How many people here actually build their computers?

[PanzerIV]

Unlike several big OEMs I am not kissing Intel's arse so I build my own custom AMD PCs for myself, family and customers. No Intels whatsoever.

 

[LongCoolMother]

i used to build my own systems. but DELL has gotten so cheap and reliable now that it has become the better option for me. you wouldnt believe how quiet the dells are, they are SILENT. and the reliability is great. expandibility is a problem though. thats just about the only drawback.

 

[tm37]

I build my laptops and I buy my desktops from dell.

 

[DT4K]

There are lots of good reasons to custom build, but price is no longer one of them.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: LongCoolMother
i used to build my own systems. but DELL has gotten so cheap and reliable now that it has become the better option for me. you wouldnt believe how quiet the dells are, they are SILENT. and the reliability is great. expandibility is a problem though. thats just about the only drawback.

Cheap. Yes.
Reliable. Usually, but when you get a bad one, you get a *BAD* one.
Quiet. Usually.
Hot. GOD YES. Most Dells thermal throttle due to the piss-poor stock cooling.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: DT4K

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
Meh, I'm unconcerned about their "deal power", I'm only concerned with beating their REGULAR prices.

WTF are you talking about? If that's the case and you want to make a fair comparison, then I expect you to use the actual MSRP for every component you select when making the comparison. Regular prices at Dell are irrelevant because I don't think they've ever sold a system at regular price. There is ALWAYS a sale going on at Dell. Whether it's the normal 20% off or $200 off that they have practically EVERY day, or whether it's the 50% off that they occasionally have, regular prices are nothing more than a marketing tactic.

You even proved the point in your other post where you compared a dell deal to what you could build. Your example was 25% more expensive. And Dell CRT's are much better than whatever crappy CRT you used for comparison.

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
If you're willing to take sub-par equipment in exchange for an unbeatable deal, go for it.

Oh, wait, nevermind, Dell *IS* par these days due to their rediculous market share.

What exactly is the subpar equipment you are talking about? It's not like Dell makes their own video cards or memory or cpus or hard drives or DVD drives.

:thumbsup:

 

[imported_Soldier]

I have built my own since the late 90's. Every time a neighbor, relative or friend has a problem with there computer it's always an off the shelf model....

 

[TGS]

Originally posted by: jumpr
It's usually cheaper for me to buy an SC420 than to build my own. I'm not a power user, so performance isn't important to me; the main concern I have is stability and noise.

For those two concerns, you can't beat Dell. Plus, getting an SC420 with a 2.8 GHz processor, 512MB RAM and a SATA HDD for $400 ain't a bad deal.

Winchester 3000 - 146
Abit AV8 - 94.75
Corsair 1GB 3200 - 85
WD2000JD SATA 200GB - 88

___________________________
Total 413.75

So for a few bucks more, you get a fair superior box. What you don't get is a proprietary power supply, (dell owners correct me) that plugs into a board that only works with a "Dell" power supply. Along with a plastic covered case.

I don't know if the above Dell Deal includes XP home.

So add 100 bucks for a real computer, and you can see why I don't like Dell.

More thrifty shoppers can find a better deal that what I came up with. I just laid out a system close to what I have, although I added the cost of a good 19" LCD and a 6800GT.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: DT4K
And Dell CRT's are much better than whatever crappy CRT you used for comparison.

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
If you're willing to take sub-par equipment in exchange for an unbeatable deal, go for it.

Oh, wait, nevermind, Dell *IS* par these days due to their rediculous market share.

What exactly is the subpar equipment you are talking about? It's not like Dell makes their own video cards or memory or cpus or hard drives or DVD drives.

No, actually, my crappy CRT was a Trinitron knockoff, just like Dell's. And the sub-par equipment is...

1) Power supplies - lowest bidder. There's a reason these are the most common failures on Dells. And a lot of the time, these will take everything else out with them
2) Cooling - It's subpar, no matter how you look at it. Passive CPU cooler, low CFM fan, high heat output CPU. How does that make sense?
3) DVD drives - They *STILL* don't offer DVD- drives to my knowledge.
4) Memory - Lowest bidder. I've had Dells fresh out of the box that flunked memtest86.
5) Floppy drives. I've seen ONE of them that worked. ONE. UNO. 1. Halfway between 0 and 2.
6) Chassis. They're plastic, a pain in the ass to work in, and several times I've had the latches on them break/jam/whatever.

(This is based on 250 Dell Optiplex machines of varying configuration and age, plus dozens of customer systems before I started telling them to take it up with the manufacturer)

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

No, actually, my crappy CRT was a Trinitron knockoff, just like Dell's. And the sub-par equipment is...

1) Power supplies - lowest bidder. There's a reason these are the most common failures on Dells. And a lot of the time, these will take everything else out with them
2) Cooling - It's subpar, no matter how you look at it. Passive CPU cooler, low CFM fan, high heat output CPU. How does that make sense?
3) DVD drives - They *STILL* don't offer DVD- drives to my knowledge.
4) Memory - Lowest bidder. I've had Dells fresh out of the box that flunked memtest86.
5) Floppy drives. I've seen ONE of them that worked. ONE. UNO. 1. Halfway between 0 and 2.
6) Chassis. They're plastic, a pain in the ass to work in, and several times I've had the latches on them break/jam/whatever.

(This is based on 250 Dell Optiplex machines of varying configuration and age, plus dozens of customer systems before I started telling them to take it up with the manufacturer)

1) The power supplies are more than adequate, and put out quite a bit more power than they are rated. Probably better than the cheapie 350w power supply you listed above
2) The cooling may be subpar in your eyes, but if it was actually a problem, you'd hear much more about it. There is no inadequacy with it, and it helps keep the machine quiet.
3) They've been offering DVD R/RW +/- for at least a year now (they basically started offering them a few months after they hit the market), and have been offering the DL drives for quite some time.
4) You may have a point, but I've heard no more problems with their memory than any other OEM parts that you buy from Newegg of the like.
5) I find it hard to believe that out of 250+ Optiplex machines, you've seen only one floppy drive that works.
6) Their current computer cases are more than adequate, and much less of a pain to work on almost all of those $20 cases you see out there, which you would need to use to even come close to their prices.

Basically what I get out of your assessment of Dells, is that you haven't even worked with models that are less than a 1.5 to 2 years old, and are therefore completely unqualified to comment on the current product.

Not to mention, saying you've worked with over 250 Optiplexs leades me to believe that this was in a school environment, where these computers are absolutely abused. You wouldn't have very many working floppy drives either if you had kids cramming all sorts of crap in them each day.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

No, actually, my crappy CRT was a Trinitron knockoff, just like Dell's. And the sub-par equipment is...

1) Power supplies - lowest bidder. There's a reason these are the most common failures on Dells. And a lot of the time, these will take everything else out with them
2) Cooling - It's subpar, no matter how you look at it. Passive CPU cooler, low CFM fan, high heat output CPU. How does that make sense?
3) DVD drives - They *STILL* don't offer DVD- drives to my knowledge.
4) Memory - Lowest bidder. I've had Dells fresh out of the box that flunked memtest86.
5) Floppy drives. I've seen ONE of them that worked. ONE. UNO. 1. Halfway between 0 and 2.
6) Chassis. They're plastic, a pain in the ass to work in, and several times I've had the latches on them break/jam/whatever.

(This is based on 250 Dell Optiplex machines of varying configuration and age, plus dozens of customer systems before I started telling them to take it up with the manufacturer)

1) The power supplies are more than adequate, and put out quite a bit more power than they are rated. Probably better than the cheapie 350w power supply you listed above
2) The cooling may be subpar in your eyes, but if it was actually a problem, you'd hear much more about it. There is no inadequacy with it, and it helps keep the machine quiet.
3) They've been offering DVD R/RW +/- for at least a year now (they basically started offering them a few months after they hit the market), and have been offering the DL drives for quite some time.
4) You may have a point, but I've heard no more problems with their memory than any other OEM parts that you buy from Newegg of the like.
5) I find it hard to believe that out of 250+ Optiplex machines, you've seen only one floppy drive that works.
6) Their current computer cases are more than adequate, and much less of a pain to work on almost all of those $20 cases you see out there, which you would need to use to even come close to their prices.

Basically what I get out of your assessment of Dells, is that you haven't even worked with models that are less than a 1.5 to 2 years old, and are therefore completely unqualified to comment on the product.

Not to mention, saying you've worked with over 250 Optiplexs leades me to believe that this was in a school environment, where these computers are absolutely abused. You wouldn't have very many working floppy drives either if you had kids cramming all sorts of crap in them each day.

Stupid fusetalk ate my reply. Forget it.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: TGS

Originally posted by: jumpr
It's usually cheaper for me to buy an SC420 than to build my own. I'm not a power user, so performance isn't important to me; the main concern I have is stability and noise.

For those two concerns, you can't beat Dell. Plus, getting an SC420 with a 2.8 GHz processor, 512MB RAM and a SATA HDD for $400 ain't a bad deal.

Winchester 3000 - 146
Abit AV8 - 94.75
Corsair 1GB 3200 - 85
WD2000JD SATA 200GB - 88

___________________________
Total 413.75

So for a few bucks more, you get a fair superior box. What you don't get is a proprietary power supply, (dell owners correct me) that plugs into a board that only works with a "Dell" power supply. Along with a plastic covered case.

I don't know if the above Dell Deal includes XP home.

So add 100 bucks for a real computer, and you can see why I don't like Dell.

More thrifty shoppers can find a better deal that what I came up with. I just laid out a system close to what I have, although I added the cost of a good 19" LCD and a 6800GT.

The deal was actually $348 + tax.

Let's see what you forgot (prices include shipping cost):
-Case & Power Supply $40-$50
-Video Card $25-$30
-Keyboard $8
-Mouse $5
-CD-ROM $10

So that totals an additional $88-$103. So now you're at $500-$520 as opposed to the $360-$370 Dell deal. About $140 to $150 difference., which is almost 40% of the cost of the original system.

 

[Fireball77]

If it is for me, I build my own, if it is for the office, Dell all the way, way too relaible for an office setting.

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

No, actually, my crappy CRT was a Trinitron knockoff, just like Dell's. And the sub-par equipment is...

1) Power supplies - lowest bidder. There's a reason these are the most common failures on Dells. And a lot of the time, these will take everything else out with them
2) Cooling - It's subpar, no matter how you look at it. Passive CPU cooler, low CFM fan, high heat output CPU. How does that make sense?
3) DVD drives - They *STILL* don't offer DVD- drives to my knowledge.
4) Memory - Lowest bidder. I've had Dells fresh out of the box that flunked memtest86.
5) Floppy drives. I've seen ONE of them that worked. ONE. UNO. 1. Halfway between 0 and 2.
6) Chassis. They're plastic, a pain in the ass to work in, and several times I've had the latches on them break/jam/whatever.

(This is based on 250 Dell Optiplex machines of varying configuration and age, plus dozens of customer systems before I started telling them to take it up with the manufacturer)

1) The power supplies are more than adequate, and put out quite a bit more power than they are rated. Probably better than the cheapie 350w power supply you listed above
2) The cooling may be subpar in your eyes, but if it was actually a problem, you'd hear much more about it. There is no inadequacy with it, and it helps keep the machine quiet.
3) They've been offering DVD R/RW +/- for at least a year now (they basically started offering them a few months after they hit the market), and have been offering the DL drives for quite some time.
4) You may have a point, but I've heard no more problems with their memory than any other OEM parts that you buy from Newegg of the like.
5) I find it hard to believe that out of 250+ Optiplex machines, you've seen only one floppy drive that works.
6) Their current computer cases are more than adequate, and much less of a pain to work on almost all of those $20 cases you see out there, which you would need to use to even come close to their prices.

Basically what I get out of your assessment of Dells, is that you haven't even worked with models that are less than a 1.5 to 2 years old, and are therefore completely unqualified to comment on the current product.

Not to mention, saying you've worked with over 250 Optiplexs leades me to believe that this was in a school environment, where these computers are absolutely abused. You wouldn't have very many working floppy drives either if you had kids cramming all sorts of crap in them each day.

I hate trendy ATOT acronyms, but I'll make an exception and say:

QFT!!!

EyeMWing,
I can't believe you are claiming expert knowledge about the quality of dell desktops based on your experience with Optiplex machines.

My 8400 has a metal chassis with metal hinges. About the only thing plastic on it is the trim.
My 8400 has this drive:
"DVD+/-RW with CD-RW Drive
The perfect All-in-One combination! Read CD or DVD media, write DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, CD-R, CD-RW media."
It's a Philips branded drive. Sure, it's not as good as my NEC 3500A, but it's not some no-name brand.
The DVD-ROM drive in my system is a Sony branded drive.
My 8400 cools the CPU with a nice big fan and some kind of heat-pipe system. It doesn't generate any more heat than my self-built system and it's quite a bit quieter.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

built at home, high end systems are cheaper that way, and more fun.

at work we use dell for pretty much everything.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: DT4K

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

No, actually, my crappy CRT was a Trinitron knockoff, just like Dell's. And the sub-par equipment is...

1) Power supplies - lowest bidder. There's a reason these are the most common failures on Dells. And a lot of the time, these will take everything else out with them
2) Cooling - It's subpar, no matter how you look at it. Passive CPU cooler, low CFM fan, high heat output CPU. How does that make sense?
3) DVD drives - They *STILL* don't offer DVD- drives to my knowledge.
4) Memory - Lowest bidder. I've had Dells fresh out of the box that flunked memtest86.
5) Floppy drives. I've seen ONE of them that worked. ONE. UNO. 1. Halfway between 0 and 2.
6) Chassis. They're plastic, a pain in the ass to work in, and several times I've had the latches on them break/jam/whatever.

(This is based on 250 Dell Optiplex machines of varying configuration and age, plus dozens of customer systems before I started telling them to take it up with the manufacturer)

1) The power supplies are more than adequate, and put out quite a bit more power than they are rated. Probably better than the cheapie 350w power supply you listed above
2) The cooling may be subpar in your eyes, but if it was actually a problem, you'd hear much more about it. There is no inadequacy with it, and it helps keep the machine quiet.
3) They've been offering DVD R/RW +/- for at least a year now (they basically started offering them a few months after they hit the market), and have been offering the DL drives for quite some time.
4) You may have a point, but I've heard no more problems with their memory than any other OEM parts that you buy from Newegg of the like.
5) I find it hard to believe that out of 250+ Optiplex machines, you've seen only one floppy drive that works.
6) Their current computer cases are more than adequate, and much less of a pain to work on almost all of those $20 cases you see out there, which you would need to use to even come close to their prices.

Basically what I get out of your assessment of Dells, is that you haven't even worked with models that are less than a 1.5 to 2 years old, and are therefore completely unqualified to comment on the current product.

Not to mention, saying you've worked with over 250 Optiplexs leades me to believe that this was in a school environment, where these computers are absolutely abused. You wouldn't have very many working floppy drives either if you had kids cramming all sorts of crap in them each day.

I hate trendy ATOT acronyms, but I'll make an exception and say:

QFT!!!

EyeMWing,
I can't believe you are claiming expert knowledge about the quality of dell desktops based on your experience with Optiplex machines.

My 8400 has a metal chassis with metal hinges. About the only thing plastic on it is the trim.
My 8400 has this drive:
"DVD+/-RW with CD-RW Drive
The perfect All-in-One combination! Read CD or DVD media, write DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, CD-R, CD-RW media."
It's a Philips branded drive. Sure, it's not as good as my NEC 3500A, but it's not some no-name brand.
The DVD-ROM drive in my system is a Sony branded drive.
My 8400 cools the CPU with a nice big fan and some kind of heat-pipe system. It doesn't generate any more heat than my self-built system and it's quite a bit quieter.

Then Dell certainly knows how to shortchange the business market. And TO MY KNOWLEDGE they did not offer DVD- drives. The last time I checked was like a year ago. Also, how the hell am I supposed to know what kind of chassis a machine that I've admittedly never handled has? All I know is what I've seen, and what I've seen has been COMPLETE AND UTTER CRAP OUT OF THE BOX WITHOUT FAIL. 5/90 GX280's that arrived in December had PSU failures before I left in May. Talk to anyone in lower IT anywhere; Optiplexes are complete and utter junk, and the only reason we put up with them is because that's what the boys upstairs say. I didn't base much of what I said on the home machines that I have experience with, because, by definition, when I see them, there's something wrong with them, because, you know, I'm being paid to fix them.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Then Dell certainly knows how to shortchange the business market. And TO MY KNOWLEDGE they did not offer DVD- drives. The last time I checked was like a year ago. Also, how the hell am I supposed to know what kind of chassis a machine that I've admittedly never handled has? All I know is what I've seen, and what I've seen has been COMPLETE AND UTTER CRAP OUT OF THE BOX WITHOUT FAIL. 5/90 GX280's that arrived in December had PSU failures before I left in May. Talk to anyone in lower IT anywhere; Optiplexes are complete and utter junk, and the only reason we put up with them is because that's what the boys upstairs say. I didn't base much of what I said on the home machines that I have experience with, because, by definition, when I see them, there's something wrong with them, because, you know, I'm being paid to fix them.

As for the problem with the power supplies, I'd guess that at the very least there would be double-triple the amount of failures for those cheapie 350w PSUs you mentioned before.

Last time you checked was a year ago? I guess you really didn't check very hard because I know people who bought Dell systems greater than a year ago (including myself) with these drives in them.

The Optiplex line is not of the greatest quality, but it is more than adequate for most of the businesses out there. Dell is also extremely good when it comes to their business customers as far as overnighting replacements, RMAs, etc.

The question that is still unanswered is "Why?" Why would you say you can beat Dell's outrageous deals when you wind retracting and just saying you beat their regular price? Why would you comment on and insult products that you have never dealt with before? Why would you pretty much just flat out lie?

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

hahaha dell got pwned

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: EyeMWingThen Dell certainly knows how to shortchange the business market. And TO MY KNOWLEDGE they did not offer DVD- drives. The last time I checked was like a year ago. Also, how the hell am I supposed to know what kind of chassis a machine that I've admittedly never handled has? All I know is what I've seen, and what I've seen has been COMPLETE AND UTTER CRAP OUT OF THE BOX WITHOUT FAIL. 5/90 GX280's that arrived in December had PSU failures before I left in May. Talk to anyone in lower IT anywhere; Optiplexes are complete and utter junk, and the only reason we put up with them is because that's what the boys upstairs say. I didn't base much of what I said on the home machines that I have experience with, because, by definition, when I see them, there's something wrong with them, because, you know, I'm being paid to fix them.

You are the one who made general statements about the quality of Dell chassis' and other components.

If you've never handled Dimension machines and admittedly don't know a damn thing about them, then why in the FVCK would you come posting here telling everyone what pieces of crap Dells are and how the components are inferior and how you can beat the prices?????

Could it be that you like to pretend you're an expert even though you aren't?

Don't you realize that there are enough people on here who do know wtf they are talking about that you are going to be challenged when you just start making assumptions or making things up?

You know, K6-2's sucked too, that doesn't mean I'm going to start telling everyone that Athlon 64's have poor floating point performance and suck for gaming.

 

[Landroval]

I buy laptops and build desktops

 

[CallMeJoe]

I've built my own since '92. I may not save any money doing it these days (when you see how cheap on prebuilt PCs have become) but I know every part of the box, and any corners cut are the ones I decided.

 

[Ornery]

• I feel like a chump for building my last one.

 

[WildHorse]

I've built 5, each much better than the previous one.
The rig I'm on now, which I built, is pretty hot.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I have built at least 9 computers for myself, and for my relatives and friends.

 

[blodhi74]

I PC I bought was a P100 from packard Bell .... been building my own since