Hey Duders,

I wanted to put something out there to the community and get an opinion on a problem I'm having. I recently ordered a new PC form CyberPowerPC as my current gaming PC was getting very old and though I have a working knowledge of most PC components I am not quite comfortable putting things together myself yet. The PC arrived a few days ago and up until today I had been having a great time with it. I was running my entire steam library steam library with settings maxed and having a blast. That changed however when I went to booted it up and started playing AC Black Flag. After about 10 minutes the PC turned itself off. When I tried to reboot smoke came out of the case vents. I opened the side panel and pressed the power again and could clearly see plumes of smoke rising from he CPU cooler. I'm willing to accept that the PC is fried and at the very least I'll need a refund. I have already sent them a message to initiate a replacement build but I wanted put this out to the community and ask if anyone has had any positive or negative experiences with Cyberpower. It's a shame to wait 3 weeks for the PC and have smoke coming off of the motherboard on day three after paying $1800 for a no compromises rig. I'm just wondering if it is worth the RMA or if I should get the full refund and look elsewhere. Any opinions would be appreciated.

Woah, definitely didnt seat your cooler right or it just stopped working. I think usually it should shut itself off before anything like that happens though.

It would be better to build it yourself, it may seem hard but is not if you follow instructions well. If i can do it i think anybody can.

@oursin_360: yeah I suspected as much. Iv'e had cooling issues before in other systems but nothing catastrophic (Or at least I was able to diagnose and fix them before the CPU went up in smoke) Not this time unfortunatly. I'm definitely doing my own build next time around. At least this time its someone else fault and I'll eventually get either a replacement build or a refund.The service reviews seem pretty good so I think It'll work out in the end but its just a huge bummer to have to wait a few more weeks. I was looking forward to Deus Ex maxed out!

@lkpower My experience with Cyberpower was that they installed my water cooling incorrectly and fried my video card and mobo. Then it took them well over two months to replace it and when I kept calling them to see why it was taking so long, they finally admitted they put the PC on the desk of a guy on vacation because no one wanted to deal with repairing a PC that had leaked coolant. It worked okay after that but I could tell the job they did was kind of crappy. I've been building my own PCs ever since and never looked back. Keep in mind though, this was like 7 years ago so for all I know they could have improved. Building your own is just so much more satisfying IMO.

I had the same problem with two computers, one was a super high end Cyberpower and one was a middle of the road Cybertron. In both cases the cooling system failed. Cybertron replaced my rig and everything has been fine for years. Even with these problems the support staff were as good as I would hope for. I would not want to build my own computer and have to trouble shoot anything I did wrong. It's just not worth the time when everything is affordable through these websites and I have terrible luck.

@jimbo7676: Thanks for the input we'll have to see what happens. At this point its probably better for me to RMA a replacement because it was pretty clearly either a defective cooler or shoddy assembly. The problem will get sorted eventually. I figure I just have to wait. if I get money back and start my own build I may break something and have no recourse. At the very least I am covered under warranty and Cyberpower is responsible to take care of it.

Update- I read the warranty agreement about 10 times over the weekend. I'm going with a full return while I still can. Their service plan strikes me as incredibly unfriendly to the consumer. I'm getting out while I can get a full refund so I can take the money I spent and find a better solution.

I've ordered from Cyberpower years ago and that machine lasted between 5 to 6 years for me with minimal upgrading. I blame shipping companies more than Cyberpower as they are supposed to "test" each machine prior to shipping for functionality. UPS/Fed Ex guys are the fucking worst for treating packages as giant bags of sand and just throw them wherever. In no way am I defending Cyberpower or their shitty RMA process but know that their are multiple parties that have touched your machine prior to it arriving.

I will say for the money you spent by a prefabricated machine you can easily save yourself a lot of money and buy the components and assemble yourself. It's an intimidating process but I think there is a huge value in learning what components go where and how to troubleshoot them if they go bad.

Go with your gut though and if you want a full refund get it.