I build my own machines, and having had to deal with upgrading Dells from friends and relatives (and my work laptop as well, since that what the company that I'm working with insists on buying) would never, ever consider buying one.

But now Jane Galt, who has heretofore sung their praises, has finally learned her lesson as well. Not a pretty Christmas story (though I have to confess that my sympathy is not abundant, given my previous attitude toward Dell).

So who do you like? (for those of us who do not want to build)

I can't make any recommendations, lacking any experience. I always build. I would recommend finding a good local store who will build one for you, and knowledgably service it, though.

Dammed if you do Dammed if you don't.

I've currently got Machines that I built and
machines purchased from Dell and Sony.
The high end stuff seems to always have problems.

I have a basic minimilist dell running XP-pro that runs my CNC mill in the garage and it has been rock solid. On the other hand it has almost Nothing loaded.
I have a high end dell to do work ... and it has had some USB problems since day 1. It got 100% better when I removed Norton and switched to NOD for virus protection.

The home built games only machine with the high end video card etc.. has had thermal problems.
When you turn it on the thing hovers it has so many fans.

We tried a high end Sony media edition PC and it was ok, but had lots of software problems.
(It's now running Linux and the software problems are gone)

If anyone finds a solid reliable vendor please advise.

ASUS motherboard with NVIDIA chipset (nForce) and NVIDIA video card, AMD CPU. You can't go wrong.

Well, unless you want to run OSX. Then you buy Apple. You can't go wrong with that either these days.

I have a Dell that has been rock solid for years now; a Dell Optiplex 4/33. Mind everything is unhooked except for two NICs and the floppy drive - it's running linux on a floppy and routes files for me.

I have a high-end Sony media center PC as well, and it has weird software problems too. Also, the DVD burner has lost the ability to write to anything except Ritek G04s. The unreliability is bad enough, but the insanity is worse.

Probably because I'm an ordinary, non technical, computer user, I've found nothing but satisfaction with Dell and their service.
Two years ago I upgraded my '98 Dell 233Mhz with a new 2400. Nothing great, but I'm not a blogger/gamer/small business person (P4, 2.2 GHz, 512 MB Ram and 80Gb hard drive with MS Office basic and a 17" flat panel for $699).
Anyway, system has a front USB port where I kept my camera cable plugged. One day I accidentaly kicked said cable and broke the connector pins in the port.
Three days later, after my email to Dell, a tech was here and replaced the USP port free of charge.
My experiences with Dell have been nothing but exemplary, from purchase through follow up service, much like my positive experiences with Microsoft, Windows and Explorer, much to the chagrin of all the, minority, users of Apple and Linux.
Mike

Well if you drive a Yugo at 30 mph it would generally last a little longer and be more reliable than if you run it at full speed.

HP is the only store bought PC to buy. I get mine refurb from MacMall and have not had any problems. Usually build my own when I want performance.

Funny thing is that my recently built PC is used mostly as a door stop except when I really really need to run satellite tool kit. The Apple machine is the workhorse, both the desktop and the laptop.
Can't wait for the new Intel based CPU's so that I can dual boot OSX and Windoz and never buy a PC again.

:)

Dennis

Well if you drive a Yugo at 30 mph it would generally last a little longer and be more reliable than if you run it at full speed.

HP is the only store bought PC to buy. I get mine refurb from MacMall and have not had any problems. Usually build my own when I want performance.

Funny thing is that my recently built PC is used mostly as a door stop except when I really really need to run satellite tool kit. The Apple machine is the workhorse, both the desktop and the laptop.
Can't wait for the new Intel based CPU's so that I can dual boot OSX and Windoz and never buy a PC again.

:)

Dennis

...much like my positive experiences with Microsoft, Windows and Explorer, much to the chagrin of all the, minority, users of Apple and Linux.

Seems to me like the embodiment of "ignorance is bliss". Yes, you may have had absolutely no problem with Windows, IE, and Outlook, but that's only because any or all of the following:
1. you blindly allow Microsoft to push whatever updates they deem expedient to your desktop, whenever you are connected. Your just lucky that your addressbook hasn't been blown to smithereens yet.
2. you blindly allow Dell to push whatever updates they deem expedient to your desktop. Again, just lucky that your system continues to boot.
3. you really have no idea what is running behind the scenes on your computer, and have no real way of telling whether your information is being shared all over the web by spyware or viruses (no, just because it wasn't detected by McAfee doesn't mean it's not spyware)
4. you consider it normal that every new DVD player, CD-R software, document viewer, whatever will also install its own little pet process, running all the time, which will arbitrarily push out updates to your computer without your knowledge. It doesn't bother you... you just learn to live with that ever-increasing array of icons in the bottom right of your taskbar, and increasingly longer boot times.

It's not that I'm bitter hardcore geek. I get along fine with my FreeB S D or Linux, and I never touch Windows anymore. But, I am regularly tasked with solving all of the above problems for my friends and family. Nothing like tracking down your 1000th Windows registry entry to turn off TKBell.exe to take all the fun out of computing.

P.S. I had to space out FreeB S D because somehow the lameness filter thought that combination was "questionable content"

Rycamor, Rand probably put that word in the filter because of delirious rants like yours.

Rand, as a counterexample, I have bought 3 Dell computers (a desktop, an Inspiron 9300, and an XPS M170) this year. All have worked quite well for me.

Apart from the tacky lid and LED's, that XPS M170 is a fine piece of kit, and an absolute gaming beast.

My Dell Latitude X1 is flawless too, but it's OEM'ed by Samsung, so probably doesnt count.

HP is the only store bought PC to buy.

The HP I bought a few years ago had unacceptably inadequate thermal design. Running compute-heavy applications on it (like a screen saver with a code breaking or SETI search task) would crash the machine due to overheating. It also experienced a motherboard failure and two hard drive failures I suspect were at least partially due to increased thermal stress.

I replaced it with a Mac Mini. The other machine we use at home is in a Lian Li aluminum case with four case fans.

I just got a Dell at work (dual-core Pentium, running linux, plus Windows-under-VMware). So far it seems very stable and very very quiet.

I've always been a builder myself. It is not the cheapest route to take but, yes, generally the built systems remain more reliable then their retail counter parts. This isn’t so much because the individual components are really any different then the ones that come in a retail system but one of the other benefits of building your own system is that you are generally more familiar with the individual components and can maintain better software driver support. Windows is all about the driver compatibility and systems generally remain more stable when all their components have up to date and WHQL certified drivers. I think Dell is a good alternative for someone to buy as far as retail systems go. Having dug around in them several times I find, in the tower case models at least, that they most closely resemble a so called 'home built' system in component architecture. In fact it is not uncommon for Dell to offer such good deals on video card, sound card, peripheral upgrades that the folks on the Anandtech.com forums will recommend going to their website and purchasing upgrades for any computer to get the occasional good deal. I think it maybe the experience of some people in relation to odd behaviors and stability problems on the higher end retail computers is you are most likely to run into driver compatibility issues. Pricier systems generally have more components and additional software installed thus increasing the likelihood that you will get a more complex mainboard which means higher chance that you will encounter a bug with an application interface or corruption of the drivers in some way.

Rycamor, Rand probably put that word in the filter because of delirious rants like yours.

Actually, it just doesn't like the letters "B S D" strung together. It probably looks too much like something else.

Rand is free to mod me down. Maybe I was a little unpleasant, but my points are all true, and it's only getting worse. Unless something changes, there is no end to the shenanigans that will be going on in your Windows computer in the future. I don't usually bother trashing Windows, but I was just responding to MikeD's condescension at the "chagrin" of we "minority" OS users. My only chagrin is the amount of time I have wasted on Windows.

Anyway, I am posting this from a Dell Inspiron 1100 running FreeB S D. Dell laptops are probably the best thing about Dell. Other than this, my experience has been mixed annoyance. Not bad when they work, but never stellar. Even their servers have some ridiculous limitations, such as the crippled SCSI RAID cards they ship with. Personally, I have never bought a new Dell, but most companies I have worked for stuck with Dell.

For my own desktops and servers, it's custom build all the way. There is an incredible number of good retailers out there, if you just search through www.pricewatch.com. Most of these medium-sized hardware retailers have given me much better service than I ever got through the large manufacturers. In fact, just last week we had a small hardware dealer call us back twice in one day to assist in the rush delivery of a *single* Celeron CPU. Compared to Dell/HP/Compaq, that's incredible.