No more Dells for me

Originally Posted by JE3146

I must be the exception with a Compaq that's over 4 years old and until recently was still on it's 1st install of windows. I used it for school, at least 3 out of 5 weekdays and usually every weekend. Went in backbacks, in a case, but went everywhere. Not a hardware issue with it except that it's a slow pile of @(*&$ compared to new ones(God I want a macbook....... )

My boss went two years with a Compaq (an HP machine) which was a headache from the start. I did my best to keep it running for him, but the wireless card and eventually the motherboard shat out on him. He destroyed it despite my wanting to purchase parts.

Compaq was never meant to be high end, and even more so after HP purchased them to be their dirt cheap introduction to their (HP's) machines.

Everything you find in this thread is anecdotal. No real answers beyond simple experiences. That's all you can really expect from these threads. My HP experience I hope was telling... the Nvidia 8400/8600 video card problem was near industry-wide (Apple, Dell, and HP addressed the issue), and made headlines on all technology news sites and blogs.

The only one who shat on the consumer and tried to pull a quick one? HP. They released a BIOS update that would help to keep the burnout from happening until AFTER the 1 year warranty was up. They sort of snuck that in, and hoped no one would notice. That doesn't work in today's world.

Spend your money any way you want to. Just do a little bit of research on this issue and see what I ran into. Dell added additional time to warranties, (I believe it was one year on top of current warranties on machines with those cards) and I haven't heard any complaints in getting them to honor it. HP did the same, but for only certain machines, discluding MANY machines that have that card. I was one of those. I was also not the only one, as I've talked to others with the same custom build who were denied coverage.

SMYD HP!