Blue Screen of Death - just buy a new Dell?

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tim.100

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After functioning for many happy years (5 or 6) my home-built PC said that the hard drive was inaccessible. The household toddler has been playing with the power button a lot recently, so we can blame him.

We need a reliable machine urgently, and I see that Maff just ordered one from Dell. I've spec'd up a nice machine there for about £550 (it includes basic MS Office)

Should I just go ahead and buy the thing? Do Dell have any build-to-spec competitors?


Tim
 
Wouldn't touch Dell with a barge pole.....you after a desk or laptop?
 
My last 2 home pcs have both come from Dell, and have been excellent. I would certainly use them again.
 
Why not custom build a PC. You will get ALOT more spec for £550 (presuming thats your budget)
 
Dell from hell.
cheap in the papers. Phone up and tell them what you want and it suddenly becomes twice the price
 
Ive got all Dell PC's, good value for money and found i couldnt beat the price even if i built one myself..
 
dell pc's are spoton these days all serial ata drives can fault them
 
Another happy Dell user here.

After building my last three PCs myself, I priced up a new one from components and found that Dell could do it £30 cheaper.

I also got a "free " printer/scanner/fax. It's not fantastic but
it does the job, and Dell ink is reasonably priced. My printer and scanner were due to be replaced anyway, so it was worth having.

Only one criticism - you need to be sure that any extra components you buy and install yourself are Dell compatible. I bought a hard drive that wasn't fully recognised by the Dell BIOS. It works just fine, except that on booting up I need to press F1.

Other than that, no problems. I have the 19" ultra sharp LCD monitor and the image quality is outstanding.
 
I know I will most probably get shot down in flames for saying this, but the same thing happened to my old PC about a year ago. I had a good screen so I just went to PC World and took one off the self (without Monitor) for £289.00 It's an 'E-System'. Works perfectly fine, and after all with all the bugs going around, so what if it only lasts a couple of years. No big loss really. ;)
 
First the bad:

Dell are coming up to financial year end so be very careful; they may either stuff your order up or may try to get you to buy something you don't need (like a printer). We have just had a number of servers and a SAN delivered at work, but they managed to get the order wrong because they were hurrying to try to get it delivered before year end.

Dell's after-sales support is somewhat appalling, so you're better off sticking to here for support ;)

And now the good:

Every dell system I have come across, from desktops to servers to notebooks has always had rock solid hardware and performed very well.
 
We have Dell's at my workplace, many of them are failing just out of their 3 year warentee due to domed capacitors. On happends on a single model - gx270 but you must remember that they are built with the cheapest part available at the time of build.....
 
If you are going Dell, go for a 'Factory Re-furb'.

Have a look on the main sales page and I think there should be a link.

These are machines people order then cancel, or send back. If sent back they are re-built. Either way you still get the 3 year warrenty and the machines are cheaper. Why. Dell's model means that holding stock costs them money, so they sell off these unwanted PC's cheap.

Worth a look

Ian
 
Have 3 Dell Pcs' and 2 Dell Laptops for a couple of years now, all running sweet as a nut. Order on-line in preference to telephone ordering ( India ) to make sure you get the spec you want. I orderd one via telephone and the confirmation spec was totally wrong.

Their prices can vary depending on the day of the week. When I bought one of mine, I found during their press campaign prices were lower ( ie free delivery save £50 etc ) on a saturday than say a monday. Strange but true.

John
 
Buying a Dell is like buying a Toyota. I wouldn't buy one, but I can see why people do.
 
Ian_C said:
If you are going Dell, go for a 'Factory Re-furb'........they sell off these unwanted PC's cheap.

Worth a look

Ian
Click to expand...

They have their own shop on fleabay now...bought one....cheap though it took me some time to iron out the bugs
 
I've spent nearly 30 years working in IT, I'm afraid that when I come home I just want a machine that works ... and Dell fits the bill for me. When I want to mod & tinker I go out to the garage and play with my old Merc ;)
 
At least DELL have a support structure and a web based support site with bios upgrades, hardware drivers etc. etc. cumbersome as it may be. It will also probably be still around in several years time. If you buy from a small independent "assembler" or "transient" manufacturer ( who remembers TINY??) you may end up with no backup in later years. Self-build can be fascinating till you power up and nothing happens! Then where do you start ? I had a mate that went through 2 new power supplies till he got one that worked. Dell are indeed like the Toyota motor car reliable workhorses from a world manufacturer with a warranty. Its not without reason they populate the computing facilities of public institutions and private corporations. You get what you pay for IMHO.
 
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