Looking at the pic to the right of the inside of a new PC. What’s wrong I hear you ask? Cable routing – some kind person has routed all the cables through the 5.25″ drive bays, rendering them useless. They’ve even routed the front connector cables for the case via the bottom of the drive bays. “Fuckery!” I hear you cry – and you’d be right.
In the middle of last month, my old PC workhorse gave up the ghost – five long hard years of service had taken their toll, the machine is now dismantled and down the tip! So I ordered a new “custom build” from Novatech. Initial disappointment that they couldn’t get the machine together quickly was soon forgotten as I’d modified the base build for something all together better. Sooo… a couple of weeks roll by and I eventually receive the machine (Packaged very well I might add) in the post, only to find that they’d made the mistake as pictured.
Not a big mistake you might think. Anyone could make it, right? Wrong. Massive mistake. The whole point of getting Novatech to build the machine in the first place was so I could avoid the boring mundane shit of building a PC – I’ve better things to do with my time. So I ended up taking it apart and rebuilding in a sensible way which allows use of the drive bays. There goes 1.5 hours of my time I’ll never get back again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the time which gets me ranting, it’s the reason why! Novatech are an old company, I used them since the 90’s when I bought my first 14.4k USR Robotics “Stylus” modem from ’em. Over the years I’ve recommended Novatech to many friends and colleagues – “Go to Novatech, they’re brilliant, great customer service, brilliant prices, and they’ve never let me down!”. Years back they were fantastic – had a PC Delivered with a DOA PSU – Called them up, they sent a replacement in the post the same day, didn’t even want the old one back – brilliant. Back in the day, my “Goto” was Novatech – why go anywhere else when they were just so damn good!?
2019. Wow. What a complete change. Build a PC as part of a (Not inexpensive) order, and get it wrong. When complaining, do they admit this – no. Do they give me back the money I spent with them to have them unbox the parts and put them together for me? NO. All I get is “Sorry for the inconvenience!”. Wow. The entire point of ordering a custom build from them was to avoid putting it together. Don’t get me wrong, this may have been “lazy” of me, after all I am more than capable of building a PC – a simple but time consuming and fiddly thing to do – easier for them, they’ll have a work space designed to facilitate this stuff etc. It’s part of the service I paid them for, they got it completely wrong, and nothing. I expect better from a company I’ve showed loyalty to for 25 years!
Novatech: What happened? I’ll certainly not have you as my “goto”, I’ll just waste my own time and get stuff done myself, first time right, no fuckery. I’ll cease the steady stream of recommendations which have lasted 25 years – All because in my most recent customer service experience, you now suck at customer service to me. I’m so disheartened by the response from your CS rep, I’ve given up e-mailing and trying. I’ve given up on Novatech.
Just a note to anyone reading this article. Don’t by any means let it stop you from ordering from Novatech, as stated for 25 years they’ve been a fine company. Go Google them for yourselves, and make up your own minds. Everything above is my own true to life experience, opinion, and nothing more.