&#$%@)*(ing Gateway!!!

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The Gateway wiz bang computer at work JUST came back with a new OS (XP Home) and a new Western Digital 40G HDD.

Today it had a Mobo failure. ARGH!!!

This will have only one great conclusion. When it comes back this time, it will be a clone. The only original parts will be the case, PS, video card, and CD Rom drive. The CDR is about 10 months old, the FDD was scavenged from an old 286 'puter I had, and of course the HDD is new.

The only name brand computer I will ever consider buying is Dell. But I will go clone all the way if I can!

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I never liked gateway. The ones I had had alot of hardware conflicts.

i had a similar experience with dell /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

replaced the hd several times, several mobos, the cd rom, etc.
darn thing is still unstable /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

i have always built my own pc,s its so simple like 20 minutes for the build rest a time is os install and optimizeing drivers .and geting updates

I "had" one once...suffered "infant mortality" within a few days of receiving it. It took about a month and a half sending video boards back and forth, mobos, ended up being a "marriage problem" between the video boards (the several that they sent) as well as the couple of mother boards...finally got a combo that worked and consequently decided I would not be buying one again!

hardware conflicts/incompatabilities used to be very common with gateway systems..

One of the outsources for Gateway is in my hometown /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinser2.gif Gateway and MSN...funding your retirement (Through mine and my peers' employment)

Huh?

I purchased exactly once from Gateway, a 20 machine order for evaluation. When we received the systems they didn't meet spec. The video subsystem, power supply and memory type (ecc) were not as ordered. In addition, seven of the systems suffered early failures. A long dialog with support ensued with the poorest of results. Gateway refused to correct the out of spec systems, stating it was within their prerogative to modify the specification if they so choose. They fixed the failed systems with refurbished parts which in turn suffered additional failures.

At the end of the evaluation I notified Gateway of the poor results and received the excuse that they were unaware that these systems were for evaluation or they would have provided additional support for the test. This is the equivalent of selling a ringer.

In actuality, support was simply terrible. Calls went on hold for 20-30 minutes at a time and when we did get a support person they were so poorly trained as to be worthless. Support is a big issue in a company. When I have one of my people sitting on hold for 30 minutes it costs about fifty dollars of company time (or more). Ultimately, I could see no reason to recommend Gateway and issued a blanket recommendation to all 110 offices against any purchases from them.

The machine evaluation suite was brought up to spec by in-house staff and afterwards performed well, indicating that Gateway could have assembled a quality system had they chosen to.

It's a shame, companies just plain fail to recognize how important quality is. And even more, how important support is. If I have 50 machines and need to have someone sit on hold for support totaling ten hours over a one year span, then the support is basically useless since I could have effected repairs internally at less cost with known results and increased reliability.

Your Milage May Vary

Al

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Negeltu said:
Huh?

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Sorry, let me try again.

Nobody does their own tech support anymore--they all outsource. One of Gateways call centers is 5 minutes from me one direction, and a call center for MSN is 5 minutes the other way. Hot jobs for high school students.

It seems I'm in the minority, but if I wanted to buy a pre-built computer I'd go to Compusa and buy a Hewlett Packard. I think you get more bang for your buck with HP than with Dell. Those are the only two brands I'd consider. Of course there may be other brands that I'm not familiar with.

I don't buy pre-built computers anymore, I build my own because I can make them quieter. If you want to build your first one, I suggest you look at jncs.com and directron.com because they will assemble the mobo, CPU and memory and test it before shipping.

Building computers is remarkably easy. My mother builds them. She's used to working assembly line jobs and that's all it really is... any adult used to that type of work could do it. Where they have problems (including her) is with the software aspects of it, although she's still remarkably good with windows for her age.

I built the one I'm using now.. 2.4 GHZ running at 2.7. Seems like processor speeds have stalled for awhile.. had this computer for a good year and speeds haven't changed all that much since then... a good thing for me to keep this baby from going obsolete to fast. It's bottleneck is it's relatively slow FSB and RAM speeds. Plus I had a gig of ram in there and one of the sticks went shot so now I'm stuck using 512 MB for now, and the difference is VERY noticable.

my pc is overclocked its runs at amd xp thorbred speed of a xp 3400 but its a amd xp 2100 i can go higher but my memoery stinks so i can raise fsb high as i want i like my pc stable if i cant run prime 95 overnight with no crashes i get upset prime 95 is the best stabilty tester its very hard on cpu

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Saaby said:
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Negeltu said:
Huh?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, let me try again.

Nobody does their own tech support anymore--they all outsource. One of Gateways call centers is 5 minutes from me one direction, and a call center for MSN is 5 minutes the other way. Hot jobs for high school students.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahhh... Now I see what you were saying... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I don't have any issues with compatiblilty with Gateway's Corporate products, and I schedule $3 mill in product a year from Gateway, MPC, D_ll & HP. Then again, I buy corporate not consumer.

The staff's hold times are 20 - 60 seconds for MPC and Gateway. D_ll (non-server) hold times are 60 times as long.

TS for MPC and Gateway have > 85% correct diags over the last five quarters.

In the past Gateway (the company) has not performed on the consumer side, hence everyone watching that part of the company bleed red. Since Ted has come back and implemented some major changes they have:

Bought one of the only consumer computer company that made a profit for 8 quarters that didn't start with D_ll.

Sniped the VP of Servers from D_ll for their lagging server line.

Sniped J.A. from IBM to run there enterprise side.

Is out D_lling D_ll in CE.

Has gone under the Intel banner, and forsaken AMD's offerings.

BTW. I do not have any shares in Gateway but do have 500 shares of D_ll.