4th Dimension Computers & Technology — Local services in Olympia

Frequented 4th Dimension over a period of several years, and commissioned a build with them as well. The sales staff at 4th Dimension is very helpful, courteous, and will pay attention to your wants and needs. Several times they were able to offer better prices on parts because they were in used but working condition. I have nothing but good things to say about the sales staff.

Things did not go so well when interacting with the service staff, however. I ordered a high-end (enthusiast) PC build from here. I build my own PCs, but I was injured and unable to handle fragile computer parts without damaging them, so having a local business do the build for me seemed like the best solution. I sat down with the sales staff and told them which parts I wanted. I had already purchased my own RAM (memory) and gave it to them for use in the build. We settled on a price for the build (about $2800) and I was told with "rush" service it could be assembled and delivered by the end of the next business week.

The next Monday when I called in to check on the status of the build I was told it would not be ready because they were sent the wrong case. The Monday after that I called again, and I was told that the parts had all gotten in and it would be ready by that friday, and as an apology for the delay they offered to put a slight overclock on the CPU of the system.

I showed up friday to pick up my system, and they set it down on the counter and plugged in a keyboard and monitor and showed it booting into windows before packing it up in its box and sending me on my way. They did not install any useless junk and the software installed was good. Unfortunately, as they did not give me the opportunity to actually look INSIDE the system, I had not noticed that the CPU cooler they installed was actually the obsolete model from the generation BEFORE the one I had specified, many of the protective covers and fixtures which were standard for the motherboard were absent, and one of the 200mm fans which were included with the case out of the box was missing (not installed or included) as well. The box which came containing the motherboard (usually used to hold the odds-and-ends left over after a build, parts that are often needed later for maintenance or upgrades) was not given to me at this time. The case was an earlier revision of the case I requested, but the same model, although the one I was given had a faulty rear panel light.

I might not have discovered any of these things at that time, except that during normal operation the system would occasionally hard reset itself and then enter into an endless cycle of hard resets until it was disconnected from power and reconnected again. I recognized that this most likely either stemmed from a problem with the SSD (storage drive) or a short (wiring issue) inside the case, so I opened the case to make sure the SSD was firmly connected and there were no exposed contacts between system components or the case.

The insides of the case were a shambles. Fans installed in the case had been connected to the case only, meaning the motherboard headers were almost unused, so the motherboard was not able to directly manage the fans to control cooling. Cables were routed carelessly crossing signal cables over power, and the extra length had been stuffed willy-nilly between the side panel and the plate mounting the motherboard. The radiator for the CPU cooler had been attached on the bottom of the panel in the top of the case instead of on top, making the area at the top of the case cramped. The CPU had not been overclocked, and the memory had actually been UNDERCLOCKED.

I knew I could not fix the issues my self, so I returned the system describing the problems and asked them to fix it. The additional fixtures for the motherboard were finally installed and a considerate tech had saved the box and many parts for me. I never saw the other 200mm fan. This experience continued for a month, but i'm out of characters.

TL;DR Buy parts here, NOT...

I was not happy with my service! 5 days after I dropped my laptop off, I get a call saying they found the serial number on the part and asked if I wanted to order it, I said yes. I got a call 2 days later saying they ordered the part. Why did it take 2 days to order a battery? Then I got a call every single day, from the same person, around the same time at night, telling me the same thing, its not here yet. Then Monday, a week after they told me they had the serial number of the battery, I get a call saying the reason it hasn't arrived is that I need to pay for the part first. At NO TIME was I told I had to pay for it before they could receive it, which means I would have gotten the battery sooner! I made the payment online, then later that day received ANOTHER call, quoting a different price, so I called and talked to the sales department, found out I apparently should have known to pay for the part first, and confirmed the price I was originally told, then I found out my computer was already ready for pick up, and I said I would have to wait two days to pick it up, he said that's fine. Then I received a third call the same day asking me to verify I paid, because it wasn't written down. I read the email I was sent confirming payment, which I found bizarre, then was told by the same guy that usually calls me he'll call me back so he could talk to a supervisor. Roughly an hour later I finally got a call back from the guy, and he said everything is fine now, and I could pick it up today. Apparently the sales guy didn't tell him I was picking up at a later date. If I had just talked to someone from sales to begin with, or just someone other than this one guy, I would have known about the upfront payment, would likely have received my computer sooner, and wouldn't have had to received constant phone calls. All in all, I will not be recommending this place, it was certainly not worth the 30+ minute...

I am very disappointed. I bought my old laptop in to have the hard drive cloned over to a solid state drive which I supplied. I had just reinstalled Windows 7 to the old drive and then I ran into problems doing the clone and thought I should have a professional make sure it was done right. The price seemed reasonable, $50.00. When it was done, they called and said it was ready to pick up but for some unknown reason Windows Update was not working. Not to worry, they could fix it! Normally it would be $80.00 but for me, just this time, they could do it for "only" $40.00. I asked what could cause Windows Update to not work and was told it could be any number of hundreds of things but it was probably something very simple and it could be fixed.... for a price. I was skeptical to say the least. If you have no idea what the problem is, how can you tell me you can fix it for a set price. Could it be you know exactly what the problem is, that it is "very simple", actually non-existent, and you're just trying to milk me out of another $40.00? Sure enough, when I got home, Windows Update seemed stuck on 0%, 0 out of over 200 updates downloaded. Naturally I Googled "Windows Update won't download". One of the first suggestions was simply to reboot, and another common remedy was that when Windows Update has a large number of updates to download, it will show 0%, even though it is downloading updates. Voila!! I rebooted and this time Windows Update showed only 150 updates to download. It was downloading them after all. These guys work on these computers all the time and if I can figure it out, they surely know what's going on. I was looking for a computer shop I could trust but I guess I'll have to keep looking. Oh, yeah, and when I arrived to pick it up my brand new high capacity lithium ion battery was...