So I purchased a Samsung DVD writer from them, OEM was unsealed for some odd reason and didn't seem too new. Normally I thought the procedure for them was to close the bag with a sticker.
Anyways, I brought it home and attempted to install some games with it. (real factory pressed ones) It's reading terribly slow, reshifting (clicking) the disk at least 6-8 times and after 50 seconds - 2 minutes finally recognises the dvd and proceeds with the autorun function on disk. Attempted some installs, some were giving errors about missing CAB files and overall taking 15-20 minutes, even more to fully install. Wrote a few data disks, verbatim and memorex brands, created 6 coasters from them and 1 poorly written dvd that could barely read in my LG and Sony drives. Attempted some direct transfers from these games disks, Crysis, Supreme Commander, Battlefield 2, Half Life 2 and even my Vista disk. Those are incredibly slow with transferring files over to desktop, obviously the laser on the drive is messed up and read speeds are ruined. With windows showing an estimated copy time of a 4.7gb dvd as 8 hours, something is wrong. The computer I installed this to was a new build, Q9550, evga FTW mobo, ocz reaper ram, 280gtx ... obviously not a cpu, mobo, cable or os problem. The previous LG drive in this computer could perform all of these functions in optimal time.
So I bring it back to Canada Computers about 6 hours later, they do their testing on it and say it's working fine. Keep telling me to pay a restocking fee because it's not defective and it's still reading disks. So in these terms to my understanding a burner could take 20 minutes spinning a disk to finally get the initial read and they would probably deem it as fully functional. The service center employee takes me to the back, inserts the Samsung driver disk (a CD), tells me it's working perfectly fine. I tell him to insert a real DVD, he scuffles around for quite a few minutes to find one and pulls out a pirated copy of Vista on a disk that looked like a memorex. That took way too long for windows to even show the icon in "my computer" and for autorun to intialize, over 50 seconds for sure. I kept telling him to try a REAL factory pressed DVD and not a chemical based blank media disk and he wouldn't do it or couldn't be bothered to find one. They wouldn't even try to install anything to look at the read speeds over a prolonged period of time.
So anyways, I told them that I refuse to pay the restocking fee as it IS defective and is not working according to manufacturers specifications. I said they were about to lose my business for good and the second service center employee began to laugh in my face. I told him to get the manager, the manager wouldn't see me but I seen them talking quietly in chinese for a couple of minutes, came back and refused still. So I left with the product, I refuse to put free money into their pockets for something that was obviously a defective product. Of all the items I purchased there in December this year, over 1500-1800 dollars worth on a new quad core pc to get screwed on a petty 15% of a $28.99 burner.
Oh, by the way, the items I purchased before are working great and there is no reason to return them. I will now only purchase products from tigerdirect, newegg.ca, bestbuy and futureshop from this point on. Congratz guys, it's no wonder why you get such low overall review scores on other websites.
PS- your website is horrid. use that restocking fee money and invest into a server cpu beyond pentium 2
http://img404.imageshack.us/my.php?image=453445bh5.jpg
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Intelgamer
R.H, Ontario
Canada