[BC] Comparing computers & parts

[WFIFeng at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/28/2007 5:47:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
Radiofreetom at gmail.com writes:

> Personal experience with various drives - Seagate / Maxtor drives 
>  will outlast WD; I've had four WD drives, all bought new, DIE horrid 
>  deaths - overheating, mostly.  The Seagate drives I bought to replace 
>  them have outlasted the WD drives by a factor of five, and still 
>  going strong.

I will never buy another WD drive, again. My experiences have been like 
yours... "horrible" deaths. Maxtors just keep on plugging. I was concerned by the 
Seagate buyout, but from what you're saying, they're doing OK with the QC... 
that is good to know!

I have truly lost count of the number of systems I have built. Dozens by now. 
Dozens more Maxtor HD's. Failures have been few, but they have always been 
*Gradual*! IOW, I had *time* to order a replacement, backup the files, and ship 
the dying (and still under warrantee!) drive back to Maxtor for free 
replacement. The WD drive failures I've seen were *sudden* and *catastrophic*! One 
minute, you're up and running. The next, "doink!" the drive is dead as a dodo. 
Once, I was able to get the drive up and running by putting it into my freezer 
for a few hours, then resting it on a gel ice pak until all the files were 
copied. The drive became an organ donor after that. (I salvage the magnets out of 
'em!)

As for building my own PC... there is no way I'll buy a pre-fab box. There 
*IS* a difference in the QC on the parts inside. Many of them use refurbs or 
cleaned-up customer-returns. I have a friend "in the biz" and this is what he 
told me. That's how they offer 'em so dirt cheap. The other problem is all of the 
*crapware* that they load them up with! *Worthless* software "demos" and 
other assorted junk that just wastes drive space, and clutters the Registry, 
hampering performance. (Don't even get me started on those machines that take 5 
minutes to boot, and have a dozen little icons in the system tray!) 

Me, I buy from NewEgg.com and have had nothing but *stellar* service from 
them. They are absolutely top-notch. Ah, yes... there is another significant (to 
us geeks) issue with prefab boxes vs built-from-parts: The MoBo BIOS! In the 
prefabs, you *always* get some severely crippled bios. In the individual 
MoBo's, you get the OEM BIOS which has a LOT more features and settings available. 
Naturally, a lot of this stuff is best left set to "default", but there are 
many instances where a little tweak here or there can result in dramatic 
performance improvements... regardless of OS. Oh, and you also get your choice of 
which OS to load into the thing. The parts come with drivers on CD's, so that part 
is pretty easy, too.

Willie...


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