LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Andrew McDonnell <andymc73@yahoo.com.au>
  To  : Andrew Reid <andrew.reid@plug.cx>
  Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 11:48:30 +1000 (EST)

Re: AMD Notebook Chips / Computer Shops in Adelaide / Auslinx

on Jul 11, 2001, Andrew Reid wrote: 

<snipped>

> 
> The brand-name PCs almost always come preconfigured
> and ready to do,
> with an emergency recovery CD for a rainy day. I've
> not seen one
> Adelaide shop that does this. If it breaks, you're
> either on your own or
> paying them $40/hour for assistance.

I guess this is one reason I started building PCs for
people... I knew too many people that had been bitten
by both shops _and_ brand names. I get 95% of my work
by word of mouth, which you dont get if you do a crap
job.

Also, I dont know how far you'd get without paying any
money, if you rang up Compaq or IBM or whatever 10
months down the track and it wasn't a warrantied dead
piece of hardware you wanted fixed...

To keep it relevant to Linux, if you installed Linux
ontoa Compaq I dont know how much help you would get
from them either if something broke...

A lot of it comes down to the level of experience of
the user, and their individual requirements, budget,
etc

> When you're in an environment where a broken
> workstation means lost
> money, and your time is just too valuable, the
> brand-name PCs are almost
> guaranteed to be more reliable. Why do banks -only-
> have Compaq, HP or
> IBM machines at the teller's desk? Because they just
> -cannot- have any
> down time and they can depend on the brand name.

As I said, a lot of it comes down to the level of
experience of the user, and their individual
requirements, budget, etc. 

A bank absolutely needs no downtime. 
A home user _may_ just want to play games, or send
photos to grandma ;-), and can find other things to do
with the difference in price.

I was on a job where we had IBM servers, and a disk
interface failed, and we were in the middle of the
bush, and we still managed to get replacements inside
a couple of days, this was pretty impressive given our
environment, but then these beastys cost $10k+, so you
get what you pay for.

> 
> I've picked up 7-year old Compaq 486 boxes from an
> Auction which still
> run without hiccup. They're built well, reall well.
> 
> > Of course, then you get some brand name PCs which
> > require "star" shaped screw drivers to open the
> back
> > of the case, and others with hidden "secret
> catches"
> > that require a degree in lateral thinking and the
> > ability to think of new uses for tools to get
> open...
> 
> They can be a pain, but they've got a purpose. Apart
> from the obvious
> ("I can't open this darn thing... Time to pay
> someone to do it"), it's
> also to prevent "Sleezy Joe's Computers" from
> "servicing" it. The hope

I'll take it that your "Sleazy Joes" is not tarring
all independant computer servicepeople with the same
brush...

> is that the owner will send it back to the vendor
> and have a qualified
> technician look it over.

I guess this is the same prinicple with a lot of
smaller-scale electrical equipment, except they hope
you toss it & buy another one. I had a battery charger
from DSE fro about $35 that stopped working after
about 12 months. To pull it apart I needed a special
screw driver, one that was like a flathead with a bite
taken out of it. Turned out was just a couple of
dry-joints, saved myself another $35.

> 
> > And of course they try and get you to buy brand
> name
> > memory upgrades when you can purchase standard
> SDRAM
> > from anywhere at half the price
> 
> That's just wrong. I found a laptop in the cupboard
> the other day.
> Asking compaq for the price of 64MB SODIM SDRAM left
> me in shock. Of
> course, generic stuff from Leader can be picked up
> for a fraction of the
> price.

Are you contradicting youself here? Or were you in
shock because the price was so low?

<snipped>

;-) Who is this "Leader" anyway ?

Andrew

=====
-----------------------
www.comptroubsa.com
www.andrewmcdonnell.net

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