For starters, let's start with CyberPower's Warranty. Everything seems to be in order. You can find it on their web site here.
(Clicking on these pictures will give you a larger image)
What's important to note here is the 24 hour burn-in period. I could have sworn it was 72 hours when I purchased my system, but the site reads 24 hours as of 3/27/2007 so we'll just go with that. But it is important to note that every system is supposed to run continuously for 24 hours, and perform a series of diagnostic tests (with a full diagnostic report) to be sure everything functions. Sounds great.
Here's my receipt from CyberPower. I've blurred anything that might give someone access to personal info, but I think you can see this is fairly legit. The date I purchased my system 2/14/2007 And the date my system shipped 3/8/2007 That's important. Not that I had to wait a month. I expected to wait a month, having read many reviews from other CyberPower Customers. But what this receipt/invoice tells us is that this system was built on 3/8/2007, Quality Control performed on 3/8/2007 And FINAL Quality Control also performed on 3/8/2007. And they STILL managed to package and ship it before 5 p.m. all over the span of 24 hours... ?? No? So how DID they test it for 24 hours and yet still ship it within that 24 hour period? I'd love to have their kind of time... I'm not a lawyer, but I think this puts them in violation of something - given the system is guaranteed to be tested for 24 hours, and yet it clearly is not. If there ever were "diagnostic reports" I never saw them. If I am anal enough to make a blog about this computer - I did NOT over look them.
My system shipped via 3 day FedEx. It arrived on Monday, March 12, 2007. I took a picture of the box as soon as it arrived. It was ENORMOUS.
And here's the computer, you can see the factory tape still on the door. It's the biggest computer I've ever seen. Lemme tell you a little bit about it. (yeah, that's right, I'm naming names)Case: CoolerMaster Stacker 830
Processor: Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4
MotherBoard: ASUS P5N-E SLI / nVidia 650i SLI Chipset
RAM: 1 G DDR2 (2 x 512 sticks)
Graphics: ATI x1950 PRO 256 MB by Connect3D
PSU: 500W Apevia (and there is more than enough power on the 12V rail...)
Hard Drive: Western Digital 250MB SATA
Opitical Drive: Sony DVD-R +- RW Dual Layer 16x etc...
Cooling: 3 120 mm fans in case
Media Card Reader (haven't used that yet)
That should be most of the critical elements.
Of course I was excited. I opened it right up and checked all the connections. I took pictures. Here they are. All nice and wired and geeky. Look at the pretty colors and the shiny parts.
So. It's all very pretty. What happens next? Well, I boot it up. After all I'd read about CyberPower I was pleasantly surprised that it did. I saw that 3DBenchmark06 had a shortcut on the desktop, so I clicked on it, deciding to test on my new graphics. (3DBenchmark06 is an application to test the capacity of your graphics card with your system, it runs several game scenes and measures the performance) It was eye popping for 26 seconds, then, the screen froze. The mouse was dead, the keyboard, nothing.... After 5 minutes of no response, I pushed the reset button. I decided to finish my connections and investigate further. Perhaps the video drivers needed to be updated....
Fast Forward to Hell.
Several video card drivers later, going forward, going backward, with Catalyst Control Center and withthout, the card crashes to a black screen under any kind of 3D load. It even crashes to black - sometimes with a reboot - doing the standard DirectX Diagnostic (dxdiag) I consulted with several computer gurus, who all said that was a VERY BAD sign and to return the card.
I called CyberPower, I explained that the card crashed to black - actually the monitor would go into sleep mode - under any gaming environment or any kind of 3D load, and that it even crashed in dxdiag. "No problem" says CyberPower. We will RMA the card, the new one will go out right away.
While I wait for my replacement card, I did extensive research on this problem. I talked to ATI several times to be sure the problem was not on my end. I updated the chipset drivers (nVida 650i SLI chipset) to the latest version. I actually had a problem the first time I did this, so I uninstalled the new drivers to and decided to put the drivers that came with the computer back on it. I used the disk supplied by CyberPower to reinstall the chipset drivers. When I did this, I got this message on boot:
WTF? I couldn't get into safe mode, I was cursed to this screen. I had to reformat the hard drive and reinstall windows. I did this THREE times. Every time I installed anything from the supplied disk, I would reboot to this crashed message. I FINALLY noticed that the disk said "Windows Vista Drivers Inside" The interface said nothing about the drivers being Vista - or asking what OS to install for. But after the third crash, I began to think that the "Windows Vista Drivers Inside" message MIGHT mean that these drivers were for Vista. I am running XP Pro.If I was a lesser geek, I would have been in huge trouble. But I managed to get on another computer, download the nVidia chipset drivers for Windows XP, move them to a jump drive, and install them on the CyberPower. They seem to work fine. Windows is back up.
I mentioned this Vista chipset drivers mixup to Kevin at CyberPower tech support. He told me that the Vista drivers would work fine with XP Pro. Ok. Just ask anyone with Vista if XP and Vista drivers are interchangeable.... I mean, he could be right. But do black death messages lie?? What would you do if it happened to you?
I retest everything again, but no matter what, I crash to a black screen under any game under any 3D load, and it crashes within seconds. It's not even long enough for the temps to get high, so don't go there...
The replacement x1950 Pro arrived on 3/21/2007. I think this is a picture of the old one before it came out - but the new one is identical. You're at the bottom of the case looking up. Yes, that dual/single video card is sitting the right way. I quadruple checked that.So. I install the new card. I installed the drivers that came with it (starting with the originals and working our way up) I boot up 3DBecnhmark06 and run it. It runs all the way through! It's unbelievable! The graphics take your breath away. Prettiest thing I've ever seen.
Problem Solved? Not yet. I boot up The Sims 2. This is the game I bought the system to play. Granted, Sims doesn't require this much, but I needed a computer that would last a long time and would be easily upgradable. I researched every component in here, and I felt confident this was a machine I could grow old with. I was a bit disappointed with how The Sims was running. I was getting a lot of lag and low frame rates - jerky movements. It wasn't running nearly as well as it does on my 4 year old Dell. After about an hour of play, the game crashed. I decided it might be because of driver issues, so I began to test the newest drivers - 7.2 in particular. I still had jerking. I had greater detail, and sometimes things felt smooth, but I always had the constant anxiety that it was about the crash - the screen would freeze every few minutes only for a second - but the screen really shouldn't freeze, and the frames rate shouldn't go down to 3fps After several crashes, I had an idea...
I remembered that inside my case something was unplugged. There are many things inside my Dell not connected so initially I didn't worry about it. But I decided to take a picture and send it to some computer savvy friends who have been advising me all along. (these are people who used to build computers just like this for a living. They went to school for this. - me? I learn this stuff by accident off the internet)
So I take a picture of the unplugged part. I look the part up in my MotherBoard manual. It is the EATXPWR connector. The 4 pin module is unplugged. It always has been. In the manual it says something like "make sure the 4 pin connector is connected, otherwise your computer will not boot. Geez. I guess I'm lucky it's booting.
Here's a closer picture. Everyone I asked verified that this should be connected. I tried to call CyberPower - given they have 24/7 technical support (this means they have an extremely reliable answering machine after hours and on weekends. I find it to be a good listener, but not much help in situations like this....) I have called at all times on the weekend and evening and early morning. The simple truth is you only get them during Pacific Coast business hours. I've never heard of a case where CyberPower Tech support called someone back from an answering machine message. If this has happened to you, I'd like to shake your hand.If you'll look at the pictures from when I first got my computer, you can actually see that that this was unplugged when it arrived. I have been running all this time on an under powered system. Why didn't I notice it right away and plug it in? Ummm. I'm the customer. I'm not the one building the system. And I know that not everything gets connected inside a PC. I also know it's best not to mess with stuff when you don't know what it is.
So I plug it in. What happens? Everything is faster! It's awesome. Windows boots in a blink. I can open Adobe Photoshop in 4 seconds. I'm jaw dropped. This is a completely new machine! Clearly it LIKES electricity.... errrr. cyber-power??? Ironic eh? So. This is good news. Surely this has been the problem all along. Just a little plug, no harm done. I load the game. And. It crashes 5 minutes later. Turn off AVG and all background tasks, just being safe. Load the game again. I played for over an hour. Still a little jerky. But maybe I'm too picky? I push the game hard. I run in windowed mode and surf the internet. I open Photoshop. I email pictures from the game. Everything is stable.
And then.
It crashes.
I had disabled the auto restart for the system so I was able to see an actual BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) for the first time.
How bout that?So. I ran chkdsk (check disk) And these were the results.
I've Googled the errors, so don't bother. I've read what amounts to hundreds of pages of documentation on this topic. And do you know that the error means? FUBAR (F'd Up Beyond All Recognition) My options are to replace: the RAM, the Motherboard, the Hard Drive, the processor, the Monitor, the Windows installation disk, the audio drivers, the Power Supply, or cut off my own pinky toe and hope to find a donor. Why don't I just tear down my house and build a new one and see if it runs better in there???So you see my dilemma. CyberPower has built me a bum computer. Not only did they not connect the mother board properly, they sent me Vista drivers for an XP system, and bad video card on arrival. I have uninstalled and reinstalled so many things so many time. I have spent hours reading every possible problem with each component, I have Googled and cross Googled. I have sought out help on forums. I have gone above and beyond the call of customer duty to repair a computer that CyberPower sent to me broken. And in the end? That blue screen message basically means curtains. Once you start with these errors - and you should NOT start with them out of the box.... it's over. You can just pack it up.
I will now spend the next weeks explaining all of this to CyberPower. I'll keep you posted on what happens. CyberPower. Are you reading this???
And CyberPower, if you can't give me a working computer, I'm buying my computer from KC Computers. I wish I'd found them first. First place in ResellerRatings. You just can't beat that kind of service.
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Later on March 25, 2007
I updated and changed more video drivers. I even updated the drivers for my mouse and flashed the firmware on the mouse. I'm literally trying everything I can think of.
I booted The Sims 2 and it ran for at least 2 1/2 hours. Then it unexpectedly crashed to the desktop with the error message "The Application The Sims 2 has crashed" I decided to reboot the computer for good measure. While rebooting, I received the following BSOD
Click to enlarge
Ouch. Rebooted the computer, recieved the following error codes.
I select the option to send the error to Microsoft. Microsoft responds with the following suggestion - to run a memory diagnostic test.
Last weekend, I ran a different memory diagnostic test. I believe it's called MemTest86 (or something similar) The rest ran for 7+ hours (this is a long time to test RAM, but I was being thorough) and the rest reported zero errors. I decided to run the Microsoft test just to be sure, because something was clearly wrong.
This is what those errors looked like.
They appeared during the third pass during Stride6
(for those of you keeping score)
If you don't know what that means, you should
know that memory errors on a brand new machine
are a VERY bad thing.
New computer owners should not have to run these tests
So where was CyberPower's 24/7 tech support?
I told you. It's an answering machine.
I called hourly. From 9 a.m. until midnight.
I left messages. They did not return my calls.
What kind of 24/7 do you think they are referring to?
Is there a holiday on March 25th that I'm not aware of?
I really wanted to prove all those negative reviews wrong and champion CyberPower. I really wanted it to work and work well. I believe in this computer. I just don't believe in CyberPower any more. Did I mention none of the ports on the front of my case work? Like that matters now.
Run away screaming.
Update May 2, 2007
Just wanted to update you on a few things. I did return my system to CyberPower. It took over 3 weeks to get a refund, and it wasn't until I threatened them with legal action that I saw my money. If you're still considering doing business with them, be sure to check them out on The Better Business Bureau if this blog isn't enough to scare you.
This story DOES have a happy ending though. Mid way through this process when I began to realize that things might not work out between CP and myself, I contacted Kevin Chalker at KC Computers He has a PERFECT rating on ReSeller ratings. And the best part is he deserves it. He is the opposite of CyberPower and he really does everything right. I emailed him during the CP crisis just to inquire about prices. The email was sent around 11 p.m. and I didn't expect a reply until the next day because this was clearly after hours ( that's the beauty of email) But the next morning 7 a.m. I have a response and a price quote from Kevin Chalker. It was composed around 3 a.m. according to the time stamp (and we're in the same time zone) I have no idea what he was doing up at 3 a.m. and I still would have bought of a computer from him if he'd emailed me back in the morning, but this guy is an A+++ over achiever. We have exchanged over 50 emails - could be close to 100 now. He patiently answered all my questions, even helping me to figure out what might have been wrong with my CP system because naturally I had doubts about my components. He never ever pushed me to do anything and bent over backwards to accommodate my requests. My case and power supply weren't on his web site - but it was absolutely not a problem for him to get them for me. He was happy to do it and he wanted me to have the computer I wanted to have - not the computer he had to sell. I could go on all day about how great this guy is. Did my system cost me more? Yes. But not anywhere near as much as the headache that CyberPower cost me. I lost 3 weeks of my life and many sleepless nights to them. My computer from KC should arrive next week and I can't wait. Kevin even shipped my system on the date of my choice. Oh, and I can't forget to mention that when i told him I was ready to order - he told me the Core 2 processors were going to have a major price drop the next week and suggested I wait until then. This alone saved me $70. Satisfied customers are more important to Kevin than anything else. I will continue to update you on my system when it arrives. Any computer can have problems, but I know that Kevin will actually care if this system has any problems and he will stand on his head to make it right. You just can't ask for anything better. I dare say - you cannot buy a computer from someone who will care more about your satisfaction than Kevin Chalker. Please check him out, and if you do. Tell him the legacylandheiress sent you. :)
