Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
We all have that one PC repugnance narration . Maybe you may laugh about it now , or maybe it ’s just a moral discover , but it probably was n’t all too funny at the time when everything broke down .
I have plenty of story like that , but a few of the worst ones that follow to mind are all related to prebuilt PCs . Here are some of the prebuilt disasters I ’ve seen over the years , and what to appear out for if you ’re adjudicate tobuy a desktop microcomputer .
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
It’s better to be patient
I ’m no custom PC snoot , or at least I try not to be , but that does n’t stop me from warning the citizenry in my life when they determine to grease one’s palms a prebuilt . This is because corrupt a good prebuilt microcomputer is not as leisurely as just walking into a store and picking out the first affair that looks decent enough . Much like PC building , buying prebuilts requires a bonnie flake of researchfor thing to cease well .
When people neglect to do some prior research , the results can be disastrous , cause them to attempt assist with their break away personal computer . As the computer geek of the family , I ’ve been that “ liberal technical school support ” person all too many times , and in the case of prebuilts , I sometimes struggle to hold back from saying “ I told you so . ”
The most recent good example is a prebuilt that my mum insisted on buying despite my many offers tobuild her a PCmyself . It was n’t great to begin with , but , on newspaper , it was good enough for her circumscribed needs . I specify it up with some minor hiccups , such as the non - activated Windows ( even though she paid extra for it ) and an unresponsive USB embrasure at the front . It was n’t a spectacular PC , but it work .
Until it did n’t .
Just a few months by and by , the microcomputer started run unbearably slowly . As in , it would take over 10 minutes to open up a new tablet in Chrome , and rebooting postulate over 30 hour from restart until all the startup software program was scarper . beware you , this was a PC that had an SSD , and it work out well enough up until it suddenly break off .
trouble-shoot the PCwas made harder by the fact that even just running any of the basic monitoring computer software , such as or CrystalDiskInfo , was next to impossible . sit there waiting for the simplest undertaking for over 30 minutes at a time was incredibly frustrating and uneffective .
Knowing my mode around cheap prebuilts , I suspected that some of the components might have been refurbished or of piteous timber . The main suspect was the SSD . I opened up the PC ( which , it turns out , only had a very short warranty ) , took out the drive , and inclose a different SSD . What do you know — it work like a charm .
This prebuilt turned out to be quite the flop .
I was able-bodied to recover all the data from the honest-to-god SSD by connect it externally once I got Windows up and run . Out of peculiarity , I then run CrystalDiskInfo on the SSD I take out from the prebuilt , and obtain out that it had a power on tally of well over 1,000 . That means that the system had been started up over 1,000 times with that SSD inside it .
There ’s no mode that thing was new when it was installed in my mom ’s “ new ” prebuilt PC . You do n’t power up your personal computer over 1,000 time in the course of instruction of five calendar month .
Needless to say , that prebuilt turn out to be quite the dud . For the price of that PC , I could have built a system with a discrete GPU , not to mention one made out of new share . Instead , my momma ’s stuck with her Ryzen APU and components of in question quality that might fail at any given time .
This was n’t the first time when I had to get by with a completely fluid prebuilt , though .
Gaming five minutes at a time
Another horror story take me back to a friend ’s prebuilt that I resuscitated a few years ago . Said friend reached out to me , saying that despite his best efforts at fixing the job , his PC would shut out down almost every clip he tried to toy games . That verbal description was pretty much everything I needed to hear tonarrow it down to two ironware suspects : either the cooler or the mogul provision .
I delay out the PC myself and , indeed , it turned itself off at random , even when running games that were n’t very demanding and well within what was expected of a PC of that calibre .
It was equipped with a Nvidia GTX 1070 Ti and a pretty old Intel CPU . This is another staple of prebuilts and one of the self-aggrandising problems refer to them ; some sellers will tempt shoppers with recognizable constituent and then match them with superannuated part . That was the case here . The GPU was a garish example , but of the current generation , and the CPU was a few years old .
That PSU really had no business being there .
I ran OCCT to confirm my suspicions . OCCT is a stability / strain - trial software that you’re able to apply to put your personal computer through the wringer and see whether it remains stable . Unsurprisingly , the personal computer crashed in the middle of the test , so I ended up study it apart and checking out the PSU .
The PSU was made by an unknown brand , but that ’s not the biggest job . It was just too weak to ever treat a articulated lorry of this kind , and using a PSU figurer state me that we ’d need to buy one that was significantly better . The power provision I found within was rated at just 400 Watt , whereas the GTX 1070 Ti calls for at least a 500W PSU .
Ordering a raw PSU and set up it puzzle out the problem , and my champion was able-bodied to keep using that personal computer for a right while . Much like my mom ’s microcomputer , the job was n’t beyond fixture ; we just require to switch out some poorly matched computer hardware .
However , in cases like this , the PC could have suffer a sight more than it did , seeing as that PSU really had no business organisation being there in the first plaza . I ’m honestly surprised that it kept powering back on against all odds , but that thing was a fighter .
Who needs high frame rates?
Sometimes , job with prebuiltsaren’t as straightforward , and while the computer works , it birth a miserable play experience . That was the case with a prebuilt I dish out with for another friend .
The computer was occupy with RGB lighting and the case screamed “ gamer , ” but when it came to actually act newer titles , it was miserable . It go fine otherwise , but if you ’d launch a resource - heavy plot , it underachieve massively , with huge drop in frames per 2nd ( Federal Protective Service ) .
Anyone who ’s ever experienced dips in frame rates know how thwarting it can be . The game runs alright , you ’re start to get into it , and then , whenever you start a chief confrontation or your PC has to render a wad of particularly telling scene , boom — the Federal Protective Service tanks .
In the lawsuit of this finicky computer , it was pretty forged . The Federal Protective Service was n’t great to begin with , and I certainly gestate better based on the components it had , which ( if my memory does n’t fail me ) included an Intel Core i9 - 10900 K and an RTX 20 - series GPU . It ’d max out at around 40 fps to 60 fps in most game , which was quite pitiful for an expensive figurer .
Buying and installing a liquid cooler did the trick .
The bad part was that the shape rates would randomly send packing down to unplayable levels between 3 fps to 10 Federal Protective Service . They ’d bounce back shortly after , but those 10 to 20 second of slideshow - comparable gameplay were enough to make the game nearly unplayable .
In such situation , software issue are something to reckon , so we did it all . First , we try leisurely mending such as reinstalling driver , tweaking in - secret plan options , insure for malware , and purge throughthe Task Managerto see if there were any background processes slacken thing down . Nope , nothing .
Running monitoring software package ( such as HWiNFO ) quickly revealed the problem . The personal computer was overheat massively , and thus , the performance was being throttled . Unlike the previous model , it did n’t keep out itself off thanks to those security measures , but it was underperforming by a immense margin .
This ended up being another ironware fix . Buying and establish a liquid cooler did the trick , but in all honesty , the manufacturing business should have thought of this beforehand and transport the PC with , at the very least , a very open air cooler . Pairing a near $ 500 central processing unit with a $ 20 cooler can never end well .
The above are just some of the horror news report I ’ve consider over the days . There ’s more , such as a microcomputer that go far with a badly installed cooler and a unaffixed GPU that ended up being damaged as it got knocked around the case . I ’ve also construe plenty of reliable prebuilts that served their owners well for years , so it ’s not all terrible . You just need to have sex what to avoid .
How to avoid prebuilt PC disasters
I ’ve been building my own PCs for over 15 years , but even still , I ’ll be the first one to admit that the PC - establish residential area can frame on elitism give how much the custom personal computer narration is often being pushed . The Sojourner Truth is that some prebuilts are worth both the money and the prison term .
Some are decidedlynot , but that does n’t mean you should never bribe a prebuilt .
Whenchoosing between a prebuilt and a custom PC , consider where you ’re shopping from . The best stain is one that lets you know all of the element inwardly , and sooner does n’t apply proprietary parts . It ’s not inherently tough — some gravid companies also do it — but you ’re better off getting a fully upgradeable and repairable PC with components that were made by make out brand .
If you ’re buying a full prebuilt with circumscribed customization options , ensure to record and watch some reviews before you shop . We have roundups ofgaming desktopsanddesktops for all economic consumption casesthat we ’ve tested ourselves , so take off there .
avert vague product itemization like the plague . It ’s not enough that the retailer take that the personal computer is equip with one of Nvidia’stop graphics cardsor one of thefastest processorsfrom AMD . If the brand is trustworthy , it ’ll have nothing to hide . necessitate for benchmarks and check that that you ’re receive a drawn-out warranty on the entire PC .
Building a microcomputer by yourselfcan avail you quash calamity like what I ’ve described above , but it want even more research and the sureness to put it all together by yourself . I ’m not kick the bucket to severalise you that youhaveto do it — it might be the more reliable course toward a good personal computer , but it ’s certainly not the only way to get one . And if progress your own PC is too intimidating , you could always buy the role at a store like Micro Center and pay extra for the assembly .
No matter what you pick out to do , do some research before buying , and do n’t be afraid to postulate questions . Doing this should deliver you from buying one of those dissatisfactory PCs I described above and instead give you something capable of doing a peachy job for several years .
