Have I Had Bad Luck or is This Now the Norm

I have been building desktop computers for myself and for product reviews for the past ten years. My full-time time job is also as an IT professional. Recently I decided to get rid of my loud, monster rigs in lieu of something smaller and quieter but yet still reasonably powerful. That left me with the choice of a laptop or a small form factor (MATX) PC. I decided first to build a small form factor PC.

I did my due dilligence and researched the top of the line products available. To make a long story short I ordered what seemed like the best components available from a reputable well known distributor. To make a long story short I received the first motherboard and it was DOA. I RMA'ed it and got another of the same brand that died within a week. OK one final time, I even changed the model and make of the motherboard and yep the same issue. I was now six weeks into a project that should have taken one with nothing to show for it.

After dealng with the frustration I decided to go the laptop route after some urging from my wife. I did quite a bit of research on this and other forums which helped me decide. I placed my order for a custom, reasonably high end (~$1700) laptop and waited about 15 days for its delivery. At first I was happy but in less than three days the computer started having issues rebooting both cold and hot. After spending several hours on the phone with tech support and repeating all the diagnostics I had already done, tech support determined the I&O controler was failing. I had bought the top warranty but decided to just get a refund.

As I stated earlier I have built a number of computers over the last ten years with products in almost all cases supplied by the manufacturers and only had one or two lemons during that time.

First of all this is not a thread intended to flame any manufacturer as I will not mention names, but instead one to generate some productive discussion. Has the quality control on computer products actually become this abysmal or can I just chalk this up to an extremely bad run of luck?

Oh yeah the laptop in my sig is not the latop I discussed in this thread, it's a refurb I bought just over a year ago and has worked flawlessly during the limited use it's had. In this case I was looking for a desktop replacement.

 

I think you just have some bad luck. I just purchased a "Laptop for Gaming" and my buddy just built a desktop. My laptop runs great and every part we used in his desktop worked worked as it should. Really man, I think you just came across some bad luck.

 

I'd say extremely bad luck. I've had several computers from a few different manus, and yea, some have defects. But for the most part, they all have been wonderful. At this moment, I have a brand new XPS that has needed one part, and a Inspiron that is 4 years old that is still working on all original (Minus upgraded HD due to space) parts. Welcome to manufacturing for the masses. Higher manu rates = more errors. But I think the quality is pretty good these days.

 

If you bought a Sager/Clevo you shouldn't be having these issues, and if you did, a reseller would remedy these problems in a heartbeat. It sounds like a string of bad luck to me. Now if you bought a Dell, HP, Toshiba anything else, I would expect this sometimes.

Have faith in laptops and if you are determined to get another one, I'm sure it will work out just fine.

 

Bad luck, but I've taken notice of poor quality control in some manufacturers as well.