My experiences trying to buy a computer

It's high time I got myself my own computer. With my next semester chocked full of programming and system administration courses, I don't want to have to fight my mother for the computer to do my homework, especially when she'd be fighting me to do her database homework not to mention her workwork. I have some money in the bank from a summer job, and fair idea of what I'm looking for:

Something that'll last for 3 years: Simply put, this is going to be my computer, and I'm going to keep it around a while. Celerons and k6-2s are out of the question, a 1.6G HD won't cut it, and 64MB ram is the baseline minimum.
AMD Chip - Duron or Thunderbird: I haven't heard anything bad about these processors, and they're one to two hundred dollars cheaper than the equivalent Intel chips. The price of Intel chips simply puts them out of my reach. I'd prefer a 1GHz T-Bird or better, but a 800 Duron is fine with me; I'd go down to 700 if the price is right. I also don't like what I've heard about that tracking number in the Pentium 3, but price is the major factor in my decision.
Standard Equipment: No funny stuff. No unmarked parts from some unknown company from Taiwan that doesn't have a web presence. Nothing that starts with "Win". Everything's gotta work in $random_OS.
No Windows: I've been working with DOS/Windows for years, I want to move on to other things, especially if I want to be employable for more than $7/hr in a year. I'm going cold turkey in the switch; There will be no FAT partition on the computer I use. Needless to say, I don't want to pay for expensive software that I will not use.
No Compaq or Packard Bell: These computers have such a bad reputation I'm not going to touch them. I first heard of Packard Bell when they became infamous for sending out broken returned hardware as new and charging full price for it. Most of the Compaqs I've worked with have been a pain in the ass to set up; They also have a reputation for breaking down and including mediocre parts, almost as bad as Packard Bell in that respect.

Going to the local stores...uh... What local stores?

Damn, there used to be dozens of them around here. I personally knew two people that owned their own computer shops, and my dad knows a third. All of them are out of business now, as well as most of the smaller shops. The phone book lists several places under computer sales, but the majority only service hardware, and most of the rest only sell to businesses. After days of running around hearing "Oh, we don't build 'em, we just fix 'em", I found three living, breathing computer stores.

Oh won't you be my neighbour?: Located in a deserted shopping center where even the gambling parlor went out of business, the first place has a good reputation from people I've talked to who have bought from them. Unfortunately, they only sell Intel. I got a price quote on a P3 and left. If I had an extra couple hundred bucks, I might consider them.
Wait, this isn't a used car lot?: The next place I went to was a small shack in a parking lot that had the appearance of a used-car salesman's office. As I walked in, I heard the guy behind the counter tell his customer to go to Best Buy. Not A Good Sign™. The computers were mostly old Pentiums and Celerons. It actually was a used-computer lot. The shopkeeper says that the hardware is not tested, and that once it's out the door, it doesn't come back. That last bit applies to myself as well. I need a little more security than that.
The Last Old-School Computer Store: One of the two standbys in town; There is an aquarium cleaner where the other used to be. These people, also, are Intel-only, even though they have a sign proclaiming themselves as an authorized AMD reseller. Turns out their experiences with AMD chips are so bad they haven't even bothered to get pricing information in six months. This is the first bad news I've heard about AMD's product - I make a note to add a warranty to my requirements. I get a price on a P3. It's a little more than I want to pay, for a little less than I want to get.

Into the maw of doom

Not really, but everybody loves to say the big boxstores are evil. They have a reputation of selling crap at a high price, and selling lots of it. I went to several different stores, and they were all selling the exact same Compaq and HP models. The prices aren't that bad either; For what the small stores offered in a P3-733, I could get a GHz Athlon with a monitor and printer. I saw one HP model that looked good; I later found out that I could just order it over the phone direct from HP for the same price. So much for the box stores.

Cutting out the middleman

I went up to HP's website and set some configuration options. I don't need the fanciest sound or video, nor will I need a CDRW, but I would like a faster HD. Unfortunately, there isn't much information given about the parts and I'm left with more questions than answers. I spend some time digging through the website looking for phone numbers to call, and write up a set of questions to annoy the techies on the other end with:

What motherboard is included, and what is the highest processor I can upgrade to with this motherboard?: HP's webpage doesn't say, but I'd like to know.
What is the chipset used by the onboard ethernet? Is the onboard NIC equivalent to any brand-name network cards? Can I have a second network card installed?: All I know is that there is a NIC built into the motherboard, don't know if it'll work outside of Windows. I might eventually use this box as a gateway for my dad's network, or my own in the future, so a second NIC would be a good investment.
How fast can the 12x DVD read CDROMs? How fast can the 16x? Do the DVD drives use a standard IDE interface? Can I boot from the DVD drive?: The speed of the drive is very basic information that should be on their page, but all that is said is that they are backwards-compatible. I read somewhere that any DVD drive on a standard IDE interface can be read as a normal CDROM, hence the next question just in case whatever OS I choose can't read DVDs yet.
Is shipping included in the product price?: Nothing about shipping is listed on the product page or anywhere else I could see.
Is there someplace I can see the text of the warranty before purchasing?: You have to be a lawyer to be a computer user these days. There is a summary of the warranty, but the text of it is not availiable and I don't know what the warranty might exclude that is covered in the summary. Then again, I might be able to claim that I agreed to the summary as the warranty, because I was never presented with the text of the warranty itself.
Can I take off the modem?: Chances are whatever "modem" they put in there isn't a real modem, and won't work in *. Besides, I have an external modem available.
Can I have the system shipped with a blank drive?: They're sending it with $200 worth of software that I'm not going to use and that I don't want to pay for. I'm very willing for them to call it their labor costs to blank the drive and keep the difference, as long as I'm not paying for software that I'm not using.
Will I be getting manuals for the hardware(motherboard manual, etc)?: Obviously important.
Will I be able to access the CMOS, or see the memory test?: Some of the brand-name computers don't let you configure your hardware or even see the memory test.

The HP Pavilion 8720, no the 8776, no it's a 9720, no that's only sold in Europe, no wait... Do we have a model like that?

After several telephone conversations with HP employees, I concluded that they do not know their elbows from their asses. Not that this is the fault of the employees, but there is no communication between the people making the machines and the people selling them.

HP's sales division is apparently a seperate corporation called HPShopping.com (yes, .com is part of their name. Red flag number one.). I ended up calling them twice, and calling HP's own technical support once. The HPShoppingdotcom people were pathetically underinformed, while the HP guy was able to answer a couple questions before transferring me to another site that would be better suited to answer my questions. Apparently he had not been informed that this location had ceased to exist some time earlier, and I was automatically transferred over to HPShopping. Remember, the HP HP guy thought he was transferring me to people that would know more than him.

The Motherboard Question: Nobody knew what motherboard came in the machine. The first HPSdC guy said that he actually wasn't allowed to tell me what motherboard was in the machine because of a contract between HP and their supplier. He could not supply the name of the vendor by the same agreement. Five years ago I'd have thought he was bullshitting me to save his techie rep, but these agreements are everywhere these days, and he'd already admitted to not knowing much of anything about the system. The HP guy guessed that the motherboard might be a Mercury, but he also thought the model only came with Pentium chips.
The Ethernet Questions: Nobody knew what the onboard ethernet was. The second HPS guy guessed that it might be an Intel chipset, and thought that the same network card chipset was being used in both Pentium and Athlon based motherboards. The first guy said that I could not have a second NIC installed, the second guy wasn't sure.
The DVD Questions: In the first questions the HPS guys had answers to, the DVD drives use standard IDE connections and can be booted from. Unfortunately, nobody knew how fast they read CDROMs.
Shipping: Apparently, it's supposed to be listed on the next page. I have to click a button which could legally bind me to agree to purchase the machine. Sure, why not. Hmm, it's not there.. But there is a notice about a $150 "restocking fee" if the machine they send is crappy enough I'd want to send it back. Caveat emptor. Looking a bit further, I eventually find it. At $105, it's enough to make me look at the smallshop Pentiums as a serious option, because that's a good chunk of your price difference right there....
Where's The Warranty: Nobody knew. The first guy suggested I look in HP's main page, but I only saw the text of the business warranties for their advanced $2000+ systems.
Options!: What I consider to be optional components, they don't. It comes with a modem(?) whether I like it or not. Assembly gets the hard drives with the software already installed(!), and it's not their choice to install or remove it. They don't even do Windows 2000. At least they're consistent.
Docs?: Nope. No documentation comes with the system other than the most basic "This is a mouse" crap. This system is apparently being targeted at people who don't have the computer skills to dig through the webpage or kiosk databases to find out it exists.
The Basics: The only answer I liked. I was told that yes I could configure the hardware, and the memory test is visible, there is only a small(read: not full screen) logo on the side. These were reserved answers, however, as the technicians made it clear that they weren't sure.

As surprised as I was that the salesmen did not know what they were selling, I was just as surprised when they said nobody had asked these questions before. Yes, some of them are technical or esoteric, but some of them are obvious. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at some amount of internal confusion in a company that is trying to sell Openmail while migrating away from it on its own internal servers towards its competitor Exchange. As for requiring over a hundred dollars worth of software, I came to the conclusion that HP does not want to sell product. How does "$1200 Gigahertz PC" sound to HP execs? I think at least business customers would eat it up.

The Great Crusade

Deep in the heart of Silicon Valley, there is a legendary place so hallowed, so revered as the ultimate computer superstore. A place where bare motherboards are on full display, removed from their uninformative cardboard husks. A place where memory is stored in Al Gore's lockbox. A place where customers know more about the products being sold than the people selling them(Hey, I was just on the phone with a place like that). Reaching this fabulous place would be a long and strenuous journey of many hours(hey, I'm American. I got no attention span), traveling through desolate toxic wasteland(Contra Costa), and must come to a final conclusion in a futile struggle against thousands of opponents(trying to drive home in Bay Area traffic). Though it be difficult, I charge myself to take upon this task, for HP Sucks Ass. Besides, my dad's driving.

At the last minute we find out we don't even have to go into the Valley, there's one in Sacramento(the other Valley). Air is still unbreatheable(though not chemically, just smog), but the traffic's not as bad. After a few wrong turns and a spin around the state Capitol, we finally find the place. Upon entering, I can see why the employees have a reputation for cluelessness. Disregarding that this meme is spread by professionals with more years in system administration than the employees have on this Earth, the place looks about the size of my college, and it seems like I would have to study harder to work with all the stuff there than I do for school.

A very good feature of this place is that almost everything comes with a warranty. I start taking down prices on a sheet of paper and make calculations, and consider the good versus the bad of building my own machine from parts versus buying from HP. A top of the line machine from retail parts is about the same price as the HP machine; I know I'm getting a good motherboard versus hoping, but I'm hoping the parts will all work together versus having a good assumption. Also, I did not recognize any of the network or sound cards on display there - The only representative from Creative was a pile of Ensoniques, and I later found out that this name is used for a wide variety of cards which may or may not be supported. For NICs, I could pick up some Intel 10/100s from the used computer place I used to work at, I hear they're very good for most systems but we couldn't figure out what to do with them in Windows without being able to find drivers or any identifying marks on the cards themselves. I was looking for an alternative to an NVidia graphics card, as from what I hear they require some fancy footwork with fairly new drivers to get to work, but didn't see anything else I recognized in that section either; NVidias were the HP's only options as well.

At home, I rechecked my numbers and found I could save over $200 by using a Duron and restraining myself to only one 128MB memory chip. After a last glance at HP's webpage, I decided that building my own 700 system would be the best bet; It's more than enough for right now, and I could easily upgrade to a GHz in a year when the prices aren't what they are now. Looks like HP lost a sale.