Most UNsatisfying HW purchase ??

[MangoTBG]

Optorite DVD+/-RW.....It just flat out sucks.


Eventually replaced with a NEC 2510A for the same price!

 

[DarkKnight]

I once bought a 56k winmodem from Best Buy for 4.99, I didnt know that it would bring my entire system to a crawl on my old P166. Had to switch back to my 28.8 modem. I never bought another winmodem again

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Mushkin Black 3200DDR, 50% more expensive *and it was on sale from BB at that!* than what I use now and didn't overclock worth a darn. May be a tie with one version of Lite-On 16x DVD player I've used. It was loud, took too long to read discs, and didn't play well with my Ricoh DVD burner on the same cable.

 

[Cawchy87]

dell 17 inch crt monitor rma'd 4 times and this one is dieing on me (flickers on and off). They have sent me a trinitron, veiwsonic flatscreen ad a bubble and none work! F dell

 

[Tab]

Antec Lanboy (The case, not the powersupply)
ThermalTake HSF

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Creative Labs Digital VCR card. There wasn't a good thing about that card.

 

[klah]

Gainward Ti4200.

I bought one while THIS was happening. They sent me 3 cards with the same problem. I finally gave up and bought another brand. F U Gainward!

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: PhoenixOrion
My very first build when I didn't know much about power supplies. Bought the cheapest power supply I saw and it crapped out on me.

I remember that I had to do a fairly expensive troubleshooting not knowing what was wrong with the system.

Lol, same here. As an added bonus it came with an equally cheap case.

 

[Avalon]

My Lian Li PC-65 all Aluminum case. It was fully modded. We're talking a case window, 120mm drilled fan exhaust at the top, red cold cathodes, LEDs, fan controller, memory card reader, red fire fan grills. It was beautiful. Got it from a friend for $95. It used to be a display case in a shop he knew.

I Put my system you see below in the rig, and everything is working fine for a week...sort of. I'm having a hard time getting the computer to boot. I hit the power button, and no go. So, I spend all this time double checking to make sure I've got my power cables plugged in correctly and my power jumpers, and everything is fine. Turns out the only way for me to turn the damn thing on is that I need to reseat my ATX power cable and THEN hit the power button every freaking time I want the computer on. So, I'm thinking, "Great! My PSU or my motherboard must be crapping out on me. This is wonderful."

I couldn't understand how my PSU would just suddenly go bad, so I thought perhaps, somehow, my motherboard may have shorted, although I couldn't understand how for the life of me. Well, the system eventually stopped booting. I RMA'd my poor mobo, and got it back in a week and a half. I put my system back in the case, made sure the motherboard was properly mounted to the case's mounting screws, and made sure everything was properly connected. I push the power button, and no boot. So, I open the case back up, and reseat my ATX power cable. Suddenly, the system turns on (scared the crap out of me), and I immediately smell this disgusting burning smell. I quickly ganged the ATX cable out. Sure enough, a chip on my mobo melted. Great. Well, by now, I'm thinking that my PSU must have somehow just gone bad, and is why my board fried. So, I RMA'd both my PSU and mobo. I receive my new pieces in a week and a half.

So, I put everything into the case, and push the power button. Nothing. Out of frustration, I tore everything out of the stupid case and put it all back into my old generic steel case...and the system works. I was so incredibly pissed. I didn't think the case, of all things, would be the reason my system was f!cking up.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Drop a SCSI card into that A7V333-RAID. You won't get more than 50MB/sec through the PCI bus unless you disable the USB 2.0 controller. Even then it'll max at 72MB/sec, compared to over 120MB/sec on nForce/nForce2. THAT is just my FIRST gripe with the A7V333-R. I'd list more but I have to go to work now

Try using the PCI latency patch. The southbridge has some latency issues that the patch partially fixed.

 

[Boogak]

Diamond Monster Sound MX 200. This was the best 3d soundcard before the Aureal based cards became popular. I bought it for $120 and while it sounded good, Diamond screwed me over with drivers. They only had Win9x drivers, none for Win2K or even WinME. Lasted me a few months before I upgraded to a SB Live! I'll never buy a Diamond product ever again...

 

[WobbleWobble]

My was a CTX PR960-FL 19" flat CRT monitor. I tought it'd be a good buy because it was quite a bit cheaper than a Sony and used a Trinitron tube. Nope, the picture was not sharp at all. It died on me a couple times as well. It spent more time being serviced and shipped (from Canada to CTX USA) than in my hands. After the warranty ran out I just tossed it. Biggest lemon I ever bought.

 

[SneakyStuff]

I got a Vantec "Stealth" 120mm fan, what a ripoff, it was the loudest thing in my entire case, and the motor noise was rediculous, my friends was the same way. I know i'll never buy anything from them again.

 

[Raspewtin]

Pc Power and Cooling 'Silencer' PSU. That was easily louder than the much cheaper antec that I use now.

 

[Dennis Travis]

mechBgon

Glad to see I was not the only one that got burned with the Phillips Omniwriter! Mine died and lived a very short life. For the $$$ I felt very ripped off.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

Originally posted by: MangoTBG
Optorite DVD+/-RW.....It just flat out sucks.


Eventually replaced with a NEC 2510A for the same price!

What's wrong with optorite?
My experience with DD0401 with latest 150E firmware update is rockin.

 

[Arsynic]

I bought a Speeze Skivestream HSF from New Egg for $8. Even with AS Ceramique on two different applications, my idle temps always stayed in the high 50's.

 

[Jeff7]

I had two Abit KT7 motherboards awhile back, bought from separate vendors, which both had defective IDE controllers, costing me almost 700MB of data lost to corruption. When I got the replacements back from Abit, they worked just fine.
That sucked, but the boards were good once they worked.

Maybe my first voyage into the realm of AGP was one of the worst. Don't laugh either - it was a Trident 9750 4MB card. It wasn't even made Direct3d compliant until a few years after its release. I wound up using a Matrox m3d card for 3d apps, until I got a better videocard.

 

[Oyeve]

My worse PC related purchase was those really horrible Zalman 5.1 headphones. Horrendous and a waste of money. Thankfully they were fairly cheap (under $50). Bought a pair of Sony MDR-V700DJ and put the zalmans out of its misery. (I hooked them up to my 700watt amp and turned the volume to 10, ahhh, the smell of burned plastic in the morning).


Oh! I almost forgot! My ultra worse purchase was a Geforce MX 440. My God! How could they have even made that card? Thankfully I took it back to the store and exchanged it for a Geforce 3 TI 200 for the same price and even got a free stick of 128 pc133 ram as part of some promo! Caveat Emptor (Sic?)

 

[nick1985]

an MSI motherboard. well, two actually. never again.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: SneakyStuff
I got a Vantec "Stealth" 120mm fan, what a ripoff, it was the loudest thing in my entire case, and the motor noise was rediculous, my friends was the same way. I know i'll never buy anything from them again.

I have 3 80MM Stealths in my computer, and the furance in the basement at night is more audible than the PC running. vert quiet.

 

[ss284]

Originally posted by: nick1985
an MSI motherboard. well, two actually. never again.

Quoted for truth.

Also, anything made by Compaq. Packard Bell is OOB, which they should be.


-Steve

 

[Arsynic]

I bought an Emachines for $70 bucks (sold my soul to CompuSuck for 3 years). It was a Celeron 600 with 32MB of RAM, a 10GB HDD, and Windows ME. I ended up spending $500+ a year later to upgrade that POS to 256MB RAM, WinXP Home and an 80GB HDD. Then a few weeks later the CD ROM drive obliterates a CD and self destructs. I'm talking about dust-sized particles of a CD... I'm surprised my brother didn't get cut badly by the explosion.

Looking back on that, I could have built a better rig with that cash.

 

[NokiaDude]

Well, first off was my ATI Radoen 7500. I thought it supported DX8 but after a month of using it, I found out it was only a DX7 card. The most important feature, the TV-out, was broken. It wasn't that much of an improvement from a SiS315 video card. The next unsatifying purchase was my case, the Enlight EN-7230 Case. Yeah, it was cool that it didn't need screws for the covers, but you have to remove the front bezel to remove the covers!!! Also, it's kinda small now and there aren't any mounts for a fan to cool my HD's!!

 

[EngenZerO]

hmmm

TDK 24x CDRW, biggest POS I have ever.... ever bought