Maingear Prelude Evaluation @ [H]

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WOW! this is the first OEM review that made me think if I ever had both arms cut off due to some accident I would let this company build me a PC. oddly enuff when I built Pc's for an oem in the 90's I did include latest drivers on a cd.
 
those temperatures jumped to 90 degrees on the GPU
Some 6600GT video cards need to have the HSF reseated, then magically the temperatures drop.

It booted up straight into an error message: "The system has recovered from a serious error."
My Dell notebook did that out of the box. I usually click on "don't send" and did that for months, but finally did send on the notebook and got a web page opened up stating that the problem was fixed in an update. Sure 'nuff, after a Windows update, problem never came back.
 
Gundamit said:
I'm not much into the looks of a rig but I must admit the case interior is stunning. Seems like a shame to put the cover on.

Surprised to see [H] give the vendor the benefit of the doubt on the rig arriving unstable out of the box. No way it should have left the dock in that condition. That said, the remedy went off without a hitch and the rest of the evaluation's and performance seemed reasonable given the hardware used. Maingear gets through the evaluation virtually unscathed.

Looking forward to a little brutality on the next review. ;)
Not much of a surprise when they stepped up and spent $300 overnighting the system back and forth to make it all right.

Like we said, we don't believe it left the dock that way, most like ESD in shipping.
 
Also, to answer a previous poster's question: We have and will continue to evaluate laptops. We will also cover tablets and media centers, both of which we have right now in our offices. Stay tuned!

We are shooting for 60 evaluations a year, and have ramped up significantly in the past couple of months.
 
Great review. There is only one area where I think the evaluation was off a little. The comment that the cabeling was great is not quite correct. The CPU heatsink fan's wires were folded back several times. A10 rating need's for them to be shortned and sleeved.
Also the two wires on the bottom of the case near the MB should have been sleeved for a 10.

Ron
 
magoo said:
Dude, your geography teacher would cringe.......its rockies as in front range of the Rockies.oh man. :eek: :eek:

fixed it [happy?] notice in my sig that i CANNOT type...
:D :D
 
Hi Folks,

(Long Post Ahead)

Short Story - Maingear Rocks

Long Story - Read On

Just to add some validity to this method and send some kudos to Maingear. I actually ordered a machine from the fine folks at Maingear right before the holidays. I am kind of picky (my gaming friends say fussy) about my machines and very much into having it built to my exact specification, including case and specific memory brand and par numbers. I am one of those that typically drive my wife and anyone else who has to deal with me simply mad because I am so particular when it comes to this kind of purchase. I research everything including where to get my underwear online (barenecessities.com)!

The folks at Maingear were very patient and understanding that I wanted a much customized machine even including picking my own case and not using one of their own. They even allowed me to specify parts that were in low allocation like the Asus AN8SLI-32 Motherboard. So I was very excited to learn that the board arrived and the build process started. I received an e-mail note from the builder that my machine had shipped right be fore the Christmas holiday. I excitedly met the Fed-Ex man at the door and it was right at that point (I think I heard crickets and funny music) when I grabbed the box from his hand, saw the funny look on his face (that said I didn’t do it), that I became worried. I could see some damage on the box and in carrying the box; I could hear and slightly feel things moving around inside. Upon opening and inspecting the box, I found a complete disaster.

The AMD dual core 4800 X2 processor and Zalman 9500 LED fan were completely ripped out of the CPU socket. I could see that the fan and processor was like rollerball inside that case. This box had obviously been handled hard in shipping. The case was actually one of the Lian Li special edition cases (looks like a seashell)...also hard to get. So I am thinking I am set all the way back two months. To be honest I was quite angry. I got right on the phone to Maingear and spent a few minutes with the builder who could tell that I was quite upset. He quickly escalated the call to some dude named Wallace. Now, I want you to know that Wallace has the patience of a Saint. I was not easy on him. In private, he would probably call me something else, but he's too professional to ever admit that. At that point, I just wanted my money back, which he was very willing to do. But I also really wanted a machine that I could run BF2 with everything on - 4xAA, 16 AF and all at high resolution on a large display with a great framerate.

My 4 year old Voodoo box which had been good to me was just not cutting it anymore. I could have gone back to Voodoo, but they are very expensive, I was not sure they would accommodate my customized configuration and they take a long time to build a machine – at least another month or more. I was very torn about getting my money back and starting all over (the parts inside were heavily damaged and no one would feel comfortable reusing any of those parts), but Wallace calmed me down. He explained that he was the CEO and he would re-order all the parts and build it himself, give me a free custom paint job, extend the warranty to 3 years and even offered to send me a loaner to use while I was waiting for them to re-order the custom parts. I told him I would think about it over night and call him. He gave me both his direct number and extension at work and his personal cell phone number. I decided to see how the shipper (Fed-Ex) would handle it. I had contemplated following through with the refund request but how fast that occurred might have been dependent upon the claim process. This was a 6k machine and I knew it was alot for either Maingear or me to assume responsibility for damages. I decided to give it a few days to see where things went. Wallace spoke to me everyday and after a few days, Fed-ex accepted liability. He gave me personal attention and earned my confidence that he was sincere and genuinely was “feeling my pain”. He offered to build a new machine in any configuration I wanted.

At that point, a few new things became a possibility. He made some calls to reps including a special custom video card (their Viper line). The space on the Asus AN8SLI-32 motherboard was tight, but I really wanted better video cards. Yes I knew that even the 7800 GTX cards would be good but I wanted to run with all the “eye candy” now and for the foreseeable near future. He said let me see what I can do and landed me a pair of GTX 512 cards for an SLI configuration. Since then he also allowed me to upgrade to the newly released FX 60 dual core. I sent him a custom color to paint a new Lian Li 1100 plus case and now we are just waiting for the parts to arrive. We are somewhat at the mercy of the rep who promised to free up the 512 cards, which could take 7-10 days; however, I am willing to wait a little longer at this point considering the enhancement to the config. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the Voodoo failed over the week-end (I got it going again but it is limping along), since he has already knocked himself out for me.

So these guys are awesome and highly recommended. Upon reading the review, I am even more thankful that I stuck with Maingear. I know the machine Wallace and Maingear is building will be pure sweetness. With respect to the Prelude review, could it be that the memory of the Prelude was damaged in shipping? Oh yea, maybe even knocked loose and damaged upon start-up because it came loose during shipment and was just partially connected. Based upon my experience to date, I feel confident in saying, that Maingear would not knowingly send a bad memory module. They care too much about their customers and maintaining a great personal relationship. I experienced that first hand. No company that offers to have something shipped back at their own expense would do that. Remember these folks even offered me a loaner just to ensure I stayed a happy customer. I didn’t think I could do better than Voodoo and even thought about Falcon (until I read the Hard (OCP) review, but IMHO, it doesn’t get better than Maingear.

Tim
 
Dear Lord... :eek: That's an incredible story! But I wouldn't have been so rough with them though, since it wasn't their fault your system was damaged during shipping. Damn UPS jerk. :eek: Well anyway, it looks like [H]ard|OCP has rightfully given them the highest score to date...something they should be very proud of. :cool:

Go Maingear Go! :)
 
fxrron said:
Great review. There is only one area where I think the evaluation was off a little. The comment that the cabeling was great is not quite correct. The CPU heatsink fan's wires were folded back several times. A10 rating need's for them to be shortned and sleeved.
Also the two wires on the bottom of the case near the MB should have been sleeved for a 10.

Ron

Ron;

I've been building systems for years and years and years. Those of us who have experience in mid to high volume shops have to pay close attention to how long it takes to build a system; how many man hours go into a single box; how much we increase the price of each and every component, because we're usually on a razor thin margin. (The typical margin on a system at most whiteboxers is below 3%.)
What Maingear did is not only standard practice, but actually better, and completely acceptable. Most builders will simply fold the heatsink fan wires against themselves and hope they stay put. You have to crease them a little to make them stay, and sometimes that doesn't even work, so you zip tie them. This takes about 3-5 minutes for someone new to it, 1-2 minutes for someone who's been doing it a while. Sleeving by comparison is going to take you at least 5 minutes, and introduces a problem where the cable can jostle more in shipping, and potentially get caught in something. (This definitely can happen.) Actually trimming them would be at least 10-15 minutes of work, minimum, plus more in parts costs since they'd need a new connector, sleeving, heat shrink, crimp tools (that run about $20/ea) for each workstation, etcetera. And bad crimps, which are easy to make, cost them another 15-20 doing it over. And if you accidentally cut too short, you've now got to buy a new fan.
Same for the lower cables; sleeving those means they'll have to totally disassemble at least the front half of the case. Routing is more than acceptable, and they did an excellent job with those as well.

Personally, I was more than satisfied with their cabling, and absolutely believe it deserves the 10 it was given. It's efficient, professional, and they clearly have an eye towards shipping and reliability considerations. In other words; they did what I do, basically.

As I stated previously; it's people like Wallace with shops like Maingear that keep me out of the high-end gaming segment. I don't have the money or staff to cope with the volume and provide the level of build and support that they do.
 
I never thought I'd see a computer system review from HardOCP that met all your expectations. Not for the part selections, ho hum. On the other hand that wiring job is exquisite. I was actually impressed with that systems polish. I have never been envious of a oem's computer before now. I don't think I could ever do such a nice job in my lifetime, even if I practiced and took courses. They are sick for not putting at least a dinky window on each computer to let all the beauty sink in. And to boot it really seems like a descent price. Not that I'll ever get one but I will tell my friends to get one instead of me making their computers like I usually end up doing. Thanks for saving me some grief in the future.

Once a friend of mine wanted to make a dual cpu system and I ended up saving him about 900 dollars. Well he decided that there needed to be another fan at the top of the case, so I said he could just DREMEL one there. It's his case he can do as he pleases with it. Well he comes over while I'm not at home after the case arrived and started drilling holes with a really big power drill. I was kinda shocked when I got home. He is one of the best contractors I know, he really always does a professional job. Well when he was done with the case it wasn't looking too good. He sorta bent the nice LianLi case and scratched it to all high hell. Well I painted it over and it looked pretty good again. So I vacum everything and blow on the LanLi case to get it all cleaned up. I had luckly removed everything from the inside of the case because I knew we were going to be working on it beforehand. Except for one item I thought was of no conseqence at all.....

Well I installed everything and the ps2 keyboard plug doesn't work after awhile. Well even though the usb ports were working fine I decide to send the MB back. So ... I disasemble everything and send it back. Get a new MB and reassemble load up windows AND...... A LOT OF SMOKE COMES BILLOWING OUT OF THE SYSTEM. Room filling with smoke I stood there and jerked my head so hard I really hurt something and couldn't move my neck for a week. Stood there for a few second with smoke pouring out of system. Get my bearings and yank out plug and open case quickly. And what do you think caught on fire??? The shitty computer speaker which I did not remove prior to when the owner was going to town on the case with his drill. I thought I was in such deep shit and didn't know if he'd kill me literally. Fortunatly on closer inspection just the PC speaker got burned out and some IDE and internal USB cables. All the damn fans blew all the smoke out really quick and made it look worse than it was. That was the real reason that the ps2 plug got ruined I think the speaker had sharp metal drill filings around the magnetic speaker that was causing an electric current to run through the computer. So it was A ok after all and works perfectly to this day, the PC speaker never got repaired though. Don't really know why I wrote all this never did before. Oh yeah I know why he just asked me if I was ready to build him a new computer....
 
This review and a few posts in this thread (Tim's to be sure) make me quite unhappy.

With myself.

I'm too anal to allow anyone to touch *my* computers since I began building my own during the mid 90s. OEMs have been utterly off-limits since. Long story short, I really think I border on obsessive compulsive when it comes to my machines.

That said, as I have been preparing to build a star-destroyer of a PC, I see this and *want* to give these guys my money on principle. I want to order a rig and tell them to increase the price by $300, half going to the personal builder and half to the company as a tip. I want... a bit more money in my bank account so I can manage that.

Kudos for a great review and for helping to bring a great company (further?) into the spotlight.
 
Torture? You don’t know torture till you’ve driven on the GSP near exit 145, pal.

I beg to differ. 21 in Newark is torture! I go to school at NJIT (and drive on the GSP near 145 quite often, and 21 is worse!), so I found it funny that I was literally minutes away from this systems home (and prolly painting some fraternity icons around the area too..hehe)
 
MechWarrior said:
I beg to differ. 21 in Newark is torture! I go to school at NJIT (and drive on the GSP near 145 quite often, and 21 is worse!), so I found it funny that I was literally minutes away from this systems home (and prolly painting some fraternity icons around the area too..hehe)
Hahah! Brian, quick, look, someone got it!
 
AreEss:

I was not trying to put down the cabeling job that maingear did. It was better than most system builders. However, Overdrive PC does infact trim the fan wires to the exact length, resolder and sleeve them. Their top end systems are about $300 more than Maingear's. I guess Chris will need to give them a 12 or 13 for their wiring when he reviews a system from them.

Ron
 
fxrron said:
AreEss:

I was not trying to put down the cabeling job that maingear did. It was better than most system builders. However, Overdrive PC does infact trim the fan wires to the exact length, resolder and sleeve them. Their top end systems are about $300 more than Maingear's. I guess Chris will need to give them a 12 or 13 for their wiring when he reviews a system from them.

Ron
And BOXX Tech manufacturers custom cabling for their in-house engineered chassis - a 12-drive system that's about the size of your average Dell. ;) Point is, for the price we paid, and please take notice that you can get a Prelude for $1100, the wiring job we received more than warranted a 10/10.

Don't worry, we have an Overdrive article on the burner right now - our Maingear was evaluated in full view of it. :)
 
Chris_Morley said:
And BOXX Tech manufacturers custom cabling for their in-house engineered chassis - a 12-drive system that's about the size of your average Dell. ;) Point is, for the price we paid, and please take notice that you can get a Prelude for $1100, the wiring job we received more than warranted a 10/10.

Don't worry, we have an Overdrive article on the burner right now - our Maingear was evaluated in full view of it. :)

Thanks much Chris. You're better at explaining it than I am.

For $1100, that's an excellent cabling job. Yes, they could do all the cables custom. It would also increase the cost of that $1100 system dramatically. The job they did there, while not "custom," is well above average for an $1100 PC from anyone and absolutely worthy of 10/10.

If you want 100% custom cabling, including custom built heatsinks, etcetera, sure, I do it. I'm sure Maingear would do it too. But it'll cost you, because it takes a lot of time, effort, and parts that usually have to be ordered in bulk to do it. And the truth is, it doesn't offer you any mechanical or electrical advantage. It's just looks, no more no less.
 
Great review and I am considering going with them once I save up a bit more rather than cyberpowersystems.. but was curious about one thing.

In the front page of the review, you listed that no monitor was included but on the second page during the packaging evaluation, you wrote "...Opening it up, we found the PC and monitor were packaged well with foam blocks that kept the computer from bouncing around." So did it come with a monitor or not? Or maybe I missed something..

-SB
 
SpookyBastard said:
Great review and I am considering going with them once I save up a bit more rather than cyberpowersystems.. but was curious about one thing.

In the front page of the review, you listed that no monitor was included but on the second page during the packaging evaluation, you wrote "...Opening it up, we found the PC and monitor were packaged well with foam blocks that kept the computer from bouncing around." So did it come with a monitor or not? Or maybe I missed something..

-SB
That's definitely a typo if it's there, I'll double check.
 
I have a question directed to our new "MaingearDude". Your machines look damn near perfect based on the review, but have you considered using an imaged recovery solution as an option?

Personally, I hate the idea of Dell's recovery partition because it is easily lost and it is the only recovery option. As far as a recovery DVD goes though, I think that is a really great option to have IN ADDITION to an actual windows xp disk if you just want to get the thing going again without swapping around disks.
 
Well i just bought one, let see if mine is as good as everyone says they are. What you guys think, this is the comp i just bought:

PRODUCT F131 SLI-AMD
Exterior Automotive Color: Inferno Red
Front and Side Windows: Front and Side Windows
Power Supply: Seasonic SLI Extreme Gaming Edition-
Motherboard: ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 Dual Core Processor
CPU Cooling: Maingear Arctic CPU Water Cooling Sys
Memory: 2GB Corsair XMS 3500LLPRO
Do you want us to overclock your CPU?: NO
Hard Drive One: Western Digital Raptor Enterprise
Hard Drive Two: 500GB HITACHI Deskstar 7K500 7200
Flash Card Reader: 6-in-1 Internal USB 2.0 Card Re
Optical Drive One: Plextor 740A 16x DVD±R Dual Lay
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCIe
Do you want us to overclock your GPU?: NO
Network Card: Integrated Gigabit Network Card
Security Software: FREE! eTrust™ EZ Antivirus
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64x
Warranty: 3-Year Maingear Toll-Free Phone Support

I think i gona request overclocking though if they warranty it.
 
KodiakStar said:
Off the wall question...

For my next rig, I am seriously thinking about your company now, but I also like the looks of your F131 case, will it be possible to buy just a case alone?

Thanks :)

k*

Hello Again,
Unfortunately we do not sell the cases by themselves.
 
stingray71 said:
Hi Folks,

(Long Post Ahead)

Short Story - Maingear Rocks

Long Story - Read On

Just to add some validity to this method and send some kudos to Maingear. I actually ordered a machine from the fine folks at Maingear right before the holidays. I am kind of picky (my gaming friends say fussy) about my machines and very much into having it built to my exact specification, including case and specific memory brand and par numbers. I am one of those that typically drive my wife and anyone else who has to deal with me simply mad because I am so particular when it comes to this kind of purchase. I research everything including where to get my underwear online (barenecessities.com)!

The folks at Maingear were very patient and understanding that I wanted a much customized machine even including picking my own case and not using one of their own. They even allowed me to specify parts that were in low allocation like the Asus AN8SLI-32 Motherboard. So I was very excited to learn that the board arrived and the build process started. I received an e-mail note from the builder that my machine had shipped right be fore the Christmas holiday. I excitedly met the Fed-Ex man at the door and it was right at that point (I think I heard crickets and funny music) when I grabbed the box from his hand, saw the funny look on his face (that said I didn’t do it), that I became worried. I could see some damage on the box and in carrying the box; I could hear and slightly feel things moving around inside. Upon opening and inspecting the box, I found a complete disaster.

The AMD dual core 4800 X2 processor and Zalman 9500 LED fan were completely ripped out of the CPU socket. I could see that the fan and processor was like rollerball inside that case. This box had obviously been handled hard in shipping. The case was actually one of the Lian Li special edition cases (looks like a seashell)...also hard to get. So I am thinking I am set all the way back two months. To be honest I was quite angry. I got right on the phone to Maingear and spent a few minutes with the builder who could tell that I was quite upset. He quickly escalated the call to some dude named Wallace. Now, I want you to know that Wallace has the patience of a Saint. I was not easy on him. In private, he would probably call me something else, but he's too professional to ever admit that. At that point, I just wanted my money back, which he was very willing to do. But I also really wanted a machine that I could run BF2 with everything on - 4xAA, 16 AF and all at high resolution on a large display with a great framerate.

My 4 year old Voodoo box which had been good to me was just not cutting it anymore. I could have gone back to Voodoo, but they are very expensive, I was not sure they would accommodate my customized configuration and they take a long time to build a machine – at least another month or more. I was very torn about getting my money back and starting all over (the parts inside were heavily damaged and no one would feel comfortable reusing any of those parts), but Wallace calmed me down. He explained that he was the CEO and he would re-order all the parts and build it himself, give me a free custom paint job, extend the warranty to 3 years and even offered to send me a loaner to use while I was waiting for them to re-order the custom parts. I told him I would think about it over night and call him. He gave me both his direct number and extension at work and his personal cell phone number. I decided to see how the shipper (Fed-Ex) would handle it. I had contemplated following through with the refund request but how fast that occurred might have been dependent upon the claim process. This was a 6k machine and I knew it was alot for either Maingear or me to assume responsibility for damages. I decided to give it a few days to see where things went. Wallace spoke to me everyday and after a few days, Fed-ex accepted liability. He gave me personal attention and earned my confidence that he was sincere and genuinely was “feeling my pain”. He offered to build a new machine in any configuration I wanted.

At that point, a few new things became a possibility. He made some calls to reps including a special custom video card (their Viper line). The space on the Asus AN8SLI-32 motherboard was tight, but I really wanted better video cards. Yes I knew that even the 7800 GTX cards would be good but I wanted to run with all the “eye candy” now and for the foreseeable near future. He said let me see what I can do and landed me a pair of GTX 512 cards for an SLI configuration. Since then he also allowed me to upgrade to the newly released FX 60 dual core. I sent him a custom color to paint a new Lian Li 1100 plus case and now we are just waiting for the parts to arrive. We are somewhat at the mercy of the rep who promised to free up the 512 cards, which could take 7-10 days; however, I am willing to wait a little longer at this point considering the enhancement to the config. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the Voodoo failed over the week-end (I got it going again but it is limping along), since he has already knocked himself out for me.

So these guys are awesome and highly recommended. Upon reading the review, I am even more thankful that I stuck with Maingear. I know the machine Wallace and Maingear is building will be pure sweetness. With respect to the Prelude review, could it be that the memory of the Prelude was damaged in shipping? Oh yea, maybe even knocked loose and damaged upon start-up because it came loose during shipment and was just partially connected. Based upon my experience to date, I feel confident in saying, that Maingear would not knowingly send a bad memory module. They care too much about their customers and maintaining a great personal relationship. I experienced that first hand. No company that offers to have something shipped back at their own expense would do that. Remember these folks even offered me a loaner just to ensure I stayed a happy customer. I didn’t think I could do better than Voodoo and even thought about Falcon (until I read the Hard (OCP) review, but IMHO, it doesn’t get better than Maingear.

Tim

Hi Tim,
Once again thank you for your patience and thank you for your post. We try very hard to keep our customers/friends happy.

Regards
Wallace
 
thyshallsmite said:
Well i just bought one, let see if mine is as good as everyone says they are. What you guys think, this is the comp i just bought:

PRODUCT F131 SLI-AMD
Exterior Automotive Color: Inferno Red
Front and Side Windows: Front and Side Windows
Power Supply: Seasonic SLI Extreme Gaming Edition-
Motherboard: ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 Dual Core Processor
CPU Cooling: Maingear Arctic CPU Water Cooling Sys
Memory: 2GB Corsair XMS 3500LLPRO
Do you want us to overclock your CPU?: NO
Hard Drive One: Western Digital Raptor Enterprise
Hard Drive Two: 500GB HITACHI Deskstar 7K500 7200
Flash Card Reader: 6-in-1 Internal USB 2.0 Card Re
Optical Drive One: Plextor 740A 16x DVD±R Dual Lay
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCIe
Do you want us to overclock your GPU?: NO
Network Card: Integrated Gigabit Network Card
Security Software: FREE! eTrust™ EZ Antivirus
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64x
Warranty: 3-Year Maingear Toll-Free Phone Support

I think i gona request overclocking though if they warranty it.

Hello Donald,
Thank you for your order. Don't worry overclocking does not void your warranty. Sick machine by the way!

-Wallace
 
thyshallsmite said:
Well i just bought one, let see if mine is as good as everyone says they are. What you guys think, this is the comp i just bought:

PRODUCT F131 SLI-AMD
Exterior Automotive Color: Inferno Red
Front and Side Windows: Front and Side Windows
Power Supply: Seasonic SLI Extreme Gaming Edition-
Motherboard: ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 Dual Core Processor
CPU Cooling: Maingear Arctic CPU Water Cooling Sys
Memory: 2GB Corsair XMS 3500LLPRO
Do you want us to overclock your CPU?: NO
Hard Drive One: Western Digital Raptor Enterprise
Hard Drive Two: 500GB HITACHI Deskstar 7K500 7200
Flash Card Reader: 6-in-1 Internal USB 2.0 Card Re
Optical Drive One: Plextor 740A 16x DVD±R Dual Lay
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCIe
Do you want us to overclock your GPU?: NO
Network Card: Integrated Gigabit Network Card
Security Software: FREE! eTrust™ EZ Antivirus
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64x
Warranty: 3-Year Maingear Toll-Free Phone Support

I think i gona request overclocking though if they warranty it.

Donald,
I just sent you an email.
 
The Bryophyte said:
I have a question directed to our new "MaingearDude". Your machines look damn near perfect based on the review, but have you considered using an imaged recovery solution as an option?

Personally, I hate the idea of Dell's recovery partition because it is easily lost and it is the only recovery option. As far as a recovery DVD goes though, I think that is a really great option to have IN ADDITION to an actual windows xp disk if you just want to get the thing going again without swapping around disks.

I'll take a note.

-Wallace
 
MechWarrior said:
I beg to differ. 21 in Newark is torture! I go to school at NJIT (and drive on the GSP near 145 quite often, and 21 is worse!), so I found it funny that I was literally minutes away from this systems home (and prolly painting some fraternity icons around the area too..hehe)

Cool. Fellow Highlander (not that NJIT's exactly -known- for sports...) Did they finally get all that construction done across from the Rutgers Student Union? :)
 
Directed to Maingeardude,
WHy dont you allow the customer to choose a graphics card in your laptops?
Also why dont you have a midrange laptop? Your laptop's jump in price from 1300 to over 2000+
 
MaingearDude said:
I'll take a note.

-Wallace


i am just worried that Maingear will just become like Dell when the # of orders increase over time which i am guessing will since seeing as a CEO of company builds a custom a case for his cutomer.

SO FRICKEN COOL!
 
stingray71 said:
Hi Folks,

(Long Post Ahead)

Short Story - Maingear Rocks

Long Story - Read On

Just to add some validity to this method and send some kudos to Maingear. I actually ordered a machine from the fine folks at Maingear right before the holidays. I am kind of picky (my gaming friends say fussy) about my machines and very much into having it built to my exact specification, including case and specific memory brand and par numbers. I am one of those that typically drive my wife and anyone else who has to deal with me simply mad because I am so particular when it comes to this kind of purchase. I research everything including where to get my underwear online (barenecessities.com......



(until I read the Hard (OCP) review, but IMHO, it doesn’t get better than Maingear.

Tim


Did you have to pay anything extra? or did they just offer it for free to you?
 
Wallace offered to paint the case free of charge to compensate for the inconvenience of having to wait for him to build a new machine to replace the original machine that Fed-Ex damaged in shipping. It was an unusual situation to have a machine so badly damaged in shipping that he had to submit a claim through Fed-Ex. I think he offered the complimentary case painting to soften the blow of losing it all and having to start over. I had lost the enthusiasm of getting a new machine and I believe he had sensed that. Maingear are very enthusiastic and high-spirited about building custom machines for folks. It was a very nice thing to do and not something, I would expect him to have to do often. He has since followed up to give me status of obtaining the new parts arriving and sending the new case to the auto body shop that does his paintwork. I think he took the case to the shop himself to ask his painter to expedite the case painting. Hearing about the status has reinvigorated my enthusiasm for the new computer.
Tim
 
When I reread your note, I realized I might have confused you. I did not mean to imply that Maingear built a case for me. I meant they allowed me to specify a case that was different from their standard choices of cases. That being said, I think they do modify Lian-Li cases for their standard product line. Hope that clarifies. Sorry for any confusion I caused you.
Tim
 
I've already spent a month saving up for a boutique computer. I've been researching all the companies and I was stuck between Maingear and Falcon NW.

This settles it. In another 3 months i'll be buying myself a maingear PC.

Im very excited!
 
MaingearDude said:
I'll take a note.

-Wallace

I'm also an OEM Builder, or rather I usedto be about a year ago, one of the problems with this, they way microsoft does the OEM versons of windows, you have 2 chocies, A Provide the Windows XP CD or provide an image system, pn a dvd or the dell way on a hidden partition, you can not do both, uless of course the oem is willing to shell out for a 2nd copy of Windows XP, Crappy policy I know, but its Microsofts policy, things might of changed since last year but I doubt it.
 
Chilly said:
I'm also an OEM Builder, or rather I usedto be about a year ago, one of the problems with this, they way microsoft does the OEM versons of windows, you have 2 chocies, A Provide the Windows XP CD or provide an image system, pn a dvd or the dell way on a hidden partition, you can not do both, uless of course the oem is willing to shell out for a 2nd copy of Windows XP, Crappy policy I know, but its Microsofts policy, things might of changed since last year but I doubt it.
Depends on the agreement you have with Microsoft. There are builders who can do both.
 
Dan3290 said:
Directed to Maingeardude,
WHy dont you allow the customer to choose a graphics card in your laptops?
Also why dont you have a midrange laptop? Your laptop's jump in price from 1300 to over 2000+

Hello Dan,
We're trying to push quality, not quantity. We probably won't be doing a low-mid range laptop for a while.
 
iHatePants said:
I've already spent a month saving up for a boutique computer. I've been researching all the companies and I was stuck between Maingear and Falcon NW.

This settles it. In another 3 months i'll be buying myself a maingear PC.

Im very excited!

iHatePants,
Thanks for the compliments. Let me know when your ready.

-Wallace
 
swatX said:
i am just worried that Maingear will just become like Dell when the # of orders increase over time which i am guessing will since seeing as a CEO of company builds a custom a case for his cutomer.

SO FRICKEN COOL!

Dell = massive quantity
MAINGEAR = massive quality :)
 
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