (Worked well for a bit, outperformed my old system which had a 6800...)
1x300gb SATA hard drive.
The list goes on.

Note: System did not come with a warranty sticker. woo. (!!)

System specs were quite good really, and i was happy.

On initial tests the system was great bar its boot up time, and the 20ms latency on the audio (which I put down to the "HD audio device")

OK, here goes!!!

After a week or so, the graphics went funny, things ran at 1fps. here's where i was TOTALLY stupid- rather than use the warranty and get them to replace the x1300, i decided to get the 7600 since I needed some more oomph anyway. Tried to sell the X1300 but it decided to totally melt in the test bed (:O)

a month later: hard drive starts clicking, and fails a cache test.

Replaced it- fair enough, I broke the warranty. I just happened to have another drive anyway.

<few more boring things happen here>

I found out about 3 days back that my system was taking forever to boot due to the HP boot optimiser. Funny eh?

Ok, now, also, three days ago I try to repair some damage that installing vista did (It broke my boot options). After starting the XP disk to try to get it to start an installation (which installs an XP boot loader that I can modify), it decided to totally scrap my os installations and left my main OS unusable. Thanks MS!

Anyway, i've got it all up and running again now, I'ts so much faster than when it was new.

lessons:

1) Don't play with your systems- and take advantage of the legal warranty you are given when you buy a system.
2) Don't purchase PCs from PC world- they screw you for your money- (I just built a very similar system on Cyberpowersystem.co.uk for £299, yet mine was £800). Purchase from trustworthy online shops!

3) Don't be a fool.
4) Stay away from electronics if you break watches just by wearing them. ( ;) )


*sigh*

I'm already tempted to dump this thing and build one on CPS.co.uk....

You could have built that yourself for half the price.

PC World don't know any more about PCs than your average chimpanzee.

Yeah I know, and I knew it then too, but I needed one that day. I even told the PC world chimp to swing off and let me read the specs since he didn't know what the Athlon64 was...

In what way did you break the warranty?

Electronic parts are by law covered for 1 year, they would have to prove that it was through your negligence that it broke.

The drive itself may be covered by the MFG warranty (samsung here)- i'll look into it.

Kind of wish I never ditched the gfx card though :)

Doh

Tip 1: If you ARE going to buy a complete system, you dont change anything at all your self. I bought my first comp completed (At a fair so very very very cheap), and the CPU fan wasnt working, so back to shop, week later not working. In the end I did open it, but then when the CD broke no warrentee

I would never buy a pre-built system again and I haven't in like 7 years. Once you custom build your pc yourself you can never go back. It's fun!

One point to look into if your FPS go wacky: install the AMD cool'n'quiet as well as the other drivers you find there. This is needed as the multi crap erm multi core of AMD otherwise goes wacky on its timing which will create massiv problems with single core games.

Buy at a local shop, some individually owned shop. They're eager to sell and provide good conditions. A larger shop has enough customers and income, and can take calculated riscs.

My 3.4 dual intel64, 4gb mem, 640gb RAID, and some more stuff (dvd, drive, dvdrw, case, cheap vid), cost me only 1190 euro orso.

Tho I must say, some months ago the shop went bankrupt orso.. I think .. don't even know, in any case: they closed, and shopcontent (including the furniture) was sold in an online auction.

the FPS issue was the card going, and it DID go, in a big way. it just happened to be in the shop's test bed when I was trying to sell it to them.

Imagine a blitzmax bug where every object was not textured, yay :)


Anyhow, i've calmed down a bit now, i should stop regretting buying it as the performance increase on a clean install of the os is amazing.

I'm going to download XP home OEM so I can use my legal key to get a fresh home install. (or will this not work???) i can get MS to send a "media kit" for $20- something like £12. I had to use a shiny CD to install my current installation as I can't find any of my cds after moving home!

Yeah building your own system is the only way to fly :D Never had much luck with pre-built systems.

Let me know next time cyg, I'll come up to brum and help! :P

Lol.

I am actually a Qualified A+ professional.

if i'm a pro, then I'm pretty scared of the people working in the industry ;)

Argh, why did you ever get a pre built system then? :P

Makes no sense! Arghhh, prepare for a beating this weekend!

Hahaha! Simple- I needed a pc and I didn't have time to go round looking for extra parts... :)

Careful, I might have to set Tracy onto you.....

I've gone the other way, I used to build all my machines from scratch - but I got tired of it and now go with emachines and a custom videocard and I'm much happier now.

Exactly. EMachines and Dell and HP machines are so cheap now that you can't build it yourself for less, or even the same. So you might just as well do what you do, providing the machine you pick has a decent motherboard and PSU in it, of course.

only pre built pc i've ever had was the very first one.

My only computer qualification is a GCSE but I've become expert in putting systems together by learning everything the hard way and through a not small amount of tinkering with things.

What does *this* do when I plug it in here....

Same here Vinyl, i just went for the exam.

I used to build but I'm too old for that sh*t now, so I get a special spec together and order from Centrex who build and install the OS saving me a whole bunch o time and hassle.

I bought my first pc pre-built, but now I always build my own. It's good to read all the reviews, select the nicest hardware, and assemble everything. I broke a floppy drive once, but other than that I've never had a problem doing it. Some people seem to have a lot of problems doing it though.

Pre-built is excellent if I can select exactly what goes into it down to the finest detail, otherwise I never get the system I'd be completely happy with.