[OT] Was: totally satisfied :D

[Sean Kelly]

On Sep 18, 2012, at 1:33 PM, Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe at semitwist.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:03:13 -0700
> "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh at quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 08:36:26AM -0700, Sean Kelly wrote:
>>> On Sep 18, 2012, at 12:48 AM, Walter Bright
>>> <newshound2 at digitalmars.com> wrote:
>>>> The most common failure I've had are the power supplies, they're
>>>> still as bad today as in the 80's.
>>> 
>>> There are good power supplies, they just don't come in pre-built
>>> computers because they're expensive.  I think the same could be said
>>> of products from any era. 
>> 
>> Yeah, I've learned the hard way not to trust pre-assembled PCs.  They
>> may have one or two good components listed in the ad just to hook you,
>> but usually many other parts (that people don't usually pay attention
>> to) are crap. PSUs are one of them. Nowadays I only ever buy parts,
>> and assemble my own PCs. Things tend to last much longer this way.
> 
> I think the last time I bought a fully pre-assembled desktop, it was a
> a 486. I got into the habit of building from parts just because that
> was the easiest way to get *exactly* what I wanted (Yea, I'm a control
> freak). And it's not difficult to do either, it's not like building a
> car from parts (Although my large hands/fingers are admittedly a
> liability when digging around a PC's internals).

I've never owned a pre-assembled PC.  Back when I built my first in 1989 it was because I couldn't afford to buy from Compaq or whoever was around at the time.  After that, it was more because I'd upgrade a component at a time.  I've considered going to a custom builder recently, but there's still a decent premium on top of the system price.  Back in the day, the difficulty was in knowing how to plug everything together, configure IRQs, etc, because nothing was polarized or color-coded, and at best you'd get a page or two of reference material regarding jumpers in Korean.  These days it's more in selecting components that are verified to be compatible.  Actually putting the machine together is fairly trivial.