Comment reputation ... YMMV (Score -1, Troll) 225
When I was building my first computer back in HS (heh, I'd finally saved enough money) I was looking at their barebones bundles--motherboard [Super7 with 1MB cache and some other nice stuff], case, ps (and I think fdd too, but i don't remember). At the same time, we ordered another computer from them, already made, to just sit and act as a server for out house (it actually did have some utility).
Parts came from several different places, and I began putting them together. I finally got everything together, flipped the switch...and nothing. Not even a beep.
Ok. So I checked all the cables, power to board and drives--unplugged drives, rotated memory--testing it in the other computer we ordered from them (one of their "Pro" models). No go.
I called them up the next business day and waited on hold for over 90 minutes (this was a normal wait time for my dealings with them). When I finally reached someone, I went through the steps of testing my video card [which he was obsessed with], memory, and cables. After it was all over, he said that he'd ship me a new motherboard, and I'd send the old one back which was apparently DOA. I was happy.
I get the new motherboard, and the first thing I notice was that it was not the same model. In particular, the on board cache was now only 128KB (it might have been 256KB, it has been a while) instead of 1MB which was the reason I chose the original board.
My mother called them up from work while I was at school or some other activity [probably soccer after school], and was told that they had experienced problems with the other board "precisely because of the one meg cache" which my mother had told them is why I bought the original board (I haven't ever confirmed if the original board had known issues so the tech support guy may have been right...but still I was rather annoyed).
I tried it in the computer, it didn't work, see the fourth paragraph. This time however, I complained about the board not being the right one as well, and they said if I'd send it back, they'd give me the correct one. I also mentioned how this was the second time this had happened and asked if they could think that it was anything else [like the powersupply...]. They were certain it was the board and the board alone. Annoyed, I waited for my new board so that I could send the old one back.
Then the board came. I was supposed to live with this new board, so I figured I'd try.
Sometime in the next two days, I tried the latest and greatest board that they'd sent me. The same things happened. I called them up, waited 90min, and struggled to remain calm this third time. When I finally got someone on the phone, he refused to service me because the warranty from the original date of purchase had expire sometime between shipping the last board and my receiving it. I explained that they had sent me replacement items under warranty which never worked, argued for 15min, but eventually was forced to take my business someplace else. I have never purchased anything from them since, and despite any price, never will. These were the first people that I would ever hate with avengence.
I ended up replacing the motherboard and the case/ps. This computer has run fine for four years...until last week when a sudden power outage wrecked havoc on my computers. A couple years ago I stripped the other powersupply from the tiger direct [nb: my opinion of them] case and replaced it with an Antec ps. This box, runs FreeBSD beautifully
-Jason
