best boxen?

[Bill Campbell]

On Wed, Aug 23, 2006, Collins Richey wrote:
...
>Our company's experience is based on Dell production from  2+ years
>ago - GX260 and GX270 desktops from about 2 years ago and laptops
>D600. The laptops had high initial failure rates (I don't have
>specifics, but you've certainly read the jokes about the batteries in
>this series). The desktops have motherboards with flaky capacitors.
>These are now dropping like flies. I have no way of determining
>whether Dell have corrected their QC and/or parts procurement problems
>now. The relatively few GX280 desktops we have seem to be immune from
>the motherboard problems.

There was an issue with defective capacitors several years ago
that affected many (most) main boards.  I don't remember exactly
when this was other than it's been within the last five years.

>In any case, we have switched our contract to HP. Check back in two
>years to determine the wisdom of that decision.I've already reported
>my opinion about the ATI video in these units. The Linux drivers are
>pure crap.

We haven't had many problems with the HP machines we're running
here, most of which we've bought from RE*PC, a local used dealer.
They tend to be built like tanks, and certainly have fewer
proprietary tweaks than the Compaq branded boxes (which are now
HPs as well).

We have used quite a few IBM xSeries rackmount boxes with
excellent results, particularly given the 3 year on-site support
which has been very helpful when a customer's machine is on the
other side of the U.S. from us.

Bill
--
INTERNET:   bill at Celestial.COM  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software, LLC
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