Your worst/most regretted IT/computer related purchase?

So, we've seen threads asking us what our best purchase was, but I wonder what things people have regretted buying.

What things have you looked back on and though "Why the hell did I get that" or what things just weren't as good as you thought they were.



For me it would be a a Dual layer DVD burner.

Not becuase it was useless, I used it to burn a lot of DVDs, but it was when the DL burners were just coming out, the drive cost about $280 and I have never burned a DL DVD, not with that burner and not with burners since.

That's what you get for buying new technology in the first month. :P

I'd say almost none - all the various upgrades and components over the years have served me well (even the 8800GTX bought when it was £400).

The only disappointment was a Corsair USB memory stick. It was the first one I had that wasn't PNY, and due to all the other Corsair components I'd had, expected good things. Then for no reason it went wrong and had to be replaced - and even the replacement seems to act up a bit...so I don't use it.

Instead, I eventually got another PNY memory stick.

I'd say my Xbox 360. I really have no idea why I bought it. I've had it for 2 years and maybe played it for 3 or 4 hours. I knew it was going to end up being a paperweight.fenriz275

[QUOTE="fenriz275"]I'd say my Xbox 360. I really have no idea why I bought it. I've had it for 2 years and maybe played it for 3 or 4 hours. I knew it was going to end up being a paperweight.DigitalExile

[QUOTE="DigitalExile"]

[QUOTE="fenriz275"]I'd say my Xbox 360. I really have no idea why I bought it. I've had it for 2 years and maybe played it for 3 or 4 hours. I knew it was going to end up being a paperweight.Elann2008

Crazy so many good games do out on the xbox this year..Should check out bulletstorm, batman some other games..Keep both my pc an my xbox an my wii..Though i hardly play my wiii..Bulletstorm btw same people who made gears 3...

Two things, my 32" widescreen tv, I bought it for £1200 and then a few months later the price of lcds dropped to just a few hundred. And my very first desktop I bought from an online store that cost £2600, I shake my head at that now thinking what a waste, if i had just built it myself I would have saved my self thousands.

The computer I got back in 2001 with a whooping 1.8 GHz P4 processor might have been a bit overkill. Tough I can't think of any really regrettable purchases, apart from a bunch of games that I bought and paid for, but never really played.

Edit: Dough, of course my Sapphire HD 3870 graphics card got to make the list, I thought it would come with a reference cooler, it didn't, it was equipped with a noisy single slot cooler and had the habit of starting a stopping the fan continually, thus not just making loud noise, but also making it in an incredibly annoying way.

For me it was the msi slim x400 i had. worst laptop ever! it overheated, couldnt run anything besides word(had an intel celeron ulv at 1.2ghz), and the keyboard was absolutely aweful! it flexed so bad that it sometimes popped out from the brackets. thank god it died this week so i had an excuse to buy an acer aspire timelinex. if your going for an ultraportable avoid msi(in my opinion)

I would say mistakenly installing windows 7 32 bit instead of 64.

My current motherboard... I didn't research properly and got a surprise of seeing that my GPU covers 4/6 of my SATA ports...

Splashing out £1300 on an Alienware desktop. Regretted it ever since joining Gamespot, if I had built it myself I'd saved a heck load of money.

A D-Link router and matching USB adapter. My Internet connection was unreliable and the USB adapter had to be replaced two times because it would stop working. Eventually, when I replaced that computer with one with Vista installed, I had to replace the router and adapter. It was expensive, but I got a Linksys router and adapter, and they're still working four years later. The one thing that doesn't work well with the router is my Nintendo Wii, and that's a known incompatibility with the Linksys routers of that time; further, I have little reason to connect my Wii to the Internet anyway, so it's really no bother.

A Infrared Comunicator for my old Sony Erricson. It Could Barely transfer a 2MB File.

Quite some time ago I went with a no brand case for my first real hand-picked-component pc, seemed ideal because i could spend more on cpu and gpu and it came with a psu while looking kind of classy (mostly white, some silver touches and a blue led power button). looking back the thing was really cramped and hard to work in, offered no means to improve the minimal airflow and i spent more then i would have if i had just gotten a decent case from the start to get the sound levels down.

In that same build i went with a s754 amd athlon 64 cpu, not knowing that the 754 socket would soon be replaced by socket 939. This was stupid on my behalf but never really became an issue because the 3700+ i later upgraded to ran everything i threw at it just fine and i would have probably wasted money on a dual core for no good reason. still a lesson was learned.

the 8800 GTX. Lasted me about a year and a half until the 4870 came out and wiped the floor with it. 8800 = $500, 4870 = $120 and 50% faster.

Also my old Core 2 Duo e6600....I listened to the naysayers back 6 years ago that said "Quad core wont catch on, get a dual core." Well, we see what today's world is like...

A D-Link router and matching USB adapter. My Internet connection was unreliable and the USB adapter had to be replaced two times because it would stop working. Eventually, when I replaced that computer with one with Vista installed, I had to replace the router and adapter. It was expensive, but I got a Linksys router and adapter, and they're still working four years later. The one thing that doesn't work well with the router is my Nintendo Wii, and that's a known incompatibility with the Linksys routers of that time; further, I have little reason to connect my Wii to the Internet anyway, so it's really no bother.

Author_Jerry

This, I also boughta D-Link router which was constantly dropping, had to reconnect many times a day. Returned it for a Linksys and all is well.

My $1400 iBook I bought in 04. It was very slow, even after a fresh install. I was upgrading from my then 5-6 year old desktop, which was in some ways better than that laptop, and I left my Windows PC with my parents. Found out upgrading was a real pain. I wanted to install Java 1.5, but I would need to upgrade my OS X to 10.4, which would've cost me over $100 at the time, totally not worth it just to run free software that should've been compatible with my computer. The Windows version of Java 1.5 would've installed just fine on my old Windows 98 PC, but my brand spanking new iBook would require an expensive OS upgrade. Really got me mad. And then less than a year in, Apple decides to switch to Intel, and despite them saying they were going to keep supporting PowerPC for a while, I knew that support would fade away quickly. So I bought a Dell laptop that worked beautifully and life was happy after that.

Guess I just bought an iBook at the wrong time. I'm hearing that 10.4 is somewhat the minimum now, and that's definitely quite old. I guess 10.3 just got the shaft very quickly for whatever reason. Doesn't seem to be the norm. But it was a bad experience for me.

My GTX295 - I will never waste my money on a highend card again

(the reason i replaced it is it was overheating all the time)

Of all the informed decisions I have made as in after researching on the internet, getting an intel mobo with no OC ability was the worst one as "I could care less about OC" lol. However I am not quite sure how much it would have increased the life of my E6750. The fact that the mobo died and now my Q8400 doesnt have to be limited at stock speeds somewhat undermines the damage done by the decision.

I also now wish I had gotten the corsair VX550W over 3 years ago instead of the 450W.

[QUOTE="Author_Jerry"]

A D-Link router and matching USB adapter. My Internet connection was unreliable and the USB adapter had to be replaced two times because it would stop working. Eventually, when I replaced that computer with one with Vista installed, I had to replace the router and adapter. It was expensive, but I got a Linksys router and adapter, and they're still working four years later. The one thing that doesn't work well with the router is my Nintendo Wii, and that's a known incompatibility with the Linksys routers of that time; further, I have little reason to connect my Wii to the Internet anyway, so it's really no bother.

bluemustang16

This, I also boughta D-Link router which was constantly dropping, had to reconnect many times a day. Returned it for a Linksys and all is well.

8600GT and a Thermaltake 430W to go along with it.

The card was terribad, could hardly play anything even at medium. Good thing I managed to resell it for a good amount.

The PSU was using the ancient V2.0 24-pin connect. Why Thermaltake was still selling that junk at that time is beyond my understanding. I still have it. Complete waste of $50.

It turned out my 300W stock PSU could handle the 8600GT easily. Go figure.

Nothing I can say I really regret, because I really think it over before I buy anything. Although I felt like I overpaid for gfx, since it feels like overkill right now.

So, we've seen threads asking us what our best purchase was, but I wonder what things people have regretted buying.

What things have you looked back on and though "Why the hell did I get that" or what things just weren't as good as you thought they were.


For me it would be a a Dual layer DVD burner.

Not becuase it was useless, I used it to burn a lot of DVDs, but it was when the DL burners were just coming out, the drive cost about $280 and I have never burned a DL DVD, not with that burner and not with burners since.

That's what you get for buying new technology in the first month. :P

C_Rule

My 2007 era ASUS G1S laptop with the infamous NVIDIA Geforce 8600M GT GDDR3 i.e. refer to NVIDIA "bumpgate".

My 2008 era ASUS G1SN laptop with the infamous NVIDIA Geforce 9500M GS GDDR2 i.e BS "upgrade" replacement from ASUS. The NVIDIA Geforce 9500M GS GDDR2 is slower than NVIDIA Geforce 8600M GT GDDR3. There are other incidents this laptop model melting. Atm, it overheat's USB 3.0 ExpressCard i.e. hot to touch.

The same USB 3.0 ExpressCard is fine on Sony Vaio VGN-FW45 (with Radeon HD 4650M) and Dell Studio XPS 1645 (with Radeon HD 5730M) laptops. Wasted about $2500 AUD on G1S. The dead ASUS G1S/G1SN has a blu-ray drive. In the end, I replaced ASUS G1S/G1SN with Sony Vaio VGN-FW45 laptop.

Don't get me started on NVIDIA Geforce 9650M GT and ASUS N80Vn laptop...

I understand ASUS's position in handling to NVIDIA's $hit mobile GPUs.

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My NVIDIA Geforce FX 5900FX Ultra i.e. !#$% DX9 performance. What's the point upgrading from Geforce 4200 TI to Geforce FX 5900FX Ultra if it can't sustain DX9? Tickbox marketing?

My 2004 Mitec 8355 laptop'sMobility Radeon 9600 Pro performance is better than NVIDIA Geforce FX 5900FX Ultra. This laptop still works.

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1 month old Seagate 7200 RPM 750GB laptop hard disk dying.

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Sony Xperia X10, lack of support for Android 2.2. http://www.petitiononline.com/froyo/petition.html

4GB of Server RAM. I didn't knw there was a difference.... :(

Quite some time ago I went with a no brand case for my first real hand-picked-component pc, seemed ideal because i could spend more on cpu and gpu and it came with a psu while looking kind of classy (mostly white, some silver touches and a blue led power button). looking back the thing was really cramped and hard to work in, offered no means to improve the minimal airflow and i spent more then i would have if i had just gotten a decent case from the start to get the sound levels down.

In that same build i went with a s754 amd athlon 64 cpu, not knowing that the 754 socket would soon be replaced by socket 939. This was stupid on my behalf but never really became an issue because the 3700+ i later upgraded to ran everything i threw at it just fine and i would have probably wasted money on a dual core for no good reason. still a lesson was learned.

4GB of Server RAM. I didn't knw there was a difference.... :(

Urworstnhtmare

[QUOTE="Urworstnhtmare"]

4GB of Server RAM. I didn't knw there was a difference.... :(

C_Rule

There wasn't a physical one. It fitted in my board all right. My PC just didn't boot. Talked to the retailer and apparently I had bought server RAM... Got some 'desktop' ram, and she booted fine...

[QUOTE="C_Rule"]

[QUOTE="Urworstnhtmare"]

4GB of Server RAM. I didn't knw there was a difference.... :(

Urworstnhtmare

There wasn't a physical one. It fitted in my board all right. My PC just didn't boot. Talked to the retailer and apparently I had bought server RAM... Got some 'desktop' ram, and she booted fine...

[QUOTE="Urworstnhtmare"]

[QUOTE="C_Rule"] What's the difference? o.O

ferret-gamer

There wasn't a physical one. It fitted in my board all right. My PC just didn't boot. Talked to the retailer and apparently I had bought server RAM... Got some 'desktop' ram, and she booted fine...

I bought a "gaming" mouse, ugh, what a waste.

I bought a "gaming" mouse, ugh, what a waste.

Daytona_178

I've regretted many purchases but themost notable ones in recent times have been:

Saitek Cyborg RAT 7 mouse: Hideous, very badly made, useless (my plain old mouse mat sent the laser, and consiquently the mouse cursor, haywire), too heavy and bulky,and near crippling to use.

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 motherboard: The premium Gigabyte socket 1366 motherboard at the time and came complete with a whole host of BIOS issues (would never support AHCI HD mode), RAM issues (at least 3 RAM kits bought would not work properly and/or were too unstable), dismal SATA-III performance (did not support SSD TRIM, so i could either have the SATA-III speed or TRIM support, but not both together)and i couldn't use the hybrid cooler because it would have blocked a PCI-E slot i was using.

Corsair H50 cooler: I regret this, not because it's bad cooler but because once installed i couldn't fit the side panel of my old case back on properly. Something i overlooked when buying it. As a CPU cooler it was excellent, but having to leave the side panel hanging slightly open was far from desireable.

PowerColor Radeon HD 5970: Worked great in games, but the drivers would crash at least three times a day when doing something menial like web-browsing. Ridiculous.