There was a time that box makers used to design everything on their own. That was the time for Digital, IBM, Data General, Unisys, Burroughs and such. Oops... I lost half the readers. Then Sun came up with their unix workstations using all off-the-shelf components. What a concept! They sold their workstation cheap. What used to be sold for over $10k/$15k (a "workstation") could be made/sold for $5k. They grew rapidly. Then the proliferation of "personal computers" using Intel 80286 and Motarola chips. Things heading more generic and homogenious. Dell was the one to broke the $1000 floor on PC's first. That opened the flood gate to a different level. When I opened up my HP/Compaq box (sorry I am not a Dell user), I see that the chassis was custom. Other than that, you can pretty much pick all the components off the shelf. Motherboard, CPU, fan, memory, disk drive, DVD-RW, power supply. Really. Everything! And... even the chassis! So... really... nothing stops you from creating your own label. Well I don't really think it will take you 50 hours. After making sure all components work together, you just need to assemble everything. And if this is not your cup of tea, you can hand the job to the technicians in the shop to do it for you. I bought all my parts from Fry's. They offered to assemble (and test of course) it for me for about $100. If you think you will spend 50 hours on it, then obviously $100 would worth it. It is an alternative to buying from Dell if you have lost confidence on their product quality.
Replacing something 7 times? Sorry... however you look at it, it was no good. I would have lost all confidence from that sourcing. This is intriguing. You said the 2 NVS 440s are in a "separate box". Did you mean they are housed in a different chassis? (What kind of "box"? Or was it just a shipping box you meant?) If they are in a different chassis than your Dell computer, how are the two chassises connected to each other?
No B....they were shipped in a separate container so I had to install them in the PC myself; this way they were waranteed as a retail item.
I still have a dimension 3000 running that I bought back in early 2005. It has pretty much ran everyday for the past 6 years. It's been through 3 case fans and 1 hard drive but other than that i've had no other problems considering it has run 50,000+ hours. I did have a lcd go bad once on a laptop that I bought back in 2004 after a few months. Sent it off under warranty and received it back fix within 5 days. Getting it warrantied was a trip because the indian tech person had me tearing the whole laptop apart and testing everything before they would let me send it in for repair.
Bought about 10 Dell laptops over past 3 years for myself, family and friends. Not a single issue with any of them.
Walmart policy allows returns for 15 days, after which you bask in the loving care of the manufacturer.
ive been using and trading on a Dell 895XDD1, core2duao, 4gig ram, 512mb video ram since 2007! its a mini tower design and using dual screens ive actually packed it up into a carry on suitcase and traveled with the set up many times. I had it running XP since late last year when I did a complete system restore and installed 7. this has been the greatest purchase I have ever made. the computer works flawlessly, never crashed, starts up fast.. and is still very quick.