watchdodogg MAXIMUM PC TAKES A BITE OUT OF BAD GEAR
18
OVERPRICED.COM?
I don’t know if OverclockCentral.com is real or not,
but I thought you guys should look into it. Either the
company went under and the website survived or
it’s a complete scam because I find it hard to believe
some of these prices.
— Joe ManiaciJoe, your concerns are valid, but the Dog doubts
that anything malicious is occurring at the
moment. It looks like http://www.overclockcentral.
com is a website that got frozen in amber
two years ago. For example, who would buy a
3.73GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition for $1,007?
Or an ATI Radeon X1900 XTX for $526? What
about that Athlon 64 FX-60 that the company
wants $1,049 for? The Dog did a little dig-
ging and found that although the BBB gave
OverclockCentral.com an F rating for unrespon-
siveness (what a surprise) only five complaints
had been lodged. The tenor of the complaints at
ResellerRatings.com, however, is certainly not
good. The company has a lifetime review score
of only 1.75 out of 10. The majority of problems
relate to shipping issues.
The Dog’s attempts to reach the company’s
owner were unsuccessful. The company’s phone
and fax numbers have been disconnected and
searches of public-records databases yielded
little information on the status of the company.
The Dog did find, however, that the company’s
headquarters in Simi Valley, CA, is up for sale and
is described as “vacant.” As we went to press,
the company’s website was down, but we will
update you if we discover any new information.WE REALLY MEAN VISTA ONLY
Last February, I purchased a Toshiba Satellite A135-
S2266 notebook PC with a Celeron M and 512MB of
RAM at Best Buy. The box said it was “Vista ready,”
and when I booted the machine it had Windows Vista
Home Basic installed.I decided I didn’t want to run Vista and
attempted to uninstall it and load XP. After doing
a clean format and installing XP, I couldn’t get
the onboard audio to work. When I called Toshiba
customer support and explained my problem, I was
told that my computer was designed to run only
Windows Vista and that there was no workaround
for running Windows XP. I was, however, offered
a chance to upgrade my version of Vista. I was
also told that running Windows XP and products
designed to run on XP would void my warranty! I
have tried multiple times to get XP to run properly,
but there is always a hang-up with the sound driv-
ers. I have even tried running Ubuntu Linux but
have had the same problem. I feel like Toshiba is
holding a gun to my head and forcing me to run
something I don’t want. The box said “Vista ready”
not “Vista only.” This is definitely a shakedown.
— Bob M.Sadly, Bob, what you
experienced has been a
problem in the industry
in recent years. AfterMicrosoft introduced the 64-bit version of
Windows XP, many PC-owners discovered that
their rigs’ warranties would be voided if they
installed the new OS. But maybe those problems
have helped solve the transition to Vista. When
the Dog asked a Toshiba representative about it,
he was assured that installing XP apps on the
computer absolutely does not void the warranty.
“If the customer owns an OS and wants to install
it on their machine, it does not void their war-
ranty,” the rep said. “If the unit ever needs to be
reformatted, the customer would need to reload
their OS of choice. It is not uncommon for a cus-
tomer to load a non-Windows OS.”
So why was Bob told doing so would void
his warranty? The spokesman believes that
Bob may have talked to Toshiba Direct, the
sales arm of the company, not Toshiba tech
support. The spokesman said that the tech
support division does not ever try to up-sell
consumers to new versions of the OS.
However, that’s not the end of the story. The
Dog decided to pose as a customer and call a few
OEM tech-support lines to see if installing XP onMAXIMUMPC SEPTEMBER 2007Wanna pay $1,049 for a CPU you can get for $300?Our consumer advocate investigates...
POverclockCentral.com’s Ancient Inventory
PRemoving Vista PGateway Batteries
Jersey, watchdog of the monthGot a bone to pick with a vendor? Been spiked by a fly-by-night
operation? Sic the Dog on them by writing watchdog@maxi-
mumpc.com. The Dog promises to answer as many letters as
possible, but only has four paws to work with.Our consumer advocate investigates...
Jersey,Continued on page 20 Ë