Most UNsatisfying HW purchase ??

[AdamRader]

My first foray into PC computing (x86 that is... was a Mac addict for many years prior) was kinda crappy at first. Bought an eMachine when they had that deal going with MSN to cut the price. Not only was the Internet service terrible for the following two years (and overpriced) but the machine itself was not what I paid for. It was sold as a 366MHz Cyrix to me and turned out to be a 266MHz chip. Of course, when I went back to Staples almost a year later and yelled at them, they proceeded to sweep me under the rug and let me go with a brand new 500MHz Celeron eMachine. (Small favors?) =)

In the end, that box is sitting in my closet collecting dust and waitingg to be turned into another router...

 

[yhlee]

powerbook g4 15"..

i've been a windows (and linux) user since i replaced my beige G3. OSX looked pretty nice and polished, and the overall consesus seemed to be that mac HW is expensive but the laptops are worth it. Well, it wasn't for me.

Processing was slow, the OS in general was slow. I should have just gone with a thinkpad + linux, and saved myself a few hundred dollars. The screen is nice, airport extreme is pretty cool, but overall a pretty unsatisfying HW purchase.

Oh and the old compaq ipaqs were the suck too.. Hit me for something like 600$ and the battery life was just over 1 hour....

-young

 

[Shagga]

This is true I promise. I bought a Cyrix 166+. Oh yes I did...

 

[Brule]

Gotta list 3, put them at 4 or so year intervals. First was a Visioner scanner back for win95. Never worked right, constant problems even with win98 upgrade, which was too bad because even today it has good picture quality in the rare instances when it works.

Second, a 1.0 MP Polaroid dig camera, back in '98 or so. While it was cheap and had low expectations, it basicly produced ink smudges. It was a quality issue, there are 1 megapixel cameras which can look decent.

Last and most recent, the hunk of extra hot wheel parts thrown together and called the Soyo K7VME, my nemesis. Annoyed does not begin to describe my feelings toward that board. Luckily an ebay sale later and I will never see it again. (the buyer seems very happy with it, maybe he'll get lucky, have it stolen, and get himself a better one with the insurance money)

 

[loafbred]

My worst was an Aopen 16X CD burner. It would barely burn consistently at 8X with some media, 2-4X with most.

 

[NewBlackDak]

Originally posted by: Brule
Gotta list 3, put them at 4 or so year intervals. First was a Visioner scanner back for win95. Never worked right, constant problems even with win98 upgrade, which was too bad because even today it has good picture quality in the rare instances when it works.

I forgot completely about a scanner!!
There was a great deal on UMAX 3400 at best buy. $30 instant rebate made it $90, and there was a $40 mail-in. Win2K had just come out, and when I tried to install there were no drivers. No problem. Go download them. You couldn't download them!! They wanted $25 for a disk with the drivers for a product I had just purchased. I'll NEVER buy a UMAX product again.

 

[tooltime]

a voo doo agp card, it was doo doo in a dell

 

[SickBeast]

36GB Raptor. What a waste.
Cyrix 166+ CPU; it was worse than the P100 I "upgraded" from in games.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

thermaltake volcanoe 9 with the coolmod LED thingys.....the LED's crapped out about 2 weeks later, but that was probably the cheapness of the MSI board they were connected to. so my light display in my case pretty much went down the drain. now the HDD activity light jus stays on constantly...even in bios. POS

infact my whole computer was unsatisfying, when i got it made be a local store i never really knew bout computers, last i had heard ws that a TNT2 was a good GFX card and that memory size ment everything. so that GF4 MX 64mb looked prettty sweet.....till i discovered it was crap at games, and that he 512mb ram i had was the slowest u could buy, and that ethe xp2000 was pretty much crap too...but then i again they give me exactly wat i asked for so cant complain at them

 

[cmdrmoocow]

DFI Lanparty NFII-ultra. RMA'ed it once already, its still shakey.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

Originally posted by: cmdrmoocow
DFI Lanparty NFII-ultra. RMA'ed it once already, its still shakey.

explain,i'd like to help.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Originally posted by: CraigRT
Anything made by Linksys.
Epox motherboard (4PEA+)
Maxtor hard drives in general... all junk.
that's all I can think of right now.

My Epox 4GEA+ is definitely one of the biggest pieces of sh!t I've ever used.
I'll also speak on behalf of my dad who has had about 5 or 6 MSI KT266 Mobos die on him. God those are a steaming pile.

 

[sharq]

I have a few.
1. Keyboard for $10 (I had needed one as I shorted my original one due to water). Generic POS, the keys started rubbing off within a month, and it was rough to the touch, got on my nerves.
2. CDROM for $20 (to replace an old slow one). Lousy thing died in 2 months, it was some random company cause my attempts to get an RMA didn't get any response.

But, on the flip side. I had bought a 19" Trinitron tube KDS monitor 4.5 years back (extremely expensive at the time I had bought it). Had numerous problems with it, currently on my 4th or 5th one from the company. The good part is KDS has an EXCELLENT warranty program called KARES. They paid for the shipping of each monitor, to and from them. They sent me a monitor first, and let me send the faulty one back at my convenience (I believe the limit was within a month). And I even got an upgrade (because I was pissed one time on the phone and was demanding my money back) and now have a 19" FD Trinitron tube monitor (wonderful monitor, hope it doesn't die on me).

 

[soulflyfan]

A generic case i bought for my last build and it's 350watt power 'supply'. I use the term supply lightly cos it went south the second day of having the computer running. took it back to the shop where the guy working there was being arsey and refusing to replace without testing it. after 15 minutes of him putting together a testbed the manger walks in and say "Oh yeah, we've been having alot of these back. just give him a new one" Fvckin idiots. Anyway, i gave that to my brother and got myself a themaltake xaser iii supertower and went back to an old generic PSu i've had for years (300watt with 2HDD, 2CDRW, 2Cathodes, 2 xview LCD strips, R9600pro, 7case fans) and i havent had a problem

 

[wetcat007]

I'm not sure I think my Western Digital 120GB JB was probabily the worst purchase ever, i have a voodoo 4 which doesnt have offical driver support which is frustrating but 3rd party stuff works good enuff.

Oh yeah a while back I got some General ddr2100 ram from mwave, that stuff made my system about as stable as windows 95

 

[CrashX]

Originally posted by: CraigRT
Anything made by Linksys.
Maxtor hard drives in general... all junk.
that's all I can think of right now.

 

[venk]

Anything made by D-Link. When setting up my wireless network, I bought a Router, two PCI Cards, and a laptop card all from D-Link. IN less then a year, two of the cards and the router have crapped out.

 

[Dubb]

asus P4S8X

Worst Mobo....ever. Would randomly reboot, or just shut off. especially under load
3 RMAs and lots of internet digging later, I discovered that there were _7_ different versions of this board, all labled rev 1.03, only one of which actually worked right. I finally got them to send me a good one when, in the RMA box, I included pics of all 7, with the differences circled, and a big "Send me this one" written underneath the working version.

asus is a bunch of crooks, and though I know they usually make good stuff, they won't be seeing my business again.

 

[ultimatebob]

That's easy... My Toshiba e740 PDA. It was unstable, poorly supported by Toshiba, and had a bad habit of losing all of my contact information as soon as I started to rely on it. I ended up dumping the thing on eBay for half of what I paid, and was happy to be rid of it!

 

[ectx]

(1) IBM mouse
(2) MS wirless optical mouse

 

[CheetahMk2]

BB ATI 9800 Non Pro. Failed TWICE on me. They sent back refubed cards to replace the new one I bought. I wish I never bought it, or bought Visiontek instead - their warranty is MUCH better, they send you a new one.

Toshiba SD-R2102 drive that came with my laptop. It is a POS. Ruins CD-RW's, and Toshiba *made* it unable to read DVD+R. It can, but refuses to if the booktype says DVD+R. Waste of money.

 

[thegimp03]

9600 xt. Overpriced, underpowered, short life. Should have bought a 9800 pro at the time. :/

 

[Kibbo]

Originally posted by: venk
Anything made by D-Link. When setting up my wireless network, I bought a Router, two PCI Cards, and a laptop card all from D-Link. IN less then a year, two of the cards and the router have crapped out.

I've had bad experiences with them too.

Wireless network linking my girlfriend's Apt and my own (she lives downstairs), D-link network set up properly, but the connection constantly crapped out. Tried 1000 different fixes and tweaks I found online, nothing worked. Bought SMC, which was cheaper, and it worked just fine.

 

[Don66]

Microsoft Unitellishiza Explorer wireless...
Biggest POS...
3X battery life what a joke:laugh: went through 3 sets of batteries in 12 days:disgust:
MS needs to rethink that mouse:evil:

 

[deathwalker]

No doubt about it....NU-082 DVD burner....highly recommended by Anandtech....but it is a piece of crap...worst optical device I have ever purchased.