gettin a Dell, kill me

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st4rk said:
Yes, interestingly enough none of the dells have had problems with psu's. Although they do look really cheap.
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Actually, my relatives had a Dimension system with a failing power supply. It's a good thing I caught it before it was too late - it only took the motherboard and processor with it :p. Anyways, I ended up building a nice NForce2 system for them, so I'm happy, they're happy, we're all happy :D.

If you're seriously going to spend $5000 on a new system, go with a botique builder! You're not dealing with a corporate giant that will try to cut corners to save money. I'll recommend, like these other guys, Voodoo, Falcon Northwest, and even Velocity Micro. Hell, you can get a custom paintjob on an Exotix system from FNW. Now that's a really happy college boy.
 
Even if you dont mind getting that system yourself. Say no for your mums sake. Thats like going to a car dealership and sitting back watching your parents buy a used car for way to much when you just know its got problems.

I would never let my folks get ripped that hard. If after repeated attempts they still feel like getting ripped off then let them. There choice I guess, but I would put up a hell of a fight.
 
come on "dude". dont be soo hard on your self just because you got a dell, those are really good so called "gaming systems". they work just as good as the custom computer except they dont overclock and the xps make a lot of noise. :) just keep it to do some gaming. mod the case if you want. and try to get news fans or something. the damn thing makes a lot of noise when it is being used a lot. as i said my cousin has a xps 1 month old and it makes a hell of a noise. i cant even stand it.
 
You're getting a $5K system for FREE. For that simple fact, you shouldn't be complaining. If nothing else, sell the system then build your own and pocket the difference.
 
My company uses dells's almost exclusively - not a bad box for what it is. The people warning you about dell's "Award winning support" are right though - it has gone downhill.

The good news is that there are easy ways to fix that -

#1 is buy through their Small business side. All Corporate customers get Domestic tech support.
#2 is to pay for Gold tech support - that means you automatically get to a lvl 2 tech to start with (worth it's wieght in gold) and as a side effect all level 2 techs are domestic
#3 If #1 and 2 are too late to help you - Pray you get a Panamanian tech, they're incredibly helpful, have okay language skills, and generally just ship parts if you say "Hey this is broken send me the right part to fix it" nicely and firmly. (worst case you get to practice your HS spanish right?)

All in all - if you're going to be majoring in anything at all technical - the education you get by building the system yourself, the knowledge and troubleshooting expertise you gain will contribute to having a "reliable system" FAR more than a good fallback plan.

Still though - great box. Have fun with it.
 
Frustration said:
My dad has a Dell 8300. They use plain Intel mobos, but they also have cheap non-name brand RAM.
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my dell came with samsung, and my dad's came with crucial. crucial is fairly cheap, but they are not a non-name brand. very stable memory, albeit its conservative timings. whatever you do dont ever talk smack about crucial in the smp forum, they will rip you to shreds, just a tip :)

anyway if you are here and own a dell and evcer have a hardware problem, come here first unless you want somebody yelling klingon at you from 3 million miles away. if you ever have a billing problem, well your fucked. none of the dells in my family, group of friends, or at work have ever experienced hardware problems, and most problems that i encounter are usually pebkac. what i would do is turn your system on, register/ activate xp and get your service tag and express code, then promptly reformat and reinstal using the os disk they provide. there is a seperate disk with all the preinstalled bull on it. just set that on fire or throw it off of a bridge. i actually made my own disk with all of my favorite video codecs, adaware, spybot, google toolbar, firefox, etc since i format a lot.

and in case you ever need a new powersupply, you can buy dell power supplies from one of the best psu makers out there today, pc power and cooling
 
xdviper said:
come on "dude". dont be soo hard on your self just because you got a dell, those are really good so called "gaming systems". they work just as good as the custom computer except they dont overclock and the xps make a lot of noise. :) just keep it to do some gaming. mod the case if you want. and try to get news fans or something. the damn thing makes a lot of noise when it is being used a lot. as i said my cousin has a xps 1 month old and it makes a hell of a noise. i cant even stand it.
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He cant mod it because there goes all his warranty money down the hole.

leeroy said:
bloody hell 5000 though let alone 3000. 5000 you mite as well get a car.
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If his parents buy him a $5000 computer, Im sure they have the money to get him a car ;)

And wow there is some serious flaming going on towards Dell, harsh :eek:

Oh and if you went with Alienware you get your own 1/2inch binder with your name on it and your own Alienware security card w00t :cool:

towert7 said:
Ok, i was a little off... i was expecting this computer to cost about 3800$US, so i said you could probably save 800$ by going with a company like www.cyberpowerinc.com

Turns out you could save around 1100$ by going with cyberpower. SAME THING, but better.
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I'd take a Dell XPS over a Cyberpower any day. There's a reason why the prices are substantually lower. Same thing but better, I dont understand that one.
 
i see a lot of people saying "you got a $5000 pc for free, dont complain" how can you say that if your parents buy you something, its free? also i told my parents a long time ago not to buy any tech for me coz they dont know anything about it and will get ripped off or just end up buying the wrong thing. if my parents want to give me sumthing for the comp as a present, they just give me money and i buy watever i need, like that every1 is happy.and dude, try talking with your parents about that pc and tell them that you would be much happier if they let u return it and get something else. i am sure ur mom will understand
 
infin|ty said:
Same thing but better, I dont understand that one.
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When i said that, it was in respect to the priceing i listed... and how the price diffrence is about 1100$us.

I custom made a PC with the same hardware he said would be in his dell. When i said better, i mean that its cheaper, and i prefer cyberpower's tech support over dell ..... and it does not come with bloat ware... only what the user selects........... et cetera.

"the same, but better", lol
 
in defense of dell's customer service (college kid whose parents insisted on getting a dell)...my roomie shot my LCD monitor with a bb gun at pretty much point blank range so i called dell and told them when i turned it on this morning the monitor looked funny...in two days a new one was on my front door step and i sent them back the shot up one and didnt' have to pay a dime:)
 
ain't that the truth. if there is one thing ive liked dell for, its their fast replacements. working at my high school we sometimes have things happen, like broken monitors........... and MAN dell ships those thins out like a bat out of hell.... everything gets to our school within two business days... its amazing.
 
Meh... when I bought my first dell, the p2 266 in sig, they were pretty good. Then in the last few months of full usage of the second dell in sig they just went downhill. I can remember when i was a noob back then and i had NO idea that you needed pairs of ram to work with the RDRAM type. Well, in anyevent, the guy i was speaking to in india had no idea either. Well, thank god for the internet otherwise i would have just assumed it was a bad stick or something...
 
MemoryInAGarden said:
You're getting a $5K system for FREE. For that simple fact, you shouldn't be complaining. If nothing else, sell the system then build your own and pocket the difference.
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he isnt complaining. he's wishing his mother went with another vendor.

I would too. i own a Dell, and it's one of the worst computers i've had the disservice of using.

that said, it was also purchased as a gift to me, and i cant afford to build something that would knock it out of the king spot in the house. so it stays. even if it's not upgradable, and even a via chipset motherboard for AMD is more stable than this.

and it's not THAT unstable. My main concern is the drivers that dell gives us to work with are so bloated that they run alot of unnecessary code. when i look at the page file usage on the SIS-735 chipset board i built for my father, it stays under 100 megabytes. mine is over 200 megabytes.

and i cant upgrade at all, unless i go to a completely different Motherboard, RAM, and power supply. I got sucked into the RD-Ram stuff... dual channel PC1066 no less. so i cant buy anymore it seems from anywhere. :(


oh yeah, my reccommendation.

check the memory specs. i hope you got some pc3200. the first thing you'd change out with that system is the motherboard, psu, and the case all at the same time. but i'd wait on doing that till you have a real reason to. :)
 
if your complaining about the diffrence betwen 100mb and 200mb page fileing..... i will assume that you shut your computer off every day or so?

My 4 year old dell starts in windows XP with 100mb page file, then crawls up to over 1gb page file ^_^.

Please note: 1gb is when the computer is on for at least 40 days,,,, and the computer usually gets shut off around 600mb by a power failur ^_^

my computer has 786mb of SDRam
 
well i probably wont upgrade this one since i need to save money. and i dont know if this makes a difference, but it came with the XPS specialized service, wich i heard is domestic. then if the power supply does failure, its under warranty, so i dont care. it is a 480 watt psu, and its at the bottom of the case and has 2 fans blowing out. kinda weird.
 
Ouch, hate to rub it in even more but just got my August issue of PC Gamer and they have a Falcon Northwest review on the Mach V Exotix. It got a 95% editors' choice and it has all the goodies you'd want in a system and a pimp ass case.

With a grand total of $5,195 that even gets you 3-year parts and labor warranty. Damn son, hook up the FNW!! That's a steal vs the Dell.

www.falcon-nw.com ...you wont do it, I know you wont do it.
 
towert7 said:
if your complaining about the diffrence betwen 100mb and 200mb page fileing..... i will assume that you shut your computer off every day or so?

My 4 year old dell starts in windows XP with 100mb page file, then crawls up to over 1gb page file ^_^.

Please note: 1gb is when the computer is on for at least 40 days,,,, and the computer usually gets shut off around 600mb by a power failur ^_^

my computer has 786mb of SDRam
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every day sees about 20 megabytes creep into the page file usage.

but it's wierd. after running lineage 2, memory usage and page file usage are both down a great deal. page file drops to generally 130ish and memory usage drops to 33% (1/2 gig total) mem usage in game runs up to full, and page file usage, the longer i game, goes from 600 mb to 1.5 gb (where the game crashes)
 
towert7 said:
if your complaining about the diffrence betwen 100mb and 200mb page fileing..... i will assume that you shut your computer off every day or so?

My 4 year old dell starts in windows XP with 100mb page file, then crawls up to over 1gb page file ^_^.

Please note: 1gb is when the computer is on for at least 40 days,,,, and the computer usually gets shut off around 600mb by a power failur ^_^

my computer has 786mb of SDRam
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You, my friend, need to learn about a utility called 'Cacheman'. O_O

We have a Dimension 4100 with a 1 ghz PIII. It's not too bad. The Vid card needed a heatsink and fan, but didn't come with one. It overheated one day and a cap expoloded all over the place. Luckily, it was in a computer at school. :p The Dimension 4100 wasn't that bad. I use it as a Folding box now. Unfortunatly, it's too hot in this room to run more than 2 computers at a time, so it's off. :(
 
OK, I don't know why your system costs $5k, because I built the following dell system, that will blow yours away for 'only' $4500

Basic Specs:

Pentium 4 EE 3.4GHz
1GB DDR2
X800 XT
2 Raptors in RAID 0
1 400GB Hitachi Storage Drive
12x DVD Burner and DVD-ROM
2001FP

E-Value Code: 6V659 - DXPS3RS


So I would say you're DEFINITELY getting ripped off
 
towert7 said:
The cd-rom that i had was as generic as you could get...... i STILL never knew who made the darn thing. The first one broke after about 6months... while the replacement they sent me was semi-broke after 1 year. they would not replace the second one... because according to their diagnostics.......... it worked..... BASTARDS!!!!! so i ended up getting myself a nice TDK cd r/rw ^_^.
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Around that time is when I got an XPS-450 after my first lappy died. They were using LG cdroms back then. LG is better known up here in Canada than in the states from what I can tell. My cdrom is still going strong and even outlasted my HP cd burner. I went and bought an LG 48x24x48 combo drive to replace the HP and have been very pleased.
 
EnderW said:
OK, I don't know why your system costs $5k, because I built the following dell system, that will blow yours away for 'only' $4500

Basic Specs:

Pentium 4 EE 3.4GHz
1GB DDR2
X800 XT
2 Raptors in RAID 0
1 400GB Hitachi Storage Drive
12x DVD Burner and DVD-ROM
2001FP

E-Value Code: 6V659 - DXPS3RS


So I would say you're DEFINITELY getting ripped off
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Crazy inflation? :D
 
i know, i know!!!!!!!!!1 the new gen 3 system came out. i called dell and got the new one now. now i kinda want this dell. so heres my new systems specs:
P4 3.4EE, Xp Pro, 2GB dual channel DDR2 at 533mhz, 2001fp monitor, 256mb pci express x16 ati radeon x800xt, 48XCDRW, 12X dvd+rw w/ dual layer capability, 2 74gb 10k hardrives on raid 0, 160gb 7200rpm hardrive, audigy 2, bla bla bla. new total with the 15 percent off and free shipping $4700
 
chuckm1020 said:
i know, i know!!!!!!!!!1 the new gen 3 system came out. i called dell and got the new one now. now i kinda want this dell. so heres my new systems specs:
P4 3.4EE, Xp Pro, 2GB dual channel DDR2 at 533mhz, 2001fp monitor, 256mb pci express x16 ati radeon x800xt, 48XCDRW, 12X dvd+rw w/ dual layer capability, 2 74gb 10k hardrives on raid 0, 160gb 7200rpm hardrive, audigy 2, bla bla bla. new total with the 15 percent off and free shipping $4700
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I woulda got the 400GB hard drive storage. Overkill? Definitely, but when you have a system like, you have to max out everything.

Anyway, that's an awesome system, better then 99% of the computers on here. Enjoy it and post some benchmarks.
 
EnderW said:
I woulda got the 400GB hard drive storage. Overkill? Definitely, but when you have a system like, you have to max out everything.

Anyway, that's an awesome system, better then 99% of the computers on here. Enjoy it and post some benchmarks.
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i will post some benches when i get it, the shipping date is july 20th :( , damn o well
 
chuckm1020 said:
i know, i know!!!!!!!!!1 the new gen 3 system came out. i called dell and got the new one now. now i kinda want this dell. so heres my new systems specs:
P4 3.4EE, Xp Pro, 2GB dual channel DDR2 at 533mhz, 2001fp monitor, 256mb pci express x16 ati radeon x800xt, 48XCDRW, 12X dvd+rw w/ dual layer capability, 2 74gb 10k hardrives on raid 0, 160gb 7200rpm hardrive, audigy 2, bla bla bla. new total with the 15 percent off and free shipping $4700
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Good shyt. But about the monitor. I bought of those from them and I didnt like it. The screen was way to grainy for preferences. I'm very picky with my quality and it just wasnt doing it for me. Even my mom, who gets on the computer twice a week to look at email for 10mintues noticed that it was too grainy and dark. Back to Dell it went! I'd get like a NEC Multisync fe991sb or the one higher up version. Or hit up the 21" or 22" CRT's.
 
o yah, and it comes with a 460 watt psu, do u think that is sufficient for all that stuff
 
chuckm1020 said:
o yah, and it comes with a 460 watt psu, do u think that is sufficient for all that stuff
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yes, it's fine, if not it's covered under your warranty

infin|ty said:
I'd grab a Antec TRUE550.
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Dell mods their PSUs and MBs so you can't just drop a new PSU in there



edit: Forgot to mention that PC Power & Cooling sells Dell compatible PSUs, but I still wouldn't mess with yours, because:

a) it's plenty of power
b) it would void the warranty on a $5k computer
 
i got a new order confirmination in the e-mail. everything is correct. its weird though. on the video card it says x800 pro pci express, but the only option on the website is for the x800 xt
 
chuckm1020 said:
i got a new order confirmination in the e-mail. everything is correct. its weird though. on the video card it says x800 pro pci express, but the only option on the website is for the x800 xt
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Seeing how it has such a long ship date... its most likely the XT. eaither way though, might be worth it to give them a call.

Yea, now im jelous ~_~,

its amazing how your getting better parts now, for a cheaper price with the XPS gen 3.. Oh well, NOW its a good deal, with 15% off ^_^

~Enjoy the computer.... and keep us updated as to how its working out !
 
id love to see pics of that pc u know as well as snap shot of that bill. LOL
 
i will post pics, but wait like a freakin a month :( . then after win update, ill put 3dmark01 on it, and do it. i just want at least 20k
 
i called them up, i guess it was a typo they had on the order confirminations, it is the x800xt
 
chuckm1020 said:
i called them up, i guess it was a typo they had on the order confirminations, it is the x800xt
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awesome

good luck with everything
 
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