"Fleet computer challenge"

[Buck]

Alaz, the Auzziez are left out of the “zpecial crowd”, and don’t’ get zub XP2100+ Thoroughbredz. Nonethelezz, your concern for heat iz of great importance conzidering how hot your temperaturez become in the zummer monthz. My concernz are zimilar, although we don’t zuztain zuch high temperaturez. Finding thermal zolutionz for under UZD$10.00 that will generouzly cool a XP2600+ and emit little noize haz become difficult to find.

 

[Tannin]

If you really think that "the days of being able to brag about building pcs and how much more elite/better/cheaper it is than buying a Dell are utterly over", Honold, then it's well and truly time for you to (a) get back in touch with the real world (for the facts in the marketplace simply do not support your case, nor even come close to doing so - as I and many others have demonstrated many times over) and (b) realise that being able to build a better, faster, cheaper system than the vomit box makers sell is nothing whatever to brag about. Bragging is something you do when you have achieved something noteworthy or difficult (or at least think you have). I admit that beating Dell and HP et al is harder than tying your shoelaces, but only just. Anyone who can't beat the vomit boxes has no business being in the business - and you can be quite certain that they will not be in the business for very long, as if they are struggling to compete with their least competent rivals, then they have no hope whatever against the real competition (which comes, of course, from other places making industry standard systems).

 

[honold]

TWO 2.4ghz p4/msi motherboard/40x liteon cdrw/128mb crucial/awesome palo-alto case/xp home/30gb/ethernet/1yr on-site warranty/15" samsung lcd/etc for $885. that's two systems, two lcds.

there is absolutely no waythis can be bested (or even gotten close to) building yourself

 

[honold]

before the business owner pride becomes so thick we can no longer see, understand that i am talking to the readers of this forum. they can all get systems that offer better price/performance and no time cost than anything they - or you - could offer them.

i'm not disputing the claim that your everyday prices are at least on par with dell's, but i'm telling you straight up that these kind of ridiculous deals are not rare. they come several times per month.

nobody is arguing that you shouldn't be in business, that you aren't treating your customers well, that you can't offer comperable deals to dell, okay?

i can spam the thread full of links to deals that couldn't be touched by anyone but dell, but it would really be a waste of everyone's time unless you refuse to concede. pricewatch vs dell, dell wins. they're selling below cost.

 

[Tannin]

And equally, there is absolutely no way that Dell or anyone else can do this sort of deal as a matter of normal everday business. It is, in short, a conspicuous exception to the overwhelming majority of the business they transact. Indeed, indirectly it is a rather spectacular demonstration of the way they overprice nearly everything they sell - else they would never be able to afford such silliness.

 

[timwhit]

i'm certain after looking at the compucase that dell's palo alto case drops nuclear bombs on it. screwless, side-opening, rail-based with piped cooling for the cpu.

Rail-based cases are good? What country are you living in? In my experience rails are the biggest PITA when dealing with cases. What happens when I lose the rails? Half the time the computer doesn't even come with enough rails to fill all the bays. Then it is time to start searching for some rails that will fit that case. Every single case uses different kinds of rails. Well, looks like it is time to try to modify some crappy plastic rails and try to wedge that new drive in the case and hope that it doesn't fall out when you move the computer.

Every Dell case I have ever seen is a huge hunk of plastic, maybe with a bit of metal lining the plastic. I mean geez that's what I look for in a quality product, as much cheap plastic as I can find.

Dell cases are about as intuitive to figure out as your common junk Compaq or Packard Bell case. Any case that requires diagrams to get the f'ing CD-ROM out of is in my opinion a piece of crap.

I think I will stick to metal cases thank you very much.

 

[Tannin]

What a foolish thing to say. That really is moronic. Pride has nothing to do with it, and to suggest otherwise is not just obviously wrong, it is offensive (and deliberately so, in my opinion).

Any decent computer shop beats Dell as a matter of everday routine. You don't have to own one, you just have to shop at one. The prices of my shop or any other half-decent shop - and that is countless thousands of them - are not "comparable to Dell", they are, on average, well below. (As I and others have demonstrated many times, both here and elswhere.)

We sit in the upper mid-range of the market, pricewise (i.e., most independant shops sell cheaper than we do) and we are typically around AU$100 lower than Dell or HP or any of the other proprietary boxes. Most independants are lower still.

I take pride in our standard of service (for that is something that few others can match) and in our honesty (for that too is something that is all too rare in this industry) but pride in our prices? Phfft! Any fool can out-price Dell or Hewlett-Packard. I might as well take pride in being able to tie my own shoelaces.

 

[honold]

TWO 2.4ghz p4/msi motherboard/40x liteon cdrw/128mb crucial/awesome palo-alto case/xp home/30gb/ethernet/1yr on-site warranty/15" samsung lcd/etc for $885. that's two systems, two lcds.

there is absolutely no way this can be bested (or even gotten close to) building yourself

ok? beat that price, please, or ignore the quote a second time.

informing me to 'get back in touch with the real world' isn't exactly a pat on the back either, buddy. disclaiming yourself from overbearing pride by claiming that 'any' shop can do it is a fallacy. it doesn't exempt you from pride.

i don't care about 'everyday' prices, i care about prices that i can get every day. there's a big difference. dell has retarded, below-cost deals all the live-long day. there is no way to beat them.

timwhit, what do you think of sun's cases? or palm pilots? cobalt qubes/raqs? palo alto engineering designed all of these, they also designed the new dell dimension cases. they are sturdy plastic (ducking and covering), and 100% top notch. i own a lian-li pc65b, and the dells are easily more accessible. the rails are excellent, and they provide extras (which mount inside the case so they don't get lost).

 

[Mercutio]

I *hate* those Palo Alto cases. They're thick, cheap plastic, and IMO the interior arrangement of components leaves something to be desired, as does the "it'll never fit the same way again" side panel.

The case I use is steel, through and through. It is exceptionally quiet, and access is by two thumbscrews at the top of the case that can be left off with absolutely minimal concern. Side panels are removable and replaced from the top-down, so there's no %^$%-ing slots you have to exactly line up to get the case back on - gravity takes care of it. I'm in the anti-drive-rail club. Sorry. I'd rather screw components down and unscrew them when I have to than worry about whether the rails are causing extra noise/vibration from my parts.

I'd pay money to not take a Palo Alto case. Now if Gateway still used the towers they had back in the late Pentium days, that might be tempting.

 

[Tannin]

If you'd bother reading the thread, you'd see that I didn't ignore it the first time. Second post down on this page.

 

[Tea]

Railz zuck.

 

[honold]

If you'd bother reading the thread, you'd see that I didn't ignore it the first time. Second post down on this page.

then why are you telling me my head's in the clouds when i say buying dell is cheaper than building?

 

[Tea]

Read the thread. Second post down.

 

[honold]

i'm not disputing the claim that your everyday prices are at least on par with dell's, but i'm telling you straight up that these kind of ridiculous deals are not rare. they come several times per month.

i can spam the thread full of links to deals that couldn't be touched by anyone but dell, but it would really be a waste of everyone's time unless you refuse to concede. pricewatch vs dell, dell wins. they're selling below cost.

i don't care about 'everyday' prices, i care about prices that i can get every day. there's a big difference. dell has retarded, below-cost deals all the live-long day. there is no way to beat them.

how about everybody else read the thread then? they are not rare, and you don't need a secret handshake to get them.

 

[Tannin]

By your own admission, these are below-cost prices. Arguing that they have any significance for the market as a whole is nonsensical.

• We know that no business can sell any significant fraction of its products below cost.
• We also know that, for any product to be significant in the marketplace, it must take a non-trivial market share.

Putting these two propositions together, we can immediately see that the Dell below-cost specials you cite are, and can only be, exceptional. If enough people take advantage of them to count as a significant fraction of the market, Dell will go broke and the specials will no longer exist. (In reality, I expect that Dell have enough horse sense to stop cutting their own throat long before that happens - but not every large company has enough brain to feed a gnat - consider the sad tale of Osbourne.)

 

[timwhit]

That price and deal you are citing is an error on the Dell website. Cite a deal that can actually be purchased.

 

[honold]

by your own admission, dell is charging in excess of what you charge to provide lesser goods/services. that would mean they have a higher margin than you, so they're profiting more. couple that with the MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of customers they have, and it makes selling below cost to several thousand deal-seekers online a casual proposition - and as mentioned above, these sorts of people are tech-savvy and could make up the difference in recommendations after being satisfied with the products. clearly offering these types of deals without special codes online or sending them out in catalogs would result in bankruptcy.

the fact that the deals are highly available doesn't mean that the people taking advantage of them comprises even a SLIGHT amount their customer base. as i'm sure you would agree, the public, unwashed masses are their bread and butter.

just look at http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/categories.cfm?catid=18 and http://www.techbargains.com/ daily - you will see them pop up all the time

 

[honold]

That price and deal you are citing is an error on the Dell website. Cite a deal that can actually be purchased.

how about i just send you 5 receipts (totalling 10 computers) that actually bought in on the deal?

if their 'hot deals' are errors, then they must have entrusted the 'dell dude' to post all their prices from home using frontpage. i mentioned another deal above, and you can check out the links i referenced in my last post.

 

[CougTek]

Tony and Honold = CougTek and HellDiver

Give it up guys. You were born to disagree. Better to accept it and consider that one thinks the contrary of the other. I and HellDiver have been able to coexist in harmony since we realized it.

 

[timwhit]

timwhit, what do you think of sun's cases? or palm pilots? cobalt qubes/raqs? palo alto engineering designed all of these, they also designed the new dell dimension cases. they are sturdy plastic (ducking and covering), and 100% top notch. i own a lian-li pc65b, and the dells are easily more accessible. the rails are excellent, and they provide extras (which mount inside the case so they don't get lost).

I haven't ever used a Sun case. Palm Pilots aren't meant to be opened.

Dell chooses the Palo Alto cases for several reasons.
1) They are cheap.
2) They are light and therefore cheaper to ship than an all steal case.
3) They are a big company and can meet the demands of Dell.

What's your argument that rails cause problems, like extra vibrations (=more noise)?

And the biggest concern with a Dell case is if I can put a new motherboard in it. In some instances you can. However, I have run into enough problems trying to do this. Sometimes Dell uses a brick of wires for the case lighting and power buttons. This certainly isn't conducive for installing any other motherboard in the Dell case. And, plenty of people of than do-it-yourselfers need to replace motherboards. Get a power spike or a surge and your motherboard is fried. Sure you are fine if it is covered by the warranty. However, who wants to pay $400 for a motherboard if it is out of warranty.

How about if the power supply on your beloved Dell goes out? Plenty of them are proprietary too, not on all models, but I have seen a lot that have extra proprietary power connectors. Then when you contact Dell for a replacement you find that it will cost $120 for a new one.

There are plenty more problems with Dell that I don't have time to rant about now...maybe some other time.

 

[honold]

i think we're pretty much through on this one, but thanks for the advice

i don't think i have any personal issue with him or anything else he says, just the build/'my shop' vs dell stuff

 

[Bozo]

I'm with Timwit and others. Dells cases suck green donkey......whatevers. Every vender that we buy equipment from drags those junkers in here. Usually after a year or so, we gut whatever is usefull and trash the case. I guess you never used an Antec or Enlight case????

As far as service goes, it sucks. We are a VERY large worldwide corperation that has thousands of PCs. We even had a dedicated rep from DEll. But it took over six months to resolve a problem with a PC that wouldn't boot up right out of the box. And their senior NT technitian insisted that the CPU fan monitoring software was native to NT. (for anyone that doesn't remember, NT was released before CPU fans were common) After eight months and a lot of searching, I finally got the software removed without any help from Dell. It's buried in some of the "Extra" nonsense software that Dell bundles with their PCs.

Bozo

 

[mubs]

The two for the price of one deal was not intended; poor programming on Dell's site allowed sharp people to make that happen. I don't think Dell intended for that deal to happen.

I've built systems for myself and other people. My brother, who runs a small business, need to buy 6 new PCs and a laptop. The only reason I'm not building them for him is that I don't want the support headache. I've been monitoring the bargain sites for the last 6 weeks, fairly regularly. Haven't yet found a deal to meets our spec. I would have jumped on the two for one, but it was on for barely two days, a window during which I was tied up with something else and missed it.

Dell has good prices for a Fortune 100, brand name product. They're not unbeatable.

 

[Tannin]

I'm sure they have a higher gross margin than I do, Honold. But I'm not so sure that they have a better net margin. (Mind you, my net margin would be a lot better if I spent more time and energy looking after it than I do posting here. And playing in the garden. And all those other things that are more fun than making money.) Dell and HP and Packard-Bell have economies of scale on their side so far as hardware goes, and get huge breaks on software pricing from their bum-chums at Micro$oft. But they also have significant costs that I don't have. They waste a phenomenal amount of money on administative overheads (this is something no large organisation can avoid), they are far too large and clumsy to take advantage of the constant short-term changes the industry is prone to, and they pour money into advertising and sales promotions like there is no tommorow. They have to spend a lot on advertising and sales kick-backs, because there just ain't no other way to sell an inferior product at an inflated price. Indeed, as you say, the "unwashed masses are their bread and butter".

 

[Tannin]

Oh, and speaking of making money and administrative overheads and the operational efficiency of smalller organisations, we ain't never yet sold two computers for the price of one!

 

[Tea]

And zpeaking of efficienciez, Tannin, I doubt that Dell would wazte three copiez of the letter 'L' in the word "zmaller" when two would do.

 

[honold]

Dell chooses the Palo Alto cases for several reasons.
1) They are cheap.
2) They are light and therefore cheaper to ship than an all steal case.
3) They are a big company and can meet the demands of Dell.

i guess you're speaking from the frame of reference of dell, since you make the decisions? palo alto is not cheap, most of their cases are metal, and they're not the ones that do the manufacturing - it's outsourced to flextronics mostly.

What's your argument that rails cause problems, like extra vibrations (=more noise)?

this is simply not the case in the dimension cases. the fit is absolutely snug, the cpu cooling is piped to the case fan, and the edges of the case are sealed with a kind-of metal 'fabric' to keep it air-tight. they're very quiet, and my proof is all over the place since i've recommended them to innumerable businesses.

as far as power supplies and motherboards, i would be truly unconcerned if it occured out of warranty - and if i were to buy a system to keep from them, i would only get a 1-year warranty. if something large broke i'd use or sell the standard parts and grab another one since they're so inexpensive. caveat emptor, this is a case-by-case issue which can be properly dealt with by the customer.

i'm still using a lianli case, overclocked p4, overclocked geforce4 ti4200, and overclocked rdram. i'm probably going to drop $400-ish on a 36gb 15k.3 which i don't even need. i make my own decisions because they suit me, but i wouldn't dream of claiming that i pulled a fast one on the deal community by building myself (even overclocking).

 

[timwhit]

palo alto is not cheap, most of their cases are metal, and they're not the ones that do the manufacturing - it's outsourced to flextronics mostly.

I don't care whom manufacturers Palo Alto's cases. I don't care if I can buy a metal Palo Alto case. The ones that Dell uses are primarily plastic, especially in the case of the dirt-cheap computer, which we are discussing here.

 

[honold]

well congrats to all on making this such an interesting thread - i hope both sides have reconsidered what makes them think the way they do.

yes, i have used an antec case. one of my work systems in an antec plus, my main one is a lianli (as is everyone else in the office - but the servers are dells). all of our development clusters are shuttle xpcs, so as you can see i'm not averse to building things - just when i feel it's appropriate.

i still point people to dell deals all the time, and occasionally take part in them myself simply to resell.

 

[Tannin]

I wasn't discussing the dirt-cheap stuff, Tim, but the midrange mainstream. In the real crap end of the market, I'm not sure that I could do any better than the vomitboxen. I do my best to avoid that part of the market - bar certain special circumstances, anyone with any sense avoids it by either spending the little bit extra to buy a real computer, or else buying something that was last's years best of breed second-hand.

 

[honold]

I don't care whom manufacturers Palo Alto's cases. I don't care if I can buy a metal Palo Alto case. The ones that Dell uses are primarily plastic, especially in the case of the dirt-cheap computer, which we are discussing here.

you cared enough to see fit to talk out of your ass and say they selected palo-alto because 'they are a big company and can meet the demands of dell'. come now

to anybody that disagrees with me about dell cases, please disagree with an actual new dimension 4400/4500/etc series case - not the idea of a dell case that is plastic and uses drive rails. go play with one, i'm sure you know somebody that has one. as somebody who has worked with them extensively, the cases are anything but crappy.

 

[Tea]

Indeed, Honold: a hot thread, and a good time waz had by all, it zeemz. And next time Dell have a ztupid deal, be zure to let uz know about it. Hell, if they are cheap enough, I'll buy a dozen myzelf and rezell them for a tidy profit. (Zeeing az Tannin iz on holiday right now, zomeone haz to make zome money around here.)

 

[timwhit]

I wasn't discussing the dirt-cheap stuff, Tim, but the midrange mainstream. In the real crap end of the market, I'm not sure that I could do any better than the vomitboxen. I do my best to avoid that part of the market - bar certain special circumstances, anyone with any sense avoids it by either spending the little bit extra to buy a real computer, or else buying something that was last's years best of breed second-hand.

It doesn't matter either way, the midrange Dell stuff still uses plastic cases.

 

[honold]

a handshake and a smile to all of you - perhaps i'll come around again to incite the fury of a thousand clacking keyboards across continents (some with 's' remapped to 'z'!) sometime soon.

 

[Dozer]

Hmmmm...

I'm a little late, but I'll post my two-cents worth on Dell.

I've had four Dells. I have no gripes against the machines for basic use and when someone recommends an online retailer, I will usually refer them to Dell. However, for more extensive expansion/specialized computing, you just can't beat a custom-built computer.

On the case issue, I fall into the hate-Dell cases category. I bought a Dimension 4100 several years ago, and upgrades in that case weren't much fun. When the motherboard fried in it earlier this year, I wanted to gut the machine and rebuild it. I succeeded, but when I went to put the side cover on, alas, the power supply that I replaced interfered with the mechanism that screws the cover in. Not the type to easily give up, I took the Dremel to the case (luckily it's cheap plastic) and made a custom fit.

But IMO you shouldn't have to do this to a case when you decide to upgrade. More propietary case designs mean that you have a stricter range of products that you can retrofit into the case--which simply isn't fair to the consumer. My Antec case, OTOH, was easy to work with right from the start: Easy to install drive bays, quick open case, multiple fan mount points, and plenty of room for everything else. It's very straightforward, not a lot of weird slots or attachment gizmos. That is what I look for in a case. Oh yeah, and it's built like a Sherman tank!

I realize this post is sort of post-battle, but I at least wanted my voice heard!

 

[Tannin]

And you will be welcome, Honold. You are always a worthy opponent, and rarely not worth reading. I shall look forward to it.

 

[Tea]

the fury of a thousand clacking keyboards (some with 's' remapped to 'z'!)

Hey! Now why didn't I think of that? Of courze! At Prezent I am managing my one-zimian zpelling reform campaign by zimply remapping my brain, but it would be zo much eazier juzt to rewire the keyboard logic inztead. My thankz to you, Honold.

Now where did I file that copy of WinKeyZwap?

 

[Tannin]

No No! You are not the only one that uses this computer, you fool. What if you -

 

[Tea]

Oh ztop panicing. It's juzt a zimple modification to the zyzem filez. All I have to do is unsip thiz file, double-click on Zetup, and -

 

[Tannin]

Don't touch the ENTER key! That is an order, Tea.