Falling apart

[Zrock]

I got a call The other night from one of my customers. They had just bought a new computer through one of those internet sites (cant remember were but as soon as i find out i will post it) When they received the system they had sent them someone elses machine. Luckely the system specks were close to what they wanted so they kept it. We the original problem was that they couldent play a music cd and hear it. Well the first thing i did was pul the cover off and look for the audio cable ... surprise their wasent one easy fix.. When i put the machine on its side i herd a rattling??? Gave the machine a little shake and 3 screws fell out ... upon futher inspection their were 3 more screws on the MB that were ready to fall out so the only thing holding the MB into the case was the expansion cards... Replaced all the screws with the proper screws and tightened them down and put the system back togeather. upon inspecting the system a little more the CD Rom door was falling of and non reparable and the floppy door was also falling of. I told the customer to call and complan and ask for replacement parts or a new system... they said they had done that and were told it was now their problem now..
I dont know how these people can live with themself I would feal to guilty to sell someone a system that was in that bad of shape.

[AlienDyne]

Believe me they won't understand it, unless they're out of business for good! And the only way for this to happen, is to realize everyone that those machines are more than crappy.
You always get what you pay for!
Think about it...

(I'd appreciate it, if you tell us their name!)

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"Matter is passive. In spite of its power, it can't be controlled without the human mind."
Sokrates

[theBeast]

This is what cracks me up. The store where I work, we sell high-end computers, and the price tag tends to show it. Our computers start at about $1200CAD for a Celeron 500 system sans monitor. We actually have a very small mark-up on the systems. Joe Customer comes in and looks at our prices and says, "I can get a Packard Bell from Radio Shack for $999, including a 17" Monitor and a bubblejet printer, and a scanner, and and and". I try to explain to the customer that those POC computers have a 1 year warranty, and will most likely break down after 15 months, but they don't listen. We've also shown customers, "Hey, using the same mark-up scheme on all our computers we can sell you the EXACT same machine for $10 less than the competitors! But, we don't want to sell crap because we want the home user to be happy.
It's like buying a car. If I wanted a luxury car, I wouldn't buy a Ford Echo. If I saw a car ad say they were as good as a Lexus, but only cost $9,000, I'd be a bit skeptical.
I also think it's kinda funny when people say, "Well, is this going to last me 25 years?"
Quite simply, no. If they want a computer to last 25 years with no hassles, they better be prepared to shell out some big bucks on SCSI drives, gigs of RAM, etc etc. You don't buy a $10 toaster and expect it to become the next family heirloom, so why drop $1000 on a computer and expect to have it run Quake VIII smoothly? Hey, I know! I'll go out and buy a Firefly and enter it into the Molson Indy, and if I don't win, I'll blame the car dealer, but I won't bother telling him that I want something that will give me Forumla 1 performance, and I'll just tell him that I don't want to spend more than $10,000 on a car.

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***the Beast
- Fate drove me here...then told me to get out of the car...

[pcshark]

I believe a PC could last 25 years if the electronics and the hard drive don't fail in that time. It depends on whether you are content to use the software that runs on it and never upgrade. For example, I still have the 8088 that I first bought in 1985, and guess what? It still runs. It operates on DOS 3.3 and runs Lotus 1-2-3 v2.1 and WordPerfect v5.2 for DOS, and I still have "tons" of space left on the 40MB MFM drive that spins up sounding like Chernobyl-1 coming online. The bottom line is, if you always use the same software and never purchase future upgrades, and if the electronics don't fail, then that PC could last you forever, theoretically.

I also have customers still using 286 PCs on an ARCnet network that runs their business software (written in 1986 and apparently Y2K compliant, because we've never had any problems there!) on a daily basis without a whine. The server was updated to a Pentium-class machine about 4 years ago, but other than that there have been no updates or upgrades at all.

Having to have the "latest and greatest" is a symptom of keeping up with the Joneses. If my 1969 V-Dub still runs, guess what? I'm driving it to work! (-;

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R. Bret Walker, CNE

Wondering what videos to rent this weekend? Check out The People's Reviews, movie reviews written for the people and by the people.

[theBeast]

I believe a lot of the quality of parts has to do with the manufacturers today. There are fifty million video card manufacturers, all trying to compete with eachother. The brain-dead consumer thinks of price over quality, and would pick up a $29.95 video card over a $299.95 video card any day. So, the companies decide, "Hey, I'm going to make a POC video card so I can compete." Even 3DFX and ATI video cards are crappier than they could be. We had a customer want a video card for video editing, and didn't care what expense. We sold her an ATI All-In-Wonder Pro 128 w/ DVD-Decoder, TV-in and TV-out, etc etc etc. We retailed it at roughly $450 or so. That was the most beautiful and most stable video card I dealt with. However, Joe-slob comes in looking to buy a video card to play his new fancy-smancy game on and I point out the ATI, and he says, "Nah, gimme this $40 one!" then have the gall to complain, "Hey, the game is choppy! You're selling crappy parts!"

[Zrock]

One thing i should add to my original post. I agree with all of you that most people buy low end components expecting to get quality and performanceand save money when in the long run it ends up costing them more. The above system that the customer had bought had good components in it. It just looked like a 2 year old had build the system with a hammer ??? hehehe

Wait actually a 2 year old could do a better job. Still havent goten the name of the company that supplyed the system customer has been out of town since

[winky]

I love building and working on computers so I thought about starting a site selling systems, my idea failed. You all are right, how can people be so dumb to think that a $400 system from bestbuy will compare to my $1500 systems which will last for years, good thing cost money why dont they realize this.

[Jeff the Brit]

Reminds me of a poster that hung above an engineer's desk where I used to work ... it said " Good, fast, cheap ... Pick any two"