Regarding Buying Branded PC bundles

[chanchan05]

Ok, My mom is considering buying a PC for the house as my siblings are starting need one. I have my own laptop, but they dont. My youngest sibling is at first year highschool, and my brother, though at college already, claims he doesnt need/want his own laptop. All he wants is somewhere to type and play a few games. So they'll be sharing a home PC.

However, my mom wont consider me assembling the PC but rather would buy a bundled PC from HP. We chose HP due to the absence of service centers for other PC brands in our country, and if we were to buy a bundled package, I'd much rather have one wherein I am not at the mercy of third party support.

My question is that if the PC is bundled and bought from an HP showroom, would I bee allowed to say, replace the HDD with a higher capacity one, replace the video card with a better one, etc. Or would I have to make them do it? I'm planning on just buying a medium range desktop for budget constraints, and over time would add more and better hardware. Is there a warranty clause relating to this?

 

[TheDiceman]

While I cannot speak in direct reference to HP, I do have a lot of experience with warranties (supporting them, dealing with them and even writing them) with computer products and know that generally once you start fumbling around inside a PC the parent company for that product will refuse to service it on the grounds that you are prolly the one that screwed it up in the first place. It sounds like a jerk move, I know, but from the point of view of a company such can all too often be the case. I have had first hand experience dealing with products that a customer has altered and in doing so damaged the computer, thus voiding the warranty. In the same respect I have had isntances of a customer doing a better quality job on simple prduct upgrade/maintinence than "certified" technicians.

 

[patonb]

Besides the warrentee, the systemsx use basic setups... Meaning the psu is just good enough to power the parts, and usually adding a better gpu won't work.

If you need the better stuff, get it at purchase time.

Any rason you can't go dell?? Saddly That'd be my first oem boxed brand.. As theyre entirely customizable at purchase.

Remember HDs are cheap now, so an usb enclosure is the best idea, especially as thees multiple users.. you can unplug and move files lickity split.

 

[chanchan05]

Well, Dell service centers are very unaccessible on my part as compared to HP service centers. Also, those are the only two brands I would consider since they are the only ones to have actual service centers here, not one of those "authorized" service centers.

Also, I was thinking of upgrading bit by bit since we may not be able to afford it at one go, since when my brother asked for a desktop, he wished that he could play good games on it.

@Diceman - since you seem to have knowledge on warranties, I was wondering, what if the scenario was for example I bought my PC from you. Then a couple of months later I come back to have you upgrade the RAM for me, then another couple of months I have you upgrade the video card. What if it was like that, wherein the guys from the very store where I bought the PC were the ones to do the tinkering?

 

[kimsland]

Well, Dell service centers are very unaccessible on my part as compared to HP service centers

Dell computers are sold with a warranty that states they will come to your home to fix any hardware issue
You can even have this warranty extended for another couple of years with onsite support

I don't particularly like HP, as their computers seem to be HP Windows not Microsoft Windows (IMO) Plus they come with more HP startups than any other company allows their manufacture program startups.

Changing a Harddrive does not affect warranty
But in saying that, you will then need a restore "disc" as the Windows is actually in a hidden partition on the harddrive

Ram cards can also be updated without voiding warranty
But the graphics card (as mentioned earlier) would likely require a better PSU
Therefore this one is a concern

You can chat with HP (for free) here: Contact HP - Online chat options
And confirm all your issues

Again though, I prefer Dell over HP