Comments on: Not So Totally Awesome Computers

By: Joshua Steimle

Joshua Steimle — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 06:05:08 +0000

Well, until I have a bad experience with a Dell I’ll stick with them. I don’t care much about where something is manufactured, I care about whether it works, and my experience is that Dells work and TAC computers don’t. Maybe it’s an anomaly, but I’ll stick with what works for me.

At least we agree on PC Laptops. I got ripped off by those guys too. And the funniest part is that they always advertise how if your Dell breaks down it will have to go to “Chumbawumba” to get fixed, but that’s exactly what happened with my PC Laptops laptop! It broke and they told me they had to send it overseas and that it would take two months to get back! Seriously, no joke. Well, it is a joke, or at least they are.

By: DS

DS — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:07:03 +0000

Yes, I did read the original post. It says,
“Then I took it home and installed Windows 2000 on it. Windows 2000 is a pretty common desktop OS, right? I mean, before XP came along. Well, I immediately had problems. The computer would basically just turn itself off randomly, and you couldn’t reboot it unless you actually turned off the switch on the power supply. So I called TAC and asked them about the problems. Their response was “We only support Windows 98.” I was dumbfounded. Windows 98 was already a bit old, and Windows 2000 was much more common.”

What I am saying is this.. Had you done this to one of my machines, Dells, HP’s, or anyone else, you would have gotten the same response. If you look on the front of one of your Dells.. there is a sticker that says, “Designed for Windows XX”. XX being 98, ME, XP, or other… By upgrading that OS to 2000 which contrary to your statement, is NOT common, and was a collage of ME and XP features which really resulted in a disaster. By altering the OS, you would nix any tech support from any manufacturer. I would only ask you to be fair here…

For example, in my garage sits a Jaguar S-type R. It packs 400 horses under the hood, but I find the exhaust a little too tame for how powerful it is. I wanted to have it fitted with an aftermarket exhaust solution that would unleash a little more HP and let this car roar like I think it should. However, the shop I took it to informed me that altering the car would void the warranty. As a businessman, I’m sure you can see this must be.

I wish I could upload pix to your site. I would show you pictures of the Dell Dimension 2400 I am working on right now, and of how there isn’t a name brand part in it, and it is plastered inside with stickers that read “made in China”. SuperDell built machines made by Americans right here in Utah County with major name brand high quality high performance parts. That you had bad experience with them is unfortunate. However, the powersupply incident could happen to any manufacturer. The fact that you got a defective one is just a matter of odds. The fact that Totally Awesome sold it to you was unfortunate as well. I would have replaced the $10 part here at my business, so I can validate that point.

I’m not at all disagreeing with his poor business habits, but I have to stand up and say that ragging on his hardware and putting the Walmart of computers on the pedistal is going too far.

I’m happy for the guy that has so much good fortune with 20 Dells. However, I work on 30 to 40 of them a week, which is double the number of Compaqs, Sonys, HPs, and Toshibas. I see a Totally Awesome computer maybe two or three times a month. Maybe that’s because they go to PC Laptops where the lifetime warranty is “honored” by charging you double for parts, and no labor, but who knows.

One of these days, wander down to PC Club there in Orem, and see the number of Dells stacked up along the shelves and walls waiting to be worked on.

I guess my point is, there are some good honest computer stores here on the Wasatch front. I wouldn’t sell them out for a few Chinese built economy machines over a bad experience with Dell Schanzee. No one can stand the guy, but he did build quality machines, as do other local computer stores all over the county.

By: Joshua Steimle

Joshua Steimle — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:45:28 +0000

DS - sounds like you didn’t read the original post. Of course dust causes problems, but to a 3-month old computer that is sitting in the same place where other computers have sat for years with no problems?

Maybe you have a different definition of quality than I do. 20 Dells with one minor hardware problem vs. three TAC computers with lots of problems leads me to believe that either TAC used low quality stuff or didn’t put it together the right way. If you bought three computers from one place and had tons of problems and bought 20 somewhere else and had virtually no problems where would you buy your next computer from?

Regarding TAC not supporting me after I upgraded my OS, sure, maybe Dell wouldn’t have either, but part of the point is that I have never found out because I’ve never had any problems upgrading the OS on my Dells.

By: DS

DS — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 20:25:40 +0000

Wow.. So many misconceptions and misunderstandings..

As a competitor to Totally Awesome Computers, we actually did and still do get a lot of his machines in for repair. I have two on my work bench as I write…

A couple of things from a 3rd perspective. As for the owner of this site and original poster… No… Even your worshipped Dell would not support you if you changed the OS on their machine. Let’s try an experiment, shall we? (Since you seem to have enough time on your hands to go TAC bashing…) Let’s have you take one of your Dell machines running Windows 2000, and load the nightmare called Vista on it. When it crashes and burns, which it most definately will, go ahead and call Dell, read them the ID number on the case, and explain in an honest fashion what you have done. Please be sure to post their response here so I can be entertained at your expense.

As for the hardware quality of TAC, I have worked on many of his machines, and found them to be constructed of quality name brand components. This is so much more than can be said of Dell, whom makes MOST of the machines I repair every day. They use outsourced parts from third world countries that you can pick up for pennies on the dollar on the internet. TAC could have purchased these parts as well, and lowered the price of his machine considerably. The person whom complained about the hard drives is especially entertaining… There are only three major hard drive manufacturers in the world. Seagate, Western Digital, and Hitatchi. All others are sister companies or subsideries of these three. Every computer manufacturer uses one of these three companies. Even Dell… Usually when hardware fails on a consistant basis over and over again, it is user error or the environment of the pc.

Yes, dust kills computers, as was mentioned earlier. Dust clogs CPU heatsinks, Powersupply fans, and other vital cooling devices on the motherboard. It is not uncommon to replace power supplies due to dust. In fact, it is our number 1 repair. We order five times the power supplies to any other pc part in our catalogs. Guess what… Dell is the number one brand we replace the power supplies in…. Go figure… In any case, heat is the number one enemy of any electronic component… even light bulbs. Heat will drastically reduce the life expectancy of your computer.

As for the 6 month old hardware comment… In order to purchase the most up to date hardware and install it in a machine, you must have a buyer whom is willing to spend the money on the latest fashion. If your computer costs $599, you aren’t going to get a new quad-core with two gigs of ram and an nvidia 8800GTX. In order to keep the price of the computer the same for more than a few weeks, you have to use the same hardware more than a few weeks. Being 6 months outdated was a lame comment to make. Otherwise, the price of a computer would go up and down like the price of gas. But then, there are some out there that think the Dell $399 special is the way to go, hmmm I wonder how old the hardware is in one of those suckers… Let’s see… I’ll pull up the Dell website and see… Wow! What a deal! For $349.. Dell will sell you a 2 year old AMD Sempron!

My point is… get the facts straight and compare oranges to oranges. I don’t agree with the way SuperDell chose to run his company, but the things being whined about here happen to EVERY company, and 90% of the time, the guy in the mirror caused and could have prevented the problem.

By: Don Anroldi

Don Anroldi — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:22:30 +0000

I hope it’s not too late to chime in on this. Dell, you will be missed! Even those who said bad things about you will now have to find someone new to hate.
You helped me, I run a computer company in Green Bay, and you gave me 1st rate advice. You gave me straight up information and you helped me copy what you were doing there, minus the crazy commercials. We are growing and becoming very successful in the local area. We don’t do exactly like you did, but we do offer the “Life time Service Warranty” on our high end computers, and we hold to our word!. God bless you Dell, you will be missed.
For those who had bad things to say, simply this, you try to do what Dell accomplished is his otherwise short time. He believed in his product, and he backed it with his Name and his Word. Every large company has it’s share of dumb employee’s that’s a given. Dell tried to reward the good and weed out the bad. HMMM, normal business practice? Better than some. Some big computer builders want you to think they are “All American”, but their computers and support are all overseas. No money back into the local economy. Support your LOCAL businesses and build AMERICAN.

AFA Don

By: Mr. Reality

Mr. Reality — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 03:35:04 +0000

Without taking sides to who’s right and who’s wrong, I do have to point something out. As a computer builder and business owner for years, an electroinic tech that has worked for NASA and others, it is physically and mechanically impossible to build a device, like a computer, that won’t eventually have problems. One of the hardest things about building systems and taking responsibility for them is 98% of the time the problem is user related. It’s always some $%#$ software problem. Very rarely is it the mechanics of the machine. Keep in mind, your dealing with a device that has millions of things going on at any given moment, and the fact that they sustain and work as well and as efficient as they do should be praised!! Computers are a very fickle and funny thing. You might have 10 that work perfectly for 5 years and then 2 or 3 with constant issues. TAC put together systems with top of the line parts offered in the computer world. Those vendors too have failure rates on their individual parts, just as Dell Computer systems do. I can promise you, I fixed more Compaq, Dell’s, HP”s, E Machines, etc.. than I ever did my own. And I can also tell you for sure, the parts they used WERE NOT the quality you would find in a TAC macine. Regardless of the failure or why, once you put your name on that box, you take ownership of every issue it ever produces. Even though it’s something you didn’t cause, the customer will expect you to fix it and blame your quality for it regardless. Its’ your machine, why isn’t it working? You’ll always hear of bad experiences buying computers from TAC, but you’ll hear even more if you read the posts, of people being extremely displeased with the other Big companies out there. What people forget to realize is there are thousands of people very pleased with the systems they bought from TAC, and still are. I’m here to tell you, I worked my butt off trying to benchmark my systems at the levels of TAC computers, and it was impossible! They had some very talented techs working for their company. When you get written up in major magazines for having the fastest benchmark times ever seen for a certain configuration or CPU type by a local company, THAT is impressive. Ok, so SD gets a llittle defensive and sometimes over the top at times, but it’s those same antics that drove you to a store and got you a TAC computer. It’s because he is so interesting, that people, even after his company is gone, still talk about him. Whatever he did, he’s still winning, because we are all here talking about ihim. He ran 9 stores, did extremely well, and should also be complimented. I challenge anyone reading this to do what he did and do it better….

Note: I don’t personally know Superdell, have never worked for the company, and am only writing this to help people understand the trials and tribulations of building and backing computer sysytems. Thanks for listening!!

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:57:11 +0000

I was wondering how those who had purchased TAC computers and have had problems now and needed to take them into PC Labtops for repair been treated. I called recently and they told me minimium of a week for a repair or you can pay 79.00 to jump to the front of the line. What have your experiences been like?
I purchased my computer for TAC in Sandy in Febuary 06.

By: Joshua Steimle

Joshua Steimle — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:37:57 +0000

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=412322

Watch the video or else you’re really missing out. The best part is “If I was a really bad guy do you think any of these news reporters would still be alive? Ask yourself that question. You know you all have the ability to repent because of the grace of God, but you are still alive to do it, because of the grace of Super Dell.”

Man, you can’t make this kind of stuff up.

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:02:27 +0000

Hey SuperDell why don’t you go get a job from Dan “the laptop man” he rode your shirt tails for awhile, maybe he can return the favor. Stopped blaming your problems on the media and everybody else, you made your bed now sleep in it. Whenever you stupid @$$ commercials came on TV I would either turn the channel or get up and walk out, you are an IDIOT. Finally, how dare you use GOD in any of your comments, you are so far removed from spirituality that you don’t have the right to use GOD for anything. Grow up!!!

By: Dennis

Dennis — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:27:37 +0000

There’s a few cry-babies out there! TAC is not perfect (but probably more than the cry-babies), but it is a sad thing when any business goes out. In your rebukes, don’t forget the individuals and families affected by losing work. Next time it may be your job. Then, perhaps you’ll wipe the smug grins off of your faces.

I have dealt with TOC twice. In both cases the service was excellent. On one occassion I flew in from California with my (TOC Purchased) tower, which had a bad video card. I had only two hours for it to be repaired. They moved it to the front of the line (no extra charge), made the repair, removed viruses, etc, and handed it back to me in time for me to be on my way back to California. You guessed it—no charge, and a kind comment and smile.

Gosh it must feel good to be perfect, but then TOC wouldn’t know. They just tried their best to give their best. Perhaps they came up short a time or two, but I think they suceeded.