Chosing cheap desktop: recommendation?

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Mike Kallies <mike.kallies-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| ...
| > I am surprised that no one has mentioned  Factory Direct yet.

Earlier I mentioned the HP SFF boxes I got there recently.  But the
details were in another thread.

| I picked up a machine once from these guys.  They seem to get palates of
| machines from workplaces, vacuum the dust, wipe thedrives and resell
| them.

Mine were not even vacuumed.  Dust bunnies inside.  Worse: dust
accumulation in the vanes of the CPU fan and (less so) in the CPU heat
sink.

|   I think it booted to FreeDOS when I got it.  It gave me a good
| laugh.

Mine too.  Why is that funny?  Sounds like they actually know what
they are doing.

Mine came with Windows XP Pro COA stickers.  To some folks, worth the
whole cost of the box.  Not to me, of course.

| Their website http://www.factorydirect.ca shows all their stock.  Does
| anyone know if their warranty is any good?

Not very long, but it works, more or less.

- exchange only, no cash.

A couple of weeks ago bought a pair of HDD DVDRs, sans remotes.  I
determined one wasn't healthy and took it back (after about 5 days).
They had no units to swap so gave me store credit -- no refund.  Not
totally satisfactory, but I spend enough there that it's OK for me.

I also didn't like the high-pitched noise that came from one of my SFF
boxes even when the power was off(!).  So the let me swap it for
another one.  Even though they didn't believe me that it could make
noise with the power off.  (There was so much noise in their store
that there was no point in testing there.)
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