And Dell managed to get on my nerves today...

[Silound]

Let me preface by saying I'm VERY satisfied with Dell's products and services. I have used them myself, and I frequently recommend them to certain peoples whom I do IT support for.

Anyway....

Well, my server went out. Specifically it was a Dual-Xeon Precision 670 workstation that was running my Linux kernel, fileserver, SQL server, and a host of other nifty useful things that I need. When I cracked the case, the problem was obvious from the start: bad capacitors ([SARCASM]what a surprise! [/SARCASM]).

So I called up Dell, knowing that the capacitors issue plagued the Optiplex 260/270/280 models. No dice, they won't service it because that particular recall was only for Optiplex models, mine is a Precision that's out of warranty (by years), and a new mobo will run me almost $400.

So I get to looking online, and it seems I can get a mobo for around 100-150 online. But I got to thinking, well this thing only has 1 Gb of RAM, so maybe I should look into upgrading that as well. I didn't spec this workstation out myself, I bought it as surplus from a friend's company because they bought one too many and the price was right at the time. Had I been the one buying it, I would have put more RAM in it from the getgo.

Bigger no dice. This thing uses Rambus RDRAM, which is stupidly expensive (to the tune of $300 for 2x 256Mb sticks). "Well F me!" I say, "for this cost to make this thing work well again, I would get more bang from my dollar to buy or build a new system using a newer processor and memory (even a modern processor can about double the instructions per second of these older Pentium 4 based Xeons, and that's not counting the faster bus, faster memory, or any other improvements that you can name to computer technology). Oh and in the process, a newer one wouldn't raise the temperature in my office by 5 degrees when under load (freaking NetBurst power sucking garbage).

So I know what I want, I price to build one. About 700 bucks with a case and PSU if I built it via parts. But that was cutting corners and buying a cheap case and PSU. Bad juju there, don't do that. They're noisy and cheap ones tend to fail pretty readily. I like quiet and steady.

So I start looking at some pre-fab models that might fit the bill, refurbished, scratch and dents, overstocks, closeouts, discontinued models, etc etc. Lo and behold I find that an Optiplex 700 series is a perfect fit for my budget and needs. I specced one out, and decided it wasn't what I wanted. It was loaded with too much garbage I didn't need: operating system, software, keyboard, mouse, hard drive, video card....all things I have that I don't need to buy.

No problem says I, let's call Dell and get a price quote for one without that stuff. Nope, Dell says they won't sell one to me the way I want it, they have to include some form of video card (this one didn't have onboard), it has to have a hard drive (cheapest one adds $40 to the system cost for a mere 160Gb), it has to come with some OS even if it's not installed (no option for a free Linux disc there, had to be a Microsoft OS), it has to come with even a cheap keyboard and mouse, everything I wanted off to save me cost and get what I needed.


So at the end of the day, a bunch of wasted time later, here I am seeing if my budget will allow me to drop the better part of $1000 to replace my dang server.

All over some stupid capacitors.


/rant off