An unlucky customer

[Xavien]

Hi all

Just thought i would share my sad tale with you. Ive been a pc user now for over 10 years and use to use a local company for all my computer needs. Unfortuantely they went bust due to the recession so ive been forced to look else where. After looking at Dells alienware (im not a great fan of dell due to past experiences) i found pcspecialist.

After comparing the two companies i was pleased that i could get an equivilent for quite a bit cheaper with pcspecialist.

The system came to over £3500 which included a rather nice hannspree 28" 1080p tv\monitor of which im very pleased with.

My new system is as follows:

COOLERMASTER COSMOS 1000 SILVER SILENT CASE
Intel® Core™i7 Processor Extreme Edition i7-980X (3.33GHz) 6.4GTs/12MB Cache
ASUS® RAMPAGE III EXTREME: 3-Way SLI & CrossFireX, SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
12GB CORSAIR XMS3 TRI-DDR3 1600MHz (6 X 2GB)
2GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5970 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
160GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD (34nm / upto 250MB/sR | 100MB/sW)***SPECIAL***
300GB WD VELOCIRAPTOR® SATA 16MB CACHE (10,000rpm)
300GB WD VELOCIRAPTOR® SATA 16MB CACHE (10,000rpm)
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
10x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
CORSAIR 850W PSU (TX850) 80+ ULTRA QUIET
COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER)
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
MICROSOFT SECURITY ESSENTIALS - Free Basic Protection
28" HANNSPREE LCD TV/MONITOR, FULL HD 1080p/HDMI/VGA/DVB-T
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, Lifetime Tech Support)

As you can see the system is no snail and ive been looking forward to its arrival ever since. It arrived around 8 days after everything was approved and was dispatched on the 23rd June, to my dismay though it arrived with the casing split and broken on two cornors. Owing to the fact i was bothered something inside may have suffered i put in for a RMA which was collected on 29th June.

I understand that damages can happen in the post so i just put it down to one of those things. I received my pc back yesterday 9th July having waited another 8 working days. The pc was not damaged and so i started setting it up.

However after the first reboot the pc came up with a message saying "detecting drives - none detected. That to me was the first warning sign. Then it would hang going into windows come up with a blue screen then reboot. After booting the second time it then would go into windows startup repair which then scanned the system but couldnt repair the fault.

The reality of it is that ive just filled out another RMA, im already a month into my 12 month credit agreement and i still havent got a working pc. Infact its spent more time on the road and at pcspecialist then it has with myself. As a result this has made me a very unhappy customer.

Im not sure that i would use pcspecialist again as at least by using a local company i dont have to wait nearly two weeks inbetween getting my pc back In general ive been happy with their customer service but considering my pc has already spent over 800 miles going back and forth on the road i dont think it would be unreasonable to request a whole brand new pc setup considering the amount of money im paying for it.

Well sorry to bore you all with my sad tale, i hope your having more luck then i am.

 

[Maestro]

Hello,

Sorry to hear about the problems you are having.

The point you mention about 'detecting drives - none detected' is normal. You have SATA drives and this info is telling you that no IDE drives are detected. Quite normal.

I would however, given that it is the weekend, conduct a quick re-install of the os before submitting the return request. It is quite possible that a re-install will correct any issues with the BSOD. These can be caused by both hardware and software/driver issues. It shouldn't have happened but it may save a lot of time if the re-install works. The pc cannot be collected until monday so there is nothing lost re-installing between now and then.

Without knowing the details of the BSOD I cannot give you any further advice or likely cause of the problems.

I can however assure you that if the re-instal does not work and the pc does have to come back then we will ensure your pc gets looked at as quickly as possible and any and all issues corrected.

 

[Xavien]

I would have tried to reinstall from the disc provided but considering i have a 3 year warranty i dont want to try anything that could be considered a breech of this, the BSOD is only on the screen for the narrowest of times and its difficult to see what it says. The only bit i got to read was where it said if you continue to see this please contact your manufacturer. The test gave me a 0x0 error code when trying to repair to all the tests it tried.

Its almost like when it started to reboot it was trying to read from another disc, maybe the cdrom or a network or something like that rather then the hard drive itself.

 

[Maestro]

Hello,

I can assure you that re-installing the OS does not and never will breach any terms of your warranty. We let customers add their own hardware, so are unlikely to void a warranty if a customer re-installs the os.

 

[Xavien]

Ok maybe i will give that a try then, i can always cancel my RMA if it works, one question though how do i get it to boot from the cdrom so i can try a reinstall?

 

[Maestro]

Just start tapping the f8 key when you first turn the pc on. This will bring up the boot device list. Select the cd/dvd drive from the list and press the enter key. Make sure the os disc is in the drive first though.

 

[Xavien]

Ok thank you Maestro, i guess it cant harm to try it, thanks for your help.

 

[Gorman]

Unlucky indeed. Damage in transit and shipping times are the bain of all distance sellers.

Please do let us know what happens after a re-install.

ps. moving thread to appropriate section.

 

[WhatCanIKeep?]

Hello Xavien,

If you are unsure you can also check the "PC Specialist Welcome Booklet" on page 12 ~ 15 which has a step by step instructions on how to re-install your Windows.

If you have any problems and would like to speak to us then please click on this link for further information.

Hope all gets sorted for you soon

 

[Xavien]

Well after hours and hours of installing (Win 7 actually only took 15 mins to install) i think i have it working correctly. Thanks to the admin and mods, i will cancel my RMA, unfortuantely you cant actually cancel it directly so i will have to send a message from my account. Hope it gets to you first.

Edit: webroot worked well on my xp system but seemed to almost stop my new one completely. I installed kaspersky instead and it rocks!

 

[Maestro]

THATS GREAT NEWS XAVIEN.
I will cancel your rma request on monday morning if all is still well by then. Stick with Kaspersky.

 

[PaulH]

Also if you want to turn the notification for no drives found you can nip into the BIOS (tap DELETE on startup) then go to the ADVANCED menu, then under on board devices, disable the Marvell 9123 cotroller and make sure LAN BOOT is disabled

 

[Xavien]

Ah great thanks Maestro and also thanks PaulH as well i would like to turn it off hehe i will give that a try on my next reboot thanks

 

[Xavien]

I had a look under the advanced menu but i dont have a board devices option, i had a look under all the options there but it wasnt helpful. If anyone knows where the option is let me know, i have a asus rampage 3 motherboard. Thanks

 

[PaulH]

I got that info from the RIII motherboard manual - In the tabs at the top, the advanced menu should have listings for : CPU configuration, Chipset, On Board devices configuration - Im 100% sure its there

 

[Xavien]

Ive read that its under onboard devices config, and i need to turn off an option called jmicron 36x ata controller, but i dont have it i also dont have the ones youve said either, infact my devices list is quite short, all well looks like i will just have to get use to it

 

[Gorman]

Its an easy fix, im sure Paul will post a quick how to on here.

Its just one of those messages we all love. "no any drive found" and "No keyboard found, please press any key".

 

[PaulH]

Xavien, can you PM me your order number and a time when you will be near the PC so i can ring you?, there is no reason at all why those options arent there, they must be there somewhere.

 

[PaulH]

The screen your looking for looks like this (taken from the manual)

 

[Xavien]

Hi paul i sent you the pm hopefully the options ive put down in the advanced menu will help, also think it might have something to do with that jmicron controller, if only i could find it