two bargains? MB+CPU; 1U server

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 11:59:27AM -0700, Tyler Aviss wrote:
> One a standard upright desktop, they thankfully seem to be behaving a
> bit better these days in terms of components like PSU's etc. I just
> replaced a PSU on a Dell Studio desktop and the replacement dropped in
> just fine.
> 
> On the other hand, I had a heck of a time finding a motherboard to
> replace the one that got fried. Apparently this computer was
> originally between $1000-1200 (Core 2 Quad, 6GB RAM, Dual RAID 500GB
> Drives, blah blah). Dell wanted $480 JUST FOR THE MOTHERBOARD.
> 
> I found several difficulties in replacing it:
> a) A full-size board wouldn't quite fit in there
> b) A smaller-sized board only tended to come with 2 RAM slots, this
> had four full (2x2GB and 2x1GB). MITX was out, and I couldn't find a
> decent MATX that seemed to fit in there either
> 
> Ended up getting them an ebay-special refurbed board for that machine
> ($65 + $30 shipping) . I *hate* doing that but nobody online seemed to
> have what I wanted.
> 
> Maybe if Dell made a computer with something better than what appears
> to be a shitty 350W bargain-basement PSU, the thing wouldn't have had
> issues in the first place. The rest of the components seemed decent,
> and the overall case design was actually fairly nice.
> 
> So yeah. Avoid Dell desktops. Unfortunately most companies seem to
> skimp where it counts. Crap PSU's are *VERY* common, and those tend to
> go the soonest and be fairly adept at taking out other components when
> they do so.
> I'm not really sure what the alternatives are for non-technical people
> other than have a geek do a build-a-box. There are "antec" computers,
> but those are pretty pricey, and the HP's I've seen are
> as-bad-or-worse-than Dells, and Acer/MSI/Gateway just scare me...

Yeah most of the prebuilt name brand machines are pretty crappy
unfortunately, because they target a market that cares only about price
and basic specifications.  Quality of each component is not something
the spec lists and not something most typical computer buyers would have
any knowledge of.

I know how to assemble a machine from quality parts and happily help
friends do that too, or at least give them a list of parts that they
can then go to a local computer store and ask.  No one has ever been
disappointed in the result as far as I know.

If someone does ask me what desktop computer to buy for $400, my answer is
"None of them.  Wait until you have $700 or $800.  Then you get something
that lasts much longer, works much better, and runs reliably."

-- 
Len Sorensen
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