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Modern OEM desktop - proprietary PSU?

i'd have figured all that went away because it represented some measure of added expense to use a non-standard part
 
VirtualLarry said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883113303

Read the reviews and weep. Apparently, Gateway / Acer are using proprietary PSU connections, even on their standard tower configurations. This isn't some AMD "cat core" box either, it's a Haswell desktop i5.

What's next? Soldered RAM on desktop PCs?
Click to expand...

Kind of sucks. Nice price for an i5 though. Wonder if the PSU would handle a 750Ti.
I would not buy from Gateway however. My experience with the brand has been very poor. Bought one laptop from them that was DOA out of the box and a second (stupid me) that died within a year.
 
Yes, this is a bad thing.

What "might" happen, is that adaptor/converter cable sets are sold on ebay, eventually. E.g. so you can use a normal PSU.
Some motherboards are very cheap these days, so you could keep the cpu/memory etc, and swap the PSU and motherboard to make it "normal" again, if it broke or you needed a powerful graphics card, or something. (It seems they only supply a max of 300 W for the PSU, which can limit graphic card options).

EDIT: It may be a (dubious) business practice, of forcing users to get the PC serviced/repaired in the future by only the original manufacturer, as an additional revenue stream. I feel hypocritical saying their practice is "(dubious) business practice", because Apple effectively do a similar thing. But at least in Apples case, the things tend to be of good quality.
 
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VirtualLarry said:
It's bad enough that modern budget laptops are "disposable"..., but desktops too?
Click to expand...

We are probably not far off from that happening (at the bottom end of the desktop market). Once the cpu is commonly soldered down on the motherboard, and there is no power supply in the computer (this is done by having a DC input jack on the motherboard, and using an external power brick, similar to a laptop power supply). Motherboards like this already exist (usually atom and similar).
 
This makes the 750TI all the more important of a product... decent gaming on a machine you cannot replace the power supply of! (And I'll bet they don't even include a 6-pin connector... heck, they should just completely remove the PCIe16 slot too. Buttholes.) 🙁
 
Don't forget, 10 years ago Dell used to do the same thing on some models. They eventually threw in the towel and went back to using standard power supplies.

Gateway and Acer = POS.
 
VirtualLarry said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883113303

Read the reviews and weep. Apparently, Gateway / Acer are using proprietary PSU connections, even on their standard tower configurations. This isn't some AMD "cat core" box either, it's a Haswell desktop i5.

What's next? Soldered RAM on desktop PCs?
Click to expand...

I have noticed that dell makes custom firmware. how do they customize it? they remove support for all CPU architectures other than the one you bought.
Also, they make them with custom number of ram slots. so if you but 1 ram stick you get 1 slot, buy 2 sticks get 2 slots, buy 4 sticks get 4 slots. they want to make sure you are NOT upgrading it yourself.
 
Steltek said:
Don't forget, 10 years ago Dell used to do the same thing on some models. They eventually threw in the towel and went back to using standard power supplies.

Gateway and Acer = POS.
Click to expand...
I had a Dell myself one time, but that was about 20 years + though before started building my own, that had proprietary Ram in it even.

Have a Dell monitor, but wouldn't have a comp I guess.

I didn't even realize Gateway was still even in business I guess though 🙂

I just basically don't pay attention to some names I guess these days.
 
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MongGrel said:
I had a Dell myself one time, but that was about 20 years + though before started building my own, that had proprietary Ram in it even.

Have a Dell monitor, but wouldn't have a comp I guess.

I didn't even realize Gateway was still even in business I guess though 🙂

I just basically don't pay attention to some names I guess these days.
Click to expand...

Gateway got bought by Acer a while ago, so they're basically just trading on brand familiarity.
 
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