Good news for your friend...that call center he was accessing has now outsourced, so the dicks he talks to next time will not be native English speakers, although they will have American sounding names.

Lots of my friends are now unemployed as a result of this, though, and I get to drive by the formerly bustling facility every day on my way to my poverty level job.

It was a big deal when that place came into KC, BTW. Took all of about six years from inception to shutdown.

Probably took all six years for the tax breaks and incentives to run out.

Every pre-built system I have ever used was crap. They quickly degenerated into an unstable pain in the butt. Mind, you I'm a tweaker and so no setup of mine survives more then a week without changing.
Generally, when you are looking at a computer system, most parts have a best-bang-for the-buck catagory. With a kind of creeping featurism built in, depending on your budget.
Lately, I've been going:
AMD Processor (Barton Core, but will probabaly try the Sempron for my next build)
Asus A7N8X motherboard (Probably Asus K8NE for the next)
At least 512Mg RAM, name brand. Something with a lifetime warranty. Corsair rocks.
I've had good luck with LG brand CD/DVD devices but others have not.
I've had problems with cheap cases and heat build up. You can find some gaming cases with lost of fans pretty cheap and some already come with a power supply. Those supplies can be pretty nasty, so you may want to buy your own. Antec and Enermax supplies are good. The Antec Sonata is a good case+p/s combo for a decent price.
Best video card for a non-serious gamer is the ATI 9600. Get the XT version for a bump up in performance over the Pro. You don't need PCI express.
Western Digital (Some people don't like WD) or Seagate hardrives.
I use Samsung monitors, but they can have issues. Great picture quality, but some reliability issues. If you can afford, and don't game much, LCD is good.
Most of your other peripherals are pretty interchangeable.

All the above is my preference. Buying the parts is easy. The hard part is finding a good place to assemble them.

I've had a fine time with my Sony VAIO, bought off the shelf, under $1K, haven't added a thing to it, and it's great for playing games too.

For those less technically inclined, I'd go dell or gateway.

IF you go with the home built, and anything happens, the only person you can call (besides us) is the person who built it, or $75 computer repair shops.

With a Dell or Gateway-type job, you can call tech support. Yes, they outsource, yes outsourcing sucks. But when it's 3 in the morning, and your winsock bellies up, you CAN call Dell, but you can't call a repair shop.

speaking of outsourcing *is it ok to hijack my own thread?*

this morning on the radio i heard an advertisement just blasting AT&T. it was a union sponsored ad and was great.

it sounded like one of those phone message systems when you call in and they say "if you need to reach CHuck, press 7"

Thank you for calling AT&T customer service, to speak with someone in India - press 1. to speak with someone in The Phil-i-pines press 2. If you would like to speak to an american who held this job, visit your unemployment line. If we can hire someone in India and pay them less and provide no benefits, we can give our executives even larger bonuses. If you don't like this solution, hang up and call someone who cares.

they go on to explain that AT&T are laying off another 400 people locally to send the jobs to an Indian call center.

I found some answers on this link:

http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29317
http://www.tomshardware.com/ <-benchmarking CPU's
http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28718 <-Intel vs. AMD
http://www.short-media.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=10 <- General tech support

The Brandname vs. clone debate is another no-clear-winner debate. Everybody has their own experiences. It is a tough decision. If all you do is invoicing and business apps, where you are more likely to get only software crashes, a brand-name PC may be your best choice because the price point on most range of PC's right now is sickeningly low, and over-the-phone tech support usually gets you back up.

If you like to tinker like me, then clones are generally better because they are generally tuner-ready. The tech support THAT I HAVE WITNESSED has been shoddy and extremely incompetent at best, so that is my main reason for believing in clones.

Also, make sure that your BIOS is not passworded. I knew of a guy who bought a PC and then the company folded. When he needed to go into his BIOS to set an LPT port, the BIOS was P/w'd so he was screwed. He had to buy a whole new PC.

now if only there were an MLM to distribute computers...think of the possibilities. i'll take 2 kits and call my friends in the morning. ;)

There's usually a way around that. Either disconnecting the BIOS battery or setting a jumper somewhere.

Try that with a new Dell. It takes a double-overhanded backflip with one and half twists to get that thing cleared.

Most motherboards have a "clear CMOS" jumper that will erase the password. Also, desktop bios manufacturers tend to set up a series of backdoor passwords at the factory in the event of a loss. If your BIOS allows access to your floppy drive, there are a billion password cracking utilities.

And I cannot agree with Undertoad enough about buying a damn good power supply. It is the single most frequently replaced part, when I'm fixing computers at work. Yet another problem with off-the-shelf computers; they put in shitty power supplies to save money, and a lot of them use tiny cases which use NONSTANDARD supplies which can't be easily replaced.

Lookout- LOL G1.

Don't call them in the morning- Start now!! you could probably call them at least 3 times before you get to bed.