Extremely disappointed...

[Olimain]

Due to now being at my wits end after many useless telephone calls to Customer Service, I am hoping my last resort, posting my recent experiences here, will do some good.

I have been ordering parts from Scan for years now and having always had excellent service on the sales side of things, and no reason to use their Customer Service/Technical Support. When I joined a new company a little after a year ago, my raving about Scan convinced them to turn to them for computer supplies.

It was time to build a new machine for video editing so we ordered all our parts from Scan, now the nightmares began. I've built a number of PCs in the past and have a degree in Electrical Engineering so I'm not a total idiot when it comes to the technical side of things, however for the life of me I could not stop the constant blue screens I was getting on the new build. I had thoroughly tested the RAM, the HDDs and installed XP32, XP64, Vista32 and Vista64, all with the same results. I then swapped out every component for another, PSU, RAM, HDDs and ordered another of the same motherboard and another CPU all with the same results.

I had absolutely no idea what to do. A phone call to Scan customer service was my last option and I found myself talking to a very nice lady in Technical support. I explained that I was confident there was nothing at all wrong with the components that they had supplied, and that I was just looking to speak to someone more expert than I who could help me out. Scan to the rescue! She was brilliant and said , "It really sounds like you've tried everything. Tell you what, we'll issue RMAs for everything and you send it all back and we'll try and see what we can do here". Fantastic! We packaged the parts up and sent them off.

A couple of days later I get the "Parts tested, no fault found" e-mails so call to be told that all the parts have been tested and none are faulty. I explained that I knew none were faulty, however the lady I had spoken to you kindly said you would have a look for me as I'm at my wits end with these blue screens. After much "It's not our problem" and "We only offer warranty on the parts, you'll have to sort it out" I managed to get him to understand that I wouldn't have bothered packing and paying the special delivery charge to send the bits back had I not been told that the installation would be looked at. I realised that I was being done a bit of a favour, but nevertheless I had still been told that I would be helped out as a customer in need!

Anyway he eventually said that they would indeed test it for us as I had been promised and would do a fresh installation of Vista 64 (my desired operating system) on my HDD, with all of my parts together. I explained that this was a key Office PC that we used constantly so we were more than happy to pay for the services, we just wanted a stable system, and that the blue screens were coming randomly, from opening a program such as Notepad, or simply booting up and shutting down the PC.

After many more phone calls, 10 days later it was tested again and I ring to be told that the installation of Vista 64 on our HDD was successful and there were absolutely no problems at all and the system was stable. The HDD would, of course, be wiped (their OS licence) and then everything would be returned after payment of P&P and a Testing fee. I asked how they had gone about installing the drivers, as this was my main suspicion for the cause of the problem and I was told that they used the disc I had sent back. When I got up to my office I became fairly skeptical, as the disc was up there at the back of my desk, though I assumed they must have just used one that they had lying around as Scan must sell dozens of these per day.

So yesterday everything is received and I assemble the parts and switch on:

Windows Installation: "Please choose a username"

Now, I am pretty sure that you can't get into Windows without having first chosen your first username, and as such the system could not possibly been tested nor drivers installed - as it appeared we were midway through installation. I chose a username and proceeded to finish the installation. Into Windows for the first time, turns out it is Vista32, not the Vista64 I had been told was tested. No drivers installed, no HDD wiped, constant blue screens, mayhem at work without one of our key PCs, two weeks and £35 wasted.

My apologies for such a long rant, but needless to say we are thoroughly disappointed. While I realise it is not for Scan to test installations, we were very kindly told that they would help, only to be lied to two weeks later.

Oliver Maingay

[Chris P]

Olimain

Please post the RMA / Invoice number so we can look into and resolve this issue for you.

Best Regards

[Olimain]

Thank you for replying Chris. One of the <RMA REMOVED>.

As the parts were from various orders, there were separate RMAs but they are all cross referenced.

Oliver

[mamboboy]

Here's my two cents. Perhaps you need to turn AHCI mode on in the BIOS. Vista 64bit is a little...iffy without it. I didn't get the BSOD problems, but pretty crippling crashes and hard drives not appearing upon boot.

I agree the 'no faults found' thing is annoying. I spent almost an entire day testing a system i'd bought (and built) last week from here (as a bundle package). The motherboard simply wouldn't post once I put any stick in slot A, which meant it was shorting the board. Tried the motherboard both in and outside the case, but of course that trip via city link must have mysteriously fixed it!

[Olimain]

Thank you I will try that. It has been happening on all of the four OSs I've tried, not just V64, but ANYTHING is worth a try!

At least someone over there has a sense of humour - in the box they returned the parts in, there was a lone leaflet advertising their pre-built systems!!

I'm still yet to hear anything at all since yesterday - time will tell... Is it at all possible that the components just don't 'work' together? Like the ASUS M3A78 just doesnt like F1 drives + Corsair RAM? (Clutching at straws here)

[Olimain]

Update: Just had a call from Wesley @ Scan. Extremely helpful and apologetic and they are picking up the system on Monday for testing.

[Olimain]

Received the system a couple of days ago and have run it thoroughly. Cut a music vid with uncompressed footage with no problems and exported a 55GB uncompressed video to tape. We're extremely relieved!

Turns out it was a faulty motherboard causing all the problems, very frustrating that round one of RMAing was a waste of time but I must say, I cannot speak highly enough of the support I got during round two. Wesley was fantastic at keeping me up to speed on their progress and the machine was rigorously tested with a new processor and motherboard before being returned to me.

Thank you very much Scan