Wet pc's and insurance companies..

Assasin-uk

Assasin-uk

Assasin-uk

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Joined
1 May 2003
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501
Location
Blackpool Lancs
Having had a brew poured in my top fan has somewhat killed my pc, the insurance company now have it and have offerd me a deal.. here the specs on the pc's mine then the one offered.

All approx 12 months old.

Coolermaster stacker case old style one
Abit ic7 max 3 motherboard
Intel p4 3.0ghz cpu
OCZ 4400 gold ram 2x 512mb
Soundblaster audigy zs2 sound card
ATI x850pro sound card.
Sony dvd-rw
targon 480w psu
Western digital sata raptor 30gb hard disk
seagate ide 60gb hard disk

And offered in replacement.

Black/Silver MINI Tower Case
Generic 350w psu
Intel P4 3.0GHz
1GB DDR400 Memory (generic)
160GB Hard Drive (7200RPM) IDE or sata
Sony DVD-RW
Multi Format Card Reader
Integrated Sound/Graphics/LAN
56k MODEM
**upgraded to fx5500 gfx card? and extra soundblaster 7.1 card**


Now to my mind these are different beasties, i have told the company who assesed it to go away and think again. So far the company "The Source" have been helpfull...

any thoughts... :rolleyes:
 
That is worse than your original PC by a mile (in particular the RAM, graphics card, sound card, case & PSU and lack of raptor HDD). I would not accept that at all, it's rubbish to be frank.
 
Don't insurance companies normally pay out money rather than just give you a new (and clearly inferior) PC?

An FX5500 would be very low end budget class these days. Probably about £20's worth. Lower than an Geforce 6100. The FX series was out a few years ago and was noted for poor performance and being inferior to most of ATI's offerings.
 
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Assasin-uk said:
Thanks for the words of wisdom..

wtf is an fx5500 btw? similar to my x850


oh and my 2 year old pured the brew in the top lid fan and it made a nice internal shower... :(
Click to expand...

Somewhere less than a 9800pro.

The PC they have offered you is a joke.
 
FX5500 is a pile of junk, it was when it was new! Good for minesweeper but not much else, :) only really for office use. Send them the difference between the specs for your memory, psu and graphics card and try to get current prices if you can for your spec pc.
They are giving you a basic spec common for pc world,packard bell,dell etc. I doubt they have the knowledge to work out the difference. They are looking at mhz and nothing else for spec.
Had the same problem with my mums pc about 5 years ago they kept asking what brand pc it was. :mad:
 
As the above poster pointed out the FX 5500 really isn't a great card, I'd not say it is somewhere less than a 9800 Pro, I'd say it is *much* less than a 9800 Pro!

Black/Silver MINI Tower Case
Prolly some cheap plasticy thing, certainly not comparable to a decent Coolermaster. Estimated value: £15.

Generic 350w psu
Again some cheap thing, (tho some generic PSUs from big name manufacturers are actually decent) and if you mean a Tagan 480 Watt then a very large difference in price. Estimated value: £15 - £30.

Intel P4 3.0GHz
Is it HT, 800 FSB, Prescott or Northwood etc? The difference in value isn't great but that they use DDR400 doesn't mean you won't get a 533 P4 or something unpleasant. Estimated value: £40 - £60.

1GB DDR400 Memory (generic)
Some manufacturers use quality brands, others use cheap ones that are liable to produce errors in their "lifetime" and die prematurely. They also don't mention if it is in dual channel configuration which could further reduce performance, I guarantee they won't be anywhere near comparable to the quality enthusiast level modules you had before. Estimated value: £60 - £80.

160GB Hard Drive (7200RPM) IDE or sata
Who knows but it obviously won't compare to a Raptor. I would accept no less than a decent size (250GB+) Seagate Barracuda 7200.10. Estimated value: £40.

**upgraded to fx5500 gfx card? and extra soundblaster 7.1 card**
An FX 5500 from your X850 Pro is not even worthy of comparison, the two are so vastly different in performance that it is a joke to suggest it as a replacement. Estimated value: £30.

The Soundblaster 7.1 could be a Live or SE, either it'll be at best 50% of the value of your Audigy 2 ZS. The Audigy 4 is almost identical and costs about £35, what they suggest I'd say will be worth a tenner.
 
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Tetras said:
As the above poster pointed out the FX 5500 really isn't a great card, I'd not say it is somewhere less than a 9800 Pro, I'd say it is *much* less than a 9800 Pro!
Click to expand...

Harsh but fair ;). Put simply its one of the biggest crock of ahem, hi mods ;), cards on the planet. I think its practically the reason why everyone is afraid that nvidia will attempt another "hybrid" card for their new upcoming DX10 gpu - ie they are afraid it is going to be crushed like the 5000 series was. (If I remember right).
 
Hope I'm not hijacking the thread but isn't someone lucky to get something like that insured? How much is your house insurance? I'm looking to insure my PC etc.
 
I was just talking about this kind of thing happening at work...

I would find out how much money they would offer you before you accept that... When i got my house turned over they offered cash to replace items, handy to know.

They probably wont offer that much since they will be buying the gear in at reduced prices, they might only pay out what they buy the gear in at...
 
that insurance company is taking the utter pee the comp their trying to replace your comp with is a utter joke especially the graphics card.

i just went from a 5900xt to a x800gto and the 5900xt is total raped never mind what your old x850 does to my x800 :)

btw i belive a 5600 ultra is better than the card their offering you and my old old geforce 4 mx 440 out performed my mates 5600 ultra fx in halo.... no dx9 effects but far better fps same goes for ut2004 in benchmarks on the same rig just differnt graphics cards.
 
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Check your policy and if it states like for like then make sure they honour it.Also if your PC is insured as a named item to the max value £1500 then ask them why they are trying to offer you less than a third of that price.

Ask them how much they are willing to pay out and then give them a spec from Overclockers and see what they say. :D
 
What insurance com pany are you with? I had a claim with barclays a few months back and ended up with £500 worth of vouchers that could only be spent as the certain high street store.

Luckily my sis was after a PC so i sold her the vouchers for £450 and spent the cash at overclockers :)
 
Sounds grossly unfair to me to only offer payment in the form of vouchers, as its going to limit choice.

Remember you have the option to make a complaint and ultimately take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you can't reach agreement.
 
Tell them to get knotted. That pc they are offering you is absolute rubbish. I had a FX5500 some years ago and it would only get 426 points in 3dmark05. Thats how pants it is. It's certainly nowhere near an X850. The ram they are offering you is rubbish as well, especially as you had high performance ram. You did the right thing about telling them to go and think again.

I would'nt accept vouchers either though, especially if they are for a certain high street pc shop. We all know they charge a fortune for stuff you can get elsewhere for a fraction of the price.
 
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