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Home Grown or Boxed PCs?
Magorak asks: "Like myself, I know there's a lot of people out there who have built their own PC from the ground up. But, I also have friends who just went out and bought a boxed package that came with everything. I've always said that if you build your own PC, with exactly what you want, you'll have the best machine. But PC packages from Dell, Gateway and others are pretty promising so I'm not so sure anymore. I'm curious what Slashdotters think? " A while ago, I would have always suggested the custom solution, but this might not be so true anymore. Are there still places where the custom PC builder can still get a better deal than through Dell, Gateway and others of the sort?
I know that IDE (whatever they call it now) is almost as good today and a lot cheaper, but I still insist on pure SCSI parts. Cusomte built is the only way to get a desktop system with no IDE (Okay, the IDE connectors are on the board, but unconnected)
Video cards are the next reason. Some work better then others with xFree86. I'll use what works, thank you.
Third, quality. Granted most electronics last for a long time. Cooling fans don't, power supplies don't - unless I get them from www.pcpowerandcooling.com. I know that others make good fans and power supplies, perhaps for less, but once burns by hot water you always blow on milk the from fridgerator.
I could save money buying a pre-built. I'd get poor componants that may or may not work with FreeBSD. I'd get fans that may or may not last. Or I would have to buy an overbuild server system, pay far more, and still not be sure of quality parts everywhere, or freeBSD compatibility.
I forgot about that bit of stupidity. Last saw it with a guy who needed FreeBSD for work (to work at home), but wanted win95 for everything else. We won't mention the backwardness of working for a pure BSD company and then using windows at home though.
Turned at there was no way to do it because at the time neither FreeBSD nor Linux suppored 32bit FAT, and that CD made the entire hard disk a 32 bit FAT partition. This was just after the release of OSR2, FIPS and partition magic couldn't help yet either. Eventially we talked him into sticking with the real OS full time, but he hated it.
If you're starting with no PC, as I was, and don't have much cash, as I didn't, but have a steady income with which to pay a machine off, as I did, then buying a whole machine first up can be the best idea. I purchased two machines two years ago; once they went out of warranty I started upgrading them piecemeal. I worked for the company I bought them off so I still had a lot of control over which parts went into them, and I've had excellent Linux compatibility and few failures with the components I did select.
Probably another year to 18 months from now, I'll be back at the point where it's easier just to get a whole new machine on repayments than to scrounge together the $$$ to do the upgrades I want, but until then I'm slowing improving my system with better and better components as I go.
Oh, of course, the other advantage to building from scratch is you don't have to pay for Windows with your system. But then, another advantage to buying a complete machine is you don't have the bullshit where you're having problems and the motherboard vendor blames it on the video card and the video card vendor blames it on the RAM and the RAM vendor blames it on the hard drive etc etc etc - if one company supplied it all then it's THEIR problem, not yours or anyone else's.
A good vendor will have qualified, integrated and tested all of the parts in your system. They may also have access to parts that are difficult or impossible to find on the retail market.
At my workplace, I've built/upgraded all of my computers from parts. My current PC, a Pentium III, started out as an excessed IBM PC/AT. Mostly because the procurement system makes it easy to order parts and difficult to order complete computers. If you factor in the cost of my labor, it would have been cheaper to buy assembled systems with service contracts.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
My wife's computer is now a white box machine. PS went up last night. Pulled a PS out of a spare case, and got her running again in about an hour. (Minus some snapped cords that I literally ripped out of the machine. I had never experienced a burning power supply (smoke and everything) before and panicked a bit). Now, contrast that with the last power supply she had go bad:
Two years ago, on a name brand PC (forget the brand) she had a power supply go bad. Now, even though this was a 486/25 running DOS 6.22, she was entirely, 100% happy with the machine. (Her current machine is a K5 150, I think) So, just spring $30-$50 for a power supply, and go on our way. Nope. Had to get a custom power supply. Okay, just drop the motherboard and all into a new case. Nope. Custom shaped motherboard.
I will build my own 'puters (the first was to get what I wanted at a decent price, as well as cherry picking the parts. The past three or four have been built out of hand-me-down components.) At work, we buy only white-box computers. It supports a good local business, and I can repair them in VERY short order. If you had the office next to mine, me with a white box/home built and you with a Dell/Gateway/IBM/Micron/Whatever and we both have problem XYZ, who is going to get it faster? You call FedEx and wait three days. I go to the local shop, ask a favor (to be moved to the head of the queue) and get back in business no later than first thing the following morning.
YMMV, of course, but in my case....
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Personally, I still think the best way to go is custom-building your own PC. The Dells and Gateways of the world are nice, especially for business purchases (as a small business owner, I can assure you this!). But there are still the limitations present from before. For example, I order Dells for my business, but I am building a new machine for myself. Why? Flexibility and options. I want an Athlon, but only Gateway offers Athlon configs, and only in the 600 MHz flavor. I want my choice of motherboards. I want a cool color case (or one with brushed metal. Cool). I want to pick the brand of my hard drive. All such things are not possible with Dell/Gateway. And especially if you want to run alternate OSes, such as Linux, building your own allows you to choose compatible HW (even though this is not as big of an issue now, it still is one, especially with video cards). I run Openstep, which has pretty stringent HW requirements, on one of my machines so I have little choice. For the power user, there's still only one way to go, and that's doing it yourself. (Unless you're talking about a laptop, which I can't see doing better than the big boys considering heat and other factors, but I could be wrong). F
Sometimes, however, there are advantages to pre-assembled machines. Now, I consider there to be three main types of pre-built machines--
- proprietary parts (eg Dell Optiplex, but not a Dell Dimension)
- integrated motherboards (the dirt-cheap machines you find on PriceWatch)
- individual parts (individual sound/video cards, etc.)
Now, the third one is much like a custom machine, but you don't assemble it yourself. You choose from parts the company has in stock, they assemble it, maybe do soem burn-in tests, and send it to you. The advantage is that you pay shipping once, and the markup tends to be slightly less, as there's one company involved to buy from, not 6-10. (Explorer Micro comes to mind as a company that does this....I've never bought from them before, they just tend to rank well on Pricewatch)Naturally, the flaw with this is that you might not be able to get that one specific part (video card, whatever) you had your heart set on, if the company you choose doesn't stock it, so it's not quite as good as the custom approach, but you might be able to save enough money to put in a crap item, and trade it out yourself.
For the middle class of pre-built machines, there's the ones with integrated parts on the motherboard. Mostly, they're the type that use shared memory for video, have built in wussy sound, etc. Probably not really what you want for a box permenantly, but they're good cheap-now/upgrade-later boxes. [you need something right now, and can't blow much cash on it, but you'll later have the cash to replace out the MB, video, sound, etc.]
And we're left with the 'proprietary parts' machines, which well, are great, so long as they never break. If something goes wrong, you might get screwed in having to fork out $40 for a FDD that fits in that size, etc. If the MB goes, you're basically screwed [although, most under this type have a longer warrenty than the others...as minimum a year... so with an extended warrenty, this might be a good type of machine for that aunt you have who's completely computer illiterate, but insists on calling you up for her 'I can't get on the Internet' questions]
So, in summary, look at what you need for this individual box -- is it a server, and you need 99.9999% uptime? Well, you'll want all custom parts for it, no question, to make sure you have an easy access case, reliable HD, ECC memory, a good NIC, etc. Is it just some lame workstation? Well, maybe you'll be willing to cut a few corners [integrated MB, smaller HD], so you can upgrade your main box. Is it for someone else? Warrenties/Tech support are good, so they're not calling you constantly to come over and fix it when they load some stupid screensaver someone sent them in e-mail.
And on an slightly related note, if anyone knows of a source for the Elan Vital M5 case, (not the M5-R), mail me : oneiros$at$annoying.org [replacing $at$ as appropriate]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The thing I worry about with a home-built machine is hardware manufacturer's blaming each other for problems.
Well, if you've gotten that response from hardware manufacturers, then you're buying from the wrong people. OTOH, sometimes there is a legitimate clash between two products. In this case, you're not really immune from the problem, though a good burn-in period will often detect such things in the testing labs. Not every OEM will take the time and effort to guarantee your video card won't flake out with your sound card installed. My dad got a high end HP Pavilion from work not so long ago. It uses off-the-shelf parts, has a nicely-designed case, and performs well under Windows 98. The down parts: I'm not sure the case is standard ATX, the video card is an ATI (not known for their performance or openness), the modem is useless (win modem), you don't even get a copy of any operating system on CD (just an "emergency restore CD"), the BIOS sucks big time (it's truly pathetic, even for a pre-built machine), the APM is totally unreliable and uncontrollable (sometimes it turns itself off in the middle of his typing a word), and he has absolutely no idea what brand motherboard, DIMMs, or other low-level hardware is in his computer. That makes it incredibly difficult to diagnose problems, incompatibilities, or buy off-the-shelf components compatible with his current setup (ie, buying the same brand of memory as the current setup, for maximum reliability).
My computer is an Asus P2B-D SMP pentium III motherboard, dual Pentium III 450 MHz processors, 256 MB of guaranteed PC100 compliant DIMMs with lifetime warranties, Matrox G400 AGP video card, Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Value, dual DEC Tulip-based 10/100 Mbit NICs, Tekram U2W SCSI adapter, Quantum Atlas 10K RPM U2W SCSI hard drive, a very nice 19" monitor (ugh... cost me over $500 back over a year ago), a very nice Enlight case, and a couple impulse buys: a USB webcam, a Maxtor EIDE hard drive, some cheap speakers, some cheap OEM copy of Windows NT 4.0 I found at a computer show, a real cheap EIDE CDRW, and a free SCSI CDROM.
With the exception of the impulse buys, everything else in and around my computer was heavily researched before purchase. I decided early on that I was going to settle for nothing less than total satisfaction. First, I determined what sort of setup would get me the most bang for my buck: uniprocessor or SMP. The obvious answer was SMP, because I was going to use Linux and Intel was charging monstrous amounts of money for the P3 500 and P3 550. It was cheaper to buy two P3 450s than to buy a single P3 550! How's that for gouging? Oh well. I also removed the K6-III and upcoming Athlon from the running, because neither had good chipsets (no support for SMP or other necessary features). The sound card obviously had to be supported under Linux. That removed quite a few value-oriented models on the market, as well as any Aureal A3D product. My original solution was a $30 Ensoniq AudioPCI, but I've since upgraded to the Live!. The SCSI peripherals were a must. You can't get that from a pre-built system, unless you pay for a high-end server that costs over $5000. My system cost under $3000, though it would probably be a lot cheaper if you built it today (SCSI is cheaper, and the Pentium III 550 is looking attractive). Also, good chipsets for the Athlon will be out soon. You might have to wait until 2001 before a good, high-end SMP Athlon motherboard is available, though. I don't like buying revision 1.0 motherboards with no reputation, especially if they're not Asus.
My computer never locks up (unless I run a Microsoft OS, and it's still pretty damn stable even then), XF86 is pretty much optimized to hell for my setup, and I still have room to upgrade to even better performance, when 600 MHz Pentium IIIs become cheap. Plus, there's the expandability of SCSI: I can have up to 15 devices hooked up to my controller. Thanks to buying a full tower case, I can actually fit most of them in internal bays! Plus, by buying OEM hardware over the net, I saved quite a lot of money over buying some retail, boxed PC. I can't imagine paying an additional $50 per component, just to get lousy, bundled software that doesn't even run under Linux. Blech.
The drawbacks about doing it my way? Well, you need to spend lots of time determining what the optimum choice is. I spent a long time going through hardware review web sites, like Tom's Hardware and AnandTech. Also, you need to understand what the hardware review sites are talking about. If you don't know the difference between the BX chipset and the LX chipset, or even what a chipset is, then you're going to be totally lost. Building stuff yourself is terribly frustrating. I hate it, because you never get absolutely everything wired correctly the first time you power on the system. I'd rather be booting Linux than swearing at my computer, looking up what beep-beep-pause-beep means. The worst thing is that sometimes you end up with crap hardware, a 30 day warranty, and no returns after 10 days. Not to mention the 20% restocking fee. That's enough to scare off lots of people right there. They want a nice, long 5 year warranty with lots of middle men to whom you may talk. Personally, I hate middle men with a passion. I've never met one who could answer a simple question like, "What chipset does that video card use?" ("It's AGP!" "Okay, nevermind.")
In the end, I'd recommend that everyone but newbies build their own PC. For newbies, they should have someone else build their PC, like me. I'll do it for free. Just give me some pizza and Coca Cola while I'm working on it.
I had to totally rebuild my girlfriend's PC from scratch, because she had absolute crap (SiS video card, ALS300 sound card, overclocked Pentium CPU, PC Chips motherboard, etc). She had built most of the system herself, with the help of a friend. Unfortunately, neither of them was particularly knowledgable about computer hardware, so it ended up being quite unstable and slow. Overclocked, low-end hardware... ugghh... quite a recipe for disaster.
You can never really know what you're getting in a boxed system, just as you can never know what you're getting component wise.
:-)
However, you'll know you're buying good components when you homebrew.
Another good thing is that a lot of companies are putting ludicrous little stickers that invalidate your warrantee if you try to expand or just open up your computer. I'd rather find components (which can even be had cheaply via eBay, and other one-time places that equalise the prices vs. a bulk bought machine), and stick them together than have to worry about black-box purchased machines. There is a great satisfaction to this.
Here's an even better pro for homebrew: when something breaks, you don't lose your whole PC. I had a friend who bought an eMachine. It died (PS/mobo failure). They returned it for another. It died. (Twice now they've lost important data, data they can't get back, as well as put sensitive data into the hands of someone else).. Now they have an HP Pavilion, and I'm hoping it'll die so they'll break down and let me build them one
A reverse of the above situation:
When I had a problem with my HD (in my tres cool homebrew system), I called the tech number for the HD (not some clueless middle-man company, like Gateway). I talked to people who work with the hardware designers, and they were able to advise me on what to do quickly, and for free. A simple loop of LLF and zero filling later (wouldn't want sensitive data to leave with my busted HD), and it was off to the company, which replaced it at no cost within a few weeks.
Homebrew means answering to yourself, and dealing with hardware manufacturers. Pre-built means dealing with a (quite possibly clueless) middle man, who may or may not charge for support, and dealing with proprietary things (Compaq, HP, eMachines).. Not to mention the insanity of buying a computer with a modem, when you will never, ever use one (my friend has a cable modem, but both eMachines and the HP Pavilion have modems they'll never, ever use).
But then, that's just my opinion. YMMV, although you'll kick yourself when you eMachine dies >:-) And none of it applies to laptops, which are very, very proprietary (perhaps another ask Slashdot: where to get good laptops).
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
My chief reasons for building my own systems are as follows:
1. Selection of individual components.
2. Price.
3. Avoiding clueless salesmen.
#1 is most important. I want exact control over my parts, not some substandard, off-the-shelf piece of crap system. Everyone should buy nothing but error-correcting RAM. No off-the-shelf system has ECC, ever. You can only even get the option of ECC when ordering a 'server' for 2 times the component price.
I just don't see how hardware companies justify their prices. If I went out and ordered all of the individual components for my LeSabre, it'd cost $90,000. Then I'd have to put it together, which would take months. If I order all the parts for a computer, it takes about an hour to put together and costs 50 to 70 percent of the 'boxed' system, even when taking shipping costs into consideration. What gives?
Once I ordered a system from Gateway for the lab I worked in. They shipped it with these substiute shitty components that almost immediately failed. Within 6 months, the keyboard shorted out, the NIC failed, the video card went on the fritz and the memory needed replaced. (Gateway, by the way when they decided that they were 'gateway.com' not 'gw2k.com', sued the owner of gateway for trademark infringement although he was in business first. Not the honorable purchasing of the domain name, just bullying tactics. What a bunch of assholes)
There are lots of idiots out there who want to sell you substandard components and switch your ordered part for something 'just as good'. Always send it back. I almost exclusively order parts from websites (the only exception is when the price listed at pricewatch.com doesn't match the website price). I usually order something simple first, just to test the site out, then order components. Sure, it takes longer to do things this way, but you save hundreds of dollars.
The chief reason that we are all voting for 'build your own' is that we, the UNIX users (mostly), don't need a pre-installed OS or applications. We can get most of what makes a system usable to us for free. Why should we pay for 'bundled' software that we wouldn't use in the first place. The cost is in the price of the system somewhere.
Remember that windoze systems are fragile, the software is more reliable when the drivers are installed in a certain order and it may take quite a while to figure out that order. Perchance that's why Dell charges an arm and a leg for a system. They had to figure out how to get it to work... That and they make you pay M$ tax.
In summary, it'll be a cold day in hell if I ever order another pre-built x86 system. My Macintoshes are another case entirely, when you can't buy parts, you can't build a system. My Alpha systems will probably be partially pre-built since it's cheaper that way. I guess there are no general rules except buy what you need for as cheap as you can. I don't see any reason to support companies that have never done anything good for me.
I'm going to go against the flow here and recommend that you buy a ready-built computer. I've done both, and if there's one thing I've noticed about my HPs and Dells it's that they crash less. True, they may not have every speed tweak or the latest incantation of UDMA on board, but the extra money you pay for is assurance that they will work. I say this after a few horrendous experiences with my latest machine:
:) But I wouldn't reccomend it for the inexperienced user. If you know a lot about troubleshooting and really need the fastest rig your money can buy, go for it. Otherwise, get something you know will work.
1. Bought a whiz-bang 3D card with all the trimmings. Couldn't get it to work for two weeks until I found out that the Taiwanese motherboard I'm using (also top of the line) has a BIOS problem with my brand of video card. Waited another few weeks for them to come up with a fix - tech support from any Taiwanese mobo maker, is, IMHO, a complete joke, whether by phone or e-mail.
2. Lots of annoying problems with cooling. If there is on virtue to the non-acessible cases that any major PC maker uses, it's that they're custom engineered with great cooling support. My HP Pavilion has punchouts for a fan duct that blows straight onto the heatsink for the chip, and another fan to whisk all that air right out of the case. In addition, the fans both had little chips sitting next to them which would shut off if the temperature was low enough that they weren't needed. I haven't seen these anywhere. Having a virtually silent machine when you sleep next to it at night is great.
In contrast, cooling on a homebrew machine is, erm, interesting to say the least. With all the motherboard/case combinations out there, it's a given that in some cases it will be impossible to direct air to the CPU without a lot of drilling and taping fans all over. I prefer the elegant, well thought out design of a commerical computer to the homebrew option which is typical to stick 4 or 5 80cms in there and hope for the best.
3. Just the little things. It turns out that the gamma correction software installed by my video card kills my MX300 sound card. That was a fun reinstall, trying to figure out what went wrong. Good computer co's test and retest their base configuration to prevent things like this happening, even to the point of trying every possible order for installing software to determine what works best.
4. Warranty - having a separate warranty on every piece of hardware in your system is no fun. Imagine a crash two years out finding out that your CPU is covered but your hard drive ain't. Doh.
That being said, my next computer will be built by me, of course
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I'm the type that wants that specific video card (always Matrox), specific motherboard, NIC, *no modem*, and all the hardware must work in Linux.
That gets quite painful when buying packages. The packages always have cut corners. I've watched the quality of Dells sink to new lows lately. At my last job I had a 2-year-old Dell that had a Sony CDROM in it. I would have *never* bought a Sony CDROM ever. This one wouldn't read CDs most of the time. I had to use another one over the network. I have also noticed that the WD hard drives in them get lots of bad sectors at a very early age. Actually, they were the only hard drives I have personally seen with bad sectors ever.
If you want to go with boxed solutions, make sure that you know exactly what's in it, and get a guarantee that you can trade components if they don't work for your OS of choice (believe it or not, I was able to get these guarantees in the kernel 1.2 days).