Community Newsletter: Q&A: Your thoughts on refurbished or "recertified" computers

Do not get hung up on "PC Branding"

In reply to: Your thoughts on refurbished or "recertified" computers by Lee Koo (ADMIN) 

Hi Julianne,

In answer to your question, “refurbished or ‘recertified’ computer” I would not have a real problem purchasing one as what that means is you are buying a broken or returned computer that has been repaired and is in working order. Yes, you can save some money by purchasing one and will more than likely be very happy with the one you buy. One caveat to keep in mind is; this is a used computer cleaned up for resale. So there is a possibility that what ever the reason for return was, it could come back and haunt you.

Now that I’ve said this I’d like to address your “HP or Brand” loyalty. I have been a technician for over 15 years and have opened a lot of computers of all different makes to either do upgrades or repair. Because of this I have discovered that the name brand computers are not manufactured by the company whose label is on the case, keyboard, monitor and even the mouse. They are assembled by the company who had the parts manufactured or purchased parts in bulk and then “altered to fit their marketing model”. Very often I discover that the mother board is manufactured by Intel, ASUS or some other company but have been limited to what can be done in terms of upgradeability. The same mother board was available on the open market for use in what is called a “White Box System” but the features are not disabled or removed for proprietary branding. Basically what I’m saying is that there is no real difference between brands other than “Windows” or “Macintosh” computers; but there is a huge difference in cost of ownership over the years in terms of service and upgradeability if you own a white box system.

When I purchased my first computer I was “Brand Conscious” just like you, but one day my computer did not start to my dismay the drive controller went out. I took the computer in for repair and found out it was a mother board problem and the case was proprietary. It very rapidly turned into what I call “New Computer Day!” These things never hit you when you have the money and of course I could not afford a new computer that day. The economical solution was to purchase a new case and motherboard with a CPU; a new computer at that time was going to set me back over $1500.00 but for $360.00, an afternoon and a lot of courage I built my first computer utilizing the drives and other parts from the dead one. When finished I had a feeling of great accomplishment and a “New Computer” with old drives that still worked; you might say I had a reconditioned computer.

In my experience I’d have to say that over 90% of the computers that have been purchased over the counter with a brand name on it are what is known as Micro ATX architecture. When you open them up you will find that all major components are integrated into the mother board. This is real bad news if say for example the video goes out or you want to upgrade the video for performance reasons. More often than naught I have found the AGP socket has been removed and soldered forcing you to use a PCI slot for the new video card. PCI video cards are few and hard to find these days.

As far as running all of your external add-on hardware, a “White Box Windows System” will run everything you have. Let go of HP or Branding and you will find that you will save a lot of money over the years and have a great computer that grows with you.

Uncle Buck :?)