Quote Originally Posted by nighthawk View Post
my opinion on the factory built machines is that they are for the most part a rip off. i now build my own. years ago you needed a college degree in engineering to build a computer. today's machines are all modular and for the most part what is called plug and play. as far a building the hardware it is fairly easy to me and there are tons of free on line resources to help a person do it step by step. now writing software commands and programming is a different stories but that has already been done for the plug and play components. so long as the components one picks are compatible with the type of motherboard they have, the operating system and there are sufficient resources like RAM and hard disk space available there usually is no problem. in the last 5 years my system has only crashed twice. both times were my fault.

for what the factories charge i can build a much faster, more stable, longer lasting machine. all of the warranties are covered by the manufacturer of the individual components. my son went to school to learn programming and how to write software. given the fact that i may not be able to do my current job much longer we may pool our resources and start building pc's to sell ourselves. i am always willing to help you folks out though.
I agree. I've built several and will do so in the future.