I hate my computer.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

You should see my computer.

[relsoft]

you hate your comp? I'd be happy to have it.

do you want my PI 166MHz 64MB RAM and some VIA Mobo? It works like a dream =) - and I am not kidding. It is the most reliable and stable system. But *you* will have to pay for the shipping =P.

How much?

[adosorken]

I've resurrected this old 233 from the grave so many times it hurts...

Up till I threw it away for being totally useless, I had a completely working NEC V20 (for those who don't know, an NEC V20 is an 8088 clone). Never faltered a day in its life. Yet I've thrown away countless P2/P3 CPUs and motherboards over the years for hardware failure.

[Agamemnus]

Lachie's computer...... oh man.........

[barok]

you hate your comp? I'd be happy to have it.

do you want my PI 166MHz 64MB RAM and some VIA Mobo? It works like a dream =) - and I am not kidding. It is the most reliable and stable system. But *you* will have to pay for the shipping =P.

How much?

read. he says that you will have to pay for shipping. he's saying he'll just give it to you.

[TheBigBasicQ]

you hate your comp? I'd be happy to have it.

do you want my PI 166MHz 64MB RAM and some VIA Mobo? It works like a dream =) - and I am not kidding. It is the most reliable and stable system. But *you* will have to pay for the shipping =P.

How much?

Hmm...I dont know how much the shipping would cost.

[jatos]

you hate your comp? I'd be happy to have it.

do you want my PI 166MHz 64MB RAM and some VIA Mobo? It works like a dream =) - and I am not kidding. It is the most reliable and stable system. But *you* will have to pay for the shipping =P.

How much?

If it wasn't for the fact that relsoft wanted it and my 233 is just as reliable (unlike the 266 hp it replaced it can take things like magnetic screwdrivers on it, doesn't mind constant fiddling and doesn't just go down, oh yeah my first 266 hp got replaced when it was under second user warranty, at that was only 6 months warranty, just went down for no good reason) I might ask to have it.

[Jonathan Simpson]

I've got loads and loads and loads of old hardware, if anybody is looking for anything specific. A handful of P166, a few AMDs (233 and 266), and some other stuff. After reading the thread on the floppy drives, I thought I might start selling those, since I have upwards of 20 1990's floppies. No one seems to care about socket 7 chips anymore, though :S

Really though, I've got hardware that's 20 years old and is a dozen times more reliable than new stuff... 8086, 286, 486, a few pentiums and they just keep running. I've had an old socket7 board with a AMD 300 running my firewall, constantly on, for about 3 years, on top of it's origional use as a desktop for 4 years, and it has never given me trouble outside of a defective HDD. I am really getting annoyed about bad motherboards, and unfortunatly the PII/PIII era was the worst for that. Check this out for one of the reasons: http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm

I personally have refitted 7 boards due to bad capacitors... what a rip!

While this is not relevent to the original problem, I think the overall issue is much greater than just one persons new PC not working well. The industry as a whole is in a "race to the bottom", to see who can make the crapiest hardware (in their minds, the cheapest), and since the consumers seem happy (hey, a good computer these days is only a few hundred, not a few thousand) it's just gonna keep on going down. This is why they feel comfortable cutting back on support... they have finally realized that the ONLY thing most consumers look at in the store is the sticker price, and it's usually the same thing online. Dell has enjoyed a comforatable lead in many consumer comparisions because at one time they really did have outstanding support, but they have jumped on the bandwagon of cutting support and lowering sticker price as well.

All in all, an industry like this needs a big punch in the face to make a turn-around, so punch em boys!!! If your warrenty is gone, but you think the problem is severe enough that it should be covered anyway, push for it, you will often get lucky. Remember, the badass evil customer who threatens to sue/ spread the word/ whatever, is always right... and these guys don't like hearing a techy guy say "well I'll just have to tell my customers not to buy a _____" (please make sure you insert the correct name into the blank. Telling a Dell manager that your customers will no longer buy Nike will probably have little effect.)

Anyway, thats my $1.02 (adjusted for inflation)