OT: Want to buy a certain mobo locally

[stu]

On Friday 30 June 2006 17:41, FoulDragon at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 6/30/2006 8:03:40 AM US Mountain Standard Time,
> wien33 at cox.net writes:
>     Personally, I've all but given up on local vendors including FRY'S
> unless I'm
> desperate (Fry's north store is NOT Linux friendly at all). Of all the
> online vendors I use, Newegg always has the best prices and their return
> policy is supposed to be excellent although I've never needed to use it.
>
> :nod:  I usually buy kit from Newegg if I'm gonna shop online.  I will
>
> probably buy the board from them if I can't find it locally.
>
> I had the most hellish RMA experience recently with another firm :cough:
> zipzoomfly :cough:.  They said "oh, it's on back order, you'll get it in
> 2-3 weeks", and over a month later not only had I not recieved anything,
> when I called (at my expense, probably nearly $20 worth of toll calls to
> Northern California) they told me "We haven't heard from our upstream
> supplier".  That's not my problem!  You promised me a timeframe, and if you
> can't honour it, just give me my money back, a store credit note, a better
> part, something!  And frankly, I doubt you can get another of the part I
> was returning, it was on the brink of end-of-life.
>
> In contrast, the Newegg RMA I did was painless, especially considering it
> was, honestly, a piffling issue (fan was rattling on a new video card). 
> They took it back, said "sorry, we have no more", and credited my account.
>
> I don't even bother asking clerks in Fry's for anything more complicated
> than "where's..." questions.  I recall the day a clerk said "It's got 128Mb
> of memory, but it's DDR memory, so it's like 256Mb..." to another customer
> in earshot of me.  It took all my energy not to stop him mid speech and
> correct him, or just punch him all the way back to Washer-Dryers.
>
> However, if you shop from the specials list, you can get some servicable
> bargains; I also noted they sell some of the Zalman heatsinks for less than
> online once shipping is factored.

	Yes, they do have some good deals sometimes, but the thing that irks me is 
they have that Linspire system back with their desktops. Now, I have used 
Linspire, and it is an incredibly easy system to use if you don't mind paying 
for it, and the hardware is a nice deal for the price. What bothers me is 
they have it hooked up to a cheesy, non-VGA monochrome monitor so the system 
looks broken to keep any customers from asking questions about it. They 
obviously have no intentions of ever supporting Linux - it's pure 
"Bait&Switch" to them. After I complained to both Linspire and Fry's about 
it, they hooked it up to a nice flatscreen for a couple days, but it's clear 
they know nothing about it, nor do they intend to learn. It was back up on 
the old monochrome monitor last time I checked.