[CLUE-Talk] Re: hardware recommendation sought

[Jason S. Friedman]

BestComputerBuilders ("BCB") advertises in ComputerEdge; ComputerEdge is distributed in the Denver area.  Because someone on this list might consider purchasing a new computer someday, I'm offering my story.

I purchased a no-name, run-of-the-mill Athlon in September 2002 from BCB.  I picked my specs (processor, disk, memory) and my box was ready in a day or two.  I picked up the box, brought it home, fired it up, and discovered that the box had 256M of memory, half of the 512M I had paid for.  I complained, and the BCB staffperson's first response was that I must be mistaken.  I asked what consideration BCB would give if I returned with the box if it was, in fact, short memory.  I was told that BCB would give no consideration, but would correct the problem.  I brought the box back to the store at 10 am, opening time.  The employee did not arrive until 10:15.  He was nice enough, though, to give me a bigger hard drive for my trouble.

After about a month of operation the NIC card died.  Because the cards are inexpensive I decided to replace it myself rather than risk a trip to an unstaffed BCB.

Now, after 14 months, the machine dies after running for 30 minutes or less.  Reboot, and the same thing.  Clear the disk and install a fresh distribution, same result.  By "dies", I mean that the box suddenly becomes unresponsive to mouse or keyboard input.

BCB has two locations, one downtown and one in Aurora.  On Tuesday, November 25 I called the downtown location to verify its location, no answer.  I called the Aurora location to verify the location of the downtown store.  The BCB web site describes the store hours as 11-6 Monday through Saturday.  I walked four blocks to the downtown location with my (heavy) box in tow, and discovered the store was unstaffed and, thus, closed.  Angry, I called the Aurora store.  I spoke with a person who identified himself as Justin.  He regretted my inconvenience.  I asked him for some consideration on the labor charges involved in fixing the box; I allowed that if the box were out-of-warranty I would pay for hardware.  He said they might offer some consideration on the labor, but I would need to bring the box into the store first.

I took my box to Axess in Thornton.  They replaced the motherboard, $59.50 for the part and $50 for the labor.

So, the original box had a failed NIC card within a month and a failed motherboard within 14 months.