OEM Computers, biggest rip off! Why does no one do anything?

[MadSkillzMan]

Ok, my opinion is all based on true stories. I always laughed at people who shelled out tons on a prebuilt pc, but after what i saw dell did to my freind i raised hell, and i feel bad and try to help out ANYONE going to buy a new PC

about 4 years ago, before i was computer smart, our POS dell my mom brought from work died. My dad dropped 1800$ on a VPR matrix from best buy. We got a 32mb Nvidia Geforce 4, 1.8ghz P4, 256MB ram, 80gb IDE hard drive (but the box said SATA, LARGE argument with best buy) 32x CDRW, DVDROM and windows XP home. That did NOT include the 80$ POS canon printer and 200$ Samsung flat CRT monitor.

Now its an OK machine for anything i dont do. First off the CDRW has been replaced 3 times by their tech people within the past 2 years, and the DVDROM drive 4 times. What happens? they just quit working. One time the CDRW filled the room with smoke. and i dont abuse them or anything (and yes theyre on a different line than my bad outlets)

So then we have our horsedriver. He spend 1200$ on his POS, its an Acer. 1.6ghz CELERON, no AGP, onboard 16MB SiS, 128mb ram, 15gig 5400RPM hard drive, with IDE 40 cable. a DVDROM drive. Ive tried to help this thing, i gave up. They wanted to charge him 200$ to install a CDRW drive. He was told itd be another 400$ to upgrade the CPU.

HP Pavillion. Blonde brought it to me to work on. She said it cost her dad 1,000$. Its got 1.1ghz Celeron, 128mb ram, 40gb hard drive that died. windows ME.

My own mac i felt i got riped. Yes i love my mac, however, for 2100$ i got dual G5, 256MB ram, 64mb nvidia, 80gb sata, 8x DVDRW (which can be hacked) keyboard an mouse. NO speakers, no monitor, nothing! that made me mad! However i was tired of upgrades and bla bla bla we wont go there.

But the one that drove me irate!....friend of mine going to ITT Tech wanted her own PC. Now i TOLD HER id build her one, but she insisted on buying an OEM. So she drops a grand total of 1,658$ and some odd cents on one of the lower end models. Gets a 2.0ghz CPU, 512ram, 80gb IDE hard drive, and a 17" LCD.

She called me last friday to come drill thru her floor and help run broadband, because she refused to pay her cable company and her genius boyfriend was afraid of the drill and holes in the floor part.

So i came over did my job..and as a treat, brought my box of CDs and a 10gig hard drive we have of backed up programs, unix installs, etc..She mentioned they wouldnt let her choose what type of graphics card. Didnt think much of this. I crawled under her desk, had to fight to open the panel because this dell didnt fold open like the new ones. I open it, find the hard drive is on IDE40 cable, theres a 200watt PSu, but the kicker! NO AGP, NO PCIE, NO OPEN PCI PERIOD! there weree 3 pci slots, containing, LAN, Sound, dialup. there was 1 ram slot. 1! i didnt know such a thing existed! She was ready to cry when i told her there was no upgrading this thing to even play quake 3. She tells me that they didnt even give her an XP install disk, only a PICTURE OF ONE!

She needs to install and learn red hat for one of her classes in networking. So we throw in RH 9. Guess what? Anacanda doesnt work. ok, ill do a text based install. Nope. blanks out. We try SuSE, Yoper, Mandrake, Debian...nothing will isntall. On top of which, there is no way to PARTITION! she tried partition manager inside windows. doesnt work. So she erased her windows install and used my XP pro Cd to make a few partitons. Well when my install BSOD'd, because the drivers WOULD NOT install for anything, she paniced. apparently she made some restore CD which calls the XP install from a hidden 3gb partition. gets her Xp install back from dell.

A dell genius friend of mine called me and just laughed. He warned me, the university hes at said, if you want linux, you need to buy a separate hard drive because dell is now locking them.

I called tech support and asked, what the hel. They said linux is unsupported, and that it would void the warranty. She asked about getting an XP install/Driver CD. they said the closest thing ull ever get is that restore disc she made when she first started. So i just went insaine with many questions, and after hours, of being transfered, hung up on, we finally got ahold of some idiot to help us try to return the pile of junk.

How can OEM places do this to people? its unamerican!

Keep in mind, with 549$ i built a Dual 1.2ghz athlon MP, 512mb ram, 128mb sis xabre, 650watt psu, 20gig os and 120gig video hdd's...that was all! corse then i upgraded over the years which put it over a grand, but thats besides the point!

My brother built a dual 1.7, 1.5gb ram, 256mb nvidia (quadro mod) 80gb storage, 20gb winxp, 580watt PSu machine for 490$. Many parts were all newegg/ebay, but its a damn good 3d workstation!

Im sure the answer to OEM is just build your own. but really, i HATE seeing perfectly nice people being taken advantage of just because theyre not knowledgable.


Yea its pretty much me ranting through this thread, but i just cant beleive companies do this, and people dont rise up or do anything about it. I was just so mad when i saw how happy she was to get it, then not 20 minutes after she gets it out of the box shes disappointed.

 

[PLOBBY]

Well that was a a big rant, but very good one. I would have to agree with every single word of it. Ive experienced the same exact thing many times where people go and buy oem computers and spend boat loads of money on them and get completly jipped off. All I can say is help them, and inform the. If the dont take your advice its there fault.

 

[MadSkillzMan]

Yea iive done my share of ranting lol. however i think this is one we can all agree on.

Im a mac fan, i think the mac mini is a serious rip. Dont even get a keyboard and mouse. wtf! These companies like to shave off the essentials, and leave no room for alternatives

 

[Heat]

Take a deep breath.

[Mr. Miyagi]Remember, when things out of focus, return to basics of living like breathing.[/Mr. Miyagi]
1. You overpaid for your mac.
2. Dell makes their boxes for Windows.
3. Computer retailers can overcharge and screw customers - esp. on upgrade options.

Aceept all three above, write it off as experience & learn from it, and move on.

Deep breath again.

 

[Randyman...]

I'd also add some of the "Specialty" PC builders can grossly overcharge for year-old technology (or older). EG - DAW computers. Most DAW builders still rely on 856/875 socket 478 based systems. That is all fine and dandy - stability is king in mission critical applications like pro-audio. But why on earth would anybody pay $2000 or more for a 3.2GHz 875 based P4 system? Everyday I am in disbelief that the Shuttle PC I built for DAW specific tasks only cost me like $800 all said and done (and optimized myslef). This simular box sells for $1800 as the "Music XP". Load of crap IMO. At least you get "support" with these purpose built jobbers, and an optimized OS (you might even get the XP install CD if you are lucky ).

I keep preaching DIY PC over at all of the audio engineering forums I frequent. It seems that some people are so imtimidated by this stuff, $1000 extra for someone to build it (plug in the Chip + RAM and HD and DVD, and load the OS - how freaking hard is that?), and to have someone to yell at (tech support) seems like a bargain to them!!! They always say "My time is money". WTF?

This stuff is WAY too easy! Knowledge is power IMO. I guess Ignorance is bliss?

Good rant!

 

[Bios24]

First off, OEM is not a rip off. *IF* you know what you are doing. I priced a dell for my mom, cheapest tower w/cd-rw, 17" CRT, and all-in-one printer: $400. I couldn't build that myself with used parts. She doesn't game, she doesn't render video, she checks her e-mail and does word processing. This is what most people need. They don't need extra AGP slots, a 400gb hard drive, or 7.1 surround sound.

Are some OEM's a rip? Yes! As I was searching for my $400 miracle I found several ways to jack up the price to nearly $1000. If you don't know what you need, it's not hard to do. They want you to spend money and will include all the bells and whistles if you want.

Can you build stuff cheaper than oem? sometimes yes, sometimes no. Companies can get stuff for cheap, cheaper than you or I can. Generally I would say OEM's are cheaper, but are lacking something, like an AGP slot, or good chipset. To joe-shmoe that doesn't matter, but if your a modder it's the world.

So what's the solution? Are we going to all build pc's for all our friends an family and support them? When you buy an OEM your not just paying for a product, your also paying for a certain level of pre-build quality and support. Don't call me about your pc problems, call the manufactor.

Personally I won't build pc's for anyone. I fell that if I built them, then I have to support them too. That's ok for someone like my mom, but I don't want people calling all the time with pc questions. (it already happens too much...lol) OEM's are there for the mass majority, and they serve a good purpose.

(wow, that post turned out longer than I thouhgt....)

 

[Mr_Fuchs]

Personally I won't build pc's for anyone. I fell that if I built them, then I have to support them too. That's ok for someone like my mom, but I don't want people calling all the time with pc questions. (it already happens too much...lol) OEM's are there for the mass majority, and they serve a good purpose.

(wow, that post turned out longer than I thouhgt....)

AMEN..

OEM is for basic user.. custom is for enthusiast..

anyone that needs a custom computer (extra graphics and other bonuses) shouldn't be too stupid to be able to put one together, since they are doing higher end stuff anyway.

 

[LutaWicasa]

Don't forget the rip-off shops that love to cater to those OEM "out-of-warrantee" rigs.
Recently, a co-worker had probs with his Dell. Has a "tech" come to look at it...sure enough, has to take it into the shop.
A few days later, he is informed that the HD and ram are both toast...only $450 to get this back up and running.
I had him get his box back and bring to me...look it over, try it out, run some diags.
Nothing whatever wrong with any of the hardware (other than not enough ram really)...his XP Home install was borked due to all the crap that wifey, kid and he have been d/l'ing. I wiped his drive, re-installed, found/installed another 256MBs'o ram...his sys is tickin' along better than it ever had. Total cost?...$25 for the ram

 

[Mr_Fuchs]

Don't forget the rip-off shops that love to cater to those OEM "out-of-warrantee" rigs.
Recently, a co-worker had probs with his Dell. Has a "tech" come to look at it...sure enough, has to take it into the shop.
A few days later, he is informed that the HD and ram are both toast...only $450 to get this back up and running.
I had him get his box back and bring to me...look it over, try it out, run some diags.
Nothing whatever wrong with any of the hardware (other than not enough ram really)...his XP Home install was borked due to all the crap that wifey, kid and he have been d/l'ing. I wiped his drive, re-installed, found/installed another 256MBs'o ram...his sys is tickin' along better than it ever had. Total cost?...$25 for the ram

Ah yes, small shops are rip off spots.. in anything computer related. I can't think of a single thing they are good for. I got a Y cable from 1 for 3 bucks, but other than that, they sell dvi/vga converters for 20.. and other rediculous crap.

 

[rabidchicken]

Sort of on the topic. Went to CrapUSA today to look around. Since I was already there I figured I would pick up a 15 ft. cat5 cable i needed until I saw they were charging $33 for it. So I went to Walmart and bought the exact same cable for $8. Just think of all the people who go there and

 

[threeme2189]

stoopid people buy ripoff pc's.

 

[zexmarquies01]

ONE time, a small computer shop saved me money!

on the PS2, there' the wire where you can connect two of them together, via...i think its firewire...i forget.

Well, the official sony brand, ( thats usually blue, and you can see the aluminum foil shielding ) would have cost me like 20 bucks for a that stupid wire. a total of like...6' long.

Went to the computer shop, they had one of those wires, but it was a basic firewire cord. No sony brand, no blue/clear color. Was just plain black. was like 10' long, cost me like 5 bucks.

We told the guy why we was buying it, he just kinda laughed.

other than that, that shop was a RIP-OFF ( luckely, they are closed down now...for GOOD reason too...they jacked up prices soooo badly...they even tried to screw me over once...i'm glad they closed down, and i hope the owners are living in poverty now, for cheating so many people! )

and about buying Cheap OEM computers...yeah, you usually can get Cheap dell PC's for cheaper for what you can build it. BUT, that usually ONLY apply's to Basic, Low end PC's.

If its a PC in the mid to upper range in terms of quality/good parts....built it yourself! They will charge you an extra 100 bucks just to put in a stick of 256 megs of ram!

Sure, i could buy a Celeron system from dell for cheaper than what i could build it for...but thats only because it lacks AGP, Lacks any sort of decent video card, usually comes with a CRT monitor, a craptacular keyboard and mouse, and a modem.

But then, let one us build a new system with one of the higher end processors, Decent video card, at least 512 megs of ram, a decent quality LCD monitor, a nice keyboard/mouse, decent HDD space, and a quality PSU, A DVDRW drive ( or just a DVD player...depending on your needs ) and even factoring in 3rd party Heatsinks and fans, and even a decent case! I'd be willing to bet, i could build it for cheaper

Sure, they CAN be cheap...but honestly...you get what you pay for. you pay 400 bucks for a computer...you get a computer thats only worth 400 bucks.

We can't compete with their prices on low end systems, but we can blow them away on prices on a high end system. ya know..since we don't have to pay 100+ bucks for them to pop in a stick of ram that costs 30 bucks, or they charget you 100+ more bucks, to pop in a 50 dollar HDD as a Slave drive.


For my family, i build computers for them, i built my dads computer, i built the girls computer, and by christmas, my mom will have her own computer as well. And i'm going to end up building that as well. ( god, i love my family...currently 3, soon to be 4 working PC's in the house, each one for a specific person (except for the girls, they share one ))

And for my friends...i help them. i give them advice on what to buy, they ask me if this video card is any good, i tell them that if they buy it, i'll break their necks, i hop on newegg, and point out a card 10x better, for the same price, or for like 20 bucks more.

While i don't actually build entire computers for them, i help them out, tell them where to get a free virus canner, show them how to use it. Stuff like that. I'll install a new stick of ram for them, or pop in a new video card for them...ya know..basic stuff.

But mainly, i give advice. and i have them learn from there. so far, its working pretty well. Now i only get calls, when they are about to buy a new PC, or upgrade a part, and want to know what they should/shouldn't buy.

 

[the adam]

wtf how can they lock their harddrives so linux can't be installed.... I thought linux was compatible on any windows PC.

 

[ScottinIndy]

I am almost afraid to say this, I actually like my H.P. I don't feel I overpaid for it and It does very well for what it was intended to do ( Mainly let my wife feed her E.Q addiction).
Now with that said, I am currently saving and honestly cannot wait to take on my first build. I have had computers for years and have done enough tinkering around that I should have probably built one a long time ago. Just lacked the confidence really, ( Plus I envisioned an angry wife looking over my shoulder anytime something messed up). Well now she has her computer and is happy and in a couple of months I will have mine!

 

[threeme2189]

yeah i need to build my next pc even though i already ripped the curent apart and put it back together...

 

[mage_x]

Ah yes, small shops are rip off spots.. in anything computer related. I can't think of a single thing they are good for. I got a Y cable from 1 for 3 bucks, but other than that, they sell dvi/vga converters for 20.. and other rediculous crap.

I bought a computer once from a small shop when I was young and computer illiterate, a 500mhz k6-2 machine with a 4 gig harddrive. It worked fine for a good few months and I start hearing motzart music come from the motherboard(wtf?), well, the guy at the shop said the CPU was overheating (wonder why? metal to metal contact maybe?). He gave me a new fan for 25$. Yes, 25 dollars for a fan! 60mm at that, I believe. I don't know what else he did back in his little room, but it still did it periodically after I took it home. About once a month or so, something would go wrong with the computer and I would have to go get it fixed, and I'm pretty sure he was sabotaging it so I would have to keep bringing it in. I found this all find and dandy back then, he was fixing my computer, right? Now I can't believe I let myself get ripped off like that.

 

[larva]

I used to build 1500 pc's anually, and I can tell you for sure, the best thing most users can do is buy a Dell. If you can't get a good deal out of Dell you are exactly the kind of know-nothing that is going to have problems with anything. Some people can tear up an anvil with a coke bottle...

Dell uses fine quality gear, eschewing all the inherently cheap stuff that other name-brands as well as clone builders almost always resort to to compete with Dell's prices. They have your best interests at heart, even if you don't know what they are. Only if you are intent on OC'ing, are an alternative OS freak, or just want a new project does it make functional sense to build your own.

In the end though, computer problems stem inherently from but three sources: hardware chosen so poorly it could never be satisfactory, borked software, and component failure. Dell protects you from the first, and does a fine job of insulating you from the third for the term of the warranty. When you have sixteen explorer toolbars, bearshare, a handful of trojans and viruses, and two years of user-mistakes hobbling your windows, you can't blame Dell.

And small shops can be very good. I insisted on it in the ones I worked for. I grew tired of the prevailing attitude amongst my partners, though, that being that it would be easier to preclude any real PC knowledge and raise margins until profitability was assured. Once you make that choice, Dell is the only game in town.

 

[Mr_Fuchs]

I used to build 1500 pc's anually, and I can tell you for sure, the best thing most users can do is buy a Dell. If you can't get a good deal out of Dell you are exactly the kind of know-nothing that is going to have problems with anything. Some people can tear up an anvil with a coke bottle...

Dell uses fine quality gear, eschewing all the inherently cheap stuff that other name-brands as well as clone builders almost always resort to to compete with Dell's prices. They have your best interests at heart, even if you don't know what they are. Only if you are intent on OC'ing, are an alternative OS freak, or just want a new project does it make functional sense to build your own.

In the end though, computer problems stem inherently from but three sources: hardware chosen so poorly it could never be satisfactory, borked software, and component failure. Dell protects you from the first, and does a fine job of insulating you from the third for the term of the warranty. When you have sixteen explorer toolbars, bearshare, a handful of trojans and viruses, and two years of user-mistakes hobbling your windows, you can't blame Dell.

And small shops can be very good. I insisted on it in the ones I worked for. I grew tired of the prevailing attitude amongst my partners, though, that being that it would be easier to preclude any real PC knowledge and raise margins until profitability was assured. Once you make that choice, Dell is the only game in town.

i was with you 100 percent untill that last paragraph.
Most of these fools in the small shops are underqualified and will do anything to get you to fork over the scratch.

 

[Pyros]

One thing to remember is that alot of people that buy oem pc's do so because they cant spend the money to build one or buy one out-right, but they can get the credit with the 30% interest from the oem companies.

I helped my bro buy one from Dell about a year ago with the following equip.
3ghz prescott
2x256mb ddr400
128mb R9800
80gb ide HD
dvd burner(+/-)
Logitech wireless 5xx series mouse(cant remember the exact model)
Logitech speakers and Keyboard
Windows xp home
And the other usual things you would get for just over $500. At the time you would be hard pressed to build one for that price. Heck even now it would be hard. Possible but not without some work.

Oem's have there place and if your smart enough not to buy from them without some searching around for the good deals you can get some great buys. Also Dell is famous for there cuopons. You can get some killer deals from Dell with them.

 

[larva]

i was with you 100 percent untill that last paragraph.
Most of these fools in the small shops are underqualified and will do anything to get you to fork over the scratch.

For a long time users in my town received my expertise by dealing with small shops, and I can assure you, no higher grade of PC assistance occured. I understand most PC technicians cannot do their jobs, but this is America after all, most doctors can't do their jobs here. This does not preclude the chance of encountering true expertise in a small PC shop; I personally know it can happen.