About 2 years ago I purchased a dell xps 600 and today I now know it was the biggest mistake I ever made. I can say I'm still a noob when it come to pc's but I just realized that when I attempted to upgrade my xps600 for gaming and vista performance reasons. Not only could I not upgrade to what I wanted but in the end upgrading at all was literally a waste of money. I found out I can't upgrade by motherboard as my bios and power supply won't support it. I can only upgrade to 2 gigs of ddr2 ram 800 mhz and I can also get 2 512 sli 7800 vid cards. ( I think I can only get the 7800) So in the end I sit here and I asked myself why did I buy a dell. Then I remembered they said, bbrian017 we will send you this dell xps600 with a 19' tv with pc hookups and you don't pay for 3 months interest free. After that you pay 110.94 for 3 years.

Well here I am 2 years later, stuck ina 3 years contract and I can't even upgrade my dam pc because in a year I will purchase a better motherboard and processor.

I have to mention something else too because it was classical funny. When I got my pc I wanted to get it running the way I wanted it to and that included a fresh install of win xp pro. So here I go installing my operating system when out of no where win xp says hey you have no hard drive. I'm think ing yes I do and it's 250 gigs. Turns out I need an A: drive to load the sata drives in order for xp to even communicate to my pc. I didn't even get an A: drive with my pc I had to order one and it came 2 weeks later.

Don't buy dell they are dumb!
Don't buy dell they are not upgradeable

I hate to be the one to tell you this, Brian, but a lot of the things you're pissed with Dell about aren't their fault.

At least one of them (the SATA issue) occurred because you're a newbie. You didn't have to buy a Dell floppy drive in hindsight, either. Any floppy that will connect to the floppy drive IDE port on the motherboard will be fine. They also stopped shipping floppy drives with some PCs as early as 4-5 years ago. Some still have them (mine does), but most don't nowadays, and for the most part they're not necessary. The only people that need them for the most part are geeks.

Second, you bought a machine two years ago. Motherboards have come an extremely long way in two years, and so have games and other software. It's unfair and unrealistic to expect that you'll be able to upgrade to something that isn't really commonplace now when it was practically non-existent two years ago (i.e. 4 GB RAM or greater).

Third, no one held a gun to your head to sign the contract. You signed it of your own free will. So you being stuck in a contract that you signed is a lesson learned. Never buy a PC on a finance plan...scrape together a few hundred bucks and buy a clone. That's the big lesson here.

Fourth, you're complaining about it 2 years later. That means you got at least 18-20 decent months out of it.

Fifth, the whole point of buying a Dell system isn't to go upgrading it or to mess with the insides of it or things like that. Dell systems are for newbies or for people who need high-end tech support (i.e. a tech with a clue to come onsite within 4 hours, diagnose and fix the problem). You're not in their target market. It happens. You're in the clone market now.

You want to upgrade your motherboard/processor/all that stuff? Go clone.
Wanna mess with your video card? Go clone.
Wanna yank out the power supply? Go clone.

In other words, the decision that you made wasn't a good long term decision and you appear to have outgrown your computer, but at least it was probably a good short-term decision.

Well everything you speak is true. I am a noob when it comes to pc's but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I was first introduced to the pc in 2001. Sure I took typing class and computer tech in grade 10 but I never had a home pc until I met my girlfriend. At that time she had a 700mhh p3 with 512 ram and a 64mb vid card I think. The pc was designed for windows millennium. So in the end adam your right about me being a noob and I strongly feel to this day I still am. I must admit you do have a great point here,

Second, you bought a machine two years ago. Motherboards have come an extremely long way in two years, and so have games and other software. It's unfair and unrealistic to expect that you'll be able to upgrade to something that isn't really commonplace now when it was practically non-existent two years ago (i.e. 4 GB RAM or greater).

I don't think of things like this because I never knew it wouldn't be possible really. Overall I think I'm venting that I can't have the top of the line when I was once used to being just that. I'm glad I found these forums I can't wait to build my next pc and getting advice here

In my opinion, Dell's success completely depend on the direct distribute and high sever, but it weak at technique. While the direct distribute and sever are copied by other company, expecially the PC manufacture, the advantage of Dell is unobvious.

Instead, the PC manufacture who master core technique use for reference the Dell sale channel and sever, gradually occupy the largest PC market share. Such as HP. It become the world's biggest pc saler this year.

One of my computers, an HP, did not come with a floppy. I am a geek, so naturally I bought one.
You can purchase floppy drives that connect by USB, they are very inexpensive and it does not take any skill level to connect them, as well as most computers that did not come with a floppy will automatically detect them.
As far as Dells go...
You must admit that Dells have dramatically went downhill in comparison to what they were. They are, however, much more affordable than what they were a number of years ago.
In laptop comparison, I have noticed Dells seem to be very good for the average careless home user, as they can take a lot of crap from their owners.