Has anyone bought a VPR Matrix from Best Buy?

[JiminElkGrove]

And if you have, how is it? They seem to have all quality components and good specs at very resonable prices. Anyone had an experience positive or negative with the high end house brand PC? Jim

[Bob The Great]

I haven't, but I've heard the same stuff about them! Quality components and a good price! One of my friends swears by them! He loves them, but I'm not sure he owns one. He worked at Best Buy though and fell in love with them there.

[lruby]

I heard a lot about the quality components too. But how about the build quality or the service and support? Please comment. Thanks.

[Geotpf]

They seem to be decent systems-for example, they appear to use standard Intel mobos (so no overclocking, but very high quality). They are basically the same as a white box unit, in fact that's the market that Best Buy seems to be going after with these things. I would compare them more with something from ABSPC, for example, then HP/Compaq/Sony/Emachines/Dell/Gateway, if you catch my drift.

[JiminElkGrove]

Thank you all for your replies, but it is interesting to note that after 2 months there is still no response from anyone that actually has a VPR Matrix. I posted a similar thread on the PC Magazine forum at the same time and there has never been a single reply to it from anyone. I ended up configuring online from BOLData and they put just what I wanted on my machine and nothing that I did not and I think I got a better deal in the end. Jim

[astresing]

There is a problem with the new VPR Matrix's right out of the box. The CD drive causes the computer to lockup so severely that you have to turn it off. We brought home our 3rd computer, when the technical staff at Best Buy finally got a memo about a driver conflict with the CD drive. I really wanted to return the computer because everything up to that point had been a major hassle, but I had heard these were good machines and my son really wanted it. I figured a driver problem wasn't that big of a deal, so I let the store install a new driver and they said that would fix the problem. About 2 weeks later the problem came back and by then it was too late to do a return. Their technical support won't return my emails, and the whole situation is very frustrating. I wouldn't recommend purchasing one of these machines.

[JiminElkGrove]

So Best Buy's tech support is lacking, too, just like most of the others. I appreciate your reply but I backed off because I found a better price and machine from BOLData. They have 24/7 phone support for the first year and on the two occasions I have called them they were knowledgeable and fixed my problem over the phone. Thanks for your reply, sorry about your problems. Keep after the store until they make it right. Jim

[PreOmegaZero]

Well being a former Best Buy tech... *takes a deep breath*

The first batch of the newer, Black/Silver, Porche designed cased models had broken IEEE1394/Firewire ports (180R-253R series). Along with that came the 'RAID issue'. Normally when the machine is first turned on, it'll go through the typical Windows XP user-setup. When RAID-0, 1 or 0/1 is used, the unit has to be restored AFTER wiping the contents on the Hard drive to create the RAID array. After the restore, Windows Activation kicks in. Annoying more than anything (unless you wanted to just add the other HD and RAID it after the inital purchase).

180R - FT4100 SERIES (somewhat current)
The CD drives are sometimes cabled BACKWARDS then they are placed in the 5 1/4" bays due to problems with the Restoe CD's not working/not reading. What will happen is You might want to restore the system using the DVD-R drive on top and so CD #1 is inserted in there. When it's time to insert CD #2, rather than eject the DVD-R drive, it will eject the CD-RW /Secondary optical drive and ask the disc to be placed there. In the early 180R-253R series, 50-70% of the time the disc wouldn't read. Solution? Swap the IDE cabling for the optical drives. *sigh*...

What I have noticed no matter WHICH model/series is the rate of failure of the hard drives and motherboards. They use Western Digital HD's (which I'm not knocking), but myself (not sure of anyone else when I wasn't there) had either replaced the hard drive for an older model or had to send the unit to service after an exchange.
Concerning the motherboards - yes they are Intel boards, yes they are stable and yes...the ones that fail have the same issue usually: Won't post (after trying to test with other CPU's/RAM/Video cards), boots the machine somewhat then locks up OR will boot into windows and the machine will CRAWL (not CPU overheating related). An example: I clicked the START button and it took no less than 45 seconds for the animation to START, much less the actual menu appearing. That particular machine I remember coming back from service with a new mobo and it worked like it should've.

OTHER than that, the machines are pretty damn sweet for something that's OEM. They are going after Dell's marketshare with the VPR line, so they have to have some quality stuff behind the product.

In the end, the choice is yours. If I were in the market to get an OEM machine as close to a Clone/Home-built I'd go with a VPR, but only an Open Box unit. New is nice, but they can really cut you a deal if you get an open box with Service (maybe the same price as a new one w/o the service sometimes).

Hope that helps and let me know if you have any other questions.

[JiminElkGrove]

I guess the only thing I want to ask you POZ, is do you own a VPR Matrix yourself? Probably you could get one at a sharp discount during the time you worked for Best Buy. . . did you? After all this time from the original post there is still only one reply from an actual owner of a Matrix machine. Jim

[PreOmegaZero]

No, I do not own one.
The discount for a new one wasn't much. Discount on an Open Box was different however.

We used a VPR Matrix 2250 as the 'tech machine' so I got pretty well accustomed to the VPR's (especially since our store sold alot of them).

There are ALOT of VPR owners out there let me tell you. I'm not sure why no one else has replied either as there are many customers with technical prowess who buy VPR's.
Maybe they just don't know about this site (for SHAME!)