Warning about this computer company

[Bradster]

What happens if you box 5 characters and one of PCS goes down? You have stop all of them until you get it back up and running again. Thankfully my wife is letting me use the old PC I built a could years ago, which I gave to her. It’s a 3.2g HT with 1G of ram. Gets the job done I guess. But I really need my new machine back for video editing.


On to the warning!

I have recommended this site to friends, family, and my posts here because of past experience and price. That site is http:///www.cyberpowerpc.com

I purchased my super dream computer just this late March. Core 2 Duo, Duel SLI video cards, Duel SATA hard drives in a raid configuration, 3G of duel channel memory. Water cooled, this thing is a really sweat rig. I do a lot of video editing as a hobby. I spend most my time on a computer and I wanted something sweet. I spent $1,700 on this rig. I had them build it for $30, since I’ve not worked with water cooling, or SLI I was a bit afraid of working with liquid around hardware. So I paid it for peace of mind.

Worked great for a very short duration, when it did operate I was very satisfied with the computer. I got it late march but on 7-13-07 (the day I got my 5 boxing computers) it died during the night. Computer would not display, or even post. If you removed the memory it wouldn’t even give you a beep code.

So I called http:///www.cyberpowerpc.com they wanted to send me both a Power Supply and a Mother Board since they weren’t sure which was causing the problem. Fair enough. However first they wanted me to ship out the parts to them. THEN they would send me the replacements??

To hopefully address the problem as fast as possible I worked out a deal, bought the mother board and power supply, once they received the old ones back they will refund me. I also paid to have it shipped over night as this machine is very important to me. Down time isn’t an option for this computer. That’s why I spent $1,700.

So they never shipped it out Friday, and I called in the morning their time so they had plenty of time to get it ready and ship it. So I had to wait until Tuesday to get the parts (4 long days later). I then was forced to do what I didn’t want to have to do, that is work around the water cooling system (which really isn’t as bad as I thought). Replaced all the hardware. Didn’t fix the problem at all. The new motherboard sent appeared to have a bent pin on it, although only slightly. I tried it anyway. So it could be the Motherboard defect or perhaps it’s the CPU all along I’m not sure.

So I call them starting on 7-23-07 to let them know the status. Technical support hasn’t picked up the phone any time I call. I’ve called eight days in a row, left 9 messages, one to a manager. I’ve called in total about 30 times trying to get a hold of someone. Over six hours on the phone to them, and that was just last week NOT including this one, which so far is 2 hours and counting.

The new parts I received came with a pre-paid air bill to ship the parts back for my reimbursement. I have 15 days to ship it back to them for my refund. With no communication, effort or anything on www.cyberpowerpc.com on how to proceed. I took it upon myself to go ahead and place my computer in a nice big heavy box along with there parts and put the air bill on the side of the box. Now they get to pay to ship all that all the way across the country back to them. Hope they find it expensive as I do.

So today 7-31-07 I called the sales building. Which they always pick up the phone! Stepped out of character and just started acted like a crazed maniac wanting to speak to a manager. I got the same answer as before “he’s out to lunch but well leave him a note”. Well today a supervisor actually called me! Eight days later A MIRICAL!

I started talking to him like I normally would all nice, but as my story unfolded I let this guy have it. I won’t go in to detail but I’ll just say the words “$1,700 DOLLARS” “TWO WEEKS DOWNTIME AND COUNTING” “ NINE MESSAGES IN EIGHT DAYS” I emphasized a great deal in the conversation. Lot more that was said with a good usage of the F bomb. But I’ll spare you. Its not part of my character to act like this but these people drove me to my edge.

They are “tracking” the package now. Looking at 10days in shipping time 5 there and back. Plus when they “get too it” time, add “trouble shoot” and “fix” in there. I’m most likely looking at September before I see my $1700 Dollar machine.

So a recap, Give http:///www.cyberpowerpc.com $1,700 for a computer. Two months later you can expect two months (maybe more) of down time. It’s very very unfortunate that I just recently purchase four more computers from this company (for 5 boxing). So if one of these five computers breaks I get to repeat the process all over again!

[Xzin]

Sounds like my problem with Dell's outlet. Their refub LCDs are JUNK. They appear to be the ones that you send back - only resold. Horrible. I sent back 5 of the 6 I bought. And they were $1000+ each!

[clesven]

People actually buy from that shit company >.>. Just look at their website. Makes me think that I should start my own company, LMFAO. I would only buy from Maingear, Voodoo PC, or Alienware; IF I ever bought a pre-built computer, which I wouldn't. The care I put into building my own PC's can never be cloned by someone else.

[Bradster]

People actually buy from that shit company >.>. Just look at their website. Makes me think that I should start my own company, LMFAO. I would only buy from Maingear, Voodoo PC, or Alienware; IF I ever bought a pre-built computer, which I wouldn't. The care I put into building my own PC's can never be cloned by someone else.

Some people that are perfectly capable of building their own machine but may not for a couple reasons. Unfamiliar with a type of hardware such as water cooling like myself.

Or perhaps like some of my other experiences. I once purchased a Case, Motherboard, power supply, and CPU and memory from a new local computer store. Put it all together and it would crash every couple of minutes. I had the luxury of trouble shooting this problem; could it be a heat issue? No ok how about the memory? Ok no that’s not it, etc. Keep in mind this is a Xmas present which is time sensitive.

So I take it back to the store and have them look at it. They couldn’t get it to work either. Then even built another one just like it and couldn’t get it work. Come to find out a MONTH later that CPU, Motherboard, BIOS combo has known issues, which no documentation was available because of how new the hardware was. My sister got her new computer the end of Jan! Solution was to repalce the mother board with another brand. Abit FTL

So some people might search the internet for company that provides a good price, with a thirty dollar markup to build it. Given some of the past experiences I’ve had I look at it as insurance that I won’t have to go through that again!

How wrong I was in this case, f#$%^ in the arse once again. As for the sites you mentioned the machine I got that is now worthless and doesn’t function goes for $6000 on alien ware when I was shopping at the time. If they really can guarantee complete satisfaction for a $3200 markup for a pretty case and the name and you have the money. More power to ya.

[clesven]

That's why you voltage test the hardware and especially the PSU. All the problems you had could have been figured out by a bit of forum lurking before hand, and proper research. I research every piece of hardware I get, and usually find somebody with the combo within my research and see how well it works. Watercooling is easy to setup if you research it for about half an hour? If things work out correctly, I will have a waterchilled PC for a 5 box. All the PSU's they offer are garbage TBH, that's one of the early signs that the company isn't good.

As I said, I wouldn't order from those sites, ever. I can build a dual operton of the best 2xxx line with dual vaporcooling and slid video cards for the price of an alienware ALX. The only real reason I see people buying from those sites is their monthly payment plans and bragging factor. (I see people with mediocre jobs with multiple 6k+ dollar Voodoo pc's, and ofcourse paying monthly on it).

[Bradster]

That's why you voltage test the hardware and especially the PSU. All the problems you had could have been figured out by a bit of forum lurking before hand, and proper research. I research every piece of hardware I get, and usually find somebody with the combo within my research and see how well it works. Watercooling is easy to setup if you research it for about half an hour? If things work out correctly, I will have a waterchilled PC for a 5 box. All the PSU's they offer are garbage TBH, that's one of the early signs that the company isn't good.

As I said, I wouldn't order from those sites, ever. I can build a dual operton of the best 2xxx line with dual vaporcooling and slid video cards for the price of an alienware ALX. The only real reason I see people buying from those sites is their monthly payment plans and bragging factor. (I see people with mediocre jobs with multiple 6k+ dollar Voodoo pc's, and ofcourse paying monthly on it).

I don’t have a VU meter. I didn’t have another mother board, Power Supply or CPU “in stock” to trouble shoot per “proper research”. Symptoms at hand it could be one of three things. CPU’s rarely go bad, Two out of three were sent. Unfortunately it was the latter.

Per research continued I researched many companies before making this purchase. My findings led to me this site. I don’t count on-site reviews, they can be doctored and bad ones excluded. Like hardware combo research there is still no guarantee.

I was unable to locate an exact hardware config as my machine. This is why I decided to go with a company that has all ready worked out these kinks out. I did find some close, that doesn’t ensure 100% roll out that’s its going to work. Rather then risk let’s dance around a month with a thumb up my ass waiting for documentation to become available like the previous experience; I spent the extra $30 for personal insurance. (What good it did!)

There are quite a few different cooling setups. I was more concerned with the "what ifs" felt for peace of mind the entire process could be avoided for the extra $30 personal insurance. Also have those catch-22 situations "oh you installed it wrong that’s why it went defective; we are not going to cover that". You may have very well done it perfectly fine, but there are sadly too many companies out there like that, and not just computers. My friend once bought a $3000 transmission and installed to find it was locked up inside. Had the car towed and they claimed the Detent was installed incorrectly and it was installed exact. He lost his $3000. Truth was they didn’t want to address it.

I bought this machine cash. Well visa check card out of my bank account.

Despite all efforts these unfortunate events happened. Rather then see someone else get hosed by this experience I tried to save people the grief. At which point this is where you come in!

After having a bad enough experience with the whole thing, warning others about it. We have you chime in and mock the guy who dealing with all this. I mean who do you think you are? What kind of a person does that? Perhaps you’ll find it in your heart to bless us with more sarcastic smug all knowing text of knowledge that really just gets down to it and fixes everything!

So thanks, and fuck you.

[zanthor]

FFS the guy's trying to share an experience where he feels he was screwed...

Of course he could buy the components and build it himself. But there IS a benefit to a premade system, and that is quite simply a matter of how much YOUR time is worth to you.

Personally, I build my systems because I don't upgrade entire systems at once... I replace piecemeal and cascade the hardware down to my 2nd box.

[pomo]

wow brad hate to hear your story of computer hell.

this is why when i make a computer i make sure the damn company will be around as well as easy to get to . i got screwed pretty hard when i was in college bought a laptop off a computer company in toronto and right before a final project was due it crashed , went to go back to the company that i bought it from to find out it was now a matress store. looked up the old owners name and nothing hit google, i later found out before jumping company he supposingly ripped off as many people as possible in premade computers and internet orders.

good luck on your parts man hope you get up and running.

[wolviex]

i buy ALLL my parts from newegg.com, fast service awesomesauce return. i build PC's cause i love to. i want to start a lil PC building co. of my own someday, but i dont have the extra money for that idea. :lol:

[Runiat]

I buy all my computers from internet companies to any adress in Denmark.
30 days unlimited refund from the day I recieve it, can call back credit card payments over the internet, 2 years guaranty on anything costing over $100, and if they ever take more than a month to fix something I can tell them to pay back my money, or pay back my money AND a heavy fine AND however much money my lawyer wants for a 2-hour-case.

Also applies to any foreign country shipping to Denmark, quite brilliant really.