In reply to:
That's a very generous offer! My son likes to do his own builds.
If everyone knew how easy it really is to build one nowadays Dell would be in trouble. With standardized fool proof slots and connectors, plug and play everything, auto-configuring BIOS's, etc it's really not too difficult. Not like the old days where you would spend hours trying to find which solder point on which memory chip was loose on the motherboard (you would get your 256K of ram in 16 soldered chips, for example). Or for the love of Pete those damnable internal ISA modems. Dip switches and IRQ's. And DOS no likee da modem.
What you really get with Dell is the warranty/tech support. And they run razor thin margins on the low end "499 plus free 15" lcd upgrade" tv-ad computers then sell you a bunch of periphs where they make fat profits.
