Is it getting worse for system builders?

[wingman99]

Most people don't have the time to do the research to build there own PC

When you build your own PC it has always cost more, what is your time worth plus parts and software.

I see in this post allot of people actually think the parts are better from the same cost retail to OEM, i think that is not the case, all the PC's i work on are OEM and they seem to live forever and are the same performance as retail.

Most prebuilt outlive there usefulness or are infected with virus.

People never complain about OEM parts in laptops and they take more heat and abuse and all the PSU on laptops are generic.

 

[noxqzs]

Most prebuilt outlive there usefulness or are infected with virus.

I disagree with your comment. A PC's usefulness is relative to what you do with it. In my lab, I still have a few prebuilt P3 600s doing data acquisition and monitoring, and they have been going strong for close to 10 years without touching anything but the hard drives. There are times that call for custom builds when you cannot get all the options you want under a single box without paying a huge premium.

As far as viruses, I think that is a result of the user and has no bearing on who made the computer. I would almost go far as saying, I treat some of the preloaded garbage that comes with buying OEMs, a form of virus. I still buy them at the workplace because it costs me more time and money fixing one than to just buy another new one.

 

[wingman99]

I disagree with your comment. A PC's usefulness is relative to what you do with it. In my lab, I still have a few prebuilt P3 600s doing data acquisition and monitoring, and they have been going strong for close to 10 years without touching anything but the hard drives. There are times that call for custom builds when you cannot get all the options you want under a single box without paying a huge premium.

As far as viruses, I think that is a result of the user and has no bearing on who made the computer. I would almost go far as saying, I treat some of the preloaded garbage that comes with buying OEMs, a form of virus. I still buy them at the workplace because it costs me more time and money fixing one than to just buy another new one.

Well i was speaking Most not all. I work on PC's and laptops are a bigger market now replacing desktop pc's in droves.

You have to look at the big picture, it's not just your office. intel and AMD manufacture and sell millions of cpu's each year. So out with the old in with the new. Computers sold last year 264 million units

 

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

Most OEM's seem to last longer because they bin the parts, and the bigger the company, the better binning parts they get, like Dell, they get the best CPU's that Intel and AMD have at any given time because they buy the most, so naturally they will last a bit longer than normal parts. The biggest problem with most OEM's are the power supplies...While Emachines tried to get away with the least expensive supplies (and failed miserably) Dell on the other hand, decided that the vast number of supplies out there just wasn't good enough to run their machines, during the early days of the P4 Willy, Dell went to their own proprietary supplies and connectors, and their machines of that era are for the most part still running.
I recently rebuilt an old HP pavilion (celly 533) and modded the case to accept a new full sized power supply. The original supply looked like a short stack of saltine crackers...So I whipped out my dremmel and went to work cutting out the back of the case for the power switch and the orientation of the power plug. Funny thing is, that I did not have to drill any holes for the screws..they all lined up.
I wish I took pic's of the finished work as I'm quite proud of it..it actually looks good, and my friend has more than enough juice to run anything within the spec's of his rig..350 watt as apposed to the paltry 200 watt unit it originally had. Granted it may not run the latest titles, but it should last for another ten years.

I personally will not work on any emachines rig, unless it is just a software issue...I just tell them to buy another brand..because the OEM mainboards are too costly to replace, too cheezy and are prone to failure because of weak/underrated power supplies.

People who want a good OEM rig should look at Acer..they have been in the business forever and they used to be the outsource for IBM (many IBM PS2's are actually Acer built machines) built to IBM's spec's

Uh the top line should read most Big Box OEM's