The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I work for the Dixons group and am simply offering my advice to ANYBODY who has purchased a computer with/without an extended warranty and is having an hard time obtaining any service.

If you have had any bad service or are having a paticular problem relating to a computer orientated purchase, please post here.

I am simply offering my services as I have worked for the group for numerous years and wish to offer help any way I can.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Hey that's very kind and helpful of you! Yet another feature cf.co.uk can offer to its users!

What exactly do you do for them?

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I am a Technical Adviser at PC Servicecall. (www.pcservicecall.co.uk)

Its a subsidary of the Dixons stores group which provides customer support for computers and related peripherals purchased from the groups stores.

We service and support both under manufacturers warranty and under extended warrantys.

The latter often being subject to confusion as the customers do not know what to expect from the policy or what cover it provides.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

a very worthy offer , what exactly can you do that a call cant achieve , if you dont mind me asking :angel:

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Well, to save customers a packet on the phone call for starters!! (50p a min IIRC?)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

oooooooooops missed that :dunce: , mind you i thought hardware calls in warranty were local rate :tu:

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Good Question, which I will try to answer as best as I can.

Call centres are all well and good but they do have their short-comings. My biggest annoyance is that after you have waited anything from 15 minutes to 45 minutes (at the cost of a NATIONAL rate call) you get connected to somebody who as the best intentions although is totally "burned out" and simply fobs you off with some lame duck of a lie to simply get you off the phone.

Following the information you are given, you call back to be told "You shouldnt have done that" or "thats not procedure".

I feel I could give customers an honest "CORRECT" answer to their questions/problems and hopefully be able to explain things VERY clearly so at least when they do call me at work, they are a lot more freindly - ;)

Also in the UK, extended warranties have been given a bad reputation (for better or worse) and theres often a mis-understanding about what these policies do/do not cover, this is often both due to the sales people AND the customer not listening and signing bits of paper without reading them. I could explain this and also what the customer "CAN" do to obtain the best service, basically using the companies OWN procedures to the customers ADVANTAGE.

At least if/when they have to call, they know the facts and what to expect rather than being "let down" when their told that their Notebook is not covered for accidental damage as it has been peed on by their dog and explain the reasons why.... it happens.

Any further questions, fire away.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

and a worthy response :tu: , to be honest the first pc i bought was from pc world and i have had very good service from them :tu: , and i am also prepared to accept that some ppl dont get a good service :td: , nice to have an insider on the case all the same :tu:

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Excellent.
And welcome to the forums too :)
Enjoy your stay.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

:erm: It takes a brave man to admit that on this site :nworthy: :D

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

My main pc (which I have been using for two years now) came from pc world. :)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

it was when i was young and daft , now i am old and daft :erm: :D :D :D



same here albeit 4 years instead of 2 years , makes note to myself to upgrade soonest :D :D :D

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Word! (as they say)
...........long may the daftness last :tu: :D

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

yup :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :D :D :D :D

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Ok I volunteer to help on any store based matters seeing as I have the pleasure of working at a PC World store. I work at the 'PC Clinic', tech/customers service person. I get all the flack (and praise sometimes!) from you lot as customers. Hello to Gimpymoo, nice to see a collegue, see we're not all bad!

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I built my PC :) my monitor came from PC world though :( but it's fine :)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Nice to meet you to Strzelecki.

Allways good to see another DSG'er :D

To any of the Mods, What are the chances of having this as a sticky somewhere, just so the peeps know where we are to help them? I realise the answer is probably NO, but worth asking nontheless.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Looks as though nobody as any complaints/questions so far. Thats good.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Calm before the storm. :D

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

tbh , i think pcworld etc get painted in a bad light for the times they do **** up , very few ppl are so forthcoming in their praise :erm:

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Great to see pray tell you offer advice to the unfortunate who bought a Fujitsu Siemens computer from Comet and got a lemon of a pc which is in and out of shop.

Just recently saw the light and purchases a Acer Aspire Laptop which I am using now and it is a beautiful machine from a local little pc shop in my town which has been there donkey's years.

Lovely to see the helpful offer of advice, I know a few people who will be e-mailing you :D

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Maybe an idea but how about a section where permant posts can be put for people who would like to offer help like gimpymoo and Strezelecki. I am more than happy to help with any question that can be related to Maplin Electronics. I am the Senior Technical Sales advisor.


Any admin willing to give it a thought?

Complaint Pcworld in my area...security tried to sell mea cable then the cashier and they were both next to each other!!! I had to bite my lip ;)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

HA! Don't get me started on PC World... :mad:

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

:raises hand and looks at the floor: My name is Paul and in 1995 I bought a Packard :spit: Bell from PC World. All I can say is that it spent more time in PC World technical center than it did in my house. After 6 months of constantly transporting it to the shop for yet another fix I stripped out the components that I needed for it (bought a new sound card, modem, graphics board in an attempt to make it usable) and built my first PC with no experience and 6 months on/off PC experience.
I suppose in one way I owe a lot of my computer knowledge and experience to PC World and Packard Bell selling rubbish that year ;)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

no please come forth and tell you might get some anger and frustration out , think of this like alcoholics anonymous :D :D :D :D

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I don't know about pcworld but seeing as it is part of the dixons group then i can only assume they get commision on sales. Maplin don't get commision, only get told off mostly. Advice we give is best to our knowledge but we don't give advice in order to make money but to make the right sale for the customer. We work together by asking each other solutions to peoples problems but obviously problems can occur.

To put it basically we just serve. We don't get pressured to sell stuff to line our pockets.

I can't support my wife and future kids on my money but i'm happy in my job. So help out and come in to you local Maplin to find out what we do. And don't be afraid to haggle, worst we can do is say no (as in we price match local).

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

No I don't get commission, I work in technical/customer service, I get paid to give good quality advice and to resolve problems in the best possible way, yes the sales people do get paid commission but everyone in the service department (techs, customer service and till staff) get paif a standard hourly rate. We do hoowever, get bonuses from time to time depending on or overall customer rating, which is meant to be motivation to serve customers well.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Um I had to go to london yesterday to look at a packard bell pc that someone bought from pcworld.......

...but I can't help you with any complaints because apart from not having much memory and only 1 usb socket it was actually quite a good pc!!!

I'm going back there next week to set up a wireless network for them, if it goes wrong I'll be sure to come in and ask for help :)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

7.5/4.5/1.7 p/min IIRC, from a BT landline. 0870 national rate.

How's that for a bump?

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Just for a second i thought he was back :p:

Either way - dont buy a PC from one of these places its overpriced and pretty much guarnateed to be full of cheap components.

Look to a Hardware place like

www.scan.co.uk
www.komplett.co.uk
www.dabs.co.uk (although they are crap for returns) etc..

Where you can buy systems which for the same price will be much better.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

It's swings and roundabouts.

Yes, Pcworld's PCs are sometimes crap, but you do have the advantage that if something goes wrong, they can replace it there and then. This nornally takes 10-15 minutes

If something goes wrong with a mail order PC, you have to send it back, they will then repair or replace it (as appropriate) then send it back to you. This can take upward of a week.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

If you take it instore and you get a helpful store tech that is.

If you follow the "official" route if it's a hardware fault that's been diagnosed over the phone it's next working day, onsite repair if the part is in stock (and that day isn't fully booked).

Nationally today, bookings were for Tues/Weds no later, some areas Tues was fully booked.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I have to say that the last 2 PC's my dads purchased, (and you can guess what they are ;) ) havent had anything wrong with them whatsoever. One of the being the same make as the last and is my own. :)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Advents are pretty reliable tbf (create your recovery disks though, because we can't get them atm) - PBs do go wrong but are usually OK. Don't get an emachines though, they come with really cheap PSUs which (often) blow.

Even then, if special components are used and made exclusively for the manufacturer they're usually regular makes, little difference between the other components (CPU/HDs etc) from what you'd put in your own PC otherwise.

Only thing I can personally moan about is the prices but then using stores not etailers has overheads, wages for various departments, etc which need to be covered.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Comet sales staff are pretty reasonable - polite, don't talk down at you, and explain things in easy terms.
I've had rude unhelpful staff from PC World - the only benefit from PC World is that you can order stuff at the web price from the website, and collect from the store about an hour later

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

So, you get dud staff in any shop.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Has ANYONE been helped in this thread? :erm:

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

well I did bump it last night - but the offer still stands. :)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I think so

in general, if you buy a 'branded' PC from a 3rd party retailer, you should look to the brand owner for support.

- e.g. if you buy Hewlett Packard from Currys then you should seek support from Hewlett Packard

If you buy an 'own label' PC from a retailer, then you contact them for support.

- for example, 'Advent' is a Currys/PCWorld brand, so they should be the support contact.

My personal opinion is that the likes of Advent usually use the more compatible components, if you want to upgrade...........

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Although that is correct the sales of goods act puts warrenty and problems firmly at the door of the retailer.
My first pc was bought from Dixons I didnt have a clue and was blagged into a extended warrenty what a noob I am.Ive been to pc worold often to look at the prices and im amazed at the lack of knowledge a lot of the staff have.Some are just totally clueless.Dilli for example this week ordered a laptop drive and was amazed when the staff tried to sell in a 3.5 inch drive.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

There's not really anything wrong with the warranties to be honest - PC parts do fail even with great care (especially emachines) even outside the first year (that said, only my optical drives have actually "broken") and the warranty means that if anything does go wrong, even if it's accidental damage, you pay nothing for the repair and if an engineer comes out and finds nothing wrong it's still no charge. Plus some people (n00bs) feel they need extra support after the first year and if their PCs get clogged up and run slowly without them knowing they can get advice on that.

Plus the newer warranties include limited software advice, networking advice, etc etc - again, can be invaluable for n00bs buying say their first wireless router, getting it out of the box and thinking "oh **** what do i do next" or something. Ideally they'd know but we are talking about the general public here. Plus everyone was a n00b once.

Yes the stores may over-hype them but the small print of the service agreement does inform them what it involves and does or does not cover. Also not something I'd take out but then I know what I'm doing.

It's a n00b thing but it's not that bad. It's a value added extra and some people want it, some don't and try it and cancel it within the grace period. Everyone's different.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

good post - :LOL: at dilli and them not knowing he is only 2.5 inch ;)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Oh come on there over priced and over pressuring sold.
The price you pay for an extended warranty would easily cover any component part replacement 2 or 3 times over.
Maybe if pc world pointed there customers here instead of charging ridiculous prices for extended guaranties they may have a happier customer base.Oh I forgot about the commisions ;) lol

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I bought a motherboard form PC world 2 years ago like a muppet. It broke in 3 months and i had to go back and get a refund but they couldnt find my details on there system :S even though i have used my debit card.

Advice for anyone wanting to buy a computer:


-Buy a book on building computers for dummies,
-Buy ALL your components from the internet, Somewhere like
> Ebuyer.com, CPUCity.com, Aria.co.uk
-Build it your self!

NOTE: There is warranty on parts you buy no need to pay extra.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Did you take proof or purchase?

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Although I buy from the Internet regularly, I have had problems in the past with after sales service. When I first got an athlon, I bought the CPU from Dabs and the motherboard from Simply. The motherboard blew, and took the CPU with it. Both companies claimed it was the fault of the other, and it took a long time to get replacements.

I am not really advising people not to buy from the Internet, I could just have easily had the same problem if I had bought from two shops.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Oh well....
*Stands up*
I too bought a PC from PC World.....once :( Packard Bell circa 1995. P75 CPU and 16Mb of Ram. It lasted less than a week before the combined SoundCard/ Modem threw its first hissy fit...... within a month it was back in PC World Tech Support and over the next 3 months they had more time with it than I did.
6 months after purchase the majority of the PC was ripped out and binned and I was building my first PC with only the instructions that came with the parts to help. Not suprisingly it ran better and was more stable than the PB ;)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I bought a PC from PCWorld... Packard Bell DX100/ 250Mb HD/4Mb RAM/1Mb Video. What clinched the deal was a freefone support number direct to Packard Bell for 3 years!

I upgraded the RAM to 16Mb for about £150, but it was soon blindingly obvious that PCs were moving ahead so fast that my new acquisition would be useless in the near future. After only a few months Packard Bell dropped the freefone support number and PCWorld did not want to know, Windows 95 arrived and my machine was effectively dead in the water.

By that time PCWorld was full of old, overpriced kit so my next PC came from mail order... and lasted me 6 years until it was itself overtaken by technology.

PCWorld has had its day as far as I'm concerned... I'm not even drawn to stroll around their local store whilst I wait for my car to be serviced a few yards away.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

the biggest joke about PC world is their instore prices, espcially when they themselives will beat their own prices via their website.

Case in point

netgear wt511-t Pc world store price £60
Aria/dabs/ebuyer £27
pc world site £23

The really stupid thing is that by reserving it online i popped into the store and got it for £23, don't get me wrong its great to get it cheaper but its kinda strange that they beat their own prices, not just by a little but sometimes by lot :Yikes:

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Well first things first,packard Bell are junk. PC world is just a high street store that sells computers to the masses. The average member of the public knows very little about PC's. They want an off the shelf solution with the promise of some backup and DRG/PC World provides it. Joe public thinks a pc is just like any consumer electrical item, i.e you plug it in,switch on and it works for ever more. Oh no,not so simple. Whilst i maintain that PB's are junk,I will also agree that most computer "faults" are generated by the user and not the hardware. I have always built my own pc's from scratch. The one Im on now was self build a few years back .Its a pentium 3 500mhz with half a gig of ram a Radeon 7000 agp graphics card,a 60gig drive,a DVD RW and a CDRW plus other bits. Its still way powerfull enough for all my tasks and i dont need to upgrade. My bro bought his first family pc years back from PCW. It cost a fortune and was poor VFM. It was a PB. True it soldiered on for years til it died and then he went shopping for another one. When i ventured that he should buy a built up clone he said " I'm not having any old crap",get the mind set and lack of understanding?. The other thing about my local PCW (Stockport) is that the staff seem unable to take money off people. I go in there for the odd part cos its convenient and all i see is two legged gold everywhere,punters looking to buy,to spend cash but can they do it? no,theres hardly an assistant about and usually only one person on the tills at the front.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

My sister has just bought a new pc & has left her old one with me to see if it's worth upgrading. Trouble is, according to the WWW it doesn't exist!

It's an eMachines eTower 310, bought from PC World. It has a Trigem Cognac Rev. G mobo. According to the chipset specs. (Intel FW82801AA), it should support ATA/66 transfer rates (equivalent to udma4 I believe) & the Seagate HD specs. say it is capable of udma5.

When I run Sisoft Sandra, however, it tells me that it is only transfering at udma2. I have replaced the original (40 way) IDE cable with an 80 way cable & checked the bios, which is set to udma4.

Any ideas as to how to get the max transfer rate?

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I do agree that they are not 1st class computers but when I needed a new computer and did not have the cash to buy one I resorted to buying a PB. Still 2 years later with a few additions its fighting fit, as is the PB 12" laptop which is just over a year old.

I will build my next PC but it will have to use doner parts from the main system til i can replace them.. Fancy another AMD.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I bought my first PC from PC World about 6-7 years ago.

Being permanently pennyless I soon learned to delve inside it and fix things as required (with a few minor disasters I have to say). That was in the days of Cable & Wireless dial up !! :erm:

Soon I was into upgrading and then building my own (I've built 4 moderate spec PC's now). One day I'll convert to XP !!! (when Vista is released and the price of XP drops) :D

Now I would NEVER buy bits, let alone a PC from PC World and would never buy a ready assembled PC from say Dell, Packard Bell or god forbid those 'emachines' things (are they still going ??).

I like to know what is in my PC, where it goes and what it's for !! ;)

I'm also now generating a very small income repairing other peoples PCs .. malware etc. Although the last repair was over the phone when a young lady wanted to know how to increase the brightness of her Siemens lappie display (Fn + -->) ;)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

My one and only experience of eMachines was when a friend bought one abroad, didn't realise it had a 110V power supply, didn't tell me where she got it from, borrowed a kettle lead type power lead from me and plugged it in.

Luckily the internal fuse went before it caught fire.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Emachines 310

Checked the controllers in Device Manager? Tried to recover the PC?

---------- Post added at 17:35 ---------- Previous post was at 17:33 ----------

Very much so, they have been bought by Gateway after Trigem's demise, and are being sold in Staples / Comet as well as sometimes in DSG stores - that said, DSG seem to be concentrating more on own brand (Advent/Patriot/EiSystems) and external exclusives (Compaq/PB) than piles of junk like eMachines with time-bomb PSUs!

---------- Post added at 17:36 ---------- Previous post was at 17:35 ----------

You were lucky the PSU didn't blow, they do that for no reason so doubling the voltage should have fried teh whole PC :LOL:

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I did see that model listed, but the model in front of me is an eTower 310, which, strangely, isn't listed under the eTower range on any websites.

It does look like the one you quoted is the one I have though (the only difference being the model of hard drive).

The drivers for the IDE controllers in device manager are working corectly. They are the ones installed by Win XP during installation. Under advanced settings, the current transfer mode is shown as "Ultra DMA Mode 2".

I'm not sure what you mean by "recover the PC". When I got the machine, I formatted the hard drive, & did a clean install of WinXP.

I am wondering whether to flash the bios with the HP 307 bios, which I think gives more options to play with. It also allows you to turn off the splash screen at start up.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

That is the right model. Any differences internally would have been production-line / BoM differences but the spec should be equivalent.

UDMA mode 2 is evidently the maximum that combination, in that state, can support. AFAIK, there's no way of changing it in XP.

Recover the PC - yeah... using the disks supplied (with a Ghost image) not an XP disk. With an emachines it probably won't make much difference.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I still find it strange that it is not listed under the eTower range, as it is clearly labelled (once on the front & twice on the back) as an eTower 310. Naturally, when I wanted to find out more about it on the internet, this is what I searched for, & when it came up with no hits, I was a bit suprised!

Perhaps I have a unique machine sitting in front of me. Perhaps it's a "one-off" :D . Having said that, my sister did tell me that it was a display model they bought, as they didn't have any others in stock.

It also seems strange to use a chipset with UDMA4 capabilities, but limit it to UDMA2. Having said that, I wonder how much difference in transfer speed this will actually make in practice. I just wanted to get the most out of it before she passes it on. I have doubled the memory from 128M to 256M & it's amazing how much difference that has made.

I should have realised what you meant by "recover", as I have got the recovery disc here, but it is Windows ME based, so I won't be using it.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Well, it did blow both the PSU's internal fuse and the one in the lead. I was in work at the time. I am lucky it didn't trip the RCD protecting the mains sockets. I would have lost a lot of work that I hadn't got around to saving on my own PC.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Fair point - but if you restore with the ME / Ghost image, and it's working in UDMA4, you know it's driver-related - which is tbh my main suspicion.

It is pretty much nailed the 310 - I have no tools to check the s/n on an Emachines but there is no difference between an "etower 310" and a 310 - they're labelled differently in US/UK anyway so it will be DSG labelling not the emachines.

As far as the info on the PCSC site states (which is the same as we get!) it's an Intel 810 chipset for which drivers can be found here - unfortunately, there is no information on what behaviour the specific HW combination exhibits in XP, as it's a bundled ME machine. The chipset driver is a generic driver for all OS and for all MBs on that set, so it should work.

You could re-set the Bios defaults but I don't think it's Bios-level or hardware related.

Alternatively strip the three IDE controllers as well as the HD's drivers and optical drive in Device Manager, reboot and let it re-detect, see what that does?

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

When I tried to install the INF files from that link, I got the message "The current operating system supports the Intel chipset devices on your system. No INF update is needed".

I tried uninstalling all the IDE drivers & rebooting, but it came back just the same.

But then I found the "Intel Application Accelerator" here:- http://support.intel.com/support/chi.../CS-020801.htm

Downloading this did the trick. It now transfers at UDMA 4. :) Phew!

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I bought my Advent 1Ghz AMD Athlon from PC World 3 - 3.5 years ago and it has not let me down yet. Since then, I've bunged in a load more RAM, a PCI USB2 card, a network card and a DVD burner. It only has a 20gig HD and the rest of the spec is pretty basic but I can't complain about it's performance. I have a couple of friends who own more modern Advent machines and they seem to be pleased as punch with what they've got.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Philips chassis is the main problem, thermal dissipation is difficult due to its design which causes unrectifiable (unless moving the case) overheating problems...

Advents are good even the older builds, the newer ones like the T9306 are Serious PCs (IIRC Wayne has one) and they're normally reliable too - if you have an Advent MAKE YOUR RECOVERY MEDIA NOW as we can't get them.

Strzelecki: We were playing with the command prompt interface on the Packard Bell F11 recoveries earlier, that we actually managed to "discover" - Ctrl+C accesses it from where the usual tools, chkdsk, xcopy, reloadhs etc all work, not sure about Notepad, diskpart etc but it's almost worth knowing... same as Alt+D in the Advent ones. It's something PB didn't even tell us about either...

Yeah - if anyone wants any advice on a DSG PC please post!

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

I've had an Advent machine from Currys & it was a bog standard build, easily upgraded, and it even came with a full set of cds - a while ago, now, though ;)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Which model was it? A lot of the Advent PCs even the really old ME PCs (surprisingly, a lot of which are still under Coverplan) come with Ghost/Image based recovery CDs, only really the following come with (rebadged) OS CDs:
- Fujitsu Siemens PCs (DT/LT)
- Compaq laptops
plus a couple I've probably forgotten.
(Other recoveries are much easier to run over the phone)

A lot of the PCs are shipping with hard disk recoveries, this is not a problem unless the HD changes outside of warranty or unless you're a "tweaker". The most popular ones are the PC Angel (used in Advent, other DSG machines, also HP (all) and Compaq (DT/LT) PCs - PB use a variation on this, other than that, it's very rare to buy a PC with a genuine (or rebadged) OS CD now.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Higher end HP laptops still come with the OS cd and drivers and utility disks, toshiba laptops still have ghost images. nffc: knew about the PB hidden stuff, quite useful.
On a side note, why the hell are PC World now selling Suse 9.1 Pro for £9.97, an old version, in a store that people don't go to for linux stuff that you can download legally for free.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

What have you managed to get to work? We're still trying to work it out...

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

too long ago, sorry :)

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Not much as far as I can remeber, one of the other techs has been working with those machines for 10 years so I'll ask him. The Advent recovery situation is a pain, it seems we are one of the few stored that have some kits and we keep having to copy them for other stores.

Re: The "I bought a computer from PC World, Currys or Dixons" Thread
 

Tell me about it, it must be generating an awful lot of 28 day rules.