Overclockers UK - Nightmare or not?

[floppybootstomp]

Well Steve, for what it's worth you've probably got nothing to worry about. The bad instances usually come to light one way or another but the greater majority of successful orders never get a mention of course.

And as I've mentioned before I used OCUK for over ten years with just the one hiccup.

The last big order I placed with them was I think about 18 months ago, spent over a grand on an i7 build for a mate of mine. All the parts went together well and worked, he's using his machine on an almost daily basis.

However, as I've also mentioned, the instances of bad do seem to be getting more numerous which is why I no longer use them.

I wish you luck.

 

[stevedorset]

fair point. suppose unlike ebay when you have pos and neg feedback people mostly just post about companies if theyve had negative.
Its like my job in IT, if everythings working ok you hear nothing!

 

[V_R]

Ok so my recent order with OcUK went like this....


Bought a GTX580 from OcUK on the 7th Jan. Shipped on the 7th.

Was the cheap OcUK own brand which turned out to be a Sparkle card, (They are a random version of Sparkle, PNY and Inno3D if i remember correctly)

Well i didn't like it, it looks horrid in the blue colour and blue PCB.

RMA request on the 11th, confirmation and returns number on the same day.

Asus GTX 580 ordered on the 11th Jan. Shipped same day. Arrived 12th Jan.

They received the Sparkle card back on the 14th, said it would take 5-7 days to process the refund.

Got email today (19th) saying refund has been processed.


To me i cant fault them.


Full story here...
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-4030504.php

 

[floppybootstomp]

Ok so my recent order with OcUK went like this....


Bought a GTX580 from OcUK on the 7th Jan. Shipped on the 7th.

Was the cheap OcUK own brand which turned out to be a Sparkle card, (They are a random version of Sparkle, PNY and Inno3D if i remember correctly)

Well i didn't like it, it looks horrid in the blue colour and blue PCB.

RMA request on the 11th, confirmation and returns number on the same day.

Asus GTX 580 ordered on the 11th Jan. Shipped same day. Arrived 12th Jan.

They received the Sparkle card back on the 14th, said it would take 5-7 days to process the refund.

Got email today (19th) saying refund has been processed.


To me i cant fault them.


Full story here...
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-4030504.php

Much the same as the two rma experiences I've had with them and one of those was also a graphics card.

They turned both around by return post and on one of them even refunded me the cost of the return postage without me asking for it.

The last one was at least three years ago though.

Puzzling, but there's no smoke without fire as they say, perhaps it depends on which member of staff deals with your problem.

 

[V_R]

Ah good on them for the postage refund. Though i get that free due to loyal forum membership.

It could well be a particular member of staff, i'd be interested to know....

 

[spikerules]

I have recently had an issue with a pre over-clocked bundle I ordered from Overclockers. I asked for the 2600k 4.6GHZ OC bundle and was happy with the quick turn around, but since then I have nothing but trouble.

The BIOS settings for their pre made overclock were completely wrong and I kept getting BSOD with temps reaching +95c! So I rang them up and they told me the settings were wrong and that they wouldn't have sent me the board with those settings (but they did I hadn't even been into the bios before the first BSOD). So basically they were blaming me for everything as soon as I called... I have RMA'd the bundle as it wont overclock (which is what I asked for) and again they just replied with "Well it worked for us but send it back and we'll have another look", so I doubt this is the end of it and they will just send it back working! I have also heard they just receive the RMA items and just send them back stating they work, but the same issues happen, as though they haven't even bothered to look at the fault!

Oh, and they also had thermal paste all over the cpu and board that they didn't bother to clean up before they sent it to me! I also noticed that one of the screw threads was a bit threaded... alas one of the RMA warranty voids is a threaded screw socket and thermal paste in the socket! Again, I had nothing to do with this and I will likely get blamed for it

We will have to see... I have been a loyal overclockers.co.uk customer since 2008 and have spent a lot of my hard earned cash with them, but depending on how this RMA goes I'm not sure I will bother with them again

 

[huskyboy]

I too have experienced the awful support from overclockers. i returned faulty memory only to be told to "go away" until their supplier had tested and decided to replace or not! They would not let me keep the one working strip of memory to keep my PC working. I decided to walk away and replace it myself.
When I mentioned that highstreet suppliers do much better than this, I was offered a print out of Argos terms and conditions to compare!!
You can get better return service than this off a market stall.

 

[spikerules]

I too have experienced the awful support from overclockers. i returned faulty memory only to be told to "go away" until their supplier had tested and decided to replace or not! They would not let me keep the one working strip of memory to keep my PC working. I decided to walk away and replace it myself.
When I mentioned that highstreet suppliers do much better than this, I was offered a print out of Argos terms and conditions to compare!!
You can get better return service than this off a market stall.

I feel your pain! My memory (from the same bundle above) is faulty too (kept getting BSOD 124 errors after RMA return) so I decided to just give up and not bother with an RMA and just buy new memory. So far no BSOD. Overclockers after sales are a major disgrace and will sh** all over you

 

[robertlover]

I have the experience ,not very good indeed...maybe you may be careful when you buy on it

 

[floppybootstomp]

I've just sent OCUK an e-mail, fairly self-explanatory I think:

I have received my order from you. I ordered a Bitfenix Beta case and you have sent a Bitfenix Alpha case. You messed up. I'm going to keep it as I can't be bothered with all the agro and time delay in returning Alpha case then taking delivery of Beta case. I stopped using OCUK several years ago after reading increasing numbers of accounts where you treated customers badly. This was a small order so thought I'd try you again. Now I know why I stopped using you, you're useless. Delivery and coms were good, in fairness, and you're finally using a decent courier company, but you are still incompetent. Goodbye forever.

The only difference between cases is the Alpha case has the facility to mount fans on the top of the case and the Beta does not. Not that much of a biggie but the top of the case is where I store my gamepad.

The Bitfenix case is replacing my old Antec Sonata Mk II case as it's looking a bit battered these days, the sides are scratched and the front door's catch has snapped off. It's also in a tight space and the Bitfenix case is a centimetre narrower which makes it an ideal size for it's location.

As for the Bitfenix case, it's a cheapie. And it shows. It's featherweight and extremely cheap and cheerful. Looks ok and is fine for a budget build but in future I will buy something more substantial.

Bitfenix Alpha & Beta cases not recommended by me, then.

 

[CSB]

Sorry to hear about the case FBS and I did stupidly think for a short while about giving them another chance but I decided to stick to my guns. Glad I did now and I hope this just goes to show that OCUK is a disgrace.

I deleted my account on their site a while ago now and only use Kustompcs or Amazon these days for any PC stuff.

I used to like Overclock.co.uk until they lied to me and sent me back the exact same HDD that had obviously been dropped previously. I knew they sent the same one back but in a new plastic case as I took the serial number and other details down before sending it back. They tried denying it until I told them about the drives identicle info. They had it all back for a full refund and I've never used them since either and a note for others out there, they operate as Tekheads aswell.

Hope the case gives you no further problems FBS. Sorry to hear your stories aswell spikerules and huskyboy.

Choose your supplier carefully folks.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks for comments CSB, it upsets me a bit actually cos OCUK stock a great range but there you go, imo they're rubbish.

I was thinking about this and it wouldn't surprise me if they were out of stock of the Beta cases and sent me the Alpha anyway knowing I'd be likely not to bother going through the exchange procedure.

Or maybe the Alpha wasn't selling too well so they used Beta orders to ship out Alphas and lower their stock.

Whatever, can't trust 'em. Never, ever, again.

Haven't swapped cases yet, too busy building loudspeakers today plus had a couple of visitors so I'll do it tomorrow.

Will post pix and comments as applicable.

PS: They didn't reply to my e-mail but I didn't think they would anyway.

 

[CSB]

I'm not surprised myself OCUK failed to reply.

I think of OCUK as the equivalent match to Frankie Cocozza who has recently been kicked out of X Factor. Not that I watch the programme but you hear of these things even when you don't really give a hoot.

OCUK are like some other large companies *coff*Tesco/eBay etc*coff* who have a vast range of products to sell. Once they started making a lot of money and gain a large order base, their customer service goes down the tubes. If you think about it, its only really the smaller companies who will really work hard to keep you as a customer.

Well thats my experience anyway. I'm sure there are still large companies like Amazon out there who continue to help no matter how big they get. However, many do not give a to$$ once they've made it big. One word ... Complacent.

Look forward to seeing the pics FBS.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I transferred contents of old Antec Sonata 2 case to new Bitfenix Alpha case but I got on a bit of a roll, didn't stop, so didn't actually take any pix, sorry bout dat. Took me almost three hours to do swapover, incvluding a good cleaning of all components.

The case cost me a total of £44 inc delivery & VAT. Delivery was £9.25 which is about the most expensive of any online supplier I know. They do, to their credit, use a decent courier, DPD.

If you like the look of the Bitfenix case then I'd recommend it, it looks good and does what it's designed to do. Plus they give a lot of black fixing bolts to mount optical drives and HDD's. But don't fall on this case or drop anything on it, lol, cos it will just crumple. Strong it is not.

But it does the job so if you're doing a budget build, especially if you're a member of the OCUK Forums (censored speech) and get free postage, it's worth bearing in mind.

On this machine I have a Noctua cooler which is a huge thing, with two 120mm Noctua fans on it plus I swapped the Bitfenix rear 120mm fan for my Noctua 120mm fan. And that's all the cooling this system has. CPU's running a little hotter than it did in the Antec Sonata, 41C as opposed to 35C, but that's acceptable.

 

[bootneck02]

After reading the reviews here and on other sites I have never used OCUK and I guess many other people who are wanting PC bits and pieces at a good price are also not ever going to use them. The reputation they have built up for themselves will eventually lead to their demise and good riddance. Any one who now use them after the bad reviews about them have only themselves to blame.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Well, to be honest it kinda pains me to put OCUK down cos I used them for around ten years and they were faultless, I bought stacks of stuff from them.

I also notice a trend where folk like to kick a supplier when it's down, as it were, I wouldn't do that without good reason.

But I'm afraid I have to tell it like it is and it does seem they've lost their integrity over the last 2 or 3 years. I don't trust them, simple as that.

 

[V_R]

Sorry about your issues Mr F, never good to hear things going wrong with suppliers...

But, FWIW, my opinion of OcUK as above still stands, they've been faultless for me.

 

[CSB]

So you have yourself a Noctua NH-D14 then FBS ?

Would still be good to see some pics of the finished article when you're done.

 

[floppybootstomp]

So you have yourself a Noctua NH-D14 then FBS ?

Would still be good to see some pics of the finished article when you're done.

Nope, not that one, mine is about 4 years old 10H or something, I can take a pic of machine in it's current location, I'll do that.

Or was it a 10HP? I've forgotten, lol

V_R: or Mr V Good luck

If they'd got my order right this time they would be back on my list. But they didn't, they messed up, so the hell with them, frankly.

Just remember, there's no smoke without fire.

For my last build I mostly used E-Buyer and they were superb.

I just tell it like it is, no blind loyalty, no bias, just the facts.

 

[V_R]

I just tell it like it is, no blind loyalty, no bias, just the facts.

Thats the way it should be.

Tbh, if i see something cheaper else where i would get it from there, like my last sound card came from Amazon, but i also get free shipping from OC so that helps sweeten the deal.