I think what amazes me the most about this is the fact so many address tags are taken.

All your support are belong to us !

What sends me crazy is the fact that they buy the product and then seem to believe that as an IT professional I am duty bound to help them out. Not only do they impress upon me that for some reason I am going to help support their product that was bought from another company, I should also be thankful they brought me the work at all since I’m such an unreasonably expensive service. Do you see the full stop, I put that there to make you think about the last line. So they buy an under priced product from a company that does not support their own customers then deem it necessary to belittle my position and the business for whom I work because they believe I am not worth the modest labour charge. Is my position as an experience computer technician and passionate geek not worth a measly thirty dollars when it comes to teaching you how to open your email ?

Let’s put this into some kind of perspective.

Dell for instance, sells laptop and pc’s at prices no sane technical computer store can match. I’m not going to belittle the quality of the Dell product since  I have in fact owned two dell systems and been very happy with both however I will happily belittle their service.

When you order a Dell you are for the most part your own sales person. While you browse their website you are in effect saving them millions of dollars that they would otherwise have to spend on geeks with wich to assist you in your computer purchase be it laptop or desktop. There is of course customer support for sales, if your willing to wait half an hour to get someone who can speak english. This person is unfortunately not trained in any particular information processing field. It’s likely he is not trained in computers at all. This hard to understand person is what you might call a professional telemarketer. His job isn’t to know about the products he is selling. His job is to sound like he knows about the product he is selling. He will sell you anything, he will do anything to sell it to you and at the end of the day if you are not happy with the purchase the chances of you interacting with the same person again are negligible so he doesn’t care.

Your second step after going through the sales process is to wait for your system to be built and shipped. I do literally mean ship, as in the slow boat from Singapore. Any geek that is worth his salt knows the value of the impulse buy. So while your waiting 10 Business day’s (a good example of ten business day’s is my friends very expensive $7,499 laptop that took 10 weeks for the wrong unit to arrive.)

So when your unit comes it’s pre set up with all that lovely software you don’t want. You could be forgiven for thinking that sales guy might have put that on there for you but no. This stuff is put on your computer so that the big company can make money off the companies that give them this software to fool you into buying it. What a mouth full of purely evil marketing. So while you spend the first week of you newly owned machine trying to get all the trash you didn’t want that they did put on off, you realise there’s all the stuff you did want that’s not on there.

Ring Mumbai for your technical assistance, spend four hours not understanding a single word then grab the local telephone directory. Insert hapless local service geek here.

So in comparison we could follow the process of buying from a local perhaps smaller and likely dearer computer store.

First step, pick a sales geek and get him to help you pick a machine. That is his job, to assist you and make you feel comfortable with your purchase. It’s possible they don’t have it on hand. might have to order it in, might even have to custom build it. A custom-built system, put together want right in the shop where you bought it. Quite a novelty. I built about 80% of all the computers that are sold at my job. It’s one aspect of my job I still get excited about. Getting to work with new hardware, testing and configuring. Ensuring stability while getting the best out of hardware. I’m getting all misty eyed. This geek knows that if he stuffs up you’ll be in tomorrow, handbag or walking stick in hand ready to deal out some swift punishment, and rightly so. His job is to pick the right product, put the product together and ensure that it does exactly what you want it to do. Ask the geek to take all that useless trash off and put the useful stuff on. Chances are this will add a modest token fee, but it will be done for you and likely that day.

Pay for your purchase and take it home. Now you have your computer comfortable in the knowledge that if something goes wrong you won’t be dealing with some faceless man who speaks in tongues.

Isn’t that worth a little extra. Support your local computer shop, because at the end of the day, they are the only people who will support you.

Of course we could all point to some local stores that don’t hire sales geeks, and sell pretty much the same product as our global multi national friends at dell. We geeks deal with those as well. The disenfranchised customers of large uncaring retail outlets. It’s all Hienz to us.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Just for fun, an oldie but a goodie.

I ordered the monster and within a few weeks it arrived (Why is there always [ED]. a delay in stock) when i pulled it out of the box i was in amazed at the size of the cooler, at 146mm in length, 124mm in width, 161mm in height and 790g in weight it is huge. The cooler came with a back plate to support it on the motherboard, thermal paste, 2 fan brackets and all brackets to suit Intel LGA775,  AMD AM2 and socket 939. Installation was easy it required taking out the motherboard, removing the old cooler and thermal paste, reapplying thermal paste,  mounting the cooler using the brackets and screws provided and installing your 2 fans of choice. (For mine I choose 2 120mm Antec 3 speed fans).

Now to the difference it made. (Ambient temp was 25 deg C)

Idle Stock cooler – 44C

Idle Thermalright IFX-14 – 40C

For stress testing i used two test from Prime95 small FFT’s (this hammers the cache of your CPU creating maximum heat) and in place large FFT’s (this is a more realistic CPU load as it uses cache and RAM)

In place large FFT’s Stock cooler – 74C

In place large FFT’s Thermalright IFX-14 – 45C

Small FFT’s stock cooler – 90C (I stopped this test after 2 Min’s as the temp kept on going up and i thought it would melt)

Small FFT’s Thermalright IFX-14 – 50C (This i left for 10 Min’s and it didn’t change)

All in all the Thermalright IFX-14 in my opinion was a worth while investment as you can see from the information above it dropped the CPU temps by 40C in some cases, after running these tests i went on overclocking my q9300 which runs at 2.5 GHz stock to 3.2 GHz and the above temps for the Thermalright IFX-14 didn’t move. This cooler is reasonably pricey at around $170 for the cooler and 2 120mm fans but it performs, to add to its performance it is compatible with the new Core i7 cpu’s and motherboards. I am extremely happy with this cooler and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a cooler for socket LGA775 mother board.

So after realising my finances were stretched (As they always are) I came to the conclusion I would not be getting anything over the $200 AUS mark (About $180 USD now days). This is a severe limiting factor. Before I could wail too much I had to accept I wouldn’t be getting an all aluminium case. When looking for a decent case that won’t cost an arm and a leg there are a few brands that stand out.

Cooler Master, is one of my preferred brands to point customers towards. Offering a good range of well built steel chassis design’s and maintaining a decent pricing structure. With that in mind I had a little browse around the site and came across this little gem.

The Cooler Master Scout is a Mid Tower Steel Chassis ATX Case. As is often the case it comes in any colour scheme you want as long as you want Black with Red lighting.  The scout isn’t exactly your smallest Mid ATX chassis at 22 cm (219mm) in width and 49 cm (489mm) in height it’s possibly just a bit larger than average added it’s steel construction and you have a reasonable weighty product at 8.7 kg /19.23 lb. Still considering the 5 stealth 3.5” drive bays and the 5 stealth 5.25” bay’s it’s a small price to pay.

Features

• Fierce exterior design inspired by military weapons.
• Reinforced carrying handles for fast and efficient mobilization.
• Menacing all black interior and window side panel for striking visuals.
• Stealth panel for tuning your lights.
• StormGuardTM – ground-breaking security system for safeguarding your gaming peripherals.

Introduction

CM Storm deploys Scout, the True LAN Gaming Chassis. Mobility, security and 20 years of advanced technology converge in one rugged portable mid-tower chassis. Every Scout is engineered with Storm Tactics: a dedicated focus on Strength, Security and Control. The Scout blends into the darkness with a menacing all black interior showcasing your internal hardware.

An automotive tinted side window with dual fan exhaust brings efficient cooling with subtle transparency. A single button triggers stealth mode deactivating cooling fan LEDs. This covert outlook is complimented by innovative internal designs allowing swapping CPU coolers without motherboard removal. Inside, intelligent cable management maximizes space while supporting internal 2.5″ and 1.8″ SSD bays. On top, a rugged, steel reinforced handle allows the Scout to be easily wielded in a single hand

Of course I can’t give a proper opinion until i get a unit. Anyone with any ideas on what to work into this case. I’ve been considering a water cooling system forever I simply can’t get over the concept of water, in the system.

** As a side note, the Cooler Master Scout retails for $179 AU however my local store (Have A Browse) is doing them for $155. None in stock but can be shipped overnight so. Always nice to know there is some ok pricing locally.