Tut!

[Clstrphbc_donut]

A mate of mine, 2 months after AMD64 S939 came out, got a new PC from a small shop in Scotland where his dad lives.

3000+ 32bit
1GB Ram
200GB 7200RPM 2mb cache HDD
9700Pro

£1800.

Anyway, earlier this month, he saw my rig running San Andreas and Half Life 2, maxxed out. He wanted a new PC, and me to build it. His dad said no. So what we decided to do was make a spec list for a new one which this PC builder would follow to build his new one. The list was:-

3200+ AMD64
300GB Maxtor 7200RPM 16MB Cache HDD alongside his 200GB POS
GeForce 6600GT
A8N SLI motherboard
Tagan/Thermaltake PSU Power Supply (over 400w) (Only ones i have used and 100% trust)

So, yesterday his PC arrives. The builder didnt bother to install the nVidia drivers at all. So i had to do that. Reboot, fine.Benchamrk, fine, reboot, fine. The PC is fine, for four hours.

Today i brought the PC to my house to look over it as it won't get past the "Windows is starting up" screen. One format and re-installation of XP later, all is looking good. Then I open the case panel which has been BENT TO FIT! Thats umm....<thinks of lesser an expletive> crap....

Q-TEC 550W stares me in the face. <insert crying smilie here> Seems to be a nightmare PC upto now....then...

There, sat at the bottom of the case is a ramsink from the Asus 6600GT. Simple job of sticking it back on, not the builders problem i suppose.

Take a look at the ram, 2 x 512 sticks of matched Twinmoss - Running in SINGLE channel? So I have moved them into dual channel.

What I'm getting at, is how can I, someone who doesnt work in the I.T industry spot all these problems that a "very professional PC builder" has made?

That Q-Tec is getting thrown away Monday. And the PC is sat the my right copying files so i can re-partition his 200GB drive that, from the looks of the partitions, has been connected to a PC thats been left next to a 3 year old with partition magic running....

It just gets my goat how these so-called "professionals" build them with such cheap and nasty parts and don't know next to nothing about them, yet are on huge incomes to build computers that are a.) a POS b.) fail hence needing more work....

It's just greed if you ask me. They build them crap. so you come back & upgrade. Or they build them cheap, so parts fail and you need replacements hence go to them.

I know it's not all PC builders but I'm just fuming that his dad has been ripped off for these 2 PC's, and God knows how many others as he supplies my mates dad with 20 PC's once per year. I've also seen this happen loads of times with different companys, even the big ones like PC World.

Stupid



And considering this builder says a 6600GT is "a VERY VERY high end card and costs £200!" I'd love to see the final price of both PC's. Maybe he shops in PC World? Because thats the only place I've seen a comapny dumb enough to sell a £130 card for £200.

Woowsah

[Clstrphbc_donut]

No replies?

Gonna us ethis a a mini-log...

Anyway, just this minute finished setting up the PC.

Problems :
Chipset was running too hot for my liking - 45oC +
200GB Partitioned weirdly
Single Channel Memory
No boot into XP
Q-TEC PSU
Ramsink missing from GFX card

Problems sorted and how:

Chipset problem = installed a low noise 120mm Antec fan to exhaust hot air
200GB HDD - Deleted all partitions & made a 98GB and 88GB partition
Swapped memory to dual channel
Formatted and re-installed XP
Q-TEC PSU - Cannot do anything about as of yet.
Ramsink - Simple case of sticking it back on.

Extras -

Partitioned 300GB drive 100GB for XP & Programs, 180ish GB for Storage

Overclocked from 2GHz to 2.1GHz (Remember this needs to be stable, as he isnt that computer literate)

Overclocked graphics card to 524/1.07

Now its running like a dream...



Now I'm off to bed.....

[BUFF]

If your mate specified products (e.g. PSU) & didn't get them & the builder did not ask beforehand if he could substitute product then it's breach of contract & he would be entitled to send it back (or at very least get a partial refund for difference in value).
Given the apparent state of it that might not be a bad thing ...

See how the builder would like that

[Clstrphbc_donut]

The builder sucks.....i have 3 A4 pages of what i have done to the PC to make it run better.

Thats just made me stay very far away from pre-built PC's...

They cut corners in order to make money.

[Ricco]

TBH the primary partition is too big for me, will get fragmented over time.
I would have split to 40GB for primary and then split 2 storage from the remainder, although it would all depend upon how much experience your friend has.

I would also recomend setting the My docs folder to a seperate partition along with the outlook express DB.
makes recovery less hassle.

[Clstrphbc_donut]

TBH the primary partition is too big for me, will get fragmented over time.
I would have split to 40GB for primary and then split 2 storage from the remainder, although it would all depend upon how much experience your friend has.

I would also recomend setting the My docs folder to a seperate partition along with the outlook express DB.
makes recovery less hassle.

Well my PC is set up pretty much the same.

Games these days dont takes megs as you know, they are starting to take gigs. Also, i back up my documents every month or two, and recently I've noticed quite a few (upto 10GB) of documents and considering this lad isnt going to format every 4 months, i think this is the best approach.

As someone once said to me (although i laughed at first) "You can NEVER have enough HDD space"

So I'd rather have too much than too less.

[ifyouknowme]

a high end gpu costs more like 500

sounds like a gd system ive built a mini tower with similar specs and it was quite nice

[Ricco]

Well my PC is set up pretty much the same.

Games these days dont takes megs as you know, they are starting to take gigs. Also, i back up my documents every month or two, and recently I've noticed quite a few (upto 10GB) of documents and considering this lad isnt going to format every 4 months, i think this is the best approach.

As someone once said to me (although i laughed at first) "You can NEVER have enough HDD space"

So I'd rather have too much than too less.

well its all a matter of personal prefference, but I don't like to see wasted space that can just get fragmented very easily.
You DON'T have to install games into the primary partition anyway - thats just default.

Also your point about mydocs folder would be null if you did what i said and set it and OE (or whatever) to put its DB on the a different partition too.