Advent PC !!!!!! - New PC Advice Please

wackojackouk

Hi guys

I bought an Advent T11 PC @ Xmas on what I thought was a good deal at the time but the bloody thing has been just a pain in the backside since.

To cut a long story short I have had 2 new motherboards and a new hard drive, 4 engineer visits and now 26 phone calls to their support team and guess what the bloody thing is still not working correctly.

Every time it will work ok for 2/3 weeks then it has been a case of either freezing up or the hdd crashing.

The latest one involved a delayed write failure, some clunking on the HDD and then a nice blue screen when I rebooted telling me about a registry file failure. Another reboot gave me "NTLDR is missing" and after another "Disk Boot Failure".

I tried to reinstall XP Home with the system restore disks (only 2 weeks after the last time) and it gave me "Non System Disk". Finally I undid the case - took out the cable and put it back in and hey presto it recognised the CD (but since it's not connected to the CD I am even more puzzled)

The thing is I can't believe it is the cable if it works for three weeks and stops working and then works again etc (i have not previously removed the cable btw). Even the guy on the support line said I should ask for a refund even though it is now working.

I plan to call Currys and ask for my money back now but will probably be passed from pillar to post as usual.

In the meantime I was wondering if any of you guys can offer some suggestions what the problems could have been and any deals about the £650 mark that I could replace it with.

Cheers

WJUK

peter_the_piper

I think this is definately the time to get heavy with Currys. I think you have been very patient up to now. Quote the 'Sale of goods act' as this unit is definately Not of Merchantable Quality and you are well within any guarantee period. Having had problems with long distance purchases I am now of the opinion that it is better to go to a small, local PC shop-at least you get a real person to talk to and they have a local reputation tp uphold. Thie big stores don't seem to care.

chem14346777

peter_the_piper wrote:

I am now of the opinion that it is better to go to a small, local PC shop

I couldn't agree more with this statement. Ask around, go to your works IT department and ask the techies who they would recommend, and I bet you they would never say PC World or Currys.

Any reputable local PC store will be able to beat the corporate prices, you should be able to pick up a decent spec new PC for 3-400 quid.

Edit; Oh! forgot to say, sounds to me like your Harddrive has died again, especially if it Clunks!

volks400

well said Chem. stay well away frm these rip offs. i just got a system made for myself and my other half from a local shop after doing a survey of all the local shops(good ones not shady ones). i got made amd athlon 64 3000+(socket939), 512mb ram, 120 gb hdd, 512mb radeon graphics card,5.1 surround card, 19" tft monitor, sony dvd rw +/- wireless keyboard and mouse, speakers, win xp(sp2) with copy cd, anti-virus for free etc for 550 pounds. i went to other vendors and they quoted the same specs for 750 or 750+ pounds. so in my experience its better to go for local vendors. atleast my system would not need upgrading for 5 years atleast.