Archive for January, 2008

Should I build my own PC or should I buy one pre-made?

Published by
Ryan
at January 30, 2008 in Random. 0 Comments

Have you been wondering about building your own computer lately?  Are you frustrated with what the OEMs are putting out?  Or perhaps you’re coming from the opposite direction and are tired of dealing with built by you machines and are looking for a new OEM to fit your needs.  Well I am here to say that in my personal opinion, I feel that building your own machine is better in the long run.

Building your own machine has its pros and cons, just like dealing with an OEM for a machine has its pros and cons.  What are the pros of building your own machine?  Well for starters and this is the sole reason I decided to write this article, is that when your motherboard dies, and oh boy, let me tell you that it will, you are SOL if you’re with an OEM.  9/10 times you will not be able to find an exact replacement.  Working in the PC repair business opened my eyes to many things.  One of them is how the OEMs treat their customers.  OEMs only care up until your warranty expires, once that is done, you’re SOL.  OEMs do not make replacement parts easily accessible.  Why?  I don’t know, but if I had to take a guess it would be so that you have to buy an entirely new computer – I could be totally wrong on this.  There are a few OEMs that come to mind that make it almost impossible to repair a computer with a bad motherboard.  Gateway and EMachines – both suffer the same fate, more so because they are owned by the same company and are in and of itself the same company.  Add to the fact that Gateways suck ass, it doesn’t get you very far!  You will end up pissed off and at a dead end.

During your warranty period of 1 year or so, you are treated very special.  You get access to online chat support as well as offline phone support.  However, you probably have to talk to someone located in Bangladesh.  If you’re lucky and smart enough, you’ll opt for the three year warranty.  Now there are others out there who are going to tell you that the extended warranty is not worth it.  That’s true but for something like a desktop computer that is coming from an OEM that doesn’t readily make accessible replacement parts; you’re saving your ass and a ton of money buy going with the extended warranty.

Now why should you build your own over buying one pre-built?  For starters, you can swap out any part that goes bad.  Motherboard gone bad?  Shoots, let’s head over to Newegg or eBay for a new one!  Throw that puppy in and you’re good to go.  Your warranty has expired?  Uh oh!  Who cares!  For usually around $100 or so dollars, you can find yourself a similar replacement and be on your merry way!

Now this is just my personal opinion.  I am stating this from a technician’s point of view.  I use to recommend my family and friends Dells all the time.  But after doing this job and seeing the horrors of how customers are treated after their warranties expire, I am sickened!

The last the OEMs can do is to make replacement parts easily accessible and readily available.  Otherwise, you are SOL almost every single time – this is especially true if you don’t know how to fix your own PC and plan on taking it into a repair shop!

Motherboard problems

Published by
Ryan
at January 28, 2008 in Random. 2 Comments

Recently, as of these past few months, I’ve encountered a slew of computers that have random problems which revolve around blue screens.

I’ve run the basic diagnostic tests on them.  I’ve run Memtest to test the memory, often times 24 hours +, Prime95/Orthos on the processor if I can get into Windows – this is actually a stress test upon the CPU and the memory, Hitachi Drive Fitness Test upon the hard drive – no bad sectors, no bad hard drive, and seem to still come across computers that blue screen for random reasons.

I’ve looked at the dump files through the Windows Diagnostic Tool and have found the blue screens attributed to random things.  Normally this would indicate that there is a problem with the memory modules.  However, when you run Memtest and Prime95/Orthos for 24+ hours and no errors are found or no blue screens occur, it’s hard to confirm whether or not it is the memory.

Then you have the dreaded possible motherboard problem.  This is when perhaps a power outage, or a power surge has silently affected the motherboard and the motherboard shows no physical signs (blown caps) or any other signs of failure.  This is the hardest to pin point and diagnose as this is an evasive problem which has no physical symptoms.

Often times you can change out every single component and still encounter the same problem and this is a definitive diagnosis of a bad motherboard.  Other times, the problem still occurs.

For example, I have a few units in shop that are plagued by this problem.  This one in particular is a Dell E510.  This Dell had a bad memory module.  I replaced the memory module, ran Memtest, no errors or problems.  I can boot into Windows, stress test within Windows, no problems either.  I send the unit home, client reports two days later that there was a blue screen with a message indicating problem with memory.  Client brings it back in, I check it out, stress test the entire thing again, no problems to be found.  The only thing that I could see is that there are four memory module slots with the computer having 1×1GB and 1×512MB and each being in the respective slots for dual channel.  I honestly haven’t seen this cause any problems in the past and with the stress test coming back with no problems, I honestly am at a lost as to what could be causing or what could have caused that blue screen.  The only thing I can think of is that she attached something like a printer, a thumb drive or something that didn’t really like the new configuration and therefore it blue screened.

I’m back in the office today.  Will have to go through a bunch of different scenarios with the client.  Will report back later with what went down.