Dell makes lemons and lemonade
Dell is like any other pc company that targets mom and pop; they go for "good enough" and let it go. USUALLY, that is fine. Mom and pop USUALLY dont play WOW or any other high performance video games, nor do they have several dozen hardware devices attached to USB. BUT, everyones mom and pop are different, and the manufacturers need to be able to anticipate mom and pop's desire to 'augment' their new baby. Years ago, that was the trend setter- buy a computer NOW, then upgrade it as you go (add cdrom, sound, etc). NOW they are just stand-alone miniatures with some USB ports, and if USB isnt high quality, its useless. I remember a year or so back where E-Machines had faulty USB controllers on their boards. I also recall troubles with gateway power supplies, as well as a splendidly shitty compaq pc that was supposed to be 366mhz, but would get its ass smoked by a generic 266 of equal configuration. So, it isn't just Dell who is trying to get out cheaper and faster. Truth is, We all lose. I'd rather have better hardware and run windows 2000 than have crap-tacular hardware and run Vista. And did you ever notice how EVERYONE wanted to blame pc crashes on the OS? Maybe, it was NOT the os, but crappy hardware. Don't get me wrong though, I have owned some NICE computers from Dell, as well as Gateway and (currently) Compaq. I've also had quite the share of LEMONS from them. I hope the companies can see who is making the better components for their motherboards, as well as the motherboard manufacturing processes. Also, it is not a sin to stick with what works. If a certain chip from "IC Company-A" is good, and they come out with a newer flashier faster model that is less stable, I'd go back to the first one. I'd rather sacrifice a few small improvements to get better overall reliability. Remember the tortoise and the hare; slow and steady sets the pace-slow and steady wins the race. Don't let advertisers and marketers drive the market. The market is made by product, not advertising. Advertisers would sell you their mothers vagina if it would make a buck.