[SunRescue] OT: PC recommendations

[Cyrus M. Reed]

I will second the Anti-Gateway motion.  Here at my university all they buy
now are Gateway machines through some exclusive contract deal.  I believe
the techincal term for the quality of a Gateway system is "crap".  The
cases are cheap (and I have seen the plate over the fan outlet trick on a
number of machines), the keyboards are cheaper (the shift keys work about
50% of the time, lots of fun when you have to work with case sensitive
OSes), and probably the only decent thing you will find in the case is the
motherboard, which is usually OEMed by Intel (though with the later
boards, that last point could be up for debate).  In any case, if you have
to get an OEM box, do yourself a favor and get an IBM/Compaq/Dell;
probably in that order.  Just my $.02.

-Cyrus

On Tue, 26 Sep 2000, Kurt Mosiejczuk wrote:

> On Tue, 26 Sep 2000, Mike Hebel wrote:
> 
> > Gateway seems to have very good deals if you're wanting a complete
> > out-of-the-box solution.  So does Dell.  Personally I would trust Gateway
> > support over Dell.  They've been the more responsive of the two.  Believe me
> > when I tell you that unless you like futzing with your system when you get
> > home from work then having support available is a Good Thing(tm).  (Even if
> > you know more than the other guy on the phone. ;-) )  That's also why i
> > suggest "large" suppliers instead of smaller ones.  You may pay just a hair
> > more overall but it will be worth it.
> 
> I'll weigh in on an Anti-Gateway note here.  I got a Pentium 2 450Mhz box
> at my last job (from Gateway).  128M memory, 7200rpm IBM drive (sweet), and
> a Riva TNT based video card.  About 6 months later the motherboard DIED.
> Open the bastard up (per their request for diagnosing and replacing it) 
> and there was only ONE fan in the WHOLE box!  On the power supply.  NO
> CPU fan, just a big heatsink.  So, I had a high-heat processor, high-heat
> hard drive, and high-heat (ever touch a TNT card?) video card.  And only
> one fan in the case.  They even bolted a steel plate over the grill in
> the case that would usually have a fan.
> 
> AND they only put a 200W power supply in.  Good thing I didn't need to add
> anything to it =(
> 
> I placed a second fan in the case after replacing the motherboard, and
> didn't have another failure, but I was VERY disappointed in Gateway.
> 
> --Kurt
> 
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