More money than sense

[HCHTech]

Got a new customer last week with a 4-yr-old Alienware Aurora desktop. The video card had failed. I confirmed the failure, and after a successful hardware diagnostics, quoted him a currently-available equivalent card, about $300 plus labor.

This was about a $4,000 computer when it was purchased. In any event, he gets back to me and tells me he wants a particular card, which is currently selling for $1,000 on Newegg. He also wants the RAM upgraded from the current 9GB (3 x 2GB + 3 x 1GB) to the maximum 24GB.

I checked the requirements of the new card he wants and it does indeed appear to be compatible. The 875W power supply apparently has enough juice and the required 2 8-pin connectors.

After some thought, I told him I would not order the card. For one, He wanted me to give it to him for the Newegg price (!), but mostly I didn't want to be stuck with a card I could never resell when this whole project went south. I can see this going wrong about a dozen ways and right only one. Maybe the nine fans in this monster aren't enough. Maybe the power supply has weakened over the years, maybe it will work fine, but bluescreen when he gets Battlefield 4 running on dual 24" monitors, maybe, maybe. I spent 30 minutes trying to steer him to a new computer, after all, money doesn't seem to be an obstacle. He would not be dissuaded.

I should have just turned him down, I suppose, but in the end he is going to purchase and bring me the card, and I'm ordering the RAM (WITH my markup). I'll charge for the installation and configuration, and he's agreed to be responsible for the card if it doesn't work.

I don't know why I'm even posting this - I guess I just don't run into the grey area of my comfort zone very often and wanted to vent. Plus, I've been feeling pretty competent lately, so I could use a few folks pointing out my inadequacies!

 

[lan101]

I don't blame you. I don't like dealing with gaming computers either. Yeah I definitely would not have ordered a 1000 card without being prepaid.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

As a gamer myself, you may want to recommend a new power supply as well. Although his power supply SAYS it has enough juice, we all know that power supplies age over time, so that power supply could go out and take the shiny new card with it. Then who's on the hook there?

I get my parts from Microcenter, and stuff like that, put their 2 year replacement warranty on in case of failures. I've had times where I've swapped parts 2-3 times at no cost to me, just any difference in price if I upgraded. Very nice to deal with. Plus they match newegg pricing if it's the same model.

All they get is an invoice from us, I don't show them the price from Microcenter, for one I'm not giving away my best kept secret so they can go there themselves. But too, easier to return. Something that big, ALWAYS prepay for parts.

He does realize he'll see almost no benefit from that ram upgrade for gaming??

 

[altrenda]

One thing I have learned doing upgrades and migrations is to agree beforehand on what the end point is.
If I do an upgrade like this, my endpoint is that the machine boots up, recognizes all the memory, and the video card works . Any tweaks or optimizations are the responsibility of the client. Especially with gamers, they seem to want try every tweak or setting they read on line, and it can become an endless process. I declare it finished, get paid, and usually decline to go any further.

Same with email migrations. I had a client that was going from Outlook 2003 on XP to Outlook 2011 on a Mac, and kept complaining that it didn't work or look the same. After spending several days of non billable time, I finally stopped working until I got paid, and said any more work would be extra. He decided to live with it the way it was.

 

[HCHTech]

altrenda, Yeah, I hear 'ya on the "agreed endpoint". When I first started I did a ton of upgrades - not so much anymore - like everybody, I guess.

lan101, In this case, the guy was willing to pre-pay for the card, I just didn't want the liability if it ended up not working. The RAM came in quickly, so it's installed and just waiting on the card at this point. I'm not a gamer so all this bleeding-edge stuff doesn't get my motor running like it does with some.

Ohiograd, Good call on the PS. We'll see how this goes. You're right about the gamer mentality. Most folks I've met who were in this circle over the years were all about building their own rigs - so I never saw them "professionally". Man, I wish I had a Microcenter nearby, the closest one is a 2hr drive away in Cleveland. I order almost all inventory online, but when I need something today, I'm stuck with BestBuy.

 

[FremontPC]

"More money than sense"

And in the end, maybe not all that much money either?

" For one, He wanted me to give it to him for the Newegg price (!)"

Did a patch on a gaming computer for one customer, he thought the video card had gone south. The card worked fine, if it could get the connections it needed. I pulled the card and took a look with a magnifying glass. The gold plating on the fingers had been chewed through and the socket wasn't looking that good either. I cleaned it up the best I could and the beast ran fine. I advised him of my findings and told him the next time it would be a new mobo AND card.

Eyeball the old card and see what you find on the contacts.

 

[Krynn72]

I'm a bit of a gamer myself (though I never go for bleeding edge stuff) and if I had to bill myself for all the issues I've had, the bill would be an order of magnitude more than I paid for the parts themselves.

I'm happy to do this kind of stuff on my own system on the rare occasion I have issues, but the amount of time I have to dedicate to resolve some of the weird issues would mean I'd have to drop other customers in order to ever complete it in a reasonable time.

Definitely, DEFINITELY make sure you make it obvious where your liability will end. If he gets BSODs on a certain game, or it performs terribly considering the power of the machine, or his game which worked fine before is now crashing... he's going to come back to you about it and you need to make sure he knows its billable, or his problem.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I agree, might want to have him sign a disclaimer.

 

[brandonkick]

$1000 video cards are a waste of money.


At that point, your just looking for bragging rights. "Yell well MY FPS is X in that game... so HA". Must be nice to have a cool grand to blow for those kinds of lulz.


In any event, I'd do just as you have. Make him order the 1K video card and charge him for installation and configuration. Make him sign off on the fact that you didn't purchase, recommend and won't support it in the event of a failure.