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Frys Specials

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In today's San Jose Mercury News, Fry's is advertising the ATI 9800 All-in-wonder OEM version for $159.99. White box, no remote.
 
Originally posted by: maddogchen
In today's San Jose Mercury News, Fry's is advertising the ATI 9800 All-in-wonder OEM version for $159.99. White box, no remote.
Click to expand...
Fry's (Downers Grove, IL) had them for $179.99 last month. :disgust:

 
Originally posted by: maddogchen
In today's San Jose Mercury News, Fry's is advertising the ATI 9800 All-in-wonder OEM version for $159.99. White box, no remote.
Click to expand...

I think that is uber hot, but I think its better to hold out till Black Friday. I bet this deal will be back in between today and black friday, or even better on black friday. And then it can be compared to what Best Buy's has to offer.
 
Originally posted by: timluong
> P4-3.2Ghz/1MB Box/ECS? Motherboard $209.99

This sounds like a real bargain. Newegg has the retail cpu for $221
Click to expand...

I dont see an ECS motherboard with the VIA PT800 chipset on Outpost but the motherboard pictured in the ad is ECS. Either way the VIA PT800 chipset is comparable with the Intel 875 chipset and much better than the ECS motherboard with the Intel 848 chipset they were selling last week.
 
After spending 4 hours yesterday running between Sunnyvale and Palo Alto Fry's with my friend, trying to get a working processor, I would not recommend any of the Fry's processor "deals".

I bought the $50 AthlonXP 2400+ and PCBits mobo combo a couple of weeks ago from Campbell, I was going to eBay the mobo and use the processor with a DFI Infinity Ultra NFII mobo. However they gave me a dud Thorton (which I thought was the European-only terminology for a Thoroughbred B) . So I returned the processor, they gave me another one. Got home, it didn't work.

Returned it to Sunnyvale Fry's. They had no stock, so were going to give me a 2500+, but it turned out they had no stock of those either - they could only offer me a Sempron 2400+, which is about the same speed as an AthlonXP 2000+ so they sent me onto Palo Alto Fry's.

Got to PA Fry's, they eventually gave me a new processor after having to argue with the checkout girl that this was a straight exchange and not a discount - ah the language barrier! The guy who tests the processors was on his break, so I got my computer out of the van and plugged the processor in - this one didn't work either. I tried it with the PCBits mobo too (I'd proven earlier that the mobo works) it didn't work in that either, so I just gave up and got a refund on the whole lot. They were going to give me store credit until I explained to the manager that Newegg won't take Fry's credit, and that was where I was going to get a real processor from, instead of the useless lumps of ceramic they were selling.

A friend of mine had almost the exact same experience a couple of weeks ago, except on his third attempt, he got a working processor out of them. So that was 1 out of 6 processors that worked - or over an 83% failure rate! This wasn't just a bad batch either, as some of them were brown, some were green, and they had different steppings, and this was 3 different stores! I believe Fry's is buying reject stock from AMD, or they got hold of some bankrupt stock from Europe.

Also note, that PCBits mobo is truly awful - worse even than the ECS.
 
what? thats insane? i've bought tons of processors and never a dud. its more likely the mb was a dud then anything else. or its u
 
I myself have purchased at least a dozen of the super-cheap AMD combos over the last two years at Frys. I have never once had a dud cpu. I did have to exchange some memory I purchased there, but never a cpu....
 
... same as the last two. Never had a dead processor ever from a fry's combo deal. Out of 40 or 50 motherboards, I've had one DOA board and one other that need replacement after several months.
 
Originally posted by: simo
I bought the $50 AthlonXP 2400+ and PCBits mobo combo a couple of weeks ago from Campbell, I was going to eBay the mobo and use the processor with a DFI Infinity Ultra NFII mobo. However they gave me a dud Thorton (which I thought was the European-only terminology for a Thoroughbred B) . So I returned the processor, they gave me another one. Got home, it didn't work.

Returned it to Sunnyvale Fry's. They had no stock, so were going to give me a 2500+, but it turned out they had no stock of those either - they could only offer me a Sempron 2400+, which is about the same speed as an AthlonXP 2000+ so they sent me onto Palo Alto Fry's.

Also note, that PCBits mobo is truly awful - worse even than the ECS.
Click to expand...

Actually, a Thornton is a Barton core CPU with 1/2 the L2 cache disabled. If you notice, the core is a little "longer" than a T-bred, it's the same length as a real Barton. Whoever told you that Thronton is "bankrupt" stock from Europe is very sadly misinformed. Most likely your DFI needed a BIOS flash to recognize a Thornton core chip.

If you look, the PC Chips M811LU you most likely got looks identical to an earlier revision ECS K7VTA3, except red. Most likely they're OEM'ed by the same company. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've actually never had a problem with a Via chipset ECS. I had a K7S5A that needed numerous BIOS revisions before it stopped losing BIOS settings, but going through a dozen K7VTA3's, N2U400's and KT600A's, the worst problem I've had was a stupid PCI modem that kept waking up the board. Turn wake-on-PCI off in the BIOS, and it' was fine.

But hey.. don't buy any more of those combos, there'll be more for me.
 
Originally posted by: simo
After spending 4 hours yesterday running between Sunnyvale and Palo Alto Fry's with my friend, trying to get a working processor, I would not recommend any of the Fry's processor "deals".

I bought the $50 AthlonXP 2400+ and PCBits mobo combo a couple of weeks ago from Campbell, I was going to eBay the mobo and use the processor with a DFI Infinity Ultra NFII mobo. However they gave me a dud Thorton (which I thought was the European-only terminology for a Thoroughbred B) . So I returned the processor, they gave me another one. Got home, it didn't work.

Returned it to Sunnyvale Fry's. They had no stock, so were going to give me a 2500+, but it turned out they had no stock of those either - they could only offer me a Sempron 2400+, which is about the same speed as an AthlonXP 2000+ so they sent me onto Palo Alto Fry's.

Got to PA Fry's, they eventually gave me a new processor after having to argue with the checkout girl that this was a straight exchange and not a discount - ah the language barrier! The guy who tests the processors was on his break, so I got my computer out of the van and plugged the processor in - this one didn't work either. I tried it with the PCBits mobo too (I'd proven earlier that the mobo works) it didn't work in that either, so I just gave up and got a refund on the whole lot. They were going to give me store credit until I explained to the manager that Newegg won't take Fry's credit, and that was where I was going to get a real processor from, instead of the useless lumps of ceramic they were selling.

A friend of mine had almost the exact same experience a couple of weeks ago, except on his third attempt, he got a working processor out of them. So that was 1 out of 6 processors that worked - or over an 83% failure rate! This wasn't just a bad batch either, as some of them were brown, some were green, and they had different steppings, and this was 3 different stores! I believe Fry's is buying reject stock from AMD, or they got hold of some bankrupt stock from Europe.

Also note, that PCBits mobo is truly awful - worse even than the ECS.
Click to expand...

I am suprised you recieved a damaged CPU. However I would not place the blame on Fry's. If you are buying an OEM tray CPU they were damaged in shipping. I picked up the Intel 3.2 ghz Retail w/ ECS PT800CE-A V1.0 this morning for $210. Already set up and running for $15 less than the CPU alone at newegg.
 
OK, between myself, two friends and a guy at Fry's, we have tested 7 chips with 5 different sets of [known working] mobo/PSU/RAM/GFX, and only 2 chips worked - so it was the chips that were dud.

It's a possibility that the mobo's couldn't recognise the Thortons as the only two that worked were Semprons on the ECS board, but my DFI has recognised any Mobile, TBird, TBredA and Barton I've thrown at it, and how can Fry's sell PCBits combo's that are incompatible?
 
I just bought this combo from Frys here at dallas.

I compared the prices online, and found Frys to be a little cheaper.
$249 for DFI Lanparty nF3 250 and Athlon64 3000+

You think the deal is good?

And also they have a kingston 512MB HyperX for $85 ($95 - $10 MIR). I'm still debating
whether to buy the memory or not.
 
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