vmagic
Active member
it's been a mental couple of weeks in regards to this pc:
Case
FRACTAL DESIGN R3 - BLACK PEARL CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2700k Quad Core (3.50GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
3GB AMD RADEON™ HD7970 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£69)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD (£36)
Monitor
IIYAMA E2473HDS 24" LED WIDESCREEN, 2 HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080 (£159)
Keyboard
Razer® Black Widow Ultimate Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (£109)
Mouse
Razer® Deathadder Re-Spawn 3500DPI Infrared Gaming Mouse (£49)
Speakers
LOGITECH Z323 2.1 SPEAKERS - 30W RMS with 360 Degree Sound (£44)
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£69)
Delivery
PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9)
Build Time
FAST TRACK 3 WORKING DAY DISPATCH (£59)
originally I ordered this pc on the 13th of Jan (friday night) with 3 day fast track delivery. Updates were given frequently via e-mail and on the customer support pages on the site, this was a nice touch and I appreciated the communication with the customer.
By wednesday the 18th the PC was built and ready to ship, awesomely enough it turned up at approx 10am on thursday the 19th and I went about setting it up. The delivery came as 2 large boxes, one contained the PC tower and welcome pack (along with driver disks, spare screws and cables etc) and the other one had all the accessories (monitor, razer peripherals, speakers etc). Set up was quick and painless then I went to turn on the PC
"CPU Temp error, press F1 for setup"
my heart sank a little at this point... Thinking it may be a bug I booted into the BIOS and saw the CPU temp falling from 80. I quit the BIOS and exited into windows without a hitch, downloaded realtemp and sure enough all the cores were peaking at 95 and throttling down.
I disconnected the PC, opened it up and noted the CPU Cooler and fan were wobbling on top of the CPU... I called support who advised the screws may have come loose in transit so I tried tightening the thumbscrews and the screws on the back of the mobo but to no avail, it still wobbled like a motherbitch. While this likely happened during transit I also noted some artifacts onscreen when booting and the screen flickered on and off when in windows, additionally the 2 case fans hadn't been hooked up (the power cable for the fan controller was cable tidied and never connected)
needless to say I sent the PC back, it was RMAd on friday 20th, picked up by DPD and sent back to PCS
the pc arrived with PCS on monday 23rd Jan, they confirmed delivery and it was then evaluated on Tuesday 24th, again customer support were really good and kept me in the loop the entire time. The PC was "fixed" and sent back on tuesday evening with the fault report showing that the case fans had been hooked up, a bent heatsink bracket was replaced and the gfx card was replaced due to artifacting... I was relieved that it had been fixed and looked forward to it arriving back.
DPD delivered the PC back to me on wednesday 25th... I nervously opened it back up without the same sense of excitement I'd had the first time it arrived... this time I was just scared and hoped it was going to just work.
*thunk* as soon as i tilted the PC upright I heard something move inside the case... profanities were shouted. Upon opening the case back up it was immediately apparent that EXACTLY THE SAME BLOODY ISSUE WAS THERE. The CPU heatsink was wobbling all over the CPU, the heatsink fan had obviously come off in transit and was rattling around the case too.
I took the CPU heatsink and fan off completely and noted that:
a.) the H-bracket was bent again
b.) thermal paste had not been re-applied when it was RMAd, it still had the remnants of the original thermal paste on the heatsink and cpu (I knew because it was dry as buggery and i'd taken a photo of the original mess the paste had made before sending it back) so even if the heatsink was making a flush connection with the CPU the craggy, dry TIM would have hindered conductivity rather than helped it...
As I was still within the 14 day grace period I was seriously tempted to send the PC back for good... however I went into stress, single minded focus mode and just decided to fix it. Popped to maplin, picked up some antec formula 6 thermal paste, some citrus based TIM cleaner and 2x extra case fans...
after about 2 hours of work today (including bending the H bracket back to its original shape in a door frame) it's all fixed, the PC's running fine, all drivers updated and steam games added. The paste has burned in fine and temps aren't going above 55 on the CPU full load and 70 on the radeon HD7970 full load. before installing everything I ran a 3dmark11 and got just over 8000 without any overclocking so can't complain there.
frankly the PC is great, monitor and peripherals are fantastic, communication with the customer during building AND the fact that the tech support guys obviously know what they're talking about were second to none... Unfortunately I'm just left feeling "meh" about the whole experience. I'm sure the CPU cooler would have been applied correctly which tells me that DPD were not careful with the package (that also has the words "CAUTION, HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE" pasted all over it) both times it was delivered to me, but the case fans weren't connected originally and thermal paste was not re-applied when it was sent back for fixing and these seem like pretty schoolboy errors on PCS' part whether or not DPD handled the box like the Hulk.
So I'm happy with the PC now (finally) but I couldn't honestly recommend PCS simply because of all the issues I've had. Luckily enough I had just enough PC experience to fix it myself but if I hadn't then I feel this whole experience would have gone back and forth for weeks until I simply blew up down the phone and asked for a brand new pc.
sorry for the negativity, just had to be honest and will post some pics tomorrow when it's not so bloody dark in here (energy saving lightbulbs seriously suck
)
edit - updated with a few images, will open the case up later and take a couple but at the moment I'm just scared to move the thing incase it breaks again!!
http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/2360/img2309o.jpg
http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/8125/img2308y.jpg
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2846/img2307pz.jpg
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/4962/img2306lw.jpg
http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/962/img2305o.jpg
http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/8249/img2304s.jpg
Case
FRACTAL DESIGN R3 - BLACK PEARL CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2700k Quad Core (3.50GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
3GB AMD RADEON™ HD7970 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£69)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD (£36)
Monitor
IIYAMA E2473HDS 24" LED WIDESCREEN, 2 HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080 (£159)
Keyboard
Razer® Black Widow Ultimate Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (£109)
Mouse
Razer® Deathadder Re-Spawn 3500DPI Infrared Gaming Mouse (£49)
Speakers
LOGITECH Z323 2.1 SPEAKERS - 30W RMS with 360 Degree Sound (£44)
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£69)
Delivery
PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9)
Build Time
FAST TRACK 3 WORKING DAY DISPATCH (£59)
originally I ordered this pc on the 13th of Jan (friday night) with 3 day fast track delivery. Updates were given frequently via e-mail and on the customer support pages on the site, this was a nice touch and I appreciated the communication with the customer.
By wednesday the 18th the PC was built and ready to ship, awesomely enough it turned up at approx 10am on thursday the 19th and I went about setting it up. The delivery came as 2 large boxes, one contained the PC tower and welcome pack (along with driver disks, spare screws and cables etc) and the other one had all the accessories (monitor, razer peripherals, speakers etc). Set up was quick and painless then I went to turn on the PC
"CPU Temp error, press F1 for setup"
my heart sank a little at this point... Thinking it may be a bug I booted into the BIOS and saw the CPU temp falling from 80. I quit the BIOS and exited into windows without a hitch, downloaded realtemp and sure enough all the cores were peaking at 95 and throttling down.
I disconnected the PC, opened it up and noted the CPU Cooler and fan were wobbling on top of the CPU... I called support who advised the screws may have come loose in transit so I tried tightening the thumbscrews and the screws on the back of the mobo but to no avail, it still wobbled like a motherbitch. While this likely happened during transit I also noted some artifacts onscreen when booting and the screen flickered on and off when in windows, additionally the 2 case fans hadn't been hooked up (the power cable for the fan controller was cable tidied and never connected)
needless to say I sent the PC back, it was RMAd on friday 20th, picked up by DPD and sent back to PCS
the pc arrived with PCS on monday 23rd Jan, they confirmed delivery and it was then evaluated on Tuesday 24th, again customer support were really good and kept me in the loop the entire time. The PC was "fixed" and sent back on tuesday evening with the fault report showing that the case fans had been hooked up, a bent heatsink bracket was replaced and the gfx card was replaced due to artifacting... I was relieved that it had been fixed and looked forward to it arriving back.
DPD delivered the PC back to me on wednesday 25th... I nervously opened it back up without the same sense of excitement I'd had the first time it arrived... this time I was just scared and hoped it was going to just work.
*thunk* as soon as i tilted the PC upright I heard something move inside the case... profanities were shouted. Upon opening the case back up it was immediately apparent that EXACTLY THE SAME BLOODY ISSUE WAS THERE. The CPU heatsink was wobbling all over the CPU, the heatsink fan had obviously come off in transit and was rattling around the case too.
I took the CPU heatsink and fan off completely and noted that:
a.) the H-bracket was bent again
b.) thermal paste had not been re-applied when it was RMAd, it still had the remnants of the original thermal paste on the heatsink and cpu (I knew because it was dry as buggery and i'd taken a photo of the original mess the paste had made before sending it back) so even if the heatsink was making a flush connection with the CPU the craggy, dry TIM would have hindered conductivity rather than helped it...
As I was still within the 14 day grace period I was seriously tempted to send the PC back for good... however I went into stress, single minded focus mode and just decided to fix it. Popped to maplin, picked up some antec formula 6 thermal paste, some citrus based TIM cleaner and 2x extra case fans...
after about 2 hours of work today (including bending the H bracket back to its original shape in a door frame) it's all fixed, the PC's running fine, all drivers updated and steam games added. The paste has burned in fine and temps aren't going above 55 on the CPU full load and 70 on the radeon HD7970 full load. before installing everything I ran a 3dmark11 and got just over 8000 without any overclocking so can't complain there.
frankly the PC is great, monitor and peripherals are fantastic, communication with the customer during building AND the fact that the tech support guys obviously know what they're talking about were second to none... Unfortunately I'm just left feeling "meh" about the whole experience. I'm sure the CPU cooler would have been applied correctly which tells me that DPD were not careful with the package (that also has the words "CAUTION, HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE" pasted all over it) both times it was delivered to me, but the case fans weren't connected originally and thermal paste was not re-applied when it was sent back for fixing and these seem like pretty schoolboy errors on PCS' part whether or not DPD handled the box like the Hulk.
So I'm happy with the PC now (finally) but I couldn't honestly recommend PCS simply because of all the issues I've had. Luckily enough I had just enough PC experience to fix it myself but if I hadn't then I feel this whole experience would have gone back and forth for weeks until I simply blew up down the phone and asked for a brand new pc.
sorry for the negativity, just had to be honest and will post some pics tomorrow when it's not so bloody dark in here (energy saving lightbulbs seriously suck
)edit - updated with a few images, will open the case up later and take a couple but at the moment I'm just scared to move the thing incase it breaks again!!
http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/2360/img2309o.jpg
http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/8125/img2308y.jpg
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2846/img2307pz.jpg
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/4962/img2306lw.jpg
http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/962/img2305o.jpg
http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/8249/img2304s.jpg
Last edited:
