The Tale Of The Computer!

computerwoman

Hi guys and gals, well it's been a rotten 2 weeks, my first computer (shop bought) started playing up, I posted on here for help, some said it sounded like the PSU fan some said it sounded like the CPU fan, the shop said it sounded like a software problem, so after pulling my hair out over this, because I don't like shops especially when I've been ripped off before, I took it to the shop, (where I bought it from) as they have a policy if you buy it from them they wont charge for up-grading it, only the parts, so anyway took it to the shop with all the software, they said give us 4 hours and come back, so after 4 hours, I went back, they said the hard drive 120gb had failed, so I thought ok, thats not that bad then, then they said they had to do some more checks, so could I pop back tomorrow, the shop is in the next town from me, 21 miles away, and I rely on my sons pal to get us there I pay him £5 petrol, so I said ok I'll call back tomorrow, then the next day I rang them before we set off, they said 1 stick of 512 memory had failed, and that it would be ready for 4pm, so we turned up at 4pm and they said they had encountered a problem installing windows xp and that they would have to do further tests, so I said ok wish you'd have phoned but I'll come back in aweeks time as my sons pal was going back to work, the following week, I rang them and the answer I got was yes the motherboard is at fault and we are just trying to find a used one in the back that will go with the other bits, processer and memory, the memory is DDR400 and the processer is a 2600 AMD, so I was abit surprised, I asked why they could'nt just order one from somewhere, they said it was a discontinued motherboard so they could'nt and that if they found one that they use as a test motherboard they would sell me that for £20 and that should sort the problem, so I reluctently agreed, so £45 for the memory, £40 for the 160gb hard drive, and £20 for the used motherboard plus £10 for there time, total £115, so I thought ok, at least it'll work, when I got it home yesterday, 1 stick of 512 memory was missing, so I rang the shop which at first they were abit funny about, then agreed to send it in the post to me, which they did, as it came today and I put it in myself, the PS2 connection at the back for the keyboard will not work, so they gave me a mini usb keyboard free of charge as well, more of a consulation really , but they did'nt have to as I bought my son a new G15 logitech usb keyboard for christmas, so I guess all in all my instints about shops are right, as alot of other people would'nt have known to check that the things had been put in, as soon as I got ti home I took the side off and checked that the memory which was'nt there and the hard drive where different from the ones that where in there and the motherboard is really something from days gone by, what has upset me the most about all this is that I asked the shop to tell me if it was worth doing anything now, sort of a quick and easy £50 quid job as I fully intent ripping the insides out and re-newing the lot in march for my sons 21st birthday, but they said at most it would be £50-100 well I suppose £115 isnt bad but to not put the memory in but to charge me for it, I wont be going back to that shop, the computer is 3 years old this 28/02 so I guess hes had his monies worth, but they sold it to me as the most up to date gaming pc, well what a laugh, I suppose when your new to pc's like I was then it served me right but why do people do it why do people con you and they get away with it, and a shop as well, because they can, anyway the computer is now working, as I'm on it now doing this, it's abit slow at 153Ghz but it's working that's the main thing, even if they did try to rip me off, roll on march when I can get a new insides built and see it fly then, well people, be happy, be good, and above all ,do to people what you would want to be done to you, it's not fun, to be a con, it's not nice, and you wouldnt want it to happen to you, I guess those sort of people must drink awhole lot of horlicks to sleep at night, goodnight and god bless.

patwa_2

Hi, sorry for the hassle you had.

As a computer builder, and often getting the same sorts of problems as you experienced, it can often be difficult to diagnose the problem, especially those where the computer won't start period. As you (and the shop) said, it could have been the motherboard, processor, RAM, and the only real way of testing (as it looks like the shop tried to do), is to check each component separately.

Personally I think the shop went about this the wrong way, they are a shop so they surely had spares, it would have been an easy job to exchange each possibly faulty component for a known working one, and then check. This would not have taken long, a couple of hours at most, and is the 'standard' way of diagnosing hardware related problems. I find it difficult to imagine that all three components failed at once, although I guess it's not impossible, but to seemingly do each one randomly instead of just doing it all together seems a bit haphazard, not to mention annonying the customer as it gives the impression of incompetence and time-wasting.

Oh, and you have a little typo there, surely you mean 133Mhz - 133Ghz is just a LITTLE on the fast side, lol

Hussein.

Nikolai

Computerwoman:
Did you inhale at all when you typed that?

albertross_2

buy a Dell next time:

http://www.dmxdimension.com/

computerwoman

thanks for that, yes this is may point, as I have 1 shop bought pc and 1 home made pc, they should have been more professional, they kept saying things I did'nt understand, so I realised that they were doing something wrong from an early stage, I was going to ask a police friend of mine about it, but opted for the office of fair trade instead, that's how I got the memory off them, they said they had had rather alot of complaints about this shop.......... wish I'd known that before I went there, what I found strange, is that they did'nt give me the old/damaged parts back, infact they have'nt said anything about them at all, think I might ring them tomorrow and ask what they have done with them and ask if I can collect them next week when I'm there, bet you anything they say they've got rid of them, more like sold them on,the 153Ghz, when you click start them r click my computer then click properties it says at the bottom of that box 1gb ram 153Ghz so I assumed that was the speed of the processer, or the motherboard, the other one said 2.04Ghz. tell me what this means please, thanks

computerwoman

no I forgot to inhale but I'm still here just £115 quid worst off

patwa_2

OK, the 1GB is the RAM, the 2.04Ghz is the Processor speed, but damned if I know what the 153Ghz is, as Ghz is a measure of speed, and the fastest processors at the moment would register about 4.4Ghz. Now if it was 153GB I would say it's your hard drive's capacity.

computerwoman

patwa wrote:

OK, the 1GB is the RAM, the 2.04Ghz is the Processor speed, but damned if I know what the 153Ghz is, as Ghz is a measure of speed, and the fastest processors at the moment would register about 4.4Ghz. Now if it was 153GB I would say it's your hard drive's capacity.

on the general tab in my computer it says
Computer
AMD Athlon (TM)2600+
1.53GHz, 1.00GB of RAM

so I assumed it was the speed of the motherboard as I've just bought a new one from ebuyer.com (motherboard) and that says 1.80 GHz at the end of the description for the motherboard, anyone else know what this means thanks

patwa_2

Ah ok, excuse my earlier post then. I did not notice the decimal point for the 153. 1.53Ghz is the CPU (processor) speed. The AMD Athlon bit is the brand name of the processor. And the 1GB is the amount of RAM (memory) that you have. the motherboard does not come into it at this point, as none of the info displayed on that tab strictly relates to it. It's processor speed and memory, and these are some of the major specs looked at when describing a computer system.

Hope this helps.

I'm_With_Stupid

Aren't they legally required to give you the "upgrades" for free? I mean if they sell you something that needs replacing, it's not your fault that they haven't ordered any more. Therefore legally, aren't you entitled to a replacement of the product advertised or a refund?

I've had similar problems with my system (though I'm building it myself and it's my first go, so it's to be expected) so I understand how a small shop could end up in this situation. I'd say that if you're after a custom built PC and one that's cheaper than the shops, go for one of the larger manufacturers in this country, like Mesh or Evesham. They'll usually modify any of their existing systems for you with something that they know is compatible. You know that they've been thoroughly tested and that there'll be plenty of spares if something goes wrong. And chances are they've been tweaked to perfection as well, so often you'll get more out of what seems to be a pretty similar machine. And you've got your onsite warranties if something does go wrong.

Blacksheep1979

Hate to say it, but it sounds like you've been had - the chances of the motherboard, ram, hd all failing at once are so small its unbelievable.