Customer Service !! on your Computer

[Navy1960]

For all of us who have had the pleasure of dealing with "customer service" with companies like Dell, Apple, Verizon, or Qwest, let me tell you, you have my sympathies. Let me give you an example of a nice little chat with dell recently. After having to repeat my name at least 5 times, and my address , etc etc. we finally got to the point where the big words were asked " may I help you". My question was an easy one I thought as I was seeking a memory upgrade for my computer and needed to how many sticks to purchase to max it out for my current configuration. After 45 minutes on the phone, I was given the part number and ordered the part, well you guessed it, it was wrong. Eventually, I did get it right but it was not Dell who got it right, but it just made me thinkif this was my experience how bad is it really.

The March issue of Consumer Reports, which came out last week, included a survey of 4,100 consumers, who gave Dell 62 points out of a possible 100 for its support on desktop PCs. Although it still managed to top competing brands Hewlett-Packard and Compaq, which scored 54 and 51, respectively, Dell's rating represented a decline from the magazine's last desktop support survey, published in June 2003, in which it received a 64.
Growing pains hit Dell's customer service - CNET News

I did find that from several years ago, makes me wonder what it is now.

 

[Ringel05]

That's one of the reasons I learned how to do this shit myself. Everything you need to build fix and, or upgrade your computer is on the interwez, desktops being the easiest to work on.
I did try HP once (three separate calls for one issue), not once did they know what the answer was, I eventually discovered it on my own but it should have been simple for a "tech" person with a computer in front of them to tell me if my wifes' computer was RAID configured 0, 1, 2, 3...........

 

[Navy1960]

That's one of the reasons I learned how to do this shit myself. Everything you need to build fix and, or upgrade your computer is on the interwez, desktops being the easiest to work on.
I did try HP once (three separate calls for one issue), not once did they know what the answer was, I eventually discovered it on my own but it should have been simple for a "tech" person with a computer in front of them to tell me if my wifes' computer was RAID configured 0, 1, 2, 3...........

I have been thinking about that, these day's you can't help but become an expert on these computers given the lack of help on them. I have seen a lot of parts for sale in the build your own catagory and would like to give it a try.

 

[Ringel05]

That's one of the reasons I learned how to do this shit myself. Everything you need to build fix and, or upgrade your computer is on the interwez, desktops being the easiest to work on.
I did try HP once (three separate calls for one issue), not once did they know what the answer was, I eventually discovered it on my own but it should have been simple for a "tech" person with a computer in front of them to tell me if my wifes' computer was RAID configured 0, 1, 2, 3...........

I have been thinking about that, these day's you can't help but become an expert on these computers given the lack of help on them. I have seen a lot of parts for sale in the build your own catagory and would like to give it a try.

I could help, make it a little easier for you. The first two questions are what do you want it to do and how much do you want to spend? The first question will also determine if buying Windows or a downloading and installing a free Linux distribution is bettered suited to your needs.

 

[Navy1960]

That's one of the reasons I learned how to do this shit myself. Everything you need to build fix and, or upgrade your computer is on the interwez, desktops being the easiest to work on.
I did try HP once (three separate calls for one issue), not once did they know what the answer was, I eventually discovered it on my own but it should have been simple for a "tech" person with a computer in front of them to tell me if my wifes' computer was RAID configured 0, 1, 2, 3...........

I have been thinking about that, these day's you can't help but become an expert on these computers given the lack of help on them. I have seen a lot of parts for sale in the build your own catagory and would like to give it a try.

I could help, make it a little easier for you. The first two questions are what do you want it to do and how much do you want to spend? The first question will also determine if buying Windows or a downloading and installing a free Linux distribution is bettered suited to your needs.

Well as I am a retired old geezer *lol*, I don't have enough money to dip the thing in gold but enough to suit my needs. Recently I downloaded Ubuntu on my Windows 7 machine and its currently running on a VMWare, VM. I have to tell you though am very very impressed with Ubuntu and love the word processor thats imbedded in it.

 

[Ringel05]

I have been thinking about that, these day's you can't help but become an expert on these computers given the lack of help on them. I have seen a lot of parts for sale in the build your own catagory and would like to give it a try.

I could help, make it a little easier for you. The first two questions are what do you want it to do and how much do you want to spend? The first question will also determine if buying Windows or a downloading and installing a free Linux distribution is bettered suited to your needs.

Well as I am a retired old geezer *lol*, I don't have enough money to dip the thing in gold but enough to suit my needs. Recently I downloaded Ubuntu on my Windows 7 machine and its currently running on a VMWare, VM. I have to tell you though am very very impressed with Ubuntu and love the word processor thats imbedded in it.

So you're not a "gamer". The best thing about building one is planning upgradability into the build so your first (and probably most expensive) selection will be your motherboard followed by the chipset, size and type. To keep your cost down go with an AMD chipset as opposed to an Intel.

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard $145
(upgradable to a 6 core and supports up to 32GBs of DDR3 memory)
AMD Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition Callisto 3.3GHz $95
(The 6 core is around $190)
CORSAIR XMS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory. $50
COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS-550-PCAR-E3 550W ATX12V V2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Power Supply. $55
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. $45
LG CD/DVD Burner 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model GH22NS70. $18
GIGABYTE GV-N210D3-1GI GeForce 210 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card. $40
Rosewill RNX-G300LX Wireless Adapter Card IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Up to 54Mbps Data Rates 64/128bit WEP WPA WPA2 802.1x, 802.11i, AES, TKIP with 2 dBi Antenna. $15
APEX PC-389-C Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case. $30

$543, pre shipping and taxes and this would be a very, very fast an upgradable system.
Choosing a different motherboard, chipset and graphic card could cut as much as $150 off that price.

 

[Navy1960]

I could help, make it a little easier for you. The first two questions are what do you want it to do and how much do you want to spend? The first question will also determine if buying Windows or a downloading and installing a free Linux distribution is bettered suited to your needs.

Well as I am a retired old geezer *lol*, I don't have enough money to dip the thing in gold but enough to suit my needs. Recently I downloaded Ubuntu on my Windows 7 machine and its currently running on a VMWare, VM. I have to tell you though am very very impressed with Ubuntu and love the word processor thats imbedded in it.

So you're not a "gamer". The best thing about building one is planning upgradability into the build so your first (and probably most expensive) selection will be your motherboard followed by the chipset, size and type. To keep your cost down go with an AMD chipset as opposed to an Intel.

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard $145
(upgradable to a 6 core and supports up to 32GBs of DDR3 memory)
AMD Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition Callisto 3.3GHz $95
(The 6 core is around $190)
CORSAIR XMS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory. $50
COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS-550-PCAR-E3 550W ATX12V V2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Power Supply. $55
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. $45
LG CD/DVD Burner 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model GH22NS70. $18
GIGABYTE GV-N210D3-1GI GeForce 210 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card. $40
Rosewill RNX-G300LX Wireless Adapter Card IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Up to 54Mbps Data Rates 64/128bit WEP WPA WPA2 802.1x, 802.11i, AES, TKIP with 2 dBi Antenna. $15
APEX PC-389-C Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case. $30

$543, pre shipping and taxes and this would be a very, very fast an upgradable system.
Choosing a different motherboard, chipset and graphic card could cut as much as $150 off that price.

I'm curious what you think of the Intel Core series like i5 and i7 ?

 

[Luissa]

Good to see ya around Navy

 

[Navy1960]

​

Good to see ya around Navy

Why thank you, same to you

 

[Ringel05]

Well as I am a retired old geezer *lol*, I don't have enough money to dip the thing in gold but enough to suit my needs. Recently I downloaded Ubuntu on my Windows 7 machine and its currently running on a VMWare, VM. I have to tell you though am very very impressed with Ubuntu and love the word processor thats imbedded in it.

So you're not a "gamer". The best thing about building one is planning upgradability into the build so your first (and probably most expensive) selection will be your motherboard followed by the chipset, size and type. To keep your cost down go with an AMD chipset as opposed to an Intel.

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard $145
(upgradable to a 6 core and supports up to 32GBs of DDR3 memory)
AMD Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition Callisto 3.3GHz $95
(The 6 core is around $190)
CORSAIR XMS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory. $50
COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS-550-PCAR-E3 550W ATX12V V2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Power Supply. $55
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. $45
LG CD/DVD Burner 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model GH22NS70. $18
GIGABYTE GV-N210D3-1GI GeForce 210 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card. $40
Rosewill RNX-G300LX Wireless Adapter Card IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Up to 54Mbps Data Rates 64/128bit WEP WPA WPA2 802.1x, 802.11i, AES, TKIP with 2 dBi Antenna. $15
APEX PC-389-C Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case. $30

$543, pre shipping and taxes and this would be a very, very fast an upgradable system.
Choosing a different motherboard, chipset and graphic card could cut as much as $150 off that price.

I'm curious what you think of the Intel Core series like i5 and i7 ?

They're very good if you have the money to spend though not all the i5s support hyperthreading and you're limited as to upgradability if you use the i7 chip as it's their top end chip. Basically if you go with an Intel configuration you can add about $200 minimum to the build cost. On the high end you'll ad $1000 to the build cost.

 

[Navy1960]

So you're not a "gamer". The best thing about building one is planning upgradability into the build so your first (and probably most expensive) selection will be your motherboard followed by the chipset, size and type. To keep your cost down go with an AMD chipset as opposed to an Intel.

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard $145
(upgradable to a 6 core and supports up to 32GBs of DDR3 memory)
AMD Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition Callisto 3.3GHz $95
(The 6 core is around $190)
CORSAIR XMS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory. $50
COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS-550-PCAR-E3 550W ATX12V V2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Power Supply. $55
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. $45
LG CD/DVD Burner 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model GH22NS70. $18
GIGABYTE GV-N210D3-1GI GeForce 210 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card. $40
Rosewill RNX-G300LX Wireless Adapter Card IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Up to 54Mbps Data Rates 64/128bit WEP WPA WPA2 802.1x, 802.11i, AES, TKIP with 2 dBi Antenna. $15
APEX PC-389-C Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case. $30

$543, pre shipping and taxes and this would be a very, very fast an upgradable system.
Choosing a different motherboard, chipset and graphic card could cut as much as $150 off that price.

I'm curious what you think of the Intel Core series like i5 and i7 ?

They're very good if you have the money to spend though not all the i5s support hyperthreading and you're limited as to upgradability if you use the i7 chip as it's their top end chip. Basically if you go with an Intel configuration you can add about $200 minimum to the build cost. On the high end you'll ad $1000 to the build cost.

I was thinking if I was going to build it on my own I would budget about 800 to a 1000 but have heard a lot of good things about the Intel chips.

 

[Ringel05]

I'm curious what you think of the Intel Core series like i5 and i7 ?

They're very good if you have the money to spend though not all the i5s support hyperthreading and you're limited as to upgradability if you use the i7 chip as it's their top end chip. Basically if you go with an Intel configuration you can add about $200 minimum to the build cost. On the high end you'll ad $1000 to the build cost.

I was thinking if I was going to build it on my own I would budget about 800 to a 1000 but have heard a lot of good things about the Intel chips.

There's an ongoing (and seemingly never ending debate) as to which is better, AMD or Intel, personally I think it's BS. If you want the latest and greatest spend the money and go with the i7 otherwise I would personally stick with the AMD Phenom series. If you're not a gamer then the i7 and AMD 6 core chips are really overkill at this point.
If your budget is at that level then go with an AMD Phenom IIx4 chip, get a 650watt power supply, 16GBs of RAM and a 1TB hard drive and it'll be as good as any i5 or mid range i7 chip out there at half the cost.

 

[Ringel05]

Intel, i7 configuration.
ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.1) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard. $160
Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor BX80601950. $260

Or you can go with the:

Intel Core i7-990X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.46GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7990X. $1000

 

[Ropey]

Intel, i7 configuration.
ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.1) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard. $160
Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor BX80601950. $260

Or you can go with the:

Intel Core i7-990X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.46GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7990X. $1000

Both of those chips are 1366 Ringel. The board is 1155...

Unless one is into heavy crunching ie. designing and multiplexing raw video/audio in real-time I would go with the 2600K and its dual channel memory (1155) rather than the 1366 and its triple channel memory.

 

[Ringel05]

Intel, i7 configuration.
ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.1) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard. $160
Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor BX80601950. $260

Or you can go with the:

Intel Core i7-990X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.46GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7990X. $1000

Both of those chips are 1366 Ringel. The board is 1155...

Unless one is into heavy crunching ie. designing and multiplexing raw video/audio in real-time I would go with the 2600K and its dual channel memory (1155) rather than the 1366 and its triple channel memory.

How did I miss that? Musta been in a hurry, thanks for catching it!

My thought is unless you're into some serious gaming and raw media, realtime, (as you mentioned) and or high graphics appications the i7 is pretty much overkill for the the cost.

 

[Navy1960]

Ringel, you have had me looking online at computer parts all day, LOL I am completely knocked over by the sheer number of people that are into making their own computers now. I really had no idea until looking into just how large it was. I am very impressed by what seems to be on the surface the quality of some of the parts out there. Once I put something together, before I purchase it I will get everyones, input. What I am a little perplexed over, is the liquid cooling on some of these systems. I have come to the conclusion that for someone like me who does mostly, writing and mail, etc. that tends to be more for the high end gamer type, if I'm correct in that assumption.

 

[Ringel05]

Ringel, you have had me looking online at computer parts all day, LOL I am completely knocked over by the sheer number of people that are into making their own computers now. I really had no idea until looking into just how large it was. I am very impressed by what seems to be on the surface the quality of some of the parts out there. Once I put something together, before I purchase it I will get everyones, input. What I am a little perplexed over, is the liquid cooling on some of these systems. I have come to the conclusion that for someone like me who does mostly, writing and mail, etc. that tends to be more for the high end gamer type, if I'm correct in that assumption.

Mostly yes.
For what you're using it for most i7s would be like sticking a Pratt & Whitney F100 in a Piper Cub.
Go with i5, if you prefer Intel, or an AMD Phenom IIx4 for similar benchmarks at a lower cost, just make sure your motherboard is designed to take the i7 or AMD 6 core upgrades. Personally between those two I would go with the AMD unless I was building a super graphics/gaming system but that's just my preference.

 

[Navy1960]

Ringel, you have had me looking online at computer parts all day, LOL I am completely knocked over by the sheer number of people that are into making their own computers now. I really had no idea until looking into just how large it was. I am very impressed by what seems to be on the surface the quality of some of the parts out there. Once I put something together, before I purchase it I will get everyones, input. What I am a little perplexed over, is the liquid cooling on some of these systems. I have come to the conclusion that for someone like me who does mostly, writing and mail, etc. that tends to be more for the high end gamer type, if I'm correct in that assumption.

Mostly yes.
For what you're using it for most i7s would be like sticking a Pratt & Whitney F100 in a Piper Cub.
Go with i5, if you prefer Intel, or an AMD Phenom IIx4 for similar benchmarks at a lower cost, just make sure your motherboard is designed to take the i7 or AMD 6 core upgrades. Personally between those two I would go with the AMD unless I was building a super graphics/gaming system but that's just my preference.

I honestly have no preference on the CPU as long as it gets the job done, from what I can tell, from reading for someone like me if I got with a decent processor like the AMD and use the saving for more memory, in the long run it will be more productive. So am leaning in that direction.

 

[Ringel05]

Ringel, you have had me looking online at computer parts all day, LOL I am completely knocked over by the sheer number of people that are into making their own computers now. I really had no idea until looking into just how large it was. I am very impressed by what seems to be on the surface the quality of some of the parts out there. Once I put something together, before I purchase it I will get everyones, input. What I am a little perplexed over, is the liquid cooling on some of these systems. I have come to the conclusion that for someone like me who does mostly, writing and mail, etc. that tends to be more for the high end gamer type, if I'm correct in that assumption.

Mostly yes.
For what you're using it for most i7s would be like sticking a Pratt & Whitney F100 in a Piper Cub.
Go with i5, if you prefer Intel, or an AMD Phenom IIx4 for similar benchmarks at a lower cost, just make sure your motherboard is designed to take the i7 or AMD 6 core upgrades. Personally between those two I would go with the AMD unless I was building a super graphics/gaming system but that's just my preference.

I honestly have no preference on the CPU as long as it gets the job done, from what I can tell, from reading for someone like me if I got with a decent processor like the AMD and use the saving for more memory, in the long run it will be more productive. So am leaning in that direction.

The one I'm using now I built about two years ago, it's very fast and it easily plays many of the newer high graphics games on it.

AMD Phenom IIx2 550 80watt socket AM3 (938) processor with stock cooler.
ASUS M4A78 Pro motherboard with crossfire.
DDR2 PC2-6400 (400MHz), OCR (manufacturer) 8GBs.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 220, 1GB graphics card.

DDR2 memory is now pretty much obsolete and getting more expensive so make sure you go with DD3, it's more prolific and less expensive. Supply and demand.

 

[Ropey]

^ The AMD's are more than enough and at a great price point you are helping the underdog. It's a healthy underdog, but one nonetheless.

I would advise someone in your situation to look at a fine AMD dual core 260 @ 3.2Ghz ~72.00

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=54131&vpn=ADX260OCGMBOX&manufacture=AMDhttp://ncix.com/products/?sku=63413&vpn=M4A785TD-V EVO/U3S6&manufacture=ASUS

^ This is a fine ASUS Full Size ATX (Video/DVI/HDMI On Board with Add-On slot for a third party video card should you decide you want one later on). Nice board...

ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO/U3S6 ATX AMD 785G/SB710 AM3 DDR3 HD4200 2PCI-E16 SATA3 USB3.0 HDMI Motherboard ~100.00

Muskin 8GB DDR3 (1333MHz) ~45.00

NCIX.com - Buy Mushkin Enhanced Silverline Stiletto 8GB 2X4GB PC3-10666 DDR3-1333 9-9-9-24 Dual Channel Memory Kit - Mushkin Enhanced - 996770 - in Canada

Antec 450 Watt Power Supply with Dual 12V Rails ~50.00

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=62331&vpn=VP450&manufacture=Antec