I bought an expensive Puget custom built computer, expecting to have something great that I would enjoy and use for years. The computer I got is just average performance with two part failures and two serious system crashes. Attempts to improve the system with my service-plan-paid-for customer service resulted in zero improvement. Two broken parts replacement events have been Alice in Wonderland experiences - unclear and contradictory information, unanswered phone calls, unreturned voice messages, extreme delivery delays, multiple email messages and all sorts of reasons offered. These have been journeys into chaos. All I wanted were working parts!

I was very happy with my Sager computer put together by Puget Computers for 377 days before a fatal system error killed the computer. At 12 days past warranty, the motherboard had completely fried, beginning a $570 repair necessary and reshippment back to Sager. Five (5) months later, my computer was shipped to an old address not on the service ticket and the laptop still had problems with the primary DVD player, which was noted they would charge additional to repair (at 5 months downtime, this should have been a part of the "above and beyond" service.  
 
I purchased the computer and paid the premium price for excellent customer service and an expected trouble-free experience since I have had problems with HP and Gateway in the past. To be fair, I did drop the computer in my backpack at the office, and my problems started about a month afterwards, but 5 months for a repair and HD upgrade? Come on. The computer sat in their office for two week because they did not have another power supply for the laptop and an additional two weeks to reinstall the OS. Many may have had a great experience with Puget, but Dude, you should have got a Dell.

This review was modified by its author, meiinc, on 6/22/07 7:17 PM.

so far, I love these guys. I had great help in configuring my system, it arrived on time and works great. they included a great binder with all my hardward cds and serial numbers, etc.  
I have two small nitpicks - on their site, they show different shipping materials than I got. I would have preferred their foam blocks to the 10 million peanuts my machine arrived packed in. The second issue is that there was an error in the graphic showning which vga connector to use so I spent an hour on the floor swapping out monitor cables thinking either that or my new monitor was the problem. however, all is well and I'm pleased with my new machine. it's not as quiet as I'd hoped - so if silence is your issue get very specific with them about this.

Easy navigation of the site. Plenty of explanation on the products as well as a great selection of products. Sales rep was quick to respond to questions. The entire process (assembly, testing, packaging) is monitored and tracked on their website.  
The tracking feedback from their tracking system could be better; might as well go to the carrier's website to see the location of your product.  
The product is top quality. Well done, nothing missing, well packaged and all the wires/cables needed to add future parts to your system.

This review was modified by its author, ascscorp, on 3/23/08 8:54 PM.

Great presale info, impressive build quality and quality parts. Now if they can just fix the warranty process. RMA for defective video card on 1/2/08 and gave them a CC# for overnight delivery for $18.00 additional. Card did not ship until today, 1/4/08. $18.00 was refunded without a problem, but still will have no replacement video card until next week. If not capable of overnight shipment, do not tell customers that it is available.

I had one problem, but I'd definitely buy from them again, and recommend them to friends.  
 
Good:  
 
Great interface for designing the computer. The process for having it built was painless. My contact, Wilson, was helpful and tolerant of my questions and special requests. Good privacy policy. Fast build time. Surprisingly excellent packaging material--they've definitely gone above-and-beyond in making sure the systems they make are protected from transit damage. System in perfect condition and fully functional on arrival. Nice documentation came with system. They've earned my confidence that they're trustworthy.  
 
At build time, they discovered that the memory cooler could not physically fit in the system. That can't be predicted, so it's not their fault. Their response was to notify me of the problem, then ship the cooler with the system but not installed, and refund me the cost of the cooler. That is an excellent, customer-friendly response.  
 
Bad:  
 
By email we established a particular partitioning of the main drive, and the instructions were noted on the build instructions, but the partitioning was not done. When I pointed this out, they acknowledged the mistake and offered to help me fix it. Since I didn't need help to fix the partitioning, I don't know what kind of support they would have provided, but they did offer to help. (By the way, they also tell me that they've since added an automated check to ensure that the problem doesn't happen again.)  
 
Based on my interactions with them, the huge body of positive reviews on this site, and gut feeling, I really think that the partitioning problem was just an unlikely chance fluke and that they would have done what it took to make it right had I needed it.  
 
Overall:  
 
If ResellerRatings had a finer-grained scoring system, I'd give Puget at least 4.5. In fact, Puget's responses to the memory cooler and partitioning problem were as good as I could ask for, and I seriously considered giving a 5 on that basis.  
 
My next computer will be from Puget. I'm definitely willing to give them another chance, and I'm optimistic that this time I'll have a perfect experience.

This review was modified by its author, Matt M, on 11/18/07 12:14 PM.

Puget is a company that has the makings of an excellent custom PC builder: concern about quality; accessibility of personnel; very neat hardware installation, willingness to spend time to try and get things right, etc. However, they fell short in a number of ways: 1) Unable to resolve common O/S installation issues; 2) Failure to complete O/S updates before delivery; 3) Delays in completing build; 4) Nice order tracking system that was not kept up to date; 5) Quick acknowledgment of tech support issue, but failure to respond w/i the time they committed. Considering they charge quite a premium for their build services, I expected nothing less than 1st class treatment, however it fell a little short.  
 
I can say,however, that they have worked diligently with me to resolve remaining issues, more so than any other hardware/software company I have dealt with.

This review was modified by its author, tommybird, on 9/9/07 5:42 AM.

they are alright i guess...  
paid for two pentium m chips and received a core duo + core2duo instead.  
would have been nice if either worked with the sgd115 shuttle i bought from newegg at the same time, however it uses only pentium m/celeron... so i had to send the shuttle back and eat a 30% restocking fee on $246.65.  
have been trying to find a seller who takes money orders and has a motherboard (msi speedster) not newegg right now).  
still not mad, especially if i ever find a motherboard to test these chips on before i die -- or the tech becomes outdated! i really love looking at all of the featured systems that rich people bought for themselves -- wish i had that kind of money! great pics!  
i notice anytime i try to get a quote on something on their website, the price goes up the next day ie: i saw two sempron 64 for $18, right? kept watching the site for two months, sure that it had to be some sort of mistake... finally one night i bit, and the next morning, i checked my quote, the chip had now been pulled and the price had now jumped to $35.99! ahahahahaha @ myself. newegg does the EXACT SAME thing, so again, i ain't mad at them (pugetsystems). someday again they might have something i want to buy, so it's cool - all's fair in love and war. again, site looks nice and is easy to navigate, if not necessarily accurate. peace! hope this review was coherent enough for normal people.  
 
edit: the owner was talking a lot of stuff to me in his email, so much so that i missed the part where he said that his company would cover the restocking fee. so, o.k. if somebody says something like that to me in writing, i figure they can't be all that bad, so i will change my rating.

This review was modified by its author, xzcvb, on 7/30/07 6:50 PM.

This is the 4th PCP I have purchased. The experience with the first 3 was excellent.  
 
My order included a 3ware RAID Controller card. I had communicated with Richard Millard that I would be adding 2 Raptors to the RAID card after I received the computer.  
I received order #42375 this past Wednesday.  
The bios for the 3ware RAID card was not installed. No big deal as I installed it from the included 3ware CD. As I booted up after installing the bios and drives I received "The number of times I can activate Windows with this product key has been exceeded" message! So I had to go through that process with a telephone call to Microsoft - very irritating for a new computer.  
I also noticed that none of the case fans were working. So I had to remove both side panels to hook the fans up to a power source.  
I also did not receive all of the "leftover pieces" in the white box that shipped with the computer. It did not have 2 SATA cables that were supposed to be left over from the Asus motherboard - that was obvious. What else wasn't included ??  
The power LED on the front of the case is not working.  
Needless to say my 4th experience was NOT excellent.

This review was modified by its author, dlgr, on 12/27/07 9:32 PM.

Customer service dropped off sharply after I paid them for my computer. I had to wait almost two weeks for my parts to come in before they were able to start assembly. They also didn't follow my instructions for drive placement. Otherwise the computer is running well and I am sure it will be great for many years.  
 
update(2-6-2006): This is to further explain my review.  
At the start the customer service was great. Very quick and knowledgeable replies to all of my questions, and there were many. After I placed the order, my emails took a lot longer to get replies and I had to ask about what was going on with my computer and the back ordered parts. I didn't receive any emails unless I wrote to them first. Also, instead of writing the response in an email, I had to go to their website and login to check comments made on the order page. It couldn't have been too much harder to hit reply as well.  
The drive mix-up was a pain, but since I needed to get into the system to install hard drives, it wasn't too much work to move the disc drives, after I figured out how, which they helped with. I can understand that parts are backordered sometimes and I don't hold that against them, same with the late UPS shipping which they are helping with the shipping refund. Those things were out of their control. I did expect to see emails in my inbox letting me know what was going on and I didn't get that. Even with the power supply, the reply to my message offering the alternative was great, but then they didn't reply to my question about the difference in the cost.  
If the communication was better I probably would have felt more taken care of. Maybe they had a lot of orders in, or it was an off couple of weeks. Its just that the whole experience could have been better, and I expected it to be for what I was paying for the system.  
Bottom line, even with the long build time, the mix up with the drives, and the sparse communication during the build, I would still recommend the company to others looking for a high end system. The computer is running well and the extra effort with the cables already in place for my other hard drives was really nice.  
Since recieving the computer I have recieved good customer service with fairly quick answers to my questions. The computer itself is still running great and FEAR is beautiful running at max settings with no slow down. It is a lot less noisy then my other computer and much faster. I cannot say I am very satisfied with the experience, but I am satisfied with my computer and I hope it lasts many years.

This review was modified by its author, mdvalenz, on 2/6/06 5:39 AM.

I’ve been living in the relatively sheltered world of Apple Computer for the past ten years and for the most part it was a very pleasant and stress-free experience. Therefore, after learning that a new research project I was to embark upon required the services of software that existed as a PC-only product I felt more than a little dread with the prospects of shopping for a new Windows-based machine. Several weeks of research showed that dealing with any of the big box computer companies could be a bit (or more than a bit) of a crapshoot. In addition, after many discussions with co-workers, I determined that a small-footprint machine (for moving between labs) employing an AMD processor would best suit my needs (I do a lot of chemical structure modeling). These two requirements eliminated many computer suppliers right off the bat.  
 
While reading a forum that was primarily a repository for vitriol against a certain boutique computer manufacturer (no names please) the name of Puget Custom Computers frequently came up as an excellent alternative to both the well-known boutique and big box stores. A quick trip to this site confirmed that Puget’s customer satisfaction rating was consistently superior.  
 
That was enough for me, so I spent the next several days putting together a number of hypothetical systems. After listing my requirements and restrictions and a mock-up of my system I sent an e-mail to Puget’s website. I received a response from Richard the next day with numerous suggestions and advice about components that might better serve my needs. At no time did I feel pressured to buy any particular item, and indeed some of Richard’s suggested choices were actually less expensive that my initial picks. After a series of back and forth e-mails (Richard was very patient with my numerous questions) over the course of a week I finally settled on a machine and hit the “Buy” button.  
 
My machine showed up 10 days later-6 days to build and 4 to ship. Pretty quick considering I live in south Florida. The system was fairly well packed in double boxes and styrofoam peanuts, but evidently it was not enough and it had suffered from the not-so-tender attentions of UPS. Alas, my machine was DOA. An hour on the phone with Paul (another one of the nice folks from Puget) did not result in an immediate solution, so it was RMA time. The machine was shipped back to Puget (at their expense) where it was determined that a short circuit between the case and the mother board (evidently due to uninsulated mounting pins) was the cause of the trouble. Another week passed and I got my machine back-the day after Katrina skimmed by us. Shipping was again at Puget’s expense.  
 
This time everything worked properly and for the most part the machine has chugged along very nicely ever since. The machine does structure modeling very well and runs the software without a hiccup. It’s very fast as well. The small footprint came in handy during hurricane Wilma (we were right smack in the middle of it). I was able to put it in a tote bag and take it to a safe location. Unfortunately, in the past several weeks I have encountered new problems-nothing major, but irritating nonetheless. First the USB ports on the front of the machine died. The front Firewire port followed shortly thereafter. I still have duplicate ports in the back, but access is a problem at times. The CD burning software also started to become balky and eventually caused several freeze ups. Reinstallation seemed to solve this problem as it has not recurred in the past several weeks. At times the on/off button doesn’t seem to make positive contact and the button has to pushed repeatedly to get the machine to come on. I have not contacted Puget about these problems because for the present they are merely annoying and have not caused any work stoppages. At this point these difficulties don’t warrant having to ship the computer across the country again.  
 
From the overwhelmingly positive reviews people have provided on this site it is obvious that the troubles I’ve had with my machine are anomalies. To Puget’s credit they fixed the most serious problem promptly and at no cost to me. I am not sure where these problems originated. Maybe things slipped through Puget’s testing process. It could be they were all caused by UPS dropping the box and shaking things loose. I just don’t think a three month-old computer should be acting up already.  
 
Note that my rating is based solely on this one experience. Since my purchase I have recommended Puget to several other computer shoppers and I know at least one of them went on to make a purchase with them. My wife will be in the market for a new laptop early next year and I am urging her to consider Puget. Indeed, I would still unhesitatingly buy a system from Puget.  

An excellent site for a custom built computer.  
 
Good information not normally found such as descriptions of hardware components and recommendations. Email correspondance provided to answer any questions. As a newbie to ordering a custom built PC, it helped answer many of my questions. However I think it missed the boat on the questions that I didn't know to ask. I provided a lot of detail of how I was going to use the PC and why I had initially configured it the way I did, but I didn't get much feedback about that information. I did get good feedaback about the questions I asked directly.  
 
When they reviewed my initial configuration, they missed the fact that I had included a 7-in-1 card reader which has 3.5 floppy drive and a separate 3.5 floppy drive. I caught the error before I ordered and as it turned out it would not have mattered anyway since I decided against the 7-in-1 card reader.  
 
I had a couple of major problems when I received the PC and we (Puget and me) couldn't figure them all out. The PC kept crashing without warning. No blue screen of death, nothing but power down without warning and no recovery. They had me swap the memory sticks around, which seemed to resolve the problem for a day or two and then it started all over. In addition the DVD ROM drive did not work. After a week of frustration and being ready to toss the thing in the trash, I returned it to them. They paid for shipping. Two weeks later I got it back. It has been up and running for 3 days with no problems (knock on wood).  
 
I got no explanation of the what the problems were other than a note on their repair board that they replaced the power supply and the DVD ROM and I got a package with a USB jumper cable it it when the PC was returned.  
 
Would I buy from them again? - The jury is still out. I need more than 3 days to have any confidence in this PC beast.  
 
It still apeals to me not to have to deal with proprietary hardware from Dell, Gateway or HP and the service response has been quick although frustrating at times because I am not comfortable mucking around swapping memory sticks or changing out DVD ROM drives. I think I would probably look a little closer at some of the local mom and pop shops next time.

This review was modified by its author, dutch155, on 11/13/05 6:49 PM.

Purchased a computer last October, paid a premium for the system because of the good reviews on sites like this. It ran until February when the motherboard died. Recently had the same motherboard they replaced fail, system was 13 days outside of (original) warranty. After consultation with the owner he came up with a number of scenarios to fix the system, I decided to RMA the board myself. Computer was nice enough, overall very good support while under warranty.

This review was modified by its author, mwar45, on 11/2/05 8:07 PM.

I believe Pugets high rating is warranted. Although a now replaced phone system sent me to voicemail a few times, the staff quickly picked up the ball and ran with it. I had a tight deadline for delivery, and after working with them to select the fastest available components, they delivered a unit exactly to my specs. Everything worked like clockwork. I admire the amount of personal responsbility that the telephone contacts offered to a customer. It appears clearly to me that their staff is empowered to solve customer problems and aren't just phone order takers. I don't know if they are the absolute cheapest vendor, but they do offer a comfortable margin of safety when buying expensive equipment sight unseen. Furthermore, I was unfamiliar with their product line, but because of their positive reviews, I trusted that their product designs would be solid. The laptop unit in my hands definitely appears to satisfy those expectations. I wish the staff well.

This review was modified by its author, lorenzo68, on 7/12/05 1:43 PM.

Very easy to use while granting the consumer a great deal of control. The customer can maintain an open dialogue with support again allowing control and/or assistance. High prices, but high quality. Probably the best solution for anyone who wants a high-end PC and is unprepared or lacks the resources to build it themselves. Some issues with the software, but very pleased with the hardware.