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Thursday, November 16, 2006

DIY Computer Woes

I like to build my own computers because I get to cherry-pick components that have a good price-performance ratio. That, and it's fun to pretend to know a lot about computers. So when my recently purchased set of hardware has turned out to be a failure, I've hit the online forums trying to piece together answers. The one refrain I hear constantly, even from official technical support people: did you test the part in another system?

Excuse me? Am I just supposed to have a second, identical machine lying around for swapping parts? Computers are expensive, even when you shop judiciously, and I'm apparently expected to have duplicates of everything around so I can verify for these folks that my part is not faulty.

Whatever. I know they're stuck because of the near-infinite number of component combinations that can create incompatibilities with otherwise-fine hardware. But something tells me I shouldn't be bearing that cost.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Word for hand-built computers rather than those Dell, Gateway, et al prepacked deals. Except I have a local store put mine together; I don't want to deal with what you're stuck in. Yuck! Good luck.

P.S. How's that AdobeCS2 coming along? :o)