Dear $VENDOR,
I understand your urge to design (and continually redesign) the innards of a desktop computer in such a way as to make them a) more easily accessible than usual, b) more efficiently cooled, c) able to fit more hardware in less space or d) all of the preceeding letters.
It’s option “e” I take exception to. That would be, e) unable to have anything other than vendor-supplied parts for replacements.
What really lit my fire this afternoon was the discovery that I can’t even replace a burned-out power supply in what looks like an otherwise-standard desktop mini-tower. Oh, no, that would be too easy. Sure, it was fairly easy to get to the unit. But there isn’t a standard power supply made that will fit into this chassis. Why? Because of the extra-special slot-based retention system you came up with. Nevermind that 99.9% of desktop power supplies are perfectly capable of staying put with the four screws usually used for such a task. Oh, no, you guys had to be different. “Let’s use only one screw, and some tab/slot dealie-bobs!” Great effing idea.
Did I mention that of the parts inside your average computer, the power supply is second on the list of Most Likely Bits To Fail? (The top item is, of course, “box containing flat round hunks of metal covered in magnetic bits spinning at very high rotational speeds.” Otherwise known as a “hard drive.”)
So if you have a situation like I did today, where one of my better salesfolks’ power supplies blew a capacitor, and I find I’m unable to replace the power supply from any of my numerous available stock… what am I supposed to do with the rest of the computer? I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay through the nose for a special $VENDOR-made power supply, thank you very little.
Consider this one more nail in the coffin of my ever being able to recommend your products with anything resembling my former enthusiasm, you braindead bastards.
I guess it’s time to gut this tower for parts, eh? Let’s see… 550 MHz Pentium-III CPU, 64 MB of RAM, and a ten gigabyte hard drive. Whee. What a freakin’ waste.
Comments
2 responses to “An Open Letter To Desktop Computer Vendors”
God, I totally agree. And sometimes I think I COULD buy other things for it, but they tell me I cannot. And since I’m so stupid that my only hope is to heed their advice, I end up spending all my money on one brand name.
I can’t tell if they’re geniuses or evil. I guess it’s possible to be both.
I’ll second that.
I just had the same thing happen to me just a couple weeks ago.
Thankfully I was already suspicous of that system and had backed it up.