mail order computers

[DedHed]

hello,

i was looking at my Computer Shopper magazine, when i saw about a billion ads for all these discount, bargain basement computer sales.

does anyone have experience with MO computer or computer parts places?

there was an ad in there for a complete tower (no software, monitor, or sound card) 800MHZ for about $230 and you can get 128mb of ram with it for something like $50 more.

what do you think about it ?

Dennis

[Q-ball]

Hiya, funny you ask...I just got a computer I bought through http://www.dellauction.com Celeron 733, 64mb, 20gb HD, 32mb TNT2 video, keyboard, mouse. Only think missing are monitor & operating system (I knew this when I bought it) and got it for $350. Not a bad deal. Better than i could have built it for I think anyhow. I got it yesterday and it seems to be a fine piece of equipment. I loaded Win98SE & office2000 on it, did fine. Tonight we'll be connecting to the net & see how it does. I actually ordered it on behalf of a friend, this is his first computer so I'll be giving some basic windows instruction tonight:D HTH

Q!!!

[Nagel]

I, myself, run one "mailorder" computer place. Granted, we target a niche market (digital audio workstations), but some principles carry over.

First: Beware of anything in "OEM" packaging. Especially from these places. See if THEY provide warranty coverage, because manufacturers warranty DOES NOT APPLY to "OEM" parts. The reseller is responsible for providing warranty coverage, and thats the reason "OEM" stuff is cheaper.

Second: Read ALL of the fine print. Half of these places will sell you on something cheap, then insist on upgrading this and that (at exhorbitant prices), when you decline to add these items, your original item is suddenly on "back-order". If you ever get the pressure sale then the back-order routine, look elsewhere, no reputable dealer trys those tactics to push merchandise.

Third: What kind of customer service do they have? Can you phone someone and check compatibility of parts? Will they attempt to help you troubleshoot an installation of something that you purchased from them? If not, don't close the door on them, but certainly look elsewhere as well as many are willing to do this.

Fourth: Age old rule: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Check all the specs. Make sure they aren't overclocking a 600 to make it look like an 800. Check the hard drive specs, many 5400 RPM drives still exist, but I wouldnt get less then 7200 RPM, if not a 10K or 15K drive. Especially since 5400 RPM drives are almost EOL (end of life).

Fifth: Check the processor. Athlon and Pentium III / IV are the high end of the consumer processors, Duron and Celeron are the low end of consumer processors.

HTH

[MIKE]

Hi Dennis,

My experiences have been pretty much like Q-Ball (including building computers from parts off of e-bay). However, if you are not comfortable getting into the box and messing around if necessary, I'd stick with a name brand and a known dealer, as suggested by Nagel.

[DedHed]

thanks for all the replies!

i'll have to save up my money and figure out what to do !

Dennis

[Q-ball]

Hey guys, wanted to toss this in here. I just ordered on Wed morning 256mb of PC133 Ram from http://www.tigerdirect.com. Ordering over the phone was incredibly easy, the lady on the phone was courteous & knowledgeable and the best part? It was waiting for me when I got home last night! That's right, I got it in 1 day and didn't pay extra to do it! They shipped it airborn from Illinois I think. Slapped that puppy in my computer and noticed a bit of difference. It'll help more once I upgrade from this little 450 to an 800 that can actually run at 133:D

Q!!!

Oh, and I only paid $78 shipped:D

[Mark]

Q,

Be careful with Tigerdirect. They've had some customer service issues. It sounds like your transaction went over well, so no need to worry, but be wary of future purchases.


Dedhed,
I've built all of the computers I have at home, & I have a few. I've found that building a computer from scratch can be a frustrating experience, but also a great way to save cash. First thing I do is research each and every individual component. http://www.Anandtech.com is a good place to research this. This is very important. For example there are numerous crappy motherboards out there. It only takes one crappy component like a motherboard or soundcard to give you a personal hell instead of a computer. Random unexplained system crashes/freezes usually result from poor hardware choices. So research every component. As for a home pc that you inted to use for the internet, gaming, and home office tasks, don't waste your cash on a pentium or Athlon. The difference in performance between celerons/durons and pentiums/athlons is so tiny, that the average user doesn't notice it. This is in referrence to the common software that most households and businesses use. It'd be a different story if you were designing your future house with autocad.;) In fact, the Duron will often outperform a pentium with MS Office and third-party games. So use the money you save with the Duron/Celeron and put it towards more memory. Newer OS's like windows 2000 are more memory hogs than cpu usage. You can run W2k flawlessly on a Pentium 350 with 256 mb of ram, while an 800 mhz processor with 64 mb of ram will run it fairly slowly. Of course other third party software certainly appreciates the extra cpu power. So unless you're a hardcore gamer or graphic designer, stick with the budget cpu's and stack up on the memory.

Building a computer from components is very rewarding. It's nice because once you get the hang of it, future upgrades are a breeze. It's much cheaper in the long run. The average consumer spends 1500 dollars every 2-3 years to keep their computer up to date. When you know how to deal with components, it only costs about $200 a year to keep your pc up to date. One year you might get a bigger hard drive. The next year you might upgrade the motherboard and cpu. HTH:)

[DedHed]

dang mark!

you sure know your stuff.

all that you said made a lot of sense. i will surely research the next harware item that i buy.

actually i have to get a network card today. or ehternet! what would you recommend?


thanks

Dennis

[Nagel]

I gotta admit, I've built every one thats running here. Thats what got us started building digital audio workstations for the musicians out there. And the savings is great. Some small, but useful things to remember when building your own:

If your bios used to count the memory one time on startup, and now is doing it 2 or 3 times, check your memory. Probably one or more chips has gone bad. Pull out single chips and reboot your computer, when it only counts ram a single time again, you have your culprit.

To make SURE you are getting the performance out of your hard drive that you should be getting (especially with all the current equipment on the market). Right click on my computer, choose properties. Click on the device manager tab, open up disk drives, double click on the IDE drive(s). Click on the settings tab and make sure DMA is NOT CHECKED. This is only checked for older hard drives, and microsoft seems to have it on by default whenever you install a hard drive. You WILL notice a speed difference if your hard drive supports it. My example is my system, a PII 233 with an IBM 30GB deskstar thats ATA100. My system is ATA33 (the deskstar is backwards compatible), and although I won't get the "total" power out of the drive until I upgrade or buy a promise ata100 controller, by changing the DMA setting to UNCHECKED made a difference here. Once the reef stops eating my wallet, this system is in need of an upgrade, but it works for now.

Also, if you have conflicts between cards, try re-arranging them in the PCI slots, half the time this will correct the problem after windows finds and installs the new device.

Lastly, common-sense but its still forgotten in the frustration of something not working, CHECK ALL CONNECTIONS, every last one of them, make sure that PIN 1 is going to PIN 1 (red stripe), and make sure that they are pushed firmly in.

Computers are simple to put together if you just match specs. Hell, I could upgrade mt 150 megs of ram from 100mHz to 133mHz, but why do it now? I'd rather hold out for the PC2100 chips and go full bore between upgrades rather then minor upgrades more often. To each his own I guess, either way is good, and you save mad cash doing it yourself. Just READ the specs, and understand them, and you'll be fine.

HTH