Dec of 07 I bought 2 systems from newegg, went with a mwave case with 500 watt power supply mwave brand. Paid 60$ for the cases.
June of 08 a close friend of mine built 2 systems, most of the parts from tiger direct, including 2 cases & 500 watt power supplys. He paid just a bit less for his cases with 500 watt power supplys than I did. I think in the mid 50's for case and power supply.
Fast forward 3 years, both of my systems are still running on the original mwave power supplys.
Both of his have failed. One of them when it failed may have screwed up other parts.
Tiger has its place, its just not a place I choose to go unless I truly have no other choice.
So you're basing your opinions of an entire company (which sells many different brands of products) on the fact that your friend's cheap power supplies from TigerDirect didn't last as long as your cheap power supplies from NewEgg? You do understand that there are a lot more factors involved with this than simply the product vendor, right?
1> The brand of P/S he got may have been less quality than your 'mwave' brand power supplies
2> Your friend may have been using more power hungry processors/video/peripherals than you. A heavier load will reduce the life of a power supply, ESPECIALLY the cheap ones.
3> Your friend may have been operating the computers under worse conditions... more animal hair (and less cleaning)/higher temperatures/higher humidity/less airflow... who knows
4> Your friend's electricity may not be as clean as yours. Electrical interference can also be a big factor in power supply life, especially the cheap ones.
Basically what I am saying is that you get what you pay for. Comparing one cheap power supply to another and judging a vendor based on such is not a fair comparison, as cheap power supplies are always 'crap shoots' to begin with. It's obvious you've made up your mind about TigerDirect and I'm not going to change that... nor would I expect you to change your mind based on a couple of sentences said on a bulletin board... nor would I *want* you to choose a vendor that makes you feel uncomfortable.. but to badmouth a company because of only what you described I feel just simply isn't fair.. especially when you come out with such broad statements as "I would be extremely wary of anything from Tiger Direct".
If I were to improve your statement, it would be something such as "I would be extremely ware of purchasing ANY computer hardware based on price alone. When it comes to 'cheap' parts, more often than not you get what you pay for regardless of vendor".
Tequila, I should add that I once purchased a SystemMAX from TigerDirect several years ago. It was an old Socket-7 AMD Athlon system and lasted me for many years problem free. I ended up giving it away as a gift after about four years because I built a new system. You are correct in the fact that it WAS XP, and was setup with FAT32 but that was easy enough to correct. Also for the "average" computer user, especially back then, NTFS offered few options that would actually benefit them, and could potential make things many times more complicated. I don't blame them one bit for making that decision.
I will be honest though, I haven't used TigerDirect for anything significant for about two years due to two case/power supply combos I purchased were DOA. This was a couple of years ago and TD promptly mailed me PREPAID UPS shipping labels to slap on the boxes to ship them back with and they issued me a full refund (including shipping). When I purchased a third power supply locally, it failed to work either. It ends up I had a defective motherboard instead! Their customer service was extremely friendly and efficient, but since then I haven't really seen them offer any 'deals' that I was crazy about. It seems as if NewEgg is always just a "tad" bit cheaper.
