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<< Previous: Vista? Still Sucks. | Next: Tips for Would-Be Mu... >>

PCs? Still Suck.
Monday, 2007 June 18 - 11:55 pm
The myth of the PC advantage.

Supposedly, one of the great advantages of PCs is that the parts are interchangeable. Pick your own CPU, graphics card, motherboard, case, power supply... it's one big happy family of parts. Parts is parts.

So when it came to replacing the old GeForce 2MX graphics card in an old Dell with a GeForce 6600, no problem, right?

Except that the Dell had a 200-watt power supply, and the 6600 needed at least a 350-watt supply. But still, no problem, right? I can just buy any off-the-shelf power supply and just stick it in there.

So after getting a power supply from Tiger Direct, I threw it into the Dell case... and discovered that the hole in the back of the case didn't line up with the power socket on the power supply. Jeebus. I had to do a much of Dremel work just to get the thing to fit in there.

And then, once the power supply was installed, its fan was pointed in the wrong direction. The air that's supposed to be used for cooling is coming right off the top of the CPU, where the air temperature is probably 150 degrees.

Interchangeable, my ass.

I talked to my PC-loving friend Tim about this, and he said, oh, Dell is an oddball. If you want your stuff to be interchangeable, you have to avoid Dell. And HP. And Gateway. You have to stick with the mainstream giants... like, say, Intrex.

Intrex.
Permalink  3 Comment   Bookmark and Share
Posted by Ken in: techwatch

Comments

Comment #1 from Phil (Guest)
2007 Jun 19 - 3:32 am : #
Heh. That's cracktastically funny. Thanks, Ken.

BTW, one of my first PCs was from Intrex when they were a four person company down the hall from my office. It was nice (for me) to have them right down the hall for when stuff went wrong or when I was just confused. Not so nice for them, though.
Comment #2 from Brett (Guest)
2007 Jun 19 - 11:19 am : #
Mac: Hello, I'm a Mac.
PC: And I'm a PC.
Mac: Just wanted see how thi...woah, PC, what's wrong with you?
PC: I've got AIDS.
Mac: AIDS? How did that happen?
PC: I was told my parts were interchangable, so I tried interchanging my frontal parts with the parts of a green monkey's rear end.
Mac: But...if your parts are interchangeable then you shouldn't have any problems. Like with Macs, all are parts are [something high techy that Macs have], so you never have to worry about that with us.
PC: Well don't I feel like a monkey's ass.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand...scene.
Comment #3 from Crouching Hamster (Guest)
2007 Jun 20 - 11:32 pm : #
Thanks for the post. I'm working with someone whom I fondly refer to as "unfrozen cavemen lawyer." He started out with AOL and a PC. I've now got him on gMail, introduced him to iTunes and, ahem, showed him some tricks on Google, and I'm working on the Mac. (Nonchalantly brought Baby Whitey into the office last week and garnered some intrigue.)

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