My New Computer

[Nikkijah]

After all the helpful responses and information I ventured along to Pantip with a geek friend who helped me buy the right system for my needs(nearly)

I decided against a custom built machine because of warranty & technical knowledge issues, however, I still have some issues with my warranty if I ever want to upgrade...

The machine I bought was just short of RAM for my needs but I plumped for it because of the deal that was being offered to me, if I want to upgrade the RAM from the standard 1GB then I'll loose my warranty, not sure if this would be wise of me but I'm seeing how I go with the 1GB RAM and if it isn't enough then I'll just have to void my warranty - I figured that as the machine is a HP Pavilion then the chances of needing the warranty are slightly less than if I'd chosen one of it's competitors who have been fairly slated on this forum at least!

I chose a HP Pavilion A6089L without the monitor as I wanted a bigger and better looking model, the PC came with a wireless keyboard & mouse but I don't really like them, I'd already bought a DELL RT7D50 keyboard all the way from the UK(£ sign included!) and I've also already got a LOGITECH MX700 wireless mouse so the included bits will just act as backups, there was no way I could have ONLY the PC and not the keyboard and mouse - they were strictly included!

The monitor I chose is a 22" BENQ LCD FP222W which is much better looking(and 3" bigger) than the LCD they were trying to flog to me!

The HP A6089L cost B22,000(specifications at bottom of page)

The 22" BENQ LCD cost B9,500

Vista was B300 and despite some peoples protestations about it I can honestly say I'm ignoring all that(sorry all involved!) because Vista is the nuts.

So all in all I'm very happy with the machine I've ended up with, it's fast, quiet, everything works fine and it looks good too, all within my budget at just under B32,000

I even got a TAX return option but I'm not sure it's worth carrying my case onto a 1 1/2 hour flight just for the B1,500 or so I'd be claiming back!

Thanks to all who contributed to the thread (here) with all the help, hopefully this info can be of some help to others!!

HP Pavilion Specifications:

Base processor

Core 2 Duo E4300 © DC 1.8 GHz

800 MHz front side bus

Socket 775

Chipset

Intel 945G

Motherboard

Manufacturer: Asus

Motherboard Name: P5LP-LE

HP/Compaq motherboard name: Leonite-GL8E

Memory

Memory Installed 1 GB

Maximum allowed 4 GB (4 x 1 GB)

Hard drive

250GB SATA 3G (3.0 Gb/sec) 7200 rpm

16X DVD(+/-)R/RW 12X RAM (+/-)R DL LightScribe SATA drive

DVD-RAM Up to 12X

DVD-R DL Write Once Up to 8X

DVD+R DL Write Once Up to 8X

DVD+R Write Once Up to 16X

DVD+RW Rewritable Up to 8X

DVD-R Write Once Up to 16X

DVD-RW Rewritable Up to 6X

DVD ROM Read Up to 16X

CD-R Write Once Up to 40X

CD-RW Rewritable Up to 32X

CD-ROM Read Up to 40X

Modem

56K bps data/fax modem

Video Graphics

GeForce 7300LE

64 MB DDR memory

I/O Ports: DVI, S-Video, VGA

Sound/Audio

Integrated High Definition audio

Realtek ALC 888 chipset

Supports up to 8 audio channels

Dolby Pro Logic II compatible

Network (LAN)

Integrated 10/100 Base-T networking interface

Memory card reader

Supports the following cards:

Compact Flash I

Compact Flash II

IBM Microdrive

Secure Digital (SD)

mini-SD

MultiMediaCard (MMC)

Reduced size MultiMediaCard (RS-MMC)

MultiMediaCard Plus (MMC plus)

MultiMediaCard Mobile (MMC mobile)

Memory Stick

Memory Stick Pro

Memory Stick Duo

Memory Stick Pro Duo

SmartMedia

xD Picture Card (xD = extreme digital)

External I/O ports

I/O ports on the front panel

Port type

15-in-1 (4 slot)

1394

USB x 2

Headphone x 1

Line-in x 1

Microphone x 1

I/O ports on the back panel

Port type

PS2 keyboard, mouse (one each)

VGA (disabled due to the installation of a graphics card)

USB x 4

1394 x 1

LAN x 1

SPDIF out (coaxial) x 1

SPDIF in x 1

Audio (side speaker out, rear speaker out, center speaker out, line-in, line-out, microphone) x 1 Each

Expansion slots

Slot type

PCI x 2

PCI Express x16 x 1

PCI Express x1 x 1

Drive bays

Bay type

5.25" x 2 (One available)

Pocket Media Drive x 1 (One available)

3.5" x 2 (One available)

Keyboard and mouse

HP wireless keyboard

HP wireless mouse/receiver set[/size]

[cdnvic]

I can't see a genuine warrantee ever being voided by adding RAM, nor a genuine copy of Vista for 300 Baht.

[solo siam]

How are they going to know if you add Ram or not?

[Firefoxx]

He's saying he *didn't* get the real Vista.

They have warranty stickers on the case which will rip apart if you open it up. So, even if you wanted to open it up to clean out the dust, you can kiss the warranty goodbye.

I like the better specs (I could get a much better graphics card, 2GB ram, and a better mainboard for the same price) of custom-built, but it's not for everyone. I work in the computer world, so I have no problem with it.

[Jared]

I like the 22'' monitor, might have to grab a couple of those as they are that cheap. I paid that price less that a year ago for a 19'' Philips.

[Nikkijah]

I can't see a genuine warrantee ever being voided by adding RAM, nor a genuine copy of Vista for 300 Baht.

The machine came with a pre-installed version of XP - A COPY!! The guy in the shop said he couldn't supply me with Vista... The shop in question is a BENQ outlet, the only one in Pantip apparently

*NOT THE ONLY SELLER OF BENQ BUT THE ONLY OFFICIAL ONE...*

Edited June 6, 2007 by Nikkijah

[cdnvic]

I can't see a genuine warrantee ever being voided by adding RAM, nor a genuine copy of Vista for 300 Baht.

The machine came with a pre-installed version of XP - A COPY!! The guy in the shop said he couldn't supply me with Vista... The shop in question is a BENQ outlet, the only one in Pantip apparently

*NOT THE ONLY SELLER OF BENQ BUT THE ONLY OFFICIAL ONE...*

Well, I did warn you about Pantip...

[Simmo]

How are they going to know if you add Ram or not?

Tamper sticker on the back of the case. If you open the case, your warranty is void.

[cdnvic]

How are they going to know if you add Ram or not?

Tamper sticker on the back of the case. If you open the case, your warranty is void.

What a joke. They expect someone to run Vista without being able to upgrade from 1GB or RAM? At Idle it eats up about 75% of that!

[Nikkijah]

I can't see a genuine warrantee ever being voided by adding RAM, nor a genuine copy of Vista for 300 Baht.

The machine came with a pre-installed version of XP - A COPY!! The guy in the shop said he couldn't supply me with Vista... The shop in question is a BENQ outlet, the only one in Pantip apparently

*NOT THE ONLY SELLER OF BENQ BUT THE ONLY OFFICIAL ONE...*

Well, I did warn you about Pantip...

You did, and I was listening but in the end I think I would have been offered the same choices, I appreciate your help

[Nikkijah]

How are they going to know if you add Ram or not?

Tamper sticker on the back of the case. If you open the case, your warranty is void.

What a joke. They expect someone to run Vista without being able to upgrade from 1GB or RAM? At Idle it eats up about 75% of that!

They didn't expect me to use Vista, the machine came pre-installed with XP and they must have assumed that's what people wanted, or they simply couldn't give a toss!

Last night I was running Vista with Firefox, IE, iTunes, Dreamweaver, Skype, msn messenger, Outlook, Word, Excel PLUS lots of other windows 'windows' and my RAM was running at 79% but very smoothly.

FINGERS CROSSED SO FAR

[Nikkijah]

I can't see a genuine warrantee ever being voided by adding RAM, nor a genuine copy of Vista for 300 Baht.

The machine came with a pre-installed version of XP - A COPY!! The guy in the shop said he couldn't supply me with Vista... The shop in question is a BENQ outlet, the only one in Pantip apparently

*NOT THE ONLY SELLER OF BENQ BUT THE ONLY OFFICIAL ONE...*

Well, I did warn you about Pantip...

The people in the shop were very up-front about the fact that the XP was a copy and insinuated that they're only supplying demand, anyone wanting a genuine copy of Windows would have to shell out an extra B7,000, not a small price for something marginally better than the copies...

[Crushdepth]

What a joke. They expect someone to run Vista without being able to upgrade from 1GB or RAM? At Idle it eats up about 75% of that!

While *not doing anything at all*!!!

[cdnvic]

Did you get a disk for the Vista? Even a bogus copy of Vista will work for 30 days. After that they lose functionality and have to be reinstalled after a full format. (With XP you'd at least not have to go through this)

The original reason I brought that up was to say you may as well add the ram because the guy handing out bogus copies of Vista is probably not going to be all that inclined to be any more honest when it comes to honouring the warrantee anyway. HP certainly won't with a gimp OS on it. For the price you paid you should have gotten a legit copy.

Edited June 7, 2007 by cdnvic

[Nikkijah]

Did you get a disk for the Vista? Even a bogus copy of Vista will work for 30 days. After that they lose functionality and have to be reinstalled after a full format. (With XP you'd at least not have to go through this)

The original reason I brought that up was to say you may as well add the ram because the guy handing out bogus copies of Vista is probably not going to be all that inclined to be any more honest when it comes to honouring the warrantee anyway. HP certainly won't with a gimp OS on it. For the price you paid you should have gotten a legit copy.

I did get a disc yes, I bought it downstairs - not from the shop I bought the PC

The guy who sold me the PC said that if something happens to my PC I have a HP service where I can call a technician and they'll come round to my house to fix any problems, I asked him what the HP technician would think of a bogus OS and that's when he told me that the PC already had a bogus XP OS on it!

I could have bought the PC with only MS DOS but XP was already installed in order to demonstrate the PC to me...

[Jockstar]

After a couple of years of XP not being legit. I am now legit. The XP home i have passes all the tests etc. Cost me nothing as my mate had a disc lying around that had never been installed or registered. Works a treat. Only reason i went legit was that my PC had a virus and i had to do a total reinstall. So from now on i'm going to pay the $$$$ to keep my PC legite. Since i am going to buy and build a new PC in the next few months., it makes sense. Vista? Too expensive for a total new install and not an upgrade. Might have to buy a legit disc of XP in Ebay. The one i have is not transferable between PC.s apparently.

[Firefoxx]

A bogus OS certainly shouldn't void the warranty, or have anything to do with warranty service. Now, it might make it hard to do any support calls that relate to the OS, but fixing the hardware itself isn't affected. I doubt that they'd expect you to use the included "legit" Dr Dos to work all the time. As to upgrading the ram, the condition was probably that you had to use only the ram that HP sells ($$$), and have an HP-authorized service center install it (and they'd have replacement warranty stickers for the torn ones). A bit too much to do just to add ram.

Legit XP was selling pretty well in the last year because of all the trouble with Genuine Advantage. The normal user would panic and rush out to buy a copy, and MS gets lots of profit.

[solo siam]

Vista OEM Home Premium is cheaper than most copies of XP I have seen, My copy was around 5k baht.

[cdnvic]

Well, IMO the OP got ripped off. A gimped OS, marginal graphics card, and not enough RAM unless you have an HP technician install it (at an inflated price I assume), plus the need to reformat and re-install to keep Vista fully functional. Most of the HW is very basic and if you want to upgrade it you need to haul it back to the shop to add any new hardware even if it's as simple as putting in a different ethernet card. If you're going to shell out that kind of money you shouldn't have that many strikes against you.

For the record, I've never had an HP (In Thailand or Canada) that I couldn't open up and add drives or memory to and still keep my warrantee. I'd never accept that kind of restriction. Overclocking or something fine, but adding RAM? That's a joke.

[mac.wheeler]

Well, IMO the OP got ripped off. A gimped OS, marginal graphics card, and not enough RAM unless you have an HP technician install it (at an inflated price I assume), plus the need to reformat and re-install to keep Vista fully functional. Most of the HW is very basic and if you want to upgrade it you need to haul it back to the shop to add any new hardware even if it's as simple as putting in a different ethernet card. If you're going to shell out that kind of money you shouldn't have that many strikes against you.

For the record, I've never had an HP (In Thailand or Canada) that I couldn't open up and add drives or memory to and still keep my warrantee. I'd never accept that kind of restriction. Overclocking or something fine, but adding RAM? That's a joke.

I just priced this system up using UK component prices. it comes in at 18000 baht that's excluding an OS as the OP didn't actually get one (a copy doesn't count). And this is from a consumer site, I didn't even apply my trade discount as the average buyer wouldn't get this.

I have to agree with cdvnic, considering the black marks incurred due to the warranty problem I would say the OP was ripped off a little.

[Nikkijah]

Well, IMO the OP got ripped off. A gimped OS, marginal graphics card, and not enough RAM unless you have an HP technician install it (at an inflated price I assume), plus the need to reformat and re-install to keep Vista fully functional. Most of the HW is very basic and if you want to upgrade it you need to haul it back to the shop to add any new hardware even if it's as simple as putting in a different ethernet card. If you're going to shell out that kind of money you shouldn't have that many strikes against you.

For the record, I've never had an HP (In Thailand or Canada) that I couldn't open up and add drives or memory to and still keep my warrantee. I'd never accept that kind of restriction. Overclocking or something fine, but adding RAM? That's a joke.

I appreciate your input cdnvic but I can hardly agree with you saying I'd been ripped off, I never wanted the best graphics card, in my other thread I outlined my purposes and a graphics card was never going to be top spec.

The gimped OS is irrelevant because they could have given me MS DOS if they'd wanted and it wouldn't have made any difference because I bought the bogus Vista from a completely different shop.

The RAM issue is not an issue until I actually need to use more, at the moment I'm fine with what I have, my PC is working great.

I'm not sure about the reformat and reinstall you're talking about because I've only had the PC for a few days and I haven't had any prompts to activate it or anything of the kind, I'll let you know how I get on after 30 days but in my experience of copied Windows software I've never had to activate any of them before...

The hardware is perfectly adequate for my uses and I think the B22,000/£330/$650 I paid is very reasonable indeed.

Me and my friend looked at some custom build options but decided against it because of our lack of confidence building it, I didn't want to sweat over something we weren't sure about. We could have spent a lifetime testing components against each other and that doesn't sound very enjoyable.

If I ever need to open the case then I'll obviously be prepared to lose my warranty but at least I know the whole PC is compatible and enough for me Perhaps in the future I might find the need to build something myself but not right now thanks

[Nikkijah]

Well, IMO the OP got ripped off. A gimped OS, marginal graphics card, and not enough RAM unless you have an HP technician install it (at an inflated price I assume), plus the need to reformat and re-install to keep Vista fully functional. Most of the HW is very basic and if you want to upgrade it you need to haul it back to the shop to add any new hardware even if it's as simple as putting in a different ethernet card. If you're going to shell out that kind of money you shouldn't have that many strikes against you.

For the record, I've never had an HP (In Thailand or Canada) that I couldn't open up and add drives or memory to and still keep my warrantee. I'd never accept that kind of restriction. Overclocking or something fine, but adding RAM? That's a joke.

I just priced this system up using UK component prices. it comes in at 18000 baht that's excluding an OS as the OP didn't actually get one (a copy doesn't count). And this is from a consumer site, I didn't even apply my trade discount as the average buyer wouldn't get this.

I have to agree with cdvnic, considering the black marks incurred due to the warranty problem I would say the OP was ripped off a little.

So I spent an extra B4,000 for somebody else to gather the components together, install everything and test the components compatibility. not a bad price IMO

Also, you wouldn't get a warranty on the PC if you bought each item separately would you?

[mac.wheeler]

Well, IMO the OP got ripped off. A gimped OS, marginal graphics card, and not enough RAM unless you have an HP technician install it (at an inflated price I assume), plus the need to reformat and re-install to keep Vista fully functional. Most of the HW is very basic and if you want to upgrade it you need to haul it back to the shop to add any new hardware even if it's as simple as putting in a different ethernet card. If you're going to shell out that kind of money you shouldn't have that many strikes against you.

For the record, I've never had an HP (In Thailand or Canada) that I couldn't open up and add drives or memory to and still keep my warrantee. I'd never accept that kind of restriction. Overclocking or something fine, but adding RAM? That's a joke.

I just priced this system up using UK component prices. it comes in at 18000 baht that's excluding an OS as the OP didn't actually get one (a copy doesn't count). And this is from a consumer site, I didn't even apply my trade discount as the average buyer wouldn't get this.

I have to agree with cdvnic, considering the black marks incurred due to the warranty problem I would say the OP was ripped off a little.

So I spent an extra B4,000 for somebody else to gather the components together, install everything and test the components compatibility. not a bad price IMO

Also, you wouldn't get a warranty on the PC if you bought each item separately would you?

You paid HP B4,000 to run the PC through their production line, sounds a bit steep to me but the proof of the pudding will come when you try to make a warranty claim, if the PC were to melt into the ground and HP replaced it within a working day then I would say that it was money well spent. But considering where you purchased it do you really think it actually has that kind fo warranty?

No you wouldn't get a warranty on a PC you assembled from componants yourself, but each componant would have a seperate warranty.

Personally I think you paid a little too much but only by a couple of thousand baht, my real worry is with the way you bough it, I cannot believe for one moment that a PC openly sold with an illegal OS also comes with a fully legal and active HP warranty, the two things just don't add up in my mind.

I'm not trying to upset you, just trying to point out a possible problem, if I were you I would grab the serial number from the PC and give HP a call and check the warranty situation. If it's all above board then I'll retract my opinion, B4,000 for the standard HP 3 year warranty is not a huge price to pay.

[cdnvic]

Also, you wouldn't get a warranty on the PC if you bought each item separately would you?

Your parts would be covered under their manufacturer's warrantee had they been acquired through an authorized source. What's more, you could open up the case and take the defective ones back on their own. The warrantee for the collection of assembled parts is most likely a local one, leaving you no recourse with HP if it isn't honoured as it doesn't sound like much other than the case is HP.

I think you have to face the fact that you got Pantipped.

[mac.wheeler]

A quick look at the HP (Thailand) website suggest to me that you don't actually have a full warranty as it seems to be an additional purchase.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/th/en/ho/WF...2180.html#15514

[Nikkijah]

As to upgrading the ram, the condition was probably that you had to use only the ram that HP sells ($$$)

The shop I bought it from was a BENQ dealership(or whatever) NOT HP, I asked them if they could open it and stick an extra 1GB in but they said even they would break the warranty seal

Anyhow, I'm happy with it, I've seen a lot of other much much worse deals around, we shopped around for quite a few hours in Pantip and decided on this PC, I ended up haggling a B3,000 cheaper price than all the other shops were offering it for too!

If I really needed a beast of a machine I would have had a budget of B60,000+ and not B30,000.

[Nikkijah]

Also, you wouldn't get a warranty on the PC if you bought each item separately would you?

Your parts would be covered under their manufacturer's warrantee had they been acquired through an authorized source. What's more, you could open up the case and take the defective ones back on their own. The warrantee for the collection of assembled parts is most likely a local one, leaving you no recourse with HP if it isn't honoured as it doesn't sound like much other than the case is HP.

I think you have to face the fact that you got Pantipped.

I might have been, would I have been 'future mall'd' or 'MBK'd' too? Was there any other way of getting more for my money?(within reason & experience)

[cdnvic]

Pantip got its reputation as a rip-off venue the same way Nana Plaza got it's reputation as a sex tourism venue, they both earned it.

No, you would not have been as likely to get ripped off at MBK as the shops there tend to be more legit.

There's a huge thread and a stack of PMs on the subject. The answers to your last question are all in there.

This happens so often in this forum. Someone asks advice on buying a system, everyone offers it, then the purchaser just accepts pretty much anything the smiling person behind the counter offers.

Let that be (yet another) cautionary tale.

[Nikkijah]

I'm not trying to upset you, just trying to point out a possible problem, if I were you I would grab the serial number from the PC and give HP a call and check the warranty situation. If it's all above board then I'll retract my opinion, B4,000 for the standard HP 3 year warranty is not a huge price to pay.

I understand that mac.wheeler, I've just called HP UK, had a right laugh, it seems that Pantip aren't the ones ripping me off, it's actually HP!! Follow the link below and scroll to the bottom of the page where it says 'SOFTWARE' here it explains that my warranty will be broken if I install any OS other than MS DOS on the machine, so forget what the shop in Pantip told me, THEY HAD ALREADY BROKEN THE WARRANTY FOR ME! WHAT KIND OF MANUFACTURER SUPPLIES MACHINES MEANT FOR ONLY MS DOS OS's??

The helpful lady on the phone said that I was perfectly able to change the RAM without breaking the warranty but that if I installed another OS on my machine then the WARRANTY WOULD BE BROKEN...

warranty

Edited June 7, 2007 by Nikkijah

[Nikkijah]

Pantip got its reputation as a rip-off venue the same way Nana Plaza got it's reputation as a sex tourism venue, they both earned it.

No, you would not have been as likely to get ripped off at MBK as the shops there tend to be more legit.

There's a huge thread and a stack of PMs on the subject. The answers to your last question are all in there.

This happens so often in this forum. Someone asks advice on buying a system, everyone offers it, then the purchaser just accepts pretty much anything the smiling person behind the counter offers.

Let that be (yet another) cautionary tale.

Cheers cdnvid, I didn't ignore ALL the advice, only some peoples

Some people recommend that I go anywhere in BKK and get the same thing, my friend who, like I said before, is a (Thai)geek has always bought PC's from Pantip and has never had problems and has always been satisfied with his product so I eventually followed his advice to shop there.

One poster even recommended the system I ended up buying so that was advice I followed