GW2K or Dell?

[Vladislav S. Davidzon]

To say enough, I've seen Dells and Microns opened up as I have done
maintenance on them (including upgrades, etc).  Both Dell and Micron use
very high quality parts, from what I've seen so far.  New systems seem to
be very good.

So far, since August, when we got 6 (I believe so at least) microns, we've
had very little problems with them.  There have been no hardware failures
in microns, other than the monitor problems (refresh rates) I've mentioned
earlier.

As far as Dell's, we've had no significant problems with new dells, other
than one of the machines coming in with a case where the front cover was
not completely attached, which I fixed very easily by simply bending the
clip. I've had no significant hardware problems with Dells.  Even old (2+
years) machines work great.

Now, as far as compaqs.  I would advice against buying ANYTHING
compaq-related.  Let alone the hardware components which are completely
propriatory, we are having a failure after a failure with these (for a
lack of a better word) pieces of junk.  We've had a deskpro 2000 come in,
have its hard drive fry thirty minutes after it was turned on.  I've had
Compaq 5100E's giving a motherboard failure if you plug in non-compaq (but
same speed, same pin number) RAM chips, where you simply have to reset the
bios.  They are totally propriatory as far as hardware is concerned.  I've
also heard and read about MANY horror stories (such as a mouse taking 5+
weeks to replace!) about them which I can easily believe thanks to my
experiences.

The point that Ms. Lindh makes is a very important one.  It is VERY
important what brand parts you have in your machine.  What type of RAM,
speed of hard disk, and obviously sizes of RAM and hd are very important.  
Note that in my experiences, a Compaq 5100E P100 and a Dell P75, when
loaded (cleanly) with the same exact software, the Dell has worked about
twice as fast.  Why?  Because from what I understand Compaq uses
lower-quality parts.  Things as simple as processor heat sinks make a HUGE
difference.  (Micron and Dells have HUGE sinks on their machines BTW now)
Upgrades also seem to yield lower performance than new machines often
times (depending on type of upgrade).  

Please note that these are my personal opinions, not those of any
organizations I may be associated with, and pardon for any typo's I made
in the above message, as I am typing it in a hurry.  


-- Vladislav


On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Maureen Lindh wrote:

> Since no one else has yet made this point, I thought I'd throw in 2 cents
> here. It is more important to buy good components than to buy a company
> name (although I'd definitely count the warranty and support for
> something). It would be best if the purchasing agent were aware of the
> attributes of the motherboards, the BIOS and the chipsets as well as the
> quality and compatibility of all the other components used in the systems.
> 
> The big name systems' components vary by the week and I've noticed that
> quality-of-support and reliability survey results change by the month. I
> suppose that a good reason to buy from one company might be to insure
> consistency of your equipment in order to simplify support, but, I hate to
> tell you, the only consistency may be among each _batch_ that you buy.
> Don't expect the [Gateway] computers that you buy in January to be
> consistent with the ones you buy in March even if they have the same
> processors. I've found that systems with the same model name may come with
> different motherboards and that the ones that the PC magazines test may not
> contain the same components as the ones you buy.
> 
> You should get all the specs for the machines that you purchase in writing
> and you should have somebody available that knows the implications of all
> those choices. After all, you're probably spending tax payer money and you
> should try to spend it well. Good luck.
> 
> ___// Maureen Lindh  <lindh at olypen.com> 360-457-4464, fax 360-457-2580 \\___
>    \\ NorthOlympicLibrarySystem, 2210 S Peabody, PT Angeles, WA  98362 //
> 
> At 02:35 PM 12/8/97 -0800, Judy Anderson wrote:
> >We've been running Gateway 2000 machines in our student technology
> >center for almost 2 years.  They have been great!  
> >We have had a couple of monitors die, and a few drives, but with
> >3000-6000 students a month using them I can't complain.  
> >Gateway also gives excellent service for replacing the few parts we've
> >had go wrong.  
> >
> >I haven't used Dell recently, but that's just because I had such erratic
> >luck with them a few years ago. The "was this put together on a Monday
> >or a Wednesday" syndrome. In checking with a few people here who ordered
> >them, they still have some consistency problems, especially with their
> >laptops.
> >
> >
>