Digital Storm Inc — Local services in Gilroy

I wish there were no character limit so I could explain my entire story of my experience with this company in which they claim to build the worlds most advanced computers... But my entire experience so far with them has been a legit, living nightmare. I placed a custom order for a Bolt3 with CPU+GPU liquid cooling w/ hardline tubing. After prolonged waiting of over a month, I finally received my system. When I received my system for the first time, I carefully unboxed with extreme caution. Upon setting my system up, it would NOT power on at all. I had to get on tech support and the rep. instructed me to unplug certain cables and replug them in. Luckily it finally powered on. Huzzah? No. Literally 4 days later, I find a leakage from the CPU water block. I was terrified and immediately powered down my system. By the time I noticed the leak, it had already done damage to my GPU hence the sudden severe performance drop while the system was on. Immediately called tech support, again, for an RMA. Danced around with their tech support for RMA and finally got that processed. After I received my system from RMA several weeks later I discovered something even worse. Upon unboxing carefully as I did initially, I witnessed a true nightmare. Fluid was ALL over the clear side panel, BOTH memory sticks were let loose as if they were just tossed in there and the cracked water blocks were still there. It seemed as if they didn't 'fix' anything just took my system apart, put it back together, refilled the fluid, and tossed BOTH the memory sticks in there RATTLING in the case. I assume the whole waiting process was just to wait out my warranty so I can not retaliate what so ever. After spending literally thousands of dollars for such a high tier computer, absolutely a nightmare come true. For $4700 definitely not what I had expected. Tech support seemed lacking, the labor done on my system definitely careless and had 0% passion for their job, so says on their website they have passion for. I am completely fed up with them and filing a dispute with my credit card company because this is definitely not customer satisfaction, and I feel as if I was scammed and just sent $4700 of hardware and a computer that doesn't even work and/or will NEVER work. If I send it back I have a strong belief, especially now, that nothing will ever be fixed or replaced and just sent back to me the way it was. I would honestly prefer a brand new system with new components but that will/would never happen accordingly to their policy. Disgusting, absolutely disgusting. For being such a high tier computer boutique, truly a disgrace. If I had a different experience or better, I would or may not even be writing this review. I could go on and on about the details of what I went through, but I couldn't be any more heart felt about this, it's so depressing and stressful to just think about what I went through. Better off building your own PC or look towards another company. Any but digital storm. Thanks digital storm for wasting my time, money, and emotions. Certainly the opposite of the worlds most advanced computers. I had much faith in them I gave them a second chance to correct the faulty hardware they sold me, but no I was only just played once again. Heed my warning people because I was confirmed, baited. And you will be too if you're just as...

Have to really wrestle with this review to try and keep as much of my bad experiences with this company from infecting the review, but it's going to be hard.....

Where to begin... Might as well start at the beginning. I usually build my own PCs. It's fun, and as I have come to find the hard way, it is without a doubt the best way to go. Due to constraints on time I decided to purchase a pre-built and researched around and found Digital Storm to supposedly be the best "Bang for the buck" sort of deal but I would come to be horribly mistaken.

I purchased two PCs spending roughly 5.5-6k all in. The ordering process was smooth, and I'm coming to believe the only reason buying was smooth was due to the fact it was all automated and no Digital Storm employees involved in that process.

The PCs arrived roughly a month... maybe two past their due date. When you try and get assistance thru support, you get the same generic responses with no explanations.

After arrival, I had to immediately cut away the zip ties used for cable management. I had to cut them away and redo them due to how tight the board commections were being pulled on at bad angles. I also had to redo the closed loop cpu water cooler due to it being incorrectly installed, which could lead to CPU overheating. That's most the issues there.

After 2 years, the computer has now been down for over 3 months due to issues, and I am still unable to get resolutions from the aforementioned stellar Digital Storm support. From what I can tell, they get all their parts from China. I guess that because every part they "think" could be the problem has to be sent off to China for them to send me a new one (takes about 1.5 months per part it seems) and the PC is still down. Every PC I have built has lasted 5+ years. Digital Storm PC that costs twice as much lasts less than half the time.

So my review personally is they are a 0 star company and you're better off building your own and if you can't...... Wal-Mart would be better than Digital Storm. However, their support while incompetent are nice and courteous, which counts...

I have to say that numerous items both led me to give a 5-star review and to do so immediately.

This is first and foremost, I had a specific question about the storage expandability options for the specific PC I was looking at, and the support chat on the website was not only a reply within a few minutes, but a reply by AN ACTUAL PERSON and not an AI chatbot going in cycles and cycles. He got an answer for me right away and it made the decision for me and my purchase, because I also had a separate page open with Thermaltake and they had left my same question sit for over 25 minutes, by that time I was checking out other options and selected Digital Storm. Huge props to not only a quick support system, but real people who had real answers for me right away.

Options for on board components. Specific highlight to the Gen5.0 NVme SSD options, because not only do other sites either not mention whether their SSDs included are Gen4 or Gen5, but those that do list them still include Gen4 with even $5,000+ PCs, which is very odd and will be a limit in the future with the way components are progressing. Not only was I able to change the on-board storage to Gen5.0 but it is name-brand storage and not generic/rebranded cheap parts.

Ease of customization. Really having the options with compatible parts and options easily selectable and visible was perfect. Some of the selections were a little limited like for RGB but there are still plenty of options and some that fit perfectly within what I was looking for.

All-in-all, I was very happy to put my order in and I cannot wait for it to arrive! This is my first series foray into a significant PC build since 2018 and everything has helped this to be a great...