Industry Standard Computers
St. Clairsville, Ohio
(740) 695-1520
21 Years In Business - 21 Years Experience with Computers - 15 Years with Networks & Security
The oldest system builder in the area, maybe in the state!
Best Labor Rate in the Area, $25 Shop, $35 Outside

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Computer Hype and Other Lies

1. Beware: If it doesn't say NEW it might not be! Many will lead you to believe everything they sell is NEW. By the way the salesman on the floor at Discount Junk Store, doesn't know what is refurbished or used; he would not tell you if he did.
2. We sell at computer for ... $499.  But you can't go and buy it. They will not sell it to you. If you could buy it, it is still missing most of what you need to be a fully functioning system, i.e. no monitor, no antivirus, etc.
3. Retail is better than OEM.  Yes, generally speaking but... We buy boxed processors whenever possible because they do carry a manufacturer's 3 year warranty. OEM processors are in reality only guaranteed to work. With big boys like HP, Gateway or Dell, the internal computer parts are bought with no warranty.  They provide their own warranty.  With us little guys who buy from authorized computer parts distributors or directly from the manufacturer our parts are covered generally for 1 year from purchase date (excluding the processors discussed above).  Some of ISC's purchased parts have a lifetime warranty from the manufacturer, many 3 years. If you purchase a computer that claims to have a 3 year warranty, then in reality, most, if not all, the parts inside that computer are covered by a warranty out of someone's pocket! They will invalidate your 3 yr. warranty any chance they get!
4. Intel motherboards are the best... matter of opinion.  We can order Intel boards, they have at least integrated sound and network (LAN) on board and generally are always slower in speed then our normally purchased boards.
5. Everything is going to mini tower (micro tower) design.  Yes everyone else is, because these low end designs are cheaper!  NEVER buy a tower case with anything but a standard ATX 300 watt power supply and standard ATX motherboard .... end of discussion!
6. NTFS is more secure than FAT 32.  In a word NO.  Files on the hardrive can still be read by people who know how.  Security is more an operating system dilemma not what format and most of all how it was configured.  We have on more than one occasion had crashed XP Home computers come into the shop built by other computer companies. We were able to save all the owner's documents on the computer including the ones that were passworded (it is so easy to do we don't even ask what the password is). In rebuild time FAT 32 saves you money! If two people use the same computer like a janitor and the president of the company, go with NTFS, there is a little more security between users than with FAT 32.
7. All the software is preloaded.  If you don't have the licenses, CD ROMs for your software you might have bought stolen property. (Piracy is a 6 billion dollar business per year.)  If you don't have the original CD ROMs for your computer... what if the computer crashes or the hardrive goes bad?  We supply all drivers and software CDs for the operating system, hardware and any commercially bought software like Word Perfect Suite or Micro$oft Office.  A restore disk is NOT original software. Original software could be used on anyone's computer... not legally, but would install just the same.  Legal software does not come on blue CD ROMs (i.e. burned, not stamped CD ROMs).  (Fact to be aware a certain discount store in this area sells name brand computers with Microsoft Office installed but with no legal license for the MS Office. Checkout www.microsoft.com/howtotell for more info on how to tell if it is legal.)  Microsoft Office Professional and Windows XP Home costs $365 or more just for the legal software!
8. "I can get a computer for $549."  Yes, you can, but it is not complete or what you really need and it is probably not all new. Make sure you get your power cords, printer cable, 2 phone cables, 1 year of virus updates, serial & parallel ports, average size hardrive, 1000+ joule surge protector, 4 USB ports, your non-integrated video, two ps 2 ports for standard keyboard and mouse connections, software CDs, Windows CD, 17" monitor, etc.  Compare apples to apples ISC wins every time.
9. If you can find a computer bid lower than ISC. First make sure you are getting everything that we include. Second check out the specs closely.  Then, if it really did beat us..... big if,  the computer company buys at the $5 million dollar level and has less that a 10% markup on computers.  They will not be in business long.
10. DDR memory is faster than SDRAM.... NOT!  The following was tests ran by us in worst case scenario on an AMD 2.0 with DDR & SDRAM.  The computer is networked, firewalled, with Norton AV running, 45 GB of an 80 GB hardrive filled with 3 running operating systems, 12 GB of music, about every hardware driver we ever sold, 7 complete copies of the standard operating systems we sell on new computers, programs left open, 6 programs that load on startup, etc.  We try a lot of different ideas but most tests we did were in the 5 second or less range. These kind of tests are really worthless since a one second delay can always be in the  human range. Here are the results of things we did find to do:

TEST	SDRAM PC 133	DDR 2100
Power on switch to final hour glass in Windows	1:58 minutes	1:57 minutes
Convert text on 60 pages of text	0:36	0:36
Converting 1800 pictures to thumbnails	3:03	3:03
Rebuilding a 110,000 record database	0:15	0:16
Guess what?   Same speed. Price in Nov. 2002 for SDRAM is $48 less than DDR. That is almost one more speed jump on the processor chart.  Guess what we recommend for your $48? In W2k that gets you an extra 256 MB of SDRAM.  It's your money you want DDR fine with us too.

11. I need a 100X CDRW (burner).
• In reality 99.9% of the time you burn a CD, you can never reach the maximum speed of any brand of CDRW.  99.9% of the time a 32X and a 56X burn at the same actually speed of around 14x.
12. I need an 200 Gigabyte hard drive. I don't want to run out of space.
• The largest used amount of space (programs) to ever come into the shop here was 3.5 Gigabytes. The largest amount of music so far to be seen on any computer here was 6.5 gb. from Napster (downloaded by DSL connection for one month 24 hours a day.) Your computer from us will have 1.4 gigabytes used (Windows 98) if you order Word Perfect Suite and 36+ gigabytes empty.  The worst I have ever seen was about 20,000 songs that took up about 54 gigabytes on one server. This server stores the complete Music catalogs for 7 radio stations, every thing from Frank Sinatra to Loretta Lynn to Megadeath.
13. I need 1 Gigabyte of RAM on my new computer.
• Windows 98 and Windows ME can see 128... no more. Widows NT (2000 or 4.0 or XP) can see 512 MB... no more. Windows Servers can see 4 gigabytes or somewhere around that. I know of no software, outside of server software, that can address over 128 MB of RAM! (This includes AutoCad, 3D Studio, Photoshop, Video Editing Programs. etc.) The false sense of extra speed by the extra RAM over 256 Mb is the swap file size that has grown. Bigger the swap file more chance of corruption in extended use. Ask an NT / Server 2k expert why their servers have to be rebooted at least one a month or risk network corruption.  (Too much memory slows down the computer, not speed it up.)
14. I need a 256 Megabyte 128 Bit VGA card with 4000 MHz memory.
• An 8 megabyte VGA card will render 1600 X 1200 dpi resolution in 16 bit color. (This is better then the human eye can see without help.) The computer PCI bus is a 32 bit single one way channel. Pathways turns on receives info, turns off, turns on sends info.  The AGP is 32 bit dual channel (the old VESA standard), send and receives at the same time. Gamers do need more memory than 8 MB but it is more the brand of chip on their Video card and that it is a card (not integrated to the motherboard) which make the most difference not and never will again after 32 MB mean a whole lot.
15. I need a super fast computer so I can surf the net.
• IF you are using a 56k modem you will not be able to tell the difference between a 600 or 3200 MHz computer in surf time. If you have your own personal T-1 line ($1200 per month, 5 times faster than cable modem)  then I would say maybe (big maybe!).
16. My RAM BUS memory, since it runs at 400 MHz makes my computer the fastest there is.
• We had a 800 MHz Pentium III computer with 400 MHz RAM Bus memory in the shop and with a stripped down Windows 98 it still ran noticeable slower than the shop 700 MHz AMD with its 100 MHz memory. (Please excuse the spelling if improper, we have seen it also "rambus" or just RIMMs.  The main processor does far more to determine speed then the memory ever will!!
17. My modem connects at 55,000 BPS.
• Our US Robotics modem connects at 115,000 according to Windows 2000.  (hee, hee, ha, ha) The numbers are easy to trick. FCC limit is 53,000. If you truly are doing better, then you will be getting a knock on your door soon by people wearing black suits and carrying guns.
18. One modem brand is as good as another.
This is a sample of a $6 modem: Th s is a line in an email. something seems to be  rong but I can figure it out, can   u?
This is a sample of a name brand modem ($18-50): This is a line in an email. Something seems to be wrong but I can figure it out, can you?
Better modems connect slower because they have more error detection/correction. The above is an example of the type of problem you could get in a download. Email is so small that it is doubtful you would truly be missing letters. If you did miss a letter or two in a email, so what. But if you miss a piece of  an Internet Explorer download, bye bye Windows!
19. One computer manufacturer is as good as another.
• If you compare lowest bid to lowest bid manufacturers (most if not all major manufacturers) then this is probably correct. But here we pick what brands we believe and have tested to be the best of the following: reliability, speed, hassle free operation, less down time, better performance, less incompatibilities.
20. One version of Windows is better than another version of Windows.
• If you are running Windows 95b or better don't worry about changing. 99% of the time you don't need to upgrade unless your present operating system dies or there is some software you have to use that requires better.  If it works don't break it!  More on the subject click here... Which Operating System to Buy.
21. I can buy it cheaper from someone else.
• Look at the fine print. I have seen some on-line suppliers charge a $20-30 shipping  and handling fee, not the actually $5-7 UPS shipping fee for a hardrive. There is also something called cost averaging that works kinda like this. They buy 20 rebuilt 60 GB. hardrives for $80 and 100 new 60 GB for $105. That's $12,100 for 120 hardrives or $100.83 for each hardrive. If you buy the used (rebuilt) for $101 that's terrible but how about the new one for $101?  (Be careful if it doesn't say NEW it might not be!)
22. At ... web site they show me how to build my own computer and they sell the parts there too.
• Have you ever priced just the engine, transmission and body parts of your car. They sell for more than does the whole car, same with computers. 20% markup on parts is higher than our 10% markup on the whole computer. Then with your current experience, can you tell me what motherboards work with what VGA cards work with what modems? Can you with your current experience, tell me that a blue screen per day is normal or a minor hardware conflict? (We work on about 1 amateur built computer per week here. One person spent over $1500 to get a lesser computer than what we built for $950 at the time. Let's face facts we make more money fixing your mess then we make putting you together a good machine. Bring them on... )
23. We need a Novell or Windows Server 2000 network here.
• Yes, you may and again you may not. Recently we put in a Windows 98 network as opposed to an Novell or NT network because the business shares about 10 files between departments and they needed to have one color printer and one laser printer per person in a couple of departments. Yes, we could have made thousands of dollars putting in 2000/2003 server or Novell server but they just did not need it! We make recommendations once of what we feel is best for you, after that it's your money, spend it anyway you want. 99% of the time that someone does not take our advice, we make more money!

We here at ISC we answer to a higher God than our stomachs.

I personally have years of my life in some documents and projects. I will not trust those to an integrated low end computer like HP/Compaq or Gateway or Dell!
 

Updated 10-03

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Written by Butch Walker, 7-2002, © Copyright 2003, all rights reserved.


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