Quote:
|
Originally Posted by pplepiew
You might want to expand on that, ajr. Why not? Did you buy through a reseller?
Like people mentioned, PCtorque has a great resellerrating. One of the advantages, other than their being fast and cheap, is that they'll help you deal with Sager support if they can't help you themselves (meaning you're having hardware trouble). I think Sager bends a bit more for PCT than they would for the average caller, not the least of which because of this forum. Complaints here are very visible and Sager knows it...  |
Ok, I'll elaborate...
First, I have no issues with PC Torque. I bought my laptop from them and that transaction was fine, great machine (4780) at a great price. But they are a reseller, and from the point you exceed your 30 return policy with them, you're no longer really working with them when you have issues with your machine. They can't fix your machine, Sager is responsible for that.
Quick chronology of my 4780 (this is a long read, so if you bore easily, it's probably best to skip to the summary):
Day 1: Booted up the machine and everything was initially great. I really liked the machine, nice screen, responsive (reviewed it positively) - even though it ran pretty warm along the left hand rest. I played with the thing for about 8 hours at least that day.
Day 2: Turned on the machine and got an "operating system not found" error. I tried various things and realized it was likely that the hard-drive cable was bad. I emailed Sager and they sent me one a couple days later, no questions asked. Pretty nice, this fixed the problem. I was happy with that service, but it sucks to have any issues with a machine right off the bat like that.
...3-4 months go by with no issues...very nice...gaming like mad...
Month 5: By now I have a half-moon shape worn along the left side of my palm rest because it runs so hot there. My palm sweats and somehow the finish has worn off. No biggy, that's just cosmetic...
Month 6: After running a game for very long periods I start to see tearing in the video, blockiness and what not. I assume the machine is getting too hot. At this point I'm very attached to machine. I don't really have any others worth mentioning. I look around the forum and realize other people, with a variety of Sager machines, are having issues with heat also. They most often would send their machine in and the motherboard would get replaced.
Month 7-8: Playing games has almost become impossible. I email Sager for an RMA. They give me a RMA and tell me to ship it to them. Still, being that this is my primary machine I'm reluctant to send it in - I mean I do more than play games with it - I VPN into work with it, surf the Internet...etc. I look into buying a laptop cooler first to see if that will help at all.
Month 9-10: I buy a laptop cooler and things get a bit better. I can play games again as long as I have the cooler on high and never let the heat build-up.
Month 11: The cooler stops working effectively. Games are becoming increasingly difficult to play for more than an hour. I request another RMA and send the machine in before my warranty is up. This cost about $30 or so - no biggy.
A week or so later: I email Sager asking what's up with my machine and they say it's on it's way back to me. I'm think great, they fixed it...don't know what they did...but they wouldn't send it back if the problem wasn't fixed.
Month 12: I fire up the machine after getting it back from the RMA. After a couple hours playing, I have the same issues. I email Sager asking them what was done to the machine. They say they upgraded the BIOS, the video drivers and replaced a switch on the monitor hinge (for some reason). I tell them I'm still having the same issues.
One week later: The tech tells me they think the newer BIOS they installed is incompatible with my video memory. I tell them, that doesn't make sense because the issues I'm having are the same as when I sent it to them. They insist I downgrade my BIOS from 1.08 to 1.05. I do this. This does not change anything.
Another week later: I send them screen shots of games with blocks and tearing everywhere and photos of green lines running vertically in my BIOS. This happens after a gaming session and the machine is not usable for gaming for a couple days - must take that long to properly cool or something. They give me a new RMA and I send the machine in to them a second time - $30 bucks again.
Two weeks later: I impatiently wait with a crappy, partially-working, backup computer hoping they're finally going to fix this, but after 2 weeks and many emails with no word from them, I ask help from one of the people at PC Torque. The next day Sager sends me an email saying they never got any of my previous emails and they tell me that my BIOS is too old and that is why I was seeing the lines in my BIOS. They said after installing the latest BIOS the lines went away.
Couple days later: I tell them that they told me to install that version of the BIOS, they sent me the ISO for it in email. I'm incredulous that they have no record of all our previous conversations nor my previous RMA. It's like this is the first time seeing my machine or ever emailing me.
Couple more days later: They ask me what I think the problem is and how to make it show up. I tell them I think it's related to heat and they need to run a benchmark or a game for a while and it should show.
Couple more: They say they ran a 2003 benchmark for a while and nothing showed up and ran Doom 3 (which I had pre-installed) and it worked, but didn't run it for a while because, "Of cause, the tech does not have time to play for long period of time."
Latest email: I tell them if they run Doom 3 for 5 hours and they don't see any problems to send it back.
It's obvious they don't feel this is an issue. The machine mostly works right???? Not in my opinion, I bought this as a gaming machine.
To summarize:
I think it's hit or miss with these machines. Some had great experiences, even though most admit the machines run quite hot. Other's like me, did not.
I really like laptops as a gaming machine, despite the chiding I've got from other gamers. I've had a laptop for my primary machine for about 10 years now, my first being a Samsung SENs 810 (I think that was it) with the flip out keyboard - cool machine. I had a DELL after that, an Inspiron 8000. Neither of those machines gave me any notable issues and were decent gaming machines for years - even upgraded the video myself on the Dell, way back then.
I went with the Sager because of value really. You can get tons of features (some now I realise as frivilous) for an affordable price. What I failed to take into account was reliablility, and in my experience it wasn't worth the money saved. But hindsight is 20/20 right?
My next machine will likely be the XPS2. It's a lot of money, but I can trick it out with a great warranty and from what I've read, it runs quite a bit cooler. And if something goes wrong I can work with Dell to get it fixed, the people that sold me the machine.
P.S. Sorry about the vent, but it's been long overdue. I had this strange paranoia that Sager people would be reading this forum and not fix my machine correcly if they saw me complaining (i.e. chef spitting in your food). I realize now that this is unlikely and that it's doubtful it will ever be fixed anyway.
So needless to say, this is my experience with Sager, take it as you will...
-- Aaron
.
. Still good for some people but if you're coding anyway, you might as well go 9860 for the wider screen, you can see more code, and the other options.
