Advice Needed Where are you buying computer bits these days?

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pgh13

Specialist Contributor
My Satellite Setup
XTrend ET8000, Dr HD 15, PC/twinhan combination. 80cm dish. GBPVR with 2 DTTV cards +hauppauge Media MVP +Raspberry Pi running XBMC
My Location
Midlands UK
Over the years I've been pretty pleased with Ebuyer. Prices OK and service good, but lately not so good.

I ordered a motherboard on Thursday for next day pre 12 delivery. It didn't arrive; trying to track it, there's no information on the Parcelfarce site. It's now Monday evening and they say they are still looking into it.

I'd tell them where to stick it but still then have the problem of obtaining a motherboard and there aren't as many suppliers as there once were (and we're getting perilously close the whole world shutting down for weeks for Christmas
 
I used to swear by Scan. Dabs is another one that springs to mind... otherwise, Amazon or even eBay have come up with the goods.
 
Usually Ebuyer, and eclipsecomputers.
 
I've used just about all of the above for my bits ..
Scan used to be a favourite ...but more recently have priced themselves out imo ..
Take for example the WD red drives I had to buy recently ..
Cheapest I could find were Ebuyer ..so chose them ..at £300 each ..
Cheapest on Ebay were about £320 and upwards ..
but scan wanted a whopping £340 ..plus the postage..
doh!
 
I've used Eclipse a couple of times. I suppose I should have gone to Ballicom If anyone has heard of them). They are only half an hour away in Cov, but I was feeling lazy at the time.....
 
Have used most of those above (except the German one), and some of the "small players" on eBay UK are quite good, especially for s/h items - though, TBH, I do use Amaz*n quite a bit because of their delivery service as I am a Amaz*n Prime subscriber.

Novatech in Portsmouth has also been very competitively priced with good delivery when I have used them in the past.

Have also used "Morgan Computers" (now part of the JLT group, so not the old "real" Morgan company!) for my ACER 2620 nettop, but their "Operations" Department support was so bad that they need an operation to behead the lot of them - had to lambast the MD to prove they had sold me a complete lemon (same case, wrong model, wrong ghosted-image first time around which meant it would neither boot nor run correctly) before I got a working one. I think I recounted that in another thread a few months ago:mad:.

BTW: Nowadays there are very few very small local computer shops (except for PC Turd:eek: ) even in the London area, and I do feel sorrow for them, but that, and the lack of local "computer fairs", makes it impossible to get something in any way "unusual" (by which I mean not mainstream mfr PCs and overpriced cables etc.) at anything like a competitive price, if at all, unless you buy on-line.
 
Last time I bought parts to build a mostly* new PC (January/Februaryish), I bought from Dabs, then BT bought them out and hiked up the prices........ :-doh

Haven't had the need to buy any more parts since then, and if I did need to I'd probably get them off ebay unless ebuyer came up with a better price...


(*Mostly cos I only bought CPU, RAM and motherboard, utilising a PSU, case, graphics card and SSDs I already had)
 
In the past for me it's tended to be a mix of Scan and Amazon depending on who was cheapest for the parts I wanted!


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I tend to decide the exact item I need, google for the best price and then check the seller/retailer for reviews of their after sales support. The most recent buys have ended up being either from Scan or CCL who do some nice barebones bundles at good prices.
 
PS: re eBay UK, it often pays-off to do a Search from outside eBay because that sometimes uncovers items which ARE there on eBay but don't show up easily in searches from the inside, as well as other suppliers who might have what you are looking for.
 
How times have changed....... in years gone by, I've visited my local supplier on Christmas Eve and bought cpu, motherboard etc., but now they don't carry stock but can usually get stuff for the next day, but this close to C..... (you-know-what), they can't guarantee it.

So, got what I wanted from Eclipse and now need to rebuil/reinstall Windows. This is our HTPC that broke and after a few days of live TV plus other naff catchups, we're going nuts
 
If I am not in a hurry for a part I normally check the various online forum classified advertisment sections. There is plenty of second hand kit available, some of it high spec stuff and prices are generally below eBay prices.

Rgds
 
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