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To: Milan Shah who wrote (59664)	10/22/2001 7:14:43 PM
From: Milan Shah	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

In the 5 years, I have built and cycled through 5 (AMD) DIY computers built using "quality" components BTW, I should clarify that in no case do I view AMD as the party responsible for my experience. Indeed, if anything, I must say that I was pleasantly surprized that the AMD processors survived whatever it was that killed my two motherboards. But the absence of a systems integrator of Dell's caliber surely hurts AMD's reputation. Milan

To: Milan Shah who wrote (59664)	10/22/2001 7:42:44 PM
From: Tony Viola	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Milan, re: "I'd have to agree. I have a 5 year old Dell Pentium 133 that my 3 1/2 year old daughter still uses. Running Win98, and about 6 kids games. The thing is built like a tank - the kids abuse the CD tray, hit the power switch any old time they feel, and usually are kicking it with their feet continuously while they are working with it. The clunker manages to boot every time, 90% of the time after fixing some error using the scan disk utility that Win98 runs after a non-clean shutdown." Sounds like kids' treatment of anything they use all right. Amazing how far we've come. 133 MHz - 2 GHz and no slowdown to Moore's Law in sight. Moore's Law is expressed in transistors, I know, I know. In the 5 years, I have built and cycled through 5 (AMD) DIY computers built using "quality" components. On my system, the motherboard has died twice (I really don't understand this - might it be the power supply/spikes to the MB?). My father-in-law's power supply smoked out. My Dad's CD drive (Toshiba?) won't read most CD's, and for some reason, the system just won't recognize a modem (yup, swapped modems, reinstalled OS, just stopped working one day!). I've had a lot of problems with screwdriver shop PCs also, mostly annoyances, but a pain, like badly fitting parts, flakies in motherboards, backplanes, switches, etc. Nothing but namebrands from now on for me, and, with the prices you can get, why not? All these systems worked flawlessly for about 2 years each. These were not cheapo components. What amazes me is how Dell is able to create and procure components that are so reliable. Nice tribute to Dell. Tony

To: Milan Shah who wrote (59664)	10/22/2001 7:44:35 PM
From: AK2004	Respond to of 275872

Milan recently our it upgraded my system to 1GB rambus from 512MB by putting in 2 extra 256MB sticks. 1st time our IT decided to use dell-compatible rather than actual dell parts. I was told that dell-compatible parts were less than a half of what dell quoted for the memory and it was bought for ~$500. Dell charges our company more than $1000 for 512MB of rambus memory. The point is that if you are to buy cutting edge amd systems from someone like ibuypower.com every year it is still going to be cheaper than buying dell every 5 years. Do you still think that you had a good deal with dell? Regards -Albert

To: Milan Shah who wrote (59664)	10/22/2001 8:57:32 PM
From: Joe NYC	Respond to of 275872

Milan, I have a 5 year old Dell Pentium 133 that my 3 1/2 year old daughter still uses. Running Win98, and about 6 kids games. The thing is built like a tank .... What amazes me is how Dell is able to create and procure components that are so reliable. I think it is a bad idea to judge reliability on a sample of 1. My experience with Dell (also sample of 1 - back then top of the line 386-20) is a bit less pleasant. The keyboard died in about 2 years, motherboard died in about 2 1/2 years. The price they quoted me to replace it was about the same as what I spent on a new DIY 486-66 system. On the positive side, the replacement keyboard I ordered from Dell (for which they charged me some $120) is the best keyboard I have ever used. In fact I am still using it. It's probably more than 10 years old. My take on Dell is that when they started, they used to have top performing computers, at competitive prices (vs. Compaq and IBM), at about average quality. Since the early days of Dell (or PC Limited), the performance went down to average, prices went up to above average. Joe

To: Milan Shah who wrote (59664)	10/23/2001 1:50:35 AM
From: Bill Jackson	Respond to of 275872

Milan, When dell orders 500,000 power supplies, all the same, the makers makes sure they are good as he does not want to eat them. All the parts as well as the design are thoroughly tested for their expected design life with accelerated aging tests(usually elevated temperature until failure at several temperatures and loads that are extrapolated back to case temperature on a log plot). The smaller PS makers for the SD shops do not have such a large or demanding market. One way is to buy a power supply made by a famous PS maker, like Aztec. With motherboards, again it is the small parts that kill them, capacitors, chipsets etc that are not fully specced for the task at hand. the CPUs are and that is why they kept on going. At the end of the day dell pays about the same as the SD network for parts, but they get slightly better parts and that gives a higher MTTF, and that is why they have done well in corporate sales. As for qualifying another motherboard for AMD, that would be doable for dell, but they have probably got a deal from Intel that stops them from doing this. qualling a mobo is not that hard since all the other parts are already qualled, so Dell could easily do it if they wanted to. Bill