The computer I bought from Digital Storm has been back at the factory twice for total CPU crashes. Has spent > 2 of the 7 months I have owned it back at the factory for service. They will charge you hundreds of dollars in shipping costs for warranty service. Their customer service staff doesn't return phone calls or reply to emails. Buying from Digital Storm is a BIG MISTAKE.

Update: Alex came through and got me a refund for the 4.9% credit card fee. Thanks Alex!  
 
My complaint was that they charged me a 4.9% fee because I wanted to delay an order shortly after it had been placed, without first warning me that there was going to be such a fee when I placed the order. I called DS to ask about what I should buy, and I ended up buying the recommended pre-configured system while on that phone call. I asked about return fees and was told there was a restocking fee if I returned the system. At no point was I warned that there was a 4.9% order change fee. That fee is totally unnecessary. Because of that fee I decided to cancel the order entirely and not do business with Digital Storm, even though my original intention was simply to delay the order.  
 
It turns out my credit card was billed immediately when I placed the order, even though the computer wasn't scheduled to be built and shipped until late in the week. There is absolutely no reason to bill the card immediately. Nearly every reputable merchant charges the credit card when the order is shipped. Merchants are able to preauthorize credit cards to reserve an amount for the future purchase, which accomplishes the goal without having to deal with chargebacks if the computer is not built and shipped.  
 
Any fees like that should be clearly disclosed. I can't name a single other merchant that charges such high credit card fees.  
 
I explained the situation to Eric in customer service who said he would check with the company owner and get back to me. Eric was supposedly the manager of customer service. After a few weeks he never called me back. I called customer service and Eric's extension over 10 times trying to follow up, and nobody in customer service seems to answer their phone. I eventually left a message and got called back four days later. Eric claimed he didn't remember talking to me, he never bothered to check with the owner, and said there was no way I was going to get my money back. It turns out Eric doesn't have the authority to issue refunds, but other people in the company do. It seems odd that someone who claims to be the manager of customer service doesn't have the power to issue refunds and doesn't even realize that the company issues refunds (I assume he was flat out lying to me, not just an idiot).  
 
The reason I wanted to order from a boutique firm in the first place was that I wanted a high quality system, good customer service, and to save time by not having to shop around for parts. Digital Storm charges much more than you would pay at places like HP and Dell, and more than if you bought the parts yourself from NewEgg. I was willing to pay a premium to get their premium expertise and service. What I ended up with was terrible customer service, nuisance fees, and a big waste of time. I'm not really sure how a boutique firm selling premium computers can survive in this economy without better customer service.  
 
Conclusion: make sure you understand the nuisance fees you buy before placing the order, and order on the Web site instead of over the phone so you are given a chance to read them first. Large computer companies let you return computers for any reason, don't charge nuisance fees, don't charge restocking fees, and even pay for return shipping. Digital Storm offers none of those benefits, so the true cost of buying from them is higher than the dollar amount quoted. Also, avoid Eric in customer service if you can since he is powerless to do anything and he will just waste your time.

This review was modified by its author, mfc2, on 11/6/09 8:43 PM.

Digital Storm is a really terrible company to purchase a computer from unless you live in or near California. I live in Illinois and my system had to be replaced once at the very beginning because UPS destroyed it due to DS's teribblt thin packaging. Then it died and had to be repaired within a year because of bad hard drives. Now my hard drives are going bad again and they won't send me any new one's that work. This is all because they replaced my original 2 750 HDD's with 3 500's and didn't bother to tell me about it. Since i received this system, I have had numerous other problems and the only viable option is to repair it myself after they send me a replacement. I've had 3 DVD drives go bad, 3 mobo's (which I replaced through EVGA because DS would just screw it up), and 1 CPU. They expect the customer to pay all shipping charges for replacement parts or service. I will never order from them again and I advise anyone thinking of ordering from them to just build your own.

This is a followup to my previous post. Despite the nice response here from "Alex", when it comes to laptops, this is a bait and switch company. They described the machine as Digital Storm, built by DS technicians, they sent emails making believe they were actually working on it there, then they sent a premade off the shelf Asus machine - that is not what they are representing. It was not what we ordered. Customer service to resolve this has been terrible and unresponsive. I had to foot the $45 to ship it back to them, and then when they finally got around to issuing a refund, they deducted $84.00 from the total! That is not a total refund! I could go on about the nightmare of dealing with these guys - if you bought one from them and are happy, that's great, I consider you lucky - but if you have not, buyer beware. If they value their customers so much, as Alex says, they sure haven't shown it with us. Had they just described on the website what their laptops really are, we could have avoided all this. Of course, if we had known, we would have ordered elsewhere. By the way, we have done that with another company and got what we ordered and are quite happy with it.

This review was modified by its author, jimdries, on 9/20/09 1:37 PM.

On Saturday July 25th, I placed an order for a Corsair P256 SSD. My hard drive is dying fast and I need a replacement ASAP, so I paid more than $65 for overnight shipping. Ridiculous for the weight and size of the thing but it was the only place I could find one in stock.. or at least I thought it was in stock due to the website explicitly saying so. I also posted on their help boards wondering how fast processing time normally was. I said I figured it would not get looked at until Monday, but should I expect it Tuesday then. I received a prompt, though vague, reply stating that if the drive was in stock and processing was completed on Monday then I would get it on Tuesday. Then LATE MONDAY NIGHT I get an e-mail telling me that my order was canceled because the drive was not in stock.  
 
This is not acceptable. They should do a better job keeping track of their stock and updating their website accordingly. In fact, as I type this their website STILL says the drive is in stock. They haven’t even bothered to update even after this ordeal. Especially since their staff acknowledged on Saturday that I had placed a rush order, this should never have happened. I am now at least another week away from a working computer. I will never attempt to buy from Digital Storm again. Their prices aren’t even the best. I just needed something quickly, and in that they let me down.  
 
I don’t know that this company is dishonest. Indeed I have never actually completed a transaction with them. At least they canceled the order instead of keeping my money for a long period of time. What I do know is that they don’t keep their website up to date and if you are in need of prompt accurate service, you should look elsewhere.  
 
7/28 - They have removed the Corsair SSD from their website altogether.  
 
7:57pm 7/28 - I've gotten several e-mails and several phone call attempts from DS. Obviously they monitor this website. They said they just happened to go out of stock the same day I ordered (which was 7/25) and they offered me a 5% discount and free shipping on an OCZ drive (exact model not specified). I told them I wasn't interested because OCZ had recently done a press release about their soon to be MSRP drops plus the Colassus release, and I was holding off on purchasing an SSD now. They offered 5% and free shipping to any future purchase. I pretty surprised at how personal and persistent the communication has been. They're prob a local company somewhere with a big online website, because that's the only kind of company that follows up this well with communication. I still don't know if I will ever use the offer, if the price on something I'm interested in ends up being competitive then I would do it. I'll go wherever the price is right as long as the company is legit. I do think they are a legit company. My only concerns are just about availability and turn around times, since obviously their website is not automatically updated to reflect changes in stock, since it took about 72 hours for their website to reflect the current supply. I think that if someone's not in a total time crunch, there'd be no reason not to consider this company. I'm trying to be very fairy here. I know that mistakes happen, but it's just that discounts can't fix extra time without a working computer.

This review was modified by its author, angelicvoices, on 7/28/09 10:30 PM.

This was a very bad experience. It is not the computer, which at a Grand Total of $11,111.61 is not that good anyway.  
The purchasing process was a nightmare, it too a very long time, I was given many excuses with a very non caring tone, I was lied a couple time (ie my computer was almost ready, it was not) and it got so bad, at some point they did not have the part and suggest that I would purchase them from the manufacturer and send the parts to them!!  
Today, 05/26/09, after asking them how to get some extra cooling water for my system ( I wanted to the same as they used to better preserve my system) they offered to sell me a bottle of their "water" for $73 plus shipping!!!! That's SEVENTY THREE dollars.  
And to top it all, they have endless excuses, never once they were wrong through all this, the amount of excuses is endless and at some point they almost insinuated I was to blame because I had ordered something they were not used to.  
This might not happen often, but if you check their forums it happen more then it should, and when you spend that much money on a computer you can expect, demand, being treated with courtesy and by professional staff!

Initially, my opinion of this company and its products was quite high, based upon the high level of apparent customer satisfaction. However, at the current time, I am very disappointed, indeed.  
 
I ordered a high-end custom PC, which arrived on December 2, 2008. All was fine at that time. On the 7th, I made a complete backup onto a USB drive, which worked fine. A week later, suddenly all my USB ports stopped working, along with my card reader. I verified that the USB peripherals were working OK, but the PC would not recognize any of them.  
 
I spent the next three working days trying to contact tech support, including specifying a contact number, and the hours (according to PST) during which I would be available (which overlap DST's business hours by more than six hours). Two days after doing this, I'm getting calls at home, while I'm at work, in complete disregard of the contact information I've provided.  
 
I'm finally fed up, and want to simply return the machine for a refund, according to the return policy, which states that I must return it within 30 days to avoid a 15% restocking fee. So, I contact customer service, requesting details of the return policy, but another day has gone by and I've heard nothing. Needless to say, this is disturbing because I'm running out of time to avoid the restocking fee. Attempts to try to reach a real, live human being on the DST support lines yield only a recording, telling me to leave them a message, which I've now done several times. If I try to stay on the line to talk to a receptionist or operator, the line simply hangs up.  
 
How would you feel, if you were treated this way?

After my hunt to purchase my next High-end gaming pc, I decided to take a risk and get DigitalStorm Rig. BIG MISTAKE! and big risk. I returned it, here is why:  
 
You could not pay me to keep this computer in my house! The computer locked up in games, they did not make me a recovery disk, also the case window had a scratch on it, and it was VERY loud even though it was liquid cooled! After doing business with Velocity Micro, and Alienware several times I expected the best....DS was very very behind in every aspect...Their Sales Reps marjority are young guys without no college experience and they were rude!,they had no skills in how to deal with customers like me who demand the best....Its just a HUGE downgrade to have dealt with this company.. Their parts/Computers are overpriced...and the final product is something that my friend who has built a Liquid cooled PC for me, can do.  
 
 
I didn't want it to come to this bashing, but anyone who has 3,000 to spend on a compute DO NOT make the mistake I DID and purchase it from DigitalStorm, and especially if this is not your first high-end gaming PC vendor then you will be very disappointed with the lack of aspects I mentioned. Actually this company is very new to to computer vendor market and are just learning how to deal with customers. Their customer support representives are only able to do so much... They have a good website and appearance but don't let that fool you.  
 
They took 4 weeks to complete my rig, here were the specs below. The way they customized the HAF 932 made it look very bad. The computer was also very very noisy even though it was watercooled. IT was hideous and lacked identity, branding if u will...Keep in mind I am coming from a black alum. Velocity Micro Gaming PC....and there was very little difference in performance and my VM was only a 2.66ghz intel dual core with 8800gts.  
 
THe Digitalstorm Rig specs as follows:  
Intel Q9550 Processor Liquid cooled  
4gb ocz 1333mhz ram  
750watt psu  
HAF 932 case  
Nvidia 790 sli mobo.  
GTX 280  
 
My second response:  
Well DS says they have knowledgable customer service reps, but Eric the Rep I had to deal with did not have any current knowlege of hardware.  
 
Also,Because the computer locked up in my games several times,(TF2) which is not very graphic intensive. I questioned their system testing procedure. Also questioned why the HAF-932 looks very good on their website, but looks ugly in person. Also it was too loud for such a computer that in my eyes was not Top-end. Again, it was unstable, and did infact lockup in my game that I play the most.  
 
I had to pay $260 dollars for overnight shipping, because I was going to take it to college, I am glad i paid the $260 to get it soon, because I did not take it to college for the above reasons, and If I would of went with the ground shipping I would of been a big upset for something that I would of built anticipaton for, that in the end I sent back first thing monday..... Oh yea also I provided this company with a lot of ways of how to deal with experienced customers like me. Ask me how I know... OK i will tell you, after they saw I was willing to pay the $260 that i did acually pay, They added a $250 quick 4 day build to their website which is at the bottom of their configurator....Haha I am sure the idea came up in a meeting of theirs, probably focusing on why I was unhappy with them. That just proves to me that experience buyers like me have that type of power. haha.  
 
Man Jason, buddy, you should of called me directly when I had my system send back for a refund, I did not get any e-mails from you, but Eric said that you sent one, I didnt get it.... Talking to Eric and having him be the middle man in your deals was like bargaining with a used car salesmen, I can't believe you did not try and call me yourself, and you say you did your best to try and work with me, BS all you gave me was having to call back 5x a day just to talk to Eric, who you should not let wheel an deal for you, and I requested to talk with a superior several times..  
 
Sad thing about it is you have lost several thousand dollar of my business. And you have failed to please a experience buyer like myself who has seen and done it all.  
I normally spend thousands a year on high-end rigs, from vendors, friends of mine, and whatnot.  
 
I wanted to re do the sytem, while retaining some parts to put into a new one. So I told them friday I wanted the new hardware that was coming out Monday, and Eric said I will have to pay NO restocking fee, and still get a 10% Oh and btw, you offered me the 10 percent discount on current hardware, not the new hardware that I was ready to order Monday morning thats why I canceled the whole order because of these LIES and fake promises. Again, its not the money to me, its the principal, stick with what you say first DS. I wish I recorded every conversation with Eric to show every potential DS customer.  
 
When I called on monday to finish off the deal,.... I wanted to new hardware, and Eric turned into a twoface, as soon as i said I have my credit card lets do this right now I have waited enough! which was Mon. Novemeber 17, when I called to redo it. And mentioned that I had to take 15% and receive no discount, which was the exact opposite of what I was promised on Friday.....  
 
Basically, what I am saying is they just let me talk to Eric who isn't very computer savvy, when I could of spoken to somebody higher up. Anyway there is no last chance for me and this company. Again I hate to bash this company, but I feel this was needed, because I was defiently treated worse than just another order.  

This review was modified by its author, sgc157, on 4/10/09 1:53 PM.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH THIS COMPANY WAS RATHER DISMAL. I SPENT NEARLY $1600.00 FOR A NEW BOX. THEY HAD VERY GOOD REVIEWS AND A GOOD RAP ABOUT AWARD WINNING SERVICE. I GOT MY NEW COMPUTER AND IT SEEMED TO WORK FINE FOR ABOUT 6 WEEKS. THEN THE HONEYMOON ENDED. THE THING GOT VERY SLOW AND STARTED LOCKING UP. I CALLED AND SPOKE TO ROBERT AND HE SAID THEY WOULD SEND ME A NEW MOTHERBOARD TO INSTALL. I SAID NO WAY AND I WOULD SEND THE THING TO THEM FOR REPAIRS. I TOLD THEM THAT IT MIGHT BE A WINDOWS PROBLEM WITH THE XP INSTALLATION. THEY GOT THE COMPUTER AND DID REPAIRS ON IT. THEY ALSO SAID THAT THE VIDEO CARD I BOUGHT (WHICH WAS GREAT WHEN I BOUGHT IT WAS NOW NOT SO HOT NOW AND) SHOULD BE UPGRADED. THEY CHARGED ME $270.00 TO UPGRADE THE VIDEO CARD AND THEN HELD MY BOX FOR RANSOM UNTIL I FORKED OVER ANOTHER $263.00 FOR REPAIRS. THIS STUFF SHOULD HAVE BEEN COVERED BY THEIR "AWARD WINNING SERVICE". WHEN I GOT THE BOX BACK IT HAD A NEW POWER SUPPLY IN IT BUT I COULD NOT SEE ANYTHING ELSE. IT WOULD NOT EVEN FIRE UP. IT WAS DEAD. THEY BLAMED IT ON UPS AND I HAD TO SEND IT BACK AGAIN. AFTER 2 MONTHS OF MESSING AROUND I FINALLY GOT MY COMPUTER BACK AND NOT ONLY WAS I OUT OVER $500.00 AND SOME CABLES THEY HAD REMOVED FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON, BUT IT PERFORMED THE SAME AS WHEN I FIRST SENT IT IN. THEIR SERVICE GUY TOLD ME ALL KIND OF THINGS TO DO BUT NOTHING SEEMED TO HELP. I FINALLY DECIDED TO RELOAD WINDOWS AND THE THING STARTED WORKING OK AGAIN. WHAT AN ORDEAL!!!! DO NOT FALL FOR THEIR RAP ABOUT SERVICE BECAUSE THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN DELL!!!!  
UPDATE 6 MONTHS LATER THE THING IS WORSE THAN EVER AND KEEPS LOCKING UP. I HAVE GIVEN UP ON DIGITAL STORM!!  
 
UPDATE 8-7-08: DIGITAL STORM HAS BEEN IN TOUCH WITH ME AND HELPED ME OUT WITH MY COMPUTER.  
They appear to be trying to resolve most of my issues. They have been in constant communication with me for the last week or so. Jason has been very helpful and I am hopeful they will turn my bad experience completely around. More to come!!  
 
UPDATE 2-9-09  
 
Well my Motherboard is still giving me lots of problems. The network port on the mobo has stopped functioning and Digital Storm agrees that I need a new MOBO. I am also plagued with crashes and no start - startups. The problem is that Digital Storm says they no longer carry that mobo so I need to remove it and send it to them while they RMA it to Asus. Then they will send it back and I should reinstall it. That will mean I will be down for about a month. You know even Dell has a better customer service than that. Dell will always at least send out a replacement part to exchange. Dell has even sent a tech guy to install the parts on a few occasions. How is this "award winning service" from Digital Storm?  
I guess I will have to spend $125.00 to $150.00 to buy a mother board and install it myself if I do not want to be without my box for a month. Then of course I will have to reinstall windows and all other software and drivers wasting at least a full day of my time. I will not ever buy anything from DS or recommend them to anybody. By the way Alex loves to spin these reviews and he said before Jason solved all my problems and gave me his personal cell phone number. Problem is he will not answer it or respond. The only way to get them to do anything for you is give them bad reviews on this forum. Very, very sad excuse for customer service!  

This review was modified by its author, mr bill, on 2/9/09 7:19 PM.

I'll try be brief. I was wanting to build a new AMD gaming machine. I looked around the web and talked to many people about customer builders and I thought Digital Storm Online (DSO) would provide the best bang for the buck.  
 
I placed my order in late February and 90 days later and 3 different delivery attempts later yielded me nothing but a VISA bill and a very broken PC.  
 
While tech support is very friendly, their ability to configure and deliver a machine to specifications is very suspect. I didn't get the video cards I ordered initially, they never got the harddrive raids to stabilize on the 2nd attempt, and they never got VISTA Ultimate 64 to read more than 2GB of memory on the 3rd try.  
 
Overall I'm a VERY dissappointed. I had faith in this company and thier friendly staff. But friendly doesn't seem to = capable. So here I am today with 3+ months of interest on a VISA card that just got $4K worth of charges reversed. Oh I was promised 2 free games for my troubles...but they have yet to show up....sigh.  
 
All I can tell others is that if things don't go right the day you get your box....be prepared for a long, drawn out ordeal. I had many promises made and so many were broken...sigh. I hope everyones DSO experience ends better than mine.  
 
PS - I have many, many emails to and from DSO to back up my claims. So Alex, please don't try to blow me off on these forums...  
 
Dissappointed in Texas

After 1 month and 7 days, as far as I know, Digital Storm has not even begun to work on my computer.  
 
It started with me putting in the incorrect zip code when I made the charge. Even though the charge went through according to my bank, Digital Storm insisted that they never received it. So, after a week or so of correspondence with Digital Storm and my bank, I was able to have the first charge refunded to me by Chase and I made another charge on 1/18 to Digital Storm.  
 
At this point, I found in my e-mail a number of congratulations from Digital Storm for the successful processing of my order. Everything was set, my status was updated on their (abysmal) order status page saying I was in Stage 1, the building process. Now I just had to wait.  
 
A week and a half later my computer was still being built. I went one day to send an e-mail asking for an update, but instead I found I already had an update.  
 
But wait - what's this?  
 
"Thank you for shopping with Digital Storm Online! Your order has been cancelled because:  
charge back 1/18/08 customer cancle  
Any charges to your credit card have been refunded. Please shop with us again soon!"  
 
I quickly replied, asking what happened:  
 
"...What? Why was my order #6043 cancelled? I have an email from the 18th saying all of the charges went through and everything would be finished in 6-8 business days. And this was after several weeks of issues with the billing. I thought this was resolved. What's going on this time?"  
 
At this point I received 2 e-mails from Digital Storm:  
 
" I am just taking the time to send you a quick update on the status of your system. It should be ready to ship out to you sometime around monday of next week.  
 
Sincerely,  
Josh"  
 
"I just wanted to confirm with you that the order was not canceled. I apologize for the confusing email, but have no fear. The computer will ship shortly.  
 
Regards,  
Dave "  
 
So my computer is shipping Monday, maybe Tuesday next week. These e-mails were dated 1/28. 10 days later with no update on my order status I decided to send another e-mail asking just what was going on with my computer. Here is the response:  
 
"I'm afraid the order is still showing as canceled. Your bank refused the charges and had them reversed on 1/28/08, at which point we considered the order canceled. At this point we'll have to have your bank return the charges, or charge you again, to get this order moving. I was unaware of all of this before now. When I last sent you that email we still had the charges and we were working on the system.  
 
Sincerely,  
Dave"  
 
To which I replied:  
 
“The second time through the bank couldn't have refused the charges - I personally talked to them about it. It seems like someone on your end read the first refund as the ultimate cancellation of the order, when in fact ANOTHER charge went through and I am still -$1600 dollars as of the SECOND charge.  
 
I also have this e-mail saying that the order would be shipped Monday - if there was a problem with the bank refusing charges (which I sincerely doubt considering the TWO times that the charge has been processed on my statement) I should have been notified at that point.  
 
[Josh’s E-mail from above]  
 
At this point, I am getting extremely frustrated (I have been MORE than patient about this thus far) and since I get the feeling that my computer has not even begun to be built I would just like a refund so that I may take my business elsewhere. In the future, I believe a more involved approach in dealing with these problems would benefit your company. The updates I received were very few and far between."  
 
And I got:  
 
"We show no second charge. I'll have my accounting department investigate this matter and if we do have any charge on hold or on file we will reverse it.  
 
Sincerely,  
Dave"  
 
I then sent a copy and pasted portion of my bank statement showing that the charge did indeed go through on 1/18. Dave replied with:  
 
"Here's my evidence of the charge reversal.  
 
1/28/2008- Viewed By Param at 4:25:15 PM  
---------------------------------------------------------1/28/2008 Order canceled because charge back 1/18/08 customer cancel.  
 
As you can see, this happened ten days after the charge you forwarded me. If you have an invoice or statement from your bank that shows we still have the funds from your account it would likely speed up any refund process.  
 
Sincerely,  
Dave"  
 
Oh wow. Nice evidence. You mean the exact e-mail I received, asked Digital Storm about, and was assured that nothing was wrong?  
 
At any rate, I have asked that Digital Storm refund the charges to me (as my bank account is still $1600 short, so the money has to be somewhere [again]). As you can see, Digital Storm has a LONG way to go in the customer service and accounting department.  
 
The incredible lack of updates, especially concerning extremely important order information - such as, I don't know, total cancellations - is absolutely unacceptable. Furthermore, Digital Storm must have a group of monkeys working in the accounting department. I have never had such problems with a charge in my life. Chase has deducted the money from my account 2 times - where is the money going? I find it hard to believe that an enormous national bank has made the same strange error twice, especially when the problem leading to the first error was corrected. Something screwy is happening with Digital Storm's accounting, and I highly suggest they fix it before they lose even more customers.  
 
I have been 1 month 7 days patient. Time to find another company to purchase from, AFTER Digital Storm takes a week to refund my charges.  
 
In closing, if a Digital Storm guy replies saying anything about a zip code problem and tries to blame it all on that, don't listen to him. That is a fine excuse for the FIRST charge, but the second charge had no problem and was explicitly permitted, as I called Chase to let them know it would be going through. There were no problems on my end. All problems were with Digital Storm.

This review was modified by its author, hjparcins, on 2/8/08 1:42 PM.

I keep hearing about the great customer service for Digital Storm. Where is it? I ordered the computer on the 4th of January. I found out via this web site that I would have to do extra paperwork to have the system delivered at work instead home, which is the billing address for the credit card. You find out about this on their website. I mentioned this to the sales rep and he said DSO would contact me about getting this done right. After several days and no contact, I called them and then spent an hour proving to them I was who I said I was and wasn't using a bogus or stolen credit card. Then my computer went into the step 1, the build cue. After two weeks I called them last Thursday and asked about the status. Oooops, some how my order had "fallen through the cracks" and nothing had been done. I hadn't been contacted. It's now five days later and the status hasn't changed on the website. If it hasn't moved by tomorrow, I'll be cancelling this order. I understand about delays, but I was owed at least an email letting me know there was a problem. My credit card has already been charged and the bill is coming due. I'd be a fool to pay the credit card bill and continue to receive this kind of shabby service.  
 
This is a real disappointment after reading all the great things about this company.  
 
CTM  
 
 
 
Update as of 30 January 2008  
 
Well, Alex lied. Not only on line, but also in a phone call to my house at 2130 two nights ago. As you will read he said my computer would ship on Wednesday, today. Someone name John called my wife this afternoon and said the shipment would be now be delayed until at least Monday. No reason provided.  
 
What puzzles me is why writers on this string keep making excuses for this company. When they give you an estimate on time for build and ship it should be the either accurate or longer than it will really take. That leads to satisfied customers. Hello - can you hear me? basic marketing here.  
 
We are willing to wait if we aren't being lied to. If you haven't figured it out, I'm in the military and the only thing being shipped out next week is me. If I made these kind of promises (or estimates as they call them) and didn't deliver, I would be in a big hurt. Worse, someone might lose their life. So, the computer might arrive next week or maybe not. Doesn't really seem to matter to Digital Storm. But, I'll be gone, and I told them this at the start of my order. My wife will return the computer and I'll eat the shipping charge. We'll make sure you can continue this open line of discussion with the freedoms that are being paid by the blood of the Soldiers and Marines deployed away from their families.  
 
Do me a favor and stop patronizing this company.  
 
If anyone is interested in what I do and why this ticks me off so much, google me at "Craig Mallak". I have to answer to all the families that have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Too bad Digital Storm doesn't have half that comittment.  
 
Craig Mallak  
US Armed Forces Medical Examiner

This review was modified by its author, CTM, on 1/30/08 7:54 PM.

UPDATE: 14 Dec 2007  
 
It's 14 December 2007 and I still do not have my laptop. There has been no communication from Digital Storm except the automated notice that my order has entered "Stage 2: (Production: Installation & Testing)". I actually got this notice twice, once on Friday, 7 Dec, and again on Monday, 10 Dec. (The expected shipping date changed to a later date with the second notice.)  
 
My email to customer service was not answered, so I had to call them. They claimed that even though the website was showing the laptop as still in production, the unit had been shipped. They did not have a tracking number. There was no explanation as to why they did not honor their commitment to have the laptop delivered by today.  
 
After my phone call, I did receive an email with a tracking number. The shipper doesn't recognize it yet, so it's not clear when the laptop is going to come. The order did get updated to "Order has been picked up by UPS" (which is odd, since they told me it got shipped via DHL).  
 
UPDATE: 07 Dec 2007  
 
After further discussion with Digital Storm, they offered the higher screen resolution at no additional charge. Since either screen resolution was acceptable to me and this would at least allow the machine to be built, I accepted their offer.  
 
However, I decided not to accept their offer of an "upgrade" of the disk drive from 100GB to 120GB. It turns out that the only 120GB disk drive that Digital Storm offers on their web site is only 5400RPM, not 7200RPM. When I pointed this out, Digital Storm claimed that they did have 120GB disk drives that were 7200RPM but they had "just then run out of them". (There was no explanation for why this drive is not listed on their web site as an option for this laptop.)  
 
They said they would give the build of my laptop a high priority and that I would have it in hand by 14 December 2007. Here's the quote from their email: "This email is just to inform you that we are going to upgrade your screen at no charge and that you will receive your laptop by the end of next week (Dec. 14th)."  
 
ORIGINAL: 06 Dec 2007  
 
I ordered a high-end ($3200) gaming laptop before Thanksgiving as a Christmas present. To make sure that the configuration was OK, I had a customer service representative review everything before submitting the order. The order page claimed that, barring problems, the machine should be ready to ship within 6 to 8 business days.  
 
After I submitted the order, I did not receive any communication from the company for over two weeks beyond an automated acknowledgment that the order had been placed (but they did charge my credit card).  
 
I finally got a call saying that because of a bad batch of screens, the company would not be able to deliver the machine as configured. When I asked when a new batch of screens would be available, I was told that it would be at least another month. However, if I would agree to pay for a higher resolution screen, they would build the laptop in no more than a couple of days and ship it out.  
 
What is most confusing is that I was told they have been having these problems with the kind of screen I ordered, yet I was not told this at the time I had my configuration reviewed nor for another two weeks. They are still offering this screen on their website today.

This review was modified by its author, badalio, on 12/14/07 1:41 PM.

I purchased a digital storm computer in Feb '06. It was delivered on time and in good working order. Order and delivery process went well.  
 
Recently however, my computer caught on fire. I called Digital Storm to report this and check on any possible warranty info. I figured among other things they might want to know that they were selling something that was a fire hazard. After two weeks I've still not received a call back. I didn't mention when I bought the computer when I left the message so they couldn't automatically assume I was out of warranty.  
 
Needless to say, I took the computer to a local shop for repair. Turns out the power supply (Epower 550W EP-550PS-L1 Tiger) had failed. Lucky for me I was sitting at my desk when the machine started on its own and started sparking and smoking. I'm very disapointed that the company that sold me the computer didn't think one of their products catching on fire warranted at least a return call.  
 

I ordered my computer(Intel core duo 2.4ghz, 2GIGS of 1066 RAM, nvidia 8800GTX & 74gig WD raptor HD) & it was in que to be built as of March 30th.  
 
From the get go it had problems. As a quick overview, LCD had dead pixel(would not replace), Hard drive went bad within a week(replaced), memory went bad(replace), 3 of 4 dimms were bad(MOBO).  
 
Ended up sending the entire system back. At first, they still enforced the 15% restocking fee even with all the problems. However, Alex(manager/supervisor) reviewed the situation and refunded the 15%.  
 
All in all, the experience wasn't the best. Just chalked it up to experience, lost a few bucks on S&H (S&H of original order to me, and S&H to send it back).  
 
They seem to have a lot of good reviews, and problems can happen, even with a large company. But I would imagine, only 1 thing like a bad HD. But as many things that went wrong in a short amount of time. I gave up, and didnt feel like dealing with it.  
 
I wouldn't say my business with digital storm would completely cease, but I would heavily weigh my options before committing.  
 
P.S. For the amount of hardware you get for the pricing they offer, it's a great buy. If it had only worked as designed, I'd have no complaints.

This review was modified by its author, b15nismoguy, on 6/26/07 2:54 PM.