Replacement PC

My PC died over the weekend. I can't say I didn't see it coming exactly. I did get messages saying there were "hardware failures". If the PC could tell me that, it would have been nice to know in advance maybe what exactly was failing. I didn't get that message. So I hoped the problem was just in it's mind, and there was no failure. But no, it wouldn't boot up, turn on the monitors, and gave me a yellow light where I don't remember ever seeing one before.

I hauled all 70 lbs of it to the PC Doctor (yes, it's a place). I've been going to them for 10 years and they never let me down. Turns out the motherboard is gone. I found out that this is a common problem with these PCs, and Dell demands only a Dell replacement for it which is around $400 - $500 for the part alone. I've already replaced the hard drive and the DVD drive within the 3 years I've had the PC. I'm not going to bad mouth Dell, because I do like their products. I own a laptop and a netbook both by Dell. But my gaming desktop has been an XPS for the last 5 years, and I've had to take both in fairly often (ok, every 1.5 years which isn't too bad I suppose). The first XPS just had settings on it that often prevented me from reinstalling the operating system. I would try for days before finally giving up and taking it in to be wiped clean, and the OS reinstalled.

Anyway, this latest XPS having 2 hardware failures in the first year and half, and now the motherboard fried, I've decided to take another road. Now, I don't know what exactly happened to the motherboard. Maybe there was an electrical spike that my surge protector didn't help with. There have been ice storms last week, with the power going on and off many times. However, I was having the hardware failure messages for at least a month, so I don't know. I just decided that maybe it was time to do what other gamers have been doing rather buying an intact system. They custom build their own.

Aaron at the PC Doctor place, walked me through what they could do for me. Turns out I can have a great system built for me for about half of what a new Dell XPS would cost me. OK, maybe not half, but if I wanted their top of the line model, probably it would be close. So we'll see. If I hadn't been going to them for 10 years, I would have either not done it at all, or at least thought about it. But they were really good at answering all my questions. They assured me that they built systems that were designed to all work together, which is key to a custom built system. That was probably the first mistake of those early years at piecing together parts to get a working PC. The parts just weren't made to work together in the first place.

I can't get too excited over all of this though. It's still a replacement to me. I had hoped my old system (all of 3 years) would last at least another two years. I paid too much money for it. My first XPS is working great for my Dad. Maybe I just use the crap out them, and that's why they don't last as long?

PC Doctor is giving me a 2 year parts and labor warranty, so I think that's great. It's a year longer than Dell. Sorry Dell.