Originally posted by: colincsl
About "sometimes the lowest price isn't the best deal," there is more than just price that you have to account for. I would rather buy a product, even if it's $10 more, from a well know, good company than some sleazy one that could be more laid back and not help you if things go wrong.
That is true. Go to resellerratings.com and read some feedback on companies that don't rate high. True horror stories of getting ripped off.
This weekend I was going through some old hardware (getting rid of stuff, gonna move) and found a working socket 7 setup. It had a Pentium MMX 233MHz and the motherboard was actually a "super 7" board that autodetected CPUs. I had another CPU marked as Pentium MMX 200MHz on the bottom. The printing looked suspect (different font, not as crisp printing) and indeed the CPU was a Pentium MMX 166MHz, not 200MHz as it was "re"marked. Years too late to track down the vendor, but I can bet ya that it came from a computer show or some shady reseller.
Originally posted by: dsj
Is monarchcomputers a good store? It says that it's supposed to test my combo. Will they really do that? Will it open the processor's box and throw it away? I need the serial number and mabe other contents of the box for amd's RMA. And will they send me a refurbished part because they will open the box to test the setup?
As I understand it, they will open up brand new boxes, test your setup, and mail it to you assembled (CPU, HSF installed) and with all original packaging and accessories. Some people have had concerns and have requested they NOT test the setup, and indeed have received new/sealed packages.
Originally posted by: colincsl
Now that I look, I don't see anywhere that it says they do the whole X point inspection on combos. I don't know, that seems odd.
Supposedly they install the CPU and HSF properly, test it to make sure it isn't DOA and update to newest official BIOS. This is mentioned on the product selection page where you have the drop down menus for different CPUs, motherboards, etc.