I fucking hate prefab (Gateway, Dell) computers. POS's all of them. RANT!

OK, so my grandmother called last week, asked me to help her with her Gateway computer. My uncle bought her a CD-R/RW drive for her computer, and she wanted me to install it. I said no problem, etc.

Now her computer is a few years old, and had Windows 98 SE, so the first thing I did was upgrade that to Windows XP. That was the easy part, so now I'm ready to put in this brand new CD-R/RW drive onto her computer. Her computer had one 5 1/2" bay left free because the other two were taken up by her DVD-ROM drive and a ZIP drive, which she wanted to keep. So the first thing I did was open the case, easy enough.

Well the first thing I noticed was that the hard drive was set SIDEWAYS under the floppy drive bay. The stupidest configuration imaginable because of the waste of space and you aren't supposed to put these types of drives sideways. So I had to move it first, after trying to wiggle around the damned screws that were set right next to the steel 5 1/2" bay mounts.

This wasn't the worst of it, while there was a free IDE cable, it was too damned short to reach the free bay, hence the reason I moved the hard drive, also the connection for the DVD drive was upside down. This is ribbon cable, and you can't twist it that easily, it was a pain in the ass.

So I finally was able to slide the new CD drive into the bay, when it stopped about halfway in. There were these steel pegs for motherboard screws in the way!. They were welded into the case for crying out loud, so I took my smallest screwdriver and shoved in these damned things and twisted and jerked till they broke off. For those who don't know, most computers I work on have PLASTIC snappable pegs that fit in holes in the case to attach the motherboard to, and they are NOT located anywhere near the bays.

So I finally removed 3 of these damned pegs, after a half an hour of work, then I was finally able to slide CDR drive into the bay, except now it is sticking out a good half an inch out the front of the computer. I was like, son of a BITCH!!!!! I was ready to throw this damned computer out the window I was so pissed. So I look in the case, and guess what happened? The damned MOTHERBOARD was in the way, the back end of this fucking drive was all the way up to the motherboard, and the motherboard had NO ROOM to move. I was turning red, I swear to all the GODS I was so pissed. So I said fuck it, and then connected the drive up, reconnected the power, and then after a good minute and a half, the drive works. So now my grandma has a damned CDR/RW drive that sticks out a good half inch from an ugly as sin computer to start with.

I told her that the next time she gets a computer, CALL ME FIRST, I will build it, and will be able to build it in less time than it took me to put a stupid ass fucking CDR drive into her old computer! This was possibly the most poorly designed computer I have ever dealt with.

Don't get me started on POS Dells either, try to upgrade those fuckers.

They wanted to add a second hard-drive, no problem. I cracked open the case and realized there was no room for it.

They are definetely not built for upgrading. They also use generic parts, such as video cards, etc. Forget that, I build my own computers. I told my parents to call me the next time they want a computer and I will build them one. PoS Dell.

...and just tossing in the parts I already own. Less headache, good computer, and more configurable to my tastes.

Once I learn remedial electronics, I plan on giving it a try.

You don't need a PHD to build your own computer, hell most of them these days are self configurable. I remember the times of adjusting jumper setting on everthing. Nowadays, you don't need to know anything about electronics, except for safety (be grounded, unplug computer). They come with basic instructions also, all you have to do is follow those and nine times out of ten you'll be fine.

I guess I've been lucky :P

Cheaper and easier to upgrade... sure, they are maybe more expensive than Dell or Gateway, but see what you get!

what exactly have you upgraded? The occasional drive swap or RAM addition is no big deal, but motherboards, processors, etc... forget it.

...from their cultish devotees, they aren't really all that. Nor is Linux for that matter from the Linux devotees who try to convince me that everything is SO much easier on Linux, when I run I Linux box and know damn well that I can burn a cd or dvd (or sync my ipaq) with windows without the hassles I would have to go through on Linux.

but, I prefer top of the line at less than 1000 bucks, which I can do with building my own PCs. I'm also not slaved to Windows either, I run Windows XP, BeOS(Haiku soon), Syllablus, and Linux, in addition to MacOS 8.1 (emulation ROCKS) and once I tweak my Power Mac emulator, MacOS X. As you can see, I like options, and the pluses and even the minuses. (I love challenges!)

your grandma is so lucky to have a good grandson like you to look out for her. keep up the good work, man.

:)

In fact, I'm going over their tonight to try to help her out on more computer issues. Mostly usability, things are a little different with Windows XP that she knew how to do with Windows 98.

I begged my computer illiterate mom to get a Mac instead but she was seduced by the cheaper prices. Well with a Gateway you definitely get what you pay for. Did I mention it was a Gateway with Windows ME?! (ME = More Excrement) :argh:

I went through hell trying to configure this POS for DSL. Verizon gave us a Linksys router that was free after rebate, so I wanted to set up a LAN with this POS and my Rev. C iMac running 9.2.2. The iMac was fine but oh the shit I went through with this POS. I installed the network card but the POS couldn't connect with Verizon's network to set up the account. Verizon tech support said it was something with the networking software and I needed to reinstall WinME. The problem is, the cheap fuckers at Gateway didn't actually give us a disc with the actual OS on it, they gave us some bullshit "restore" CD which didn't have what I needed on it. So I was told to call Gateway. I did and of course I got some poor Indian girl on the line whom I could barely understand (I'm a New Yorker, and I can understand even the thickest of accents, but girlfriend sounded like she had marbles in her mouth). When she wasn't trying to sell me more Gateway crap, she was clearly reading from a script that wasn't helping. Then she told me I had to open the machine (!) and do something to the network card. I hung up on her and called my best friend, who gave me a copy of Win 98SE. Of course since you can't get a DOS command line in ME I had to literally dupe the POS into giving me one, after which I formatted the HD and got Win 98SE on it. Everything was gravy with the DSL after that, except now the POS crashes even more than it used to--which was daily.

I didn't even get into what a hassle it was to install the network card, which is about the easiest thing you can do to a computer. It just did not want to go into the slot, and after fussing with it I managed to get it in but the Ethernet jack is off-kilter so it's damn near impossible to change cables without getting *pliers* to get the thing out. And this is not the first time, ages ago when the shitty internal dialup modem in this thing died, I went through so much crap trying to replace it with an internal Zoom that I just said fuck it and got an external USB modem.

I completely agree, Gateways are so poorly designed, and I believe they do it intentionally so that you have to buy Gateway brand stuff when you want to upgrade.

Although I am a lifelong Mac-head I would like to get a fast, cheap PC strictly for gaming purposes (I'm fanatical about my Mac but I am a pragmatist), but I am loathe to touch anything prefab after what I've gone through with my mom's POS. I would like to build one but being a Mac-head my only real experience with the guts of a machine is putting in memory and stuff like that. So I guess I'm SOL.

I'd be in the PC biz myself, making customized and upgradeable PCs. But it's not profitable.

And with best buy, et al, charging ridiculously low prices to fix these things (mostly due to poor OS programming, :hi: Microsoft)...

sigh.

..is put the whole mess inside of a larger case. I've seen similar problems and I've talked the customer into getting another case..about 40 buck from Compusa.

It's still a big hassle tho....

not very hard, but you do need to spend time doing research onj whats out there and what works together

until something breaks... then you're wishing they were calling Dell instead of you.

I have stopped to build computers for friends. One broken Athlon64 can do that to you :-( (and I'm not convinved that it was actually me).
Shopping help yes, but please take the store's assembly service.

the IDE cable actually had two connectors. Gateway build for the PC you get and THAT'S IT!

the one sided memory. It is so HARD to find and I was so pissed!

• the chassis (proprietary)
  
• the motherboard (proprietary)
  
• most of the cabling (proprietary)
  the fan (proprietary)
  
• the CPU (busted)
  
• the operating system (proprietary installation)
  the power cord (proprietary)
  

I managed to salvage the floppy drive.

who don't have the time to put one together and are willing to spend to get an absolutely awesome computer, check out www.falcon-nw.com. These guys make the fastest, most realiable custom computers around. If you know what you want and understand hardware, but don't don't want to put it together, check these guys out.

Then for our Canadian friends and us as well, check out www.voodoopc.com. These computers will blow you away and are very well made with good support.

You can't replace the hard drive unless you know that it has a hidden 400Mb partition that the BIOs looks for. The floppy drive is about 1/16th inch smaller than standard so a generic floppy drive won't fit in the bay. I could go on. All 6 of mine are homebuilt for a lot less than what any of these places want.