Does Dell make its own motherboards?

[Tx2]

Remember you need to factor in the time taken to spec, order, build, test,
run-in the system, install the operating system etc. etc. your £100 hasjust
jumped to £500 at least (remember to also factor in the additional accounts
required to source parts from more than one supplier).

I disagree.

I can build and have a system up and running in about half a day.

Don't tell me Dell's quality control is any better than mine either,
'cos I know from experience in setting up half a dozen or more systems
that it isn't.

Sourcing the parts for a self-build? - an hour, maybe two - done over
coffee of course.

So, assume a day spent sourcing, building and installing.

Sourcing and installing still apply with the Dell (let alone how long
you take checking and double checking the specs before you hit "BUY")

Of course, you haven't factored in the time you'd spend on the phone to
Dell trying to convince them an engineer is needed when it goes wrong,
with them arguing the toss, etc etc etc.

But, YMMV, I'll personally never buy a Dell because today's convenience
becomes tomorrow's headache.

Keep well

Why thank you. You too...

 

[Tx2]

I've also noticed that Dell have aggressive pricing and that no
matter how much I shop around for cheap components and software, I am
unlikely to match a Dell for price compared to a PC I build myself.

Depends on what components you select. There's nothing 'fancy' in any
Dell's I've ever seen.

I have the impression (correct me if I am wrong) that the component
qulaity and the build quality of a Dell is pretty decent. Sure it is
not going to be as good as a very carefully chosen PC put together by
a home contructor. But as a mass-market PC I have the impression
that Dell is rather good.

Yes, as a mass market producer they probably are. Depends if you want to
be a mass market consumer, reliant on mass market support of course.

But so like everything in life, buying cheap can often mean get nasty.

YMMV

I'm not saying don't buy Dell - I simply believe it to be a false
economy to do so based on what i've read here thus far. Personally, I
prefer my equipment to be of better quality, and something I can
directly support.

ISTR that reliability too is better than average

Than average what?

 

[Lem]

Than average what?

Dell's reliability is often said to better than the average. See:

17th Annual Reader Satisfaction Survey
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1623585,00.asp
click on links like 'Survey Results'

 

[Tx2]

Dell's reliability is often said to better than the average. See:

17th Annual Reader Satisfaction Survey
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1623585,00.asp
click on links like 'Survey Results'

Again ... better than?

There seems to be no 'against' measurement, just a bunch of (USA?)
customers who are never going to admit they brought crap.

Also kinda' weird that Dell are one of that particular sites business
partners...

Nope, sorry chumly, no sliced mustard rewards on the strength of that
survey.

 

[GB]

Let's see, now. I've built about 20 PCs in my time. Yet, recently, I have
chosen to buy in some Dell PCs for the office. One reason might be that I
am, as you say, an idiot. The other reason might be that the Dells do the
job I need for the office, and they cost 20% less to buy in ready-built
than
the price at which I can buy the parts.

20% for not being able to support them *properly* when the machine goes
down is worth it is it?

Maybe not. We'll see. My experience is that PCs don't break very often.
Actually, I'll rephrase that. The PCs at the office never break. The PCs at
home (which the kids use) seem to break rather a lot.

When there is a problem, it tends to be one of the moving bits such as the
hard disks, which are completely standard on these Dell machines.

In fact, these were very cheap system boxes - under 200 Pounds including
VAT. The component cost would be about 250 Pounds. However, there's also my
time to build up and test the systems if I bought the bits - worth say
another 50 Pounds per computer.

"But I have 3 year on-site warranty" you say

For what Dell charge? You must be joking!

What I do have is several systems that are the same. There's one system box
that is only occasionally used and could be cannibalised for parts if
necessary.

 

[Immuno]

Dell's reliability is often said to better than the average. See:

17th Annual Reader Satisfaction Survey
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1623585,00.asp
click on links like 'Survey Results'

....."often said to better than the average" - cute phrase, ...says - not a
lot.

From the article:

"As you peruse the results, you'll see that no company is beyond reproach.
Each is guilty of selling machines that need repair and providing poor
technical support at times. The leading vendors-Apple in the desktop and
notebook categories, Dell in desktops and servers, and IBM in notebooks-are
those that keep criticism to a minimum."

......"keep criticism to a minimum" - how does that tranlate into MTBF?

also:

"Unfortunately, phone support is also among the most expensive support
methods. In order to cut costs, many vendors have moved call centers
overseas. Big vendors Dell, HP, Gateway, and Toshiba all use at least some
foreign call centers, and many readers complain of difficulty communicating
with technicians."

I especially liked:

"Unlike many of its competitors, IBM refuses to use overseas technicians,
and its tech-support scores are impressive. Readers give IBM a 7.0 overall
score for desktop tech support and a 7.6 for notebooks. They rate IBM
support techs' ability to comprehend user problems and to speak in a clear,
understandable manner at least a point higher than they do Dell, HP, Sony,
and Toshiba techs."

..... does that translate into "no one ever got fired for buying an IBM"
)))))))))

Pete


Out of interest - how much does Dell charge for a fifteen quid (thirty buck)
PSU?

 

[Leythos]

Anybody that buys a brand name computer is an idiot.
Build it yourself using good brand name hardware and build it the way you
want it. You will be very pleased with the results.

You have no clue what you're talking about.

I've actually built systems since the 70's and designed more than 1
motherboard and actually manage a IT firm that spec's hardware for many
companies.

For my own office I purchase parts and build to spec based on our needs,
but, most people can't do this for the same cost factor due to several
things:

COST of OS - unless you're a pirate Dell can get it cheaper in most
cases

COST of Applications - again, unless you're a pirate Dell can get it
cheaper than most places

Warranty - unless you have the skills yourself or you know someone or
you have an IT Staff, Dell can support you cheaper and quicker than you
can learn/do it on your own. Not everyone buys the cheap support plan
with off-shore support, many purchase gold or higher and get 4 hour
service times.

When I built several Dual Xeon servers for my office I managed to get
4GB of RAM, 1.3TB of RAID 5 space, and 250GB of RAID-1 space for about
$4300. The OS is free since we're a MS partner and they provide X
licenses for partners. The support is done in-house as well as all the
other care. If I had to add the OS it would run about $1000 including a
few licenses.

For a typical client, one without staff or support people of their own,
the same Dell will cost about $9,800 including the OS and 4 hour 24/7
on-site support as needed.

So, for $4,000 they get a dedicated response team with 4 hour 24/7 on
site response, instead of having to spend $120k/year for a dedicated
staff member to do the same.

When it comes to home computers, sure, Dell is not going to sell you a
bleeding edge system as cheap as you can buy the parts yourself, but
they will get the OS and Apps cheaper as well as many of the extras. The
big place they get the self-builder is the apps and support/warranty.

 

[peter]

Dell uses PROPRIETARY motherboards. They are NOT standard.

The Dell I worked on yesterday (~1yr old) had a standard mATX
motherboard, with 2 unusual features:
1, the CPU cooler consisted of a green plastic duct over the metalwork
led to a 120 mm fan on the rear, nice and quiet.
2, No AGP socket - the solder pads are there on the board, but no
socket. This one had onboard graphics. If you wanted to upgrade to
decent graphics you'd have to use a PCI card.
As far as I can see, they now use standard ATX power supplies (they
didn't used to).

 

[Tx2]

[...]

When it comes to home computers, sure, Dell is not going to sell you a
bleeding edge system as cheap as you can buy the parts yourself, but
they will get the OS and Apps cheaper as well as many of the extras. The
big place they get the self-builder is the apps and support/warranty.

Are you 'talking' about the situation from outside the UK?

I ask because your suggestion/experience of Dell has no reflection on
what it's like in the UK (Britain)

 

[Gama Chameleon]

Sourcing and installing still apply with the Dell (let alone how long
you take checking and double checking the specs before you hit "BUY")

Of course, you haven't factored in the time you'd spend on the phone to
Dell trying to convince them an engineer is needed when it goes wrong,
with them arguing the toss, etc etc etc.

Of course it depends too on the service level you have purchased and
the system. i.e. I would tend to go for Dell and the like for servers
where you can just phone up and say "I want an engineer over here in 4
hrs", swap the unit out if necessary and install a system backup
rather than spending a day with the server down.

For a small business where the IT person is the secretary who knows
how to swap tapes over and thats about it, this sort of service level
is a reasonable compromise over having a company on retainer for call
out support.

As you say though getting an engineer out can sometimes be
problematic. I've been finding their call center problematic at times.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

Essentially, don't count on being able to change out the motherboard in

the original case..

We had a similar discussions just before Christmas. Dell UK had a stunningly
good offer available which for £420 got you a fast Celeron, 256MB, 80GB HDD,
17" TFT, printer & DVD-writer. When I looked at reviews of this obviously
low-budget system, I can to the same conclusion that it's not very
upgradable. Only thing I wished it had was an AGP graphics port which meant
you were stuck with the on-board graphics card.

But when I did the math, it worked out that even if you threw away the
entire base unit less the HDD, the rest of the bits bought separately came
very closed to the £420 price, esp. considering the 17" TFT.

So what I said was "if you need to upgrade, don't worry about throwing the
base unit away - you almost got it for free anyway".

Just how they are making money, I just don't know

Rob.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

If your ever considering "looking under the bonnet", or peeking at the

BIOS - don't do Dell!

But if you want a well built system with good specification at a low price,
then do seriously consider Dell. For the majority of the market out there
who just want it to work, Dell fits the mark.

I used to build PCs for friends and family. Don't bother anymore if they're
looking for a new system - can't beat Dell on price esp. when you add in the
operating system (which lots of home builders seem to forget and the
hassle factor is so much less.

Rob.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

Anybody that buys a brand name computer is an idiot.

Build it yourself using good brand name hardware and build it the way you
want it. You will be very pleased with the results.

Are you serious?? I would estimate a very high percentage of PCs are
bought by non-technical users who just want to plug it in and go. Building
your PC from parts, whilst not exactly difficult, is occasionally fraught
with difficulties. Like the questions & problems that this group is filled
with.

And on price, I'm not sure anymore that a custom build PC to the same
specification is any cheaper when bought in components. This doesn't include
my time as well.

Rob.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

chosen to buy in some Dell PCs for the office. One reason might be that I

am, as you say, an idiot. The other reason might be that the Dells do the
job I need for the office, and they cost 20% less to buy in ready-built
than the price at which I can buy the parts.

20%? Yes, that probably sounds about right. We've only built one custom PC
at work (a dual Athlon XP system) and we've had no end of problems with it -
it's always got the top off The Dell PCs & servers just sit there and
work 24/7.

Rob.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

20% for not being able to support them *properly* when the machine goes

down is worth it is it?

Dell kit is incredibly reliable mainly because you don't mess around with
it. The only Dell hardware we've had fail is a CD-ROM and video output from
one laptop. Compared to the Compaq iPAQ that litereraly blew up, the custom
built Gigabyte system that decided to stop working with WD hard disk and
won't run through the KVM, the 3 Toshiba laptops that have developed several
faults etc...

If one of the Dell base units failed, we wouldn't bother trying to fix it.
We'd simply buy a new base unit for ~£200. £200 doesn't buy you a lot of
"fixing" time and you'll have a nice new higher-spec box anyway.

Rob.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

I can build and have a system up and running in about half a day.

And what about time spent purchasing the components and did that include the
operating system and software?? What about those times when you got an
awkward new motherboard which didn't work with a component?

And don't get me started if one of the components was DOA! Getting the
supermarket suppliers like Dabs & Insight to replace them is a nightmare...

Rob.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

As you say though getting an engineer out can sometimes be

problematic. I've been finding their call center problematic at times.

Dell's customer care did go down hill last year, about the same time they
outsourced to India... I believe there have been so many complaints that
this is under review. We had one particularly hilarious support job where we
just wanted a missing CD-ROM for a laptop (it was missing on delivery). The
probably spent more time on the support call than the £1 CD-ROM.

But compared to Gigabyte support...

Rob.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

"But I have 3 year on-site warranty" you say

For what Dell charge? You must be joking!

We don't bother with the 3 year on-site warranty except for the servers -
one year RTB is fine. For desktops and even laptops it just doesn't make
financial sense. For the occasional system that might fail, then just buy
another one. 2 x new systems in a 50 user site compared to 50 x 3 year
warranty - you do the math

Rob.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

I have the impression (correct me if I am wrong) that the component

qulaity and the build quality of a Dell is pretty decent. Sure it is

The build quality is probably unmatched. Laptops are a bit less reliable but
then again, they always are...

Rob.

 

[Gama Chameleon]

20%? Yes, that probably sounds about right. We've only built one custom PC
at work (a dual Athlon XP system) and we've had no end of problems with it -
it's always got the top off The Dell PCs & servers just sit there and
work 24/7.

This is the thing with Dell compareed to many self builds. Dell go for
reasonable quality components that are not pushing too hard but are
stable. They have checked for compatibility so you known there most
likley won't be odd conflicts (at least at the driver release you
get).

How many people self build a server with a hot swap SCSI array and hot
swap redundant power supplies? Thats the sort of area where Dell is
good..