Dell used to be really good quality....

[dood]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

We've been a Dell shop here for about the last decade. However, we purchase Optiplex and Latitude, not the consumer-level stuff.

We still have 733mhz GX110's in daily use, with no troubles. An occasional failed PSU here and there, but nothing outrageous.

I won't pretend that the GX260/270/280's were without their faults, but a recap here and a power supply there tends to keep them running without too much cost involved. We're now up to purchasing the 745's and 520's (we buy off-lease refurbs), and they've been good so far.

I'm also loving my new workstation, which is an Optiplex 960. Core2quad 3.0ghz, 8gb RAM, 250gb Seagate drive, eSATA port, decent video, the whole bit, for $500. The thing is fast, too.

To say that they're suitable for no more than web browsing is going a bit far, in MY opinion .

[Junk Parts]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

In the past all I had here were Dells. It was so easy to keep them going because there was a used PC parts store right down the street. That store closed its doors this spring. Now I would have to buy all those dodads new or from some other used parts place that acted like they were selling me gold. When I was looking for new computers here I just could find a new Dell with the features I wanted at a price I was willing to pay. We ended up buying our new PC's from a "Big Box Store." They are Hp's. They are working fine so far.

[NxB]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

I can keep the crappiest stuff running for long periods of time. Doesn't mean a consumer can. Dell isn't any better or worse than others in terms of that.

The GX2xx series had cap/heat issues and that is why so many failed. I have like 30 of them. Their laptops are ugly but work. I'd still rather roll my own.

[eppidrummer]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

You buy entry level, that's what you get. They're all like that. When is the last time anyone saw a high-end item showing up with crap caps?! If you're a servicer, be thankful. If there weren't broken Dell's, what would you be fixing?!

Broken Dells keep the paychecks coming

[Uranium-235]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

those 280's with the fan issues is usually hardening thermal paste. Once the past hardens it insulated the heat in the CPU and overheats, the mb starts pumping the fan speed to cool it down, which is useless cause there is hardly any thermal transfer between the heatsink and CPU. even wiping that shit off and leaving no thermal paste is better then having the hardening shit dell uses

topcat-I don't have much brand loyalty, I buy based on what other people are rating products. I try newer asus products when I can because they have been putting polys on all vrms as of the past year or so. Would I trade in my full poly asus I7 board for any other brand? hell no, but you get what you pay for, so a $289 board at the time is worth it

MSI makes some pretty good high end amd boards, 'icy chokes' and 'hi-c' super polymer caps. I had a customer buy one of those boards for $199 so far and it looked like good quality, but time will tell

[seanc]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

It didn't matter what I did to that damn GX280 - it screamed.
New thermal paste, over and over. No change. Only time I got it to shut up was when I installed a standard fan, but then of course it moans about fan failure.
Got rid of it.
Could never work out why the customer put up with it for more than 5 minutes and didn't replace it straight away!

[dood]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

I've had several fixes for the loud fan issue. Sometimes it's the board, sometimes it's the thermal paste, sometimes the temp sensor in the fan itself dies and the fan has to be replaced... Once you replace the board and the fan, I would think it'd pretty much have to be fixed....

[TheLaw]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

Optiplex was still a hardy lineup. That was when computer manufacturers advertised enterprise reliability and actually gave it to you.

Sure there were some F*** ups, but there could have been more if it weren't for all of dem Rubys. =D

[TheLaw]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

those 280's with the fan issues is usually hardening thermal paste. Once the past hardens it insulated the heat in the CPU and overheats, the mb starts pumping the fan speed to cool it down, which is useless cause there is hardly any thermal transfer between the heatsink and CPU. even wiping that shit off and leaving no thermal paste is better then having the hardening shit dell uses

topcat-I don't have much brand loyalty, I buy based on what other people are rating products. I try newer asus products when I can because they have been putting polys on all vrms as of the past year or so. Would I trade in my full poly asus I7 board for any other brand? hell no, but you get what you pay for, so a $289 board at the time is worth it

MSI makes some pretty good high end amd boards, 'icy chokes' and 'hi-c' super polymer caps. I had a customer buy one of those boards for $199 so far and it looked like good quality, but time will tell

ASUS has been doing full board polys for the majority of their boards for about 2 years...just saying.

[mockingbird]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

I'm not sure why you're praising the GX150s. I have a place with 75 of them (The SFF model), actually we just replaced half of them with refurbed HPs that have cheapo teapos (At least not near the VRM), and 75-90% of the GX150s have defective Nichicon HM caps or KZG. I have already replaced a good 5-10 of the motherboards with new stock HM.

Just today two of the computers were locked up. Sure enough when I opened up the Nichicon HMs had a brown milkshake on the top and were bulged. Also, sometimes the power supply fans die on them and the computer gets REALLY hot.

ASUS has been doing full board polys for the majority of their boards for about 2 years...just saying.

You can still find low-end Asus stuff with Toshin Kogyo caps.

[TheLaw]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

My GX150 has no KZGs....And yes my PSU fan died.

But otherwise I thought they weren't half bad. Look at the junk that HP and Dell are spitting out nowadays!

You can still find low-end Asus stuff with Toshin Kogyo caps.

LOW END. What do you expect? Full polymers? You get what you pay for.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

ASUS has been doing full board polys for the majority of their boards for about 2 years...just saying.

two years ago they started doing more poly vrms on the medium-high end board. they've been going more and more polys on the low and medium end boards in the past year. they're learning thier lessons, as they should

[Scenic]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

LOW END. What do you expect? Full polymers? You get what you pay for.

Gigabyte puts Sanyo/Suncon on low end boards (and still uses polys for the CPU VRM .. even on the lowest-end boards), so why does anus.. sry.. asus go for the worst taiwanese bullsh*t they can get?!

edit: lowest end gigabyte AM3 board i could find. MA74GMT-S2. retails for about 35eur brand new.
http://techcity.pl/wp-content/upload...MA74GMT-S2.jpg

[mockingbird]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

My GX150 has no KZGs....And yes my PSU fan died.

Actually it's not the fan that's dead, the PSU is failing.

asus go for the worst taiwanese bullsh*t they can get?!

Because they can get away with labeling even their low-end stuff as all Japanese caps since Toshin Kogyo is technically a Japanese company. Unfortunately, most people are not aware that all they do is re-sleeve OST caps.

[TheLaw]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

I agree Asus has been a slow learner, but I think their quality is still better than most.

[TheLaw]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

Actually it's not the fan that's dead, the PSU is failing.

Oh. Maybe that's why it's become pitifully slow. Hmm...too bad its 5V rail is 90% of the power. Those were the good old days...

[TheLaw]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

Is it recappable? Like bad in that sense?

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

Yeah thank god no more P4s. I had a 2.8Ghz chip in my SFF GX260....oh my Lord. Easily could have cooked eggs on it. EASILY.

Also, I would watch out for Conroes, too.

65nm Core 2 Duos tend to run hot. I can see them heating up easily in a crammed case.

[smason]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

Man I hate Asus...Last I considered them they had shitty linux support, wouldn't release the specs for their temp sensor chips..

And speaking of temp sesors, had a Linux server overheat. I got up one morning and heard a loud beeping. Thought it was the UPS, nope. Failed drive on the RAID controller, nope. The cpu overheated, and instead of shutting off, it sat there at the POST screen with a temperature warning, frying itself.

[mockingbird]

Re: Dell used to be really good quality....

Is it recappable? Like bad in that sense?

They're a nightmare. Very tough to get into all the crevices. I think the caps are LTEC and Teapo last time I checked.