BYO or manufactured?

Wed, 24 Apr 2002 06:43:59 -0700

I agree with Fry's being good. At least at Fry's or CompUSA or even best Buy
I know I have the abilty to go in and buy something with a warranty. Somehow
I doubt the swapmeet is that reliable..

You get what you pay for, whether cheap OR expensive, but you still have to
make sure your not buying crap.
Just because something is $20 doesnt mean its crap and jut because something
is $400 doen't mean it's the greatest thing known to man. I buy a lot of
D-Link NIC's for $15 or less, and have never had a problem with any of them.
Just have to shop smart, shop S-Mart.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Achtenberg" <tom@christ4me.com>
To: <plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 6:33 AM
Subject: Re: BYO or manufactured?

> I have never had any problems with anything I bought at Fry's.  I highly
> recommend them for parts and systems.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "KevinO" <kevino7@deru.com>
> To: <plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 11:41 PM
> Subject: Re: BYO or manufactured?
>
>
> 1) Build your own ! Pre-made boxes tend to be crappy, expensive, hard to
> upgrade or usually, a combination of the three. Bare-bones systems from
> Fry's(tm) are not worth the money - cheap parts.
>
> 2) For almost anything, you will do better at the computer swap meet than
at
> Fry's.
>
> 3) Don't buy these things from Fry's. RAM, HDs, Motherboards, Video cards,
> Processors, or most anything else that costs more than $20 or so.
>
> 4) I /would/ buy a new Antec case with power supply from Fry's ($100) as
> well
> as a floppy drive, cables or small items. Perhaps a cheap CDROM or DVD-ROM
> drive.
>
> 5) Buy RAM from http://www.crucial.com
>
> 6) Buy other, expensive parts from mail order places to get good quality
and
> price. I would recommend off the top of my head :
>
> Mwave.com : http://direct.mwave.com/mwave/index.hmx?
> Compuvest : http://www.compuvest.org
> Computers4sure : http://www.computers4sure.com/
> AccessMicro : http://www.accessmicro.com
>
> I have done business with all of these outfits with excellent results.
>
> 7) DO NOT USE : buy.com, buycomp.com, or anyone with the word BUY in the
> URL.
>
> 8) I like IBM Hard drives .... No ... I Love IBM hard drives.
>
> 9) Like Bill said ... Static electricity IS your enemy. (Can you say
latent
> defects ?) A ground strap is a good idea. The damage you cause may not
show
> up
> for weeks or months and may then be manifested as just a general
flakiness.
> Tough to troubleshoot.
>
> 10) Try using http://www.pricescan.com as a starting point to get a feel
for
> the market on RAM, motherboards, CPUs and hard drives. Just don't buy from
> the
> cheapest guys unless they happen to be on the list above.
>
> I prefer Soyo and Supermicro motherboards but have had good luck with
ASUS,
> ABIT and I feel Intel boards are nice ONCE you get them WORKING !
>
> I get most of the video, sound and network cards from ... The computer
swap
> meet. I have bought 10 3C905C 3com Nics for $20 total. SB 32AWE and 64
AWEs
> go
> for $15 or $20 there also. I just bought another Matrox G200 there for
$15.
> At
> these prices, the gamble is well worth it.
>
> If you look around, the prices are so cheap that it is a very good gamble
at
> the swap meet. Pay attention to how the person selling is handling the
> stuff.
> (Can you say - Anti-Static bags ?) The bunch-o-nics I bought for $20 were
> just
> tossed in a box but so far they have all worked.
>
> I have a lot of boxes here and run 8 of them 24/7 on UPSs. The one I am
> typing
> this on has 256 days since reboot. (Dual P!!! 600 with Supermicro P6DGS. I
> got
> this motherboard second hand. It was too pricey for my blood new.)
>
> I try to buy procesors brand new about 12 to 24 months after they are
> released
> for sale. The 1Ghz Pentium 3s would be about at the 'sweet point' now.
This
> gets you fairly fast parts at about the cheapest price they will ever be
at.
> Once they get much older, availability starts to dry up and the price
starts
> going back up.
>
> Feel free to contact me off-list if you need/want more info.....
>
> I am pretty sure you have some bad hardware in your computer now  ;-(
>
> Matt wrote:
> > This isn't really directly about Linux, but what are your opinions on
> > building your own computer, or buying a Sony/Dell/whatever? I ask
because
> > for the past few years I've been building my own, and it doesn't seem to
> be
> > working out too well for me. SuSE Linux 7.3 is supposed to have an
> amazingly
> > easy install, but it took me a week to install it, even though my
computer
> > is very powerful. It always freezes somewhere, usually when it has to
> reboot
> > or on its way back to the installation from rebooting. But anyway, I
> > shouldn't go into all of that. I think a manufactured PC might work
better
> > because I know the manufacturers test all the parts together to make
sure
> > they don't "fight" with eachother, and because I let my friend borrow my
> > SuSE CD's and he installed it flawlessly on his emachine, with windows,
> and
> > that computer is about a third as powerful as mine.
> >
> > ________________________________________________
> > See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn't
> post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
> >
> > PLUG-discuss mailing list  -  PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Kevin O'Connor
>
>   "People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun ...
>
> The GNU Manifesto - Copyright (C) 1985, 1993 Free Software Foundation,
Inc.
>
> ________________________________________________
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