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This is the kind of thing that makes me chuckle every time I see a comment like ‘just build your own PC - they work better and save money’.

Yeah, both can be true, but when it goes wrong, it can be very difficult and expensive to troubleshoot.



I've had these kinds of weird issues happen on named brand computers too.

One annoying one is a 2014 HP laptop with Beats Audio. The laptop has a non-standard internal speaker setup. With the installed Windows 8 & Beats Audio drivers it sounds nice. Under Linux by default the speakers sound like a muffled tin can. Using a couple of tools and some terminal commands everything is right as rain. I nearly exclusively use Linux, but I had a need to work on some windows stuff so the laptop was pulled out and upgraded to windows 10. As soon as I ran some audio, tin can sounds. I've looked over and over for drivers, HP doesn't support Beats Audio anymore, and their replacement drivers that claim to work don't. Now if I need audio from that laptop I either have to use linux or I have to use the headphone port.


I've had way more issues on commodity systems than any PC I've built. Every sub-$1500 laptop I've ever bought has had some form of hardware issue. Anything from CPU incompatibilities with OS low power states to the machine I'm currently typing on which regularly BSODs due to the absolute dumpster fire of Realtek wireless drivers.




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