Question Regarding Warrenties and troubleshooting

[funkymojo44]

Ive pretty much set my heart on building my own pc, but have one question which will put me completely at ease;

When buying a pc from the usual companies like Dell etc. you get the usual warrenty period of something like 3 years collect and return or return to base, maybe even on-site services as well.

This is great considering you dont have to worry about a componant not working - just get them to fix it.

By building my own pc i take it i could fall back on the manufacturers warrenty, in which case is something fails i can send it back to the retailer i bought it off and get a replacement, depending on each retailers policy of course.

Is it safe enough to rely on the manufactureres warrenty?

Cheers

[bailey]

yes, it is very safe to do that, I have been doing that for many years and have yet to have any problems at all.
in fact, I have never had any part fail while it was under warranty, or out.
I have had a router fail, but it was not the fault of anyone.
and I have never had any computer part fail as yet, systems I have built in the last 5 years are still running great, and some that are about 10 yrs old are still running.

[funkymojo44]

Thanks for your reply, it is comforting to know that by taking the plunge and building my first pc i might save a few bob, get the exact set up i need and just as importantly get satisfaction out of doing it.

[Panama Red]

Actually, warranty comparison is one of the reasons my customers chose custom builds from me over Dell or other prebuilds. Take a close look at the current Dell warranty policy. It's now 90 days for standard units. Sometimes they offer a "free" 1 year on all components but most often you pay extra for the 1 year and 3 year warranties. The 3 year is something like $140! The key components from quality manufacturers will typically have the following warranties.

mobo - 3 yrs
cpu - 3
ram - lifetime
vid card - 1-2
hard drive - 3-5
case & power supply (Antec) - 3 others 1-2
cd drives/burners - 1
lcd monitors - 3
keyboard & mouse combos - 1-3

If warranty is a consideration (and I think it should be), the products with longer warranties will usually cost a little more but they're worth it to buy the best.

[doctorgonzo]

Originally Posted by funkymojo44 Is it safe enough to rely on the manufactureres warrenty?

Provided that you choose quality components from quality manufacturers, yes. The only difference is that you will have to do all the legwork yourself, like contacting their customer services, starting an RMA request, etc.

[funkymojo44]

Thanks for the feedback.

The componants ive earmarked so far include products from Asus, AMD, Seagate, Crucial and LG. Ive had no problems with any of the products from these companies before and ive been careful to assess each componant individually based on reviews and comments on various sites.

My set up will hopefully look something like this;

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (939)

Asus A8N-E Motherboard

1GB Ram (2x512 of crucial or corsair, havn't decided yet)

160GB HDD (thought about the samsung spinpoint model which got great reviews, but i can settle for a seagate model just as well)

Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO 256MB GFX Card

Thats the basis for the system anyway, still researching the stuff i need like PSU etc.

[doctorgonzo]

Those are all quality components. I would go with a Seagate drive as opposed to Samsung. Seagates have 5-year warranties, and the longer a manufacturer will provide a warranty, the better the product generally is.

[glc]

Samsung went to a 5 year warranty too - but I still don't trust them.