Maximum PC

Another big thumbs up to Sunbelt Software (makers of Counterspy). I bought Counterspy 1.5 from their official website today.. (online order). It was only $19.95 for a 1-year subscription. After the 1st year,it's $10 per year for updates. A fair price to pay,I think..for what could possibly be one of the best anti-spyware programs out there.

Thumbs up to TigerDirect. I ordered a replacement CRT...(My old 19-inch NEC blew one of its picture tubes..). In case you're curious,my new monitor is a (off-lease) IBM Thinkvision
21-inch CRT. Ordered on Thursday (yesterday)...already shipped today.(Friday).. Price was $140 after shipping.

Thumbs up to PC Power & Cooling. I ordered a Silencer 750 direct from pcpowerandcooling.com,and the price came out to $211 shipped.
Should be here by sometime next week.
Update from the 9th: It's arriving today..

It's here. Felt like picking up a brick. (As did my PC P & C 510SLI when I received it.)

Here's the link:
http://www.pcpower.com/products/viewpro ... how=S75EPS

Thumbs up to newegg, my order came right on time.

Another big thumbs up to Newegg.. I ordered a 2GB Kingston U3 DataTraveler pen drive at 2:23 PM today (Dec.22). Shipped out via UPS Ground @ 3:17PM. Yes,already shipped in less than a hour... Wow,that's amazing.

Thumbs down to UPS. I ordered a new Zyxel X550 router from Newegg,and it was scheduled to arrive 1-12-2007. (Friday).

And here's the problem...
01/11/2007 1:00 P.M. A LATE TRAIN CAUSED THIS DELAY .

This is too wierd.



Update: Finally arrived @ 12:30 PM Friday 1-12-2007. Can't wait to get this set up and working. (@6PM... It's up and it's WORKING!!! I've never seen Comcast cable internet running so smooth and fast.)

Thumbs up:

Techbargains.com (the best deals on all tech)
Pricegrabber.com (finding best prices)
Newegg (good prices and fast ship)
OCZ (solid quality components)
XFX (double lifetime warranty!)
Zalman (best air cooling)
Abit (quality overclocking 4 less $ than competitors)
Iconoid (my favorite destop fun)
Download.com (best downoads and reviews)
Anydvd (best encryption crackr)

Thumbs down:

HP (worst drivers ever!)
Tigerdirect (not a single rebate return to date!)
Realtek
Ebay (4 easily getting screwed out of your money and getting neg feedback when you did nothing wrong!)
Microsoft (the evil empire)
CompUSA (4 mosty using rebates as a sale, which you may very well never get!)
RealPlayer audio (4 spying on everybody)
Hollywood actors (4 being liberal idiots!)
The government (4 sticking me up the wazoo in taxes!)
DRM (greedy billionaires want more too!)
Sony (4 being a greedy billion $ company who fully supports DRM and even supports them in their products! Evil empire #2!)

Thumbs down to Sabrent. I ordered a soundcard from them for my backup Linux PC... (I thought it had a Cmedia chip on it,which was on the approved list for Suse Linux...but no,it actually had some no-name brand-Fortemedia- in it.)
Turns out the only drivers for it are for Windows. Thankfully,I decided to give it to my Mom for her Windows XP PC..as a birthday present. I then ordered a Chaintech AV710 off Zipzoomfly.com,which is on the approved list for Suse Linux 10.. (The nice thing is the Sabrent was only $12,and the Chaintech was $28 after shipping).

Thumbs up -

NewEgg - Payed by PERSONAL Check, yet they cleared the check, processed the order, and shipped out in 2 days!

Logitech

MaxPC + PCG - Got me interested in PC's

CompUSA - Super rebates on the first video cost I purchased, ended up being 1/2 of original price

UPS - Fast reliable and on time (At least for me)

Monster Energy

Thumbs DOWN -

EA- Sure your games are fun, BUT GOD DAMN LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS. REALIZE THAT THERE ARE PROBLEMS AND FIX THEM.

Microsoft - Why do you sell such an unpolished OS for so much?

Thumbs down to M$, since Vista's just a smelly, yet pretty looking, turd that XP crapped out.
Thumbs up to EVGA, cuz even my mobo gets a lifetime warranty!

Thums up to Newegg.. I ordered a EVGA 8800GTS 320MB to replace the Sapphire X1900XT that I'm selling on Craigslist.
Ordered on Feb. 12 at 3:37 PM,shipped out via Fedex Expess Saver at 1:46 PM Feb.13. (It shipped out overnight..and I didn't even pay for rush processing. ) (Note: my new 8800GTS isn't here yet, but it should be here by Friday..) Update: wow,my new 8800GTS is already here. Can't wait to get it installed tomorrow. (I'm not exactly confidant in getting a $300 new videocard installed,so I'm having a tech frend of mine install it for me.)

Update #2: New 8800GTS is installed and working flawlessly. (Reminds me.. I love EVGA!!) Also,I already sold my X1900XT on Craigslist for $140.

Thumbs up to Chaintech. My new AV-710,which I installed on my backup Suse Linux PC...worked first try. Absolutely amazing sound. (Quite a difference from my Realtek onboard sound.)
To my amazement,it was detected instantly the minute I started up after installing it in a free PCI slot.

CompUSA's Tech Service: Thumbs Down


A friend of mine that I work had a DVD burner in her laptop go bad, the plug where the power brick plugged in was loose as well. So she brought it into CompUSA for service and paid the $65 diagnostic fee they charge to go over your machine and figure out how to fix it. They come back and tell her the power jack is on the motherboard and the whole motherboard needs to be replaced (for $400), the DVD burner would also cost her a large lump sum as well (another $400).

So shes says thank you but no thanks, takes her laptop back from them, and after she got it back it no longer booted up. She tells me the story and I tell her I'll take a look at it and see what the tards in the back room did to it.

I get my hands on it, track down a few websites where people have complained about the power plug issue and how the whole series should be recalled, and also find a page with all the hidden screw locations. So I took it apart and made an amazing discovery: the power plug wasn't attached to the motherboard, which means the CompUSA tards didn't even bother to check the computer, they just took the $65 and made a few assumptions and a couple of bogus prices.

So I tested the HDD by dropping it into a Firewire carrier, and found it was still working. While the laptop was still in pieces I broke out the soldering iron and removed the bad power plug. Found a replacement plug on fleaBay for $9 shipped. While I was at it I found a replacement DVD burner for a lot less ($88 shipped) then CompUSA's quoted price of $400.

Went to working soldering the new power plug in which was tricky because I have never done component level repairs like this to a laptop before but it turned out to be pretty easy. A quick check with a multimeter said I actually connected it correctly. Ripped the front bezel off the new DVD drive and stuck the laptop's customed curved bezel on (snaps right in). Then I looked for every minor connection in there and made sure it was mad tight before closing it up.

Plugged it in and the battery started charging, so I let it fully charge before turning it on. Everything seemed to be working when I started Popped a Memtest86 CD to boot from just to make sure the RAM was ok

So I gave it back to her fully repaired and working again and she went back to CompUSA and demanded her $65 back that they took from her and didn't even bother looking at the laptop. After raising hell they gave it back to her, they even offered her some Gift Cards to try and make it up to her but she declined because she never intended to come back to CompUSA.

Dang did she complain with the manager or the employee that "offered" to take a look at her laptop? Should have took the gift cards, no scamming is involved when you buy merchandise.

More thumbs up to Newegg. I ordered a Rosewill cable tester today,at 2:08 PM. By 4:50 PM (barely 3 hours later) it's already shipped.

Update: already arrived on March 1st. (Yes,2 days for Fedex Express Saver..)

They don't offer to do anything. She had to pay $65 to get them to look at it, and even after she did pay them, they still didn't bother to look at it.



Some people still have principles in this country. I'm glad she declined the cards and told them she would never step foot in a CompUSA again. Hell, this is probably why CompUSA had to announce they're shutting don't half their stores.....they hired too many retards.

Thumbs up for Logitech. I've had my Z5500 speakers since August 2005 (nearly 2 years..), and they're working just as good as the day I received them from Zipzoomfly. (This with lots of near full-volume runs..).

Also just got a Logitech G5 Laser mouse,and it worked perfectly the first time. Plugged it in,and it lit up and started working. I've never seen a smoother mouse.

Thumbs up:

Newegg
Tigerdirect
Geeks.com
Crucial
Woot

Thumbs up to Unicomp. I had ordered a Customizer 104 USB keyboard from them on Thursday,March 22. I had sent them a email asking about my tracking number. When I got a call from somebody at Unicomp today,they told me that they would expedite my shipping at no extra cost. (So,my new keyboard should be arriving sometime this week..).

Update: It's shipped.. Should be here (via UPS) by next Monday.

Update #2: It's here.. (Long live clicky keyboards...) I love it. The whole keyboard weighs 4.4 pounds..(yes,I said pounds). Extremely sturdy.

UP:
Newegg
eVGA
Asus
Intel

DOWN:
Alienware
Microsoft