Lost In The Grind

The last post regarding my new PC from cyberpower left us at the point where I found out the problem, (bad memory stick), after a phone call and an email I got a reply back after 2 days with an RMA for the memory.  I mailed it back and today I received the replacement memory stick in the mail and it is installed.  So, we are back up to 4GB of ram in the beast and all is well.

I feel I was a bit harsh on my feedback to the company because when I filled it out I was frustrated because I didn’t know what was causing the random crashes and bluescreens of death…but now after it is all said and done i can honestly say I am satisfied with my purchase and would recommend buying from them in the future.  Albeit, the tech support might not be available 24 hours a day, if you tell them about your problem you will most likely get a response within a few days.

So, out of 5 I rate them a 4.5, only reason they aren’t a full 5 is because the system supposedly went through a 24 hour burn-in period, and if the technician would have noticed the bad memory stick I wouldn’t have had to find it on my own…

If you have any knowledge of PC’s and can successfully diagnose issues I would say they are your best bet.  The price is right and the ability to customize your rig is very cool.

Well, I ran the hard drive test using the software from the hitachi website and there are no errors with the drive.  It seems to be more driver issues, specifically something dealing with the chipset.  But, I also decided to take the next step and reinstall vista and update the drivers myself…well, this seemed to help somewhat, but then I got to the final patch for WoW and of course there is an error that pops up.

There is a return policy for the machine and tech support is available.  I have 30 days from the date of invoice, 21 May 08, but I still will have to pay for shipping which is non-refundable.  So, what to do next?  I honestly think the machine itself is fine and will work good, and I would have to send it back and be out the shipping charges…so I am going to install windows xp and see how that works.  If anything there shouldn’t be any driver issues…you would think right?

And yes, I did open up and case and inspect every square inch of it, and believe it or not, they did take time to tidy up cables and it seems they tried to do a good job of putting it together anyway…one thing for sure, heat isn’t an issue with all the case fans installed on it.

I will update more in a few days and let you all know how things are going.  My wife feels I should have called tech support from the very beginning, which she might be right, but I have the feeling if I do that all that will happen is I will get even more frustrated than I already am.  It is my last resort, but it seems inevitable.

So, the last time you were here I was all excited about my new gaming machine coming…and arrive it did…finally, at about 6:30 p.m. on the 28th of May…about the time I expected it to arrive.  The box was huge…weighing in at 60 lbs. due to the addition of a set of speakers and a UPS.  But the case, oh my god, that is one bad piece of hardware folks.  So, of course I unpacked it, checked out the insides giving it a once over to ensure no wires were just hanging or loose…etc…  I get it all hooked up and slid into position and turn it on…first screen I see is the bios screen then a black screen saying windows was shutdown improperly do you want to enter safe mode, yada, yada, I select normal startup…there is the desktop…all new and shiny…of course I have to make user accounts for my wife and myself, so I do that, I proceed to install firefox and thunderbird…after about an hour the machine has already had 3 blue screens of death…saying it has a memory dump…so immediately I start thinking it might be a memory issue…nope…  I do some research online and it starts to become apparent there is some sort of hard drive error.  I have a single SATA drive installed, no RAID or anything, it is a Hitachi 500gb drive.  I do a defrag on it that night then go to bed.  I get up and it seems to be fine.  No restarts or any BSOD.

I get home last night and attempt to install WoW…after 3 tries with drive errors I give up.  I go to install 3D Mark 06 to give it a whirl…two tries and each time it comes up with a “CATOSTROPHIC” failure and isn’t installed…now I know I am a vista noob, but I did manage to turn off windows defender and the user account control…so I know that isn’t an issue.

This morning, I decide to run a full chkdsk on the drive, it was scanning the drive when I left for work this morning.  If the issue is still there when I get home today I will be calling the dreaded tech support line and getting put on hold and whatever…but damn it, this is really annoying, I can’t even install a game…what the hell…any ideas would be welcome…but so far I am at a loss.  Only thing I can think is get a new hard drive.

I checked the order status page and it says the order has been processed and the expected shipping date is 20 May 08.  This is 14 days after the initial order was made.  Supposedly they have a 5 to 10 day window after the order has been placed to get things shipped off…obviously this isn’t always the case.  At least they are updating the page so I can see what is going on…since it will be coming from California and I live in Maryland, it will most likely take an additional week to reach my door.

So, hopefully by Memorial Day weekend (last weekend of May for those outside the U.S.) I will be enjoying the new machine…

After three years we are finally getting a new computer!  I have to say I am pretty excited about it.  My loving wife agreed to the purchase last night, love you honey!

So, we went to dell and I put together an XPS machine, but I just didn’t like the look of it or the fact that is isn’t necessarily a “gaming” machine.  So, we took a trip to cyberpowerpc.com and I put together a machine for under $1500.  Here are the specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo Custom Build Configurator (NO MONITOR)
CFGC2DZ, www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Intel_Core_2_Duo_Custom_Build_Configurator/
*BASE_PRICE: [+549]
CAS: NEW!!! CoolerMaster Cosmos Silent Gaming Tower Case w/ 420 Watts Power Supply [+117] (Original Color)
CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8400 CPU @ 3.0GHz 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache 64-bit [+40]
CD: (Special Price) 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
FLASHMEDIA: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer (BLACK COLOR)
FAN: CoolerMaster Hyper TX2 Gaming CPU Cooling Fan (Extreme Silent Operation at only 22dBA + Overclock Proof) [+19]
FLOPPY: 1.44 MB FLOPPY DRIVE (BLACK COLOR)
HDD: Single Hard Drive (500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD [+46])
MOTHERBOARD: ($15 off Mail-in Rebate) MSI P35 Neo-F P35 Chipset LGA775 Supports Core 2 Duo CPU FSB1333 DDR2/800 Mainboard w/GbLAN,USB2.0,&7.1Audio [+16]
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)4GB (4×1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory [+100] (Corsair or Major Brand)
NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100 NETWORK CARD
OS: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Basic w/ Service Pack 1 [+89] (32-bit Edition)
POWERSUPPLY: 600 Watts Power Supplies [+59] (CoolerMaster Unit 600 Watts eXtreme Power - SLI Supports) SOUND: 3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD
SPEAKERS: Logitech R-20 2.1 Configuration Subwoofer Speakers System [+9]
USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
UPS: OPTI-UPS VS575C 575VA/345W UNINTERRUPT POWER SUPPLY - Recommended [+46]
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 1GB 16X PCI Express [+270] (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)
_PRICE: (+1348)
Shipping: Fedex Ground $65.00

GRAND TOTAL $1,413.00
My choice for the case came from the maximumpc dream machine 2007…  It is sleek, and just looks cool I think.  As far as the processor, I decided to stick with the intel core duo 2 running at 3.0GHz it should provide ample computing power teamed up with the 4GB of RAM and the 1GB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT video card I should stay up to par with the latest games coming out and finally be able to see the Lord of the Rings in all its’ beauty…

I have read reviews about cyberpowerpc and I know that the company hasn’t had the best track record with all of its’ customers, but I feel that the price makes it worth it.  I will update more once I get the machine and let you all know how things go.