Oem isn't that bad. But OEM power supplies are reknowned to be terrible. And OEM cooling solutions are usually absolute garbage *IF* you actualy get a colling solution at all (graphics cards that need 'em sometimes don't get them). Dell servers, lol, well, you are talking about two markets there. Like the Toyota end versus the Lexus end of the same company. Bottom line is, Dell don't make parts. They build machines with parts. It's where they get their parts from that makes the difference. And they take serious financially based shortcuts on some of the critical things.

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My friend just paid almost $2000 for this piece of junk. My Friend ordered a p4 3.0 with 512 Mb RAm. They send a celeron with 128 Mb. Are you just exaggerating, Christopher? If not, maybe it was just an oversight on Dell's part. i_XpUser

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A friend of mine bought a dell. p4 3.0 ht and he only paid 1200. We 2 weeks after getting it the computer would not turn on. They sent a new hard drive. New drive didn't work either. Seems the board may have burned out. They want to send a tech. He said Oh no you will be sending me a new computer. After a long fight with them he got the new system. Then 2 weeks after that the PSU went bad. They had to come replace that. I have never seen so many parts replaced on a New computer. I think to try to keep there prices cheap there using cheap parts. I had a Gateway for 3 years every had a program with it. I decided to retire it and build myself a more up to date PC.

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Sorry, I'm not saying that they have wimpy machines, but all those special deals "$499 with all this but...we skimp you on vital details" doesn't sound very attractive. And you can't even upgrade them unless it's a PCI, memory, or AGP upgrade. Dell also makes, get this, PROPRIETORY FLOPPY DRIVES. A $12 UPGRADE/REPLACEMENT AND YOU CAN'T DO IT! I think gell floppy drives are like 20 some UDS. Proprietory machines can get picky on memory too. Sometimes the proprietory manufacturers make memory specifically for their machines because of how picky their machines can get on what brand of memory they use. Remember friends: Proprietory manufacturers sell for cheap, give you cheap, then tell you to buy another once you get sick of messin around with it because it failed or is failing or whatever. Unfortunatey too many fall victim to this.

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"Oem isn't that bad. But OEM power supplies are reknowned to be terrible." True. But I do know of one that seems to be ok and works rather well. Codgen is an OEM manufacturer and makes some rather nice products and their Powersuppies are one of them.

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Yes it cost $2000 she got extra's like secound Harddrive etc. It didn't even come with the computer. We sent it back. I have bought the parts. Im building her one. Should have done that in the first place.

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Oh and that is so stupid for Floppy drives to be a option. You know some people still use floppies for bootdisk because they may want to dualboot with 98. I know 98 CD is bootable. But there are bootdisk used to extracting the cabfiles before 98 setup.

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i think DELL is only good for their laptops..i've had my inspiron 5100 for just over 1 year and it has worked flawlessly..only had to reformat it 2x...1st time was to go back to fat32 from ntfs and i just reformatted again because it's been a year since last one....it didn't need it, but i think it makes good sense to do so Abit NF7-s 2500+ @ 3200+ 512 Corsair XMS PC3200 128 meg Radeon 9800 Pro DUAL 36 GIG WD Raptors DUAL 21 in. ( 19.8 viewable ) Sony Trinitrons 3+ Mbps cable connection

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Geez. After reading the posts on this thread I have really began to see how DELL really is.... I would also like to comment on a few things. First of all I have to laugh really hard after hearing that Christopher's friend got sent a Celeron and 128MB RAM. LOL, that really sucks. "My daughter is looking at getting a PC for college. Asking me about it she said "Dell is the best, right?' I said h--- no! The best one is the one you build yourself." LOL, I completely agree. For the rest of my life, I will always build my own comps.....NEVER Buy from comp company's.... Being that they have the tendancy to jack up the price for their income... I mean.... not only can you sound good by saying ... "Yeah I built this one." But they are fun to build and work inside of.... Also a HELL OF A LOT CHEAPER.... "A friend of mine bought a dell. p4 3.0 ht and he only paid 1200. We 2 weeks after getting it the computer would not turn on. They sent a new hard drive. New drive didn't work either. Seems the board may have burned out. They want to send a tech. He said Oh no you will be sending me a new computer" LOL, I love hearing stories like that. We all know that Dell has won many awards for this, and that....... But are they reaaaallly as good as some may say? I would say no. Sure they are for the most part a very good company but, they have their downs or disadvantages. Heheh, now I enjoyed this thread! ____________-SamZee-____________

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Hey i got the computer im on now for $100.00. Its a Gateway p4 1.8 Gha 256 Mb Ram 40 Gig Harddrive XP Home. I bought it from a friend that was moveing and had to sell it. Gateway support has been grate it still has little over a year warrenty left. The few times i called they were friendly and most of all i could understand them. Ive worked on some of my friends dell computers. Ha ha Dell support is a joke. Once i wa son the phone calling out the service tag. I called it out he called it back out wrong that went on a few times i finnaly said F AS IN FRANK S AS IN SAM ETC ETC guess what? They still did not understand. Also my cousin got a Dell this past Christmas for her kids. She ha dit sent to my house so her kids would not see it. I had to call Dell once. They would not help becasue they said the address did not match or something. I explained what the deal was they didn't care and still want help. Thats just more reasons not to buy Dell. Compaqs are good gateway is good Dell is really the only one thats bad.

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I don't think poorly of Dell. I will never buy one of their desktops, nor would I buy an HP, compaq, or any other namebrand desktop PC. A home build or as previously stated, local pc builder/ retailers as all know are the best way to go. But, the main reason I'm posting this is to let all know that if you have a problem, you can email Dell in the US and they will take care of you. I did buy a laptop a while ago. It was one of those deals they run regarding no interest if paid within 90 days. Apparantly they claimed I was not accepted (even though the loan was). After talking to the folks in India, whom became quite rude once I threatened that I was not paying any interest. I wrote an email to dell us and all interest charges were dropped. My long and painful post and point is, if those of us who have bought dells and have had problems complain enough, maybe Dell service will come back to the states and once again be noted for the good service they used to have. Sorry for the length When all else fails beat the $%!* out of it!!!

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"After talking to the folks in India, whom became quite rude" Tank you for cooling dell teech soopport. How may I heelp you. =)

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I think that all big companies are bad. I bought my first computer last year (I used my parents' before that) and I had to deal with HP. Sick. I will definitely be building my own from now on. By the way HP's Canadian tech support is mostly Indian too. Or maybe that's Pakastani, it's hard to tell. And they're rude. What's up with that?? If you don't want to build your own computer, buy one from a small company. Bill Gates has performed 1024 illegal operations. I hope he's sorry for the inconvenience.

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"I called it out he called it back out wrong that went on a few times i finnaly said F AS IN FRANK S AS IN SAM ETC ETC" ""After talking to the folks in India, whom became quite rude. Tank you for cooling dell teech soopport. How may I heelp you."" ROFLMAO! AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA. I know exactly what you guys mean. Also, if the dell tech support tells you what to type.. they can just tell you what letters or numbers to type..... rather than goin.... M as in Michael, S as in Sam, C as in Charlie, O as in Oscar, N as in ...... Neo..... F as in Frank, I as in the Idiot that I am, and G as in George....... LOL, I typed in Msconfig right when he said M. Heheh, but this was... looooooooooooooooooooooong time ago. Very long ago... before I knew nearly as much as I do now. Heheh, they got a lot of awards for their tech support..... But I would give them a C as far as letter grades go. Heheh, now this has got to be one of my favorite threads on this forum :) ___-SamZee-___

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Ha ha ha The time i called it out like that my friend was in the floor laughing. He was laughing so hard. I was mad but was about to laugh at the same time. I started to say I as in Idiot like you are. I bet my friend would have wet himself if i had done that.

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Hmm... I've never liked DELL. I don't know why everyone loves it so much. I don't see anything great about DELL. I think the bad impression stuck on me due to my parents' 2002 DELL computer monitor being kind of blurry and messed up. Ew. I have a new HP laptop. I know many people don't like HP, too, but my laptop works perfectly. Gotta love it for the most part! =) anDrew

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Well most of the time if your going to buy alaptop it will have to be namebrand. There is a few of those local dealers where i live. One very good one is Micro Management Systems better known as MMS. They also are my isp NetLine America. They are the best i say don't use anyone like AOL or better known as AO HELL l.o.l ha ha well my isp my account was due on Wednesday once. I get paid on Friday. I called them up and asked them to extend my account to Friday. Guess what? They did it out of the goodness of their heart. Now try calling AO HELL and ask them to do that.

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l.o.l now i have to admit the story about paying $2000 for a Dell was not true. BUT all the rest was true. I did have a friend that ordered a Dell and it came with no floppy drive. It had on the sheet none selected. And i think he paid a good bit for it. Also i think it came from the factory with the Blaster virus. the first week he had Internet he got that virus something smells fishy don't it? And i helped him and had McAfee installed and Updated. So McAfee would have caught it.

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My e-machines 400Mhz cerleron worked flawlessly for 5 1/2 years. upgrade it with a 15 g HD and cd-rw and LS-120. Only problem had was with first CD burner which quit afetr a couple of years if infrequent use. It was an HP. Replaced it with a $20 CD buner. I got a new e-machines recently for $400 after tax and rebates. Girlfriend will get old one. New one Has 17" KDS monitor, Canon printer, 2.7 gig. 256 mb, 40 gig HD, CD-RW/DVD ROM, mouse and keyboard (floppy). My tech friends smirk; I smile. I got no time for the big names HP, Compaq, Dell, etc. My $0.02

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Hey i think you made a good Choice.

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Dell's support is weird My sister had a dell for 6 months when the cd rom died may i say cheap peice of @#$% when she called for support she was told to open the machine and pull out cables on the mother board my sister is pc illiterate what happens when that 1 pc illiterate person does not pull the power cord and gets a zap their idea of support makes me think that they are stupid

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