Nice to see the great posts here. A fond farewell to DangerDen and condolences for the loss.
Nice to see the great posts here. A fond farewell to DangerDen and condolences for the loss.
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Respec'
System:Bunch of crappy overclocked PC's that cost an arm and a leg
Absoulately sucks, been a huge fan of DD for many years = /
Another thing I find funny is AMD/Intel would snipe any of our Moms on a grocery run if it meant good quarterly results, and you are forever whining about what feser did?
I can't imagine losing my wife. I actually had been thinking about that in the future lately, it was depressing.
Originally Posted by alacheesu
SVC is just barely alive. Another manager, a new employee, and I left in February. The only guy left is someone without any knowledge, and not being rude but I'm almost positive they hired him for disability perks. He can't spell correctly and says things like "to tell you the true". The first day he was here he ended up standing next to my co-manager's car for an hour........standing checking his phone. In the parking lot. I'm not sure why the other two employees left, but I left because Shervin and Rodney were hacks at business and were just being silly in running it. We'd ask for things like working ladders and lights, and not receive them until either it worked into their schedule or it was convenient for them. I highly doubt Shervin has done anything on his own without his dad fronting the bill and his only talent is a slick tongue; Rodney however is pretty smart, just way too busy to care for something he started I guess.You're not the only one who misses the way things used to be...
Hah, those guys... ah, the stories that Quoc and I could tell about them (we both worked there for a while before we started PTS--it's actually where the two of us met). My guess is that what's keeping them afloat is their Northern California Cooler Master distributorship (assuming it hasn't been pulled) and possibly some business loans... and that's just a guess because I don't have anyone to get information from within SVC. You see, Shervin and Rodney (the owners) weren't exactly thrilled about Quoc and I leaving to start our own company
I never knew you came from SVC, too! Upstairs probably would of kicked ass with youI'm glad you left SVC and made PTS. Fck Rodney and them. I worked there for almost a year, and I was hoping I could grow that company into the next frozencpu or something more than what it was. I worked so hard at the company, treated it like my own, and had them just poop down my neck at every point. The best part is when I was the only one in my division to show up for work, I had my dog in for surgery (and they knew about it), and somehow they decided it would be a perfect day to remind me they can send me home for not wearing proper attire (hoodie) >.> I quit shortly after this, so did the other two colleagues. It's a shame too, because we had just got it back into the positive in a sense that they werent just losing money EVERY day.
You mean the one they completely ruined? Cooler Master wouldn't even talk to our purchasing department. They literally laughed at us. Thats how bad they
Sadly, I have a feeling watercooling as an industry is going to become commercialized (astek/corsiar). Tubing isn't an issue now that there are more than 3-4 suppliers of Gobain's tubing in the US, and all are reasonably priced. Judging by how many dangerden things we sold compared to the old days (08-09) I'd say this wasn't news to anyone in the industry. I don't remember the last time I suggested their blocks over an EK block or a cheaper XSPC block. For the price it just wasn't on-par with EK's. I'd like to see XSPC step up and start pressuring EK to lower prices, as I use a few of XSPC's pieces and they are pretty good. Another note: places like frozen which charge a incredible premium on everything, but have the power to buy one of everything will win at the end of the day in terms of resellers. It's why almost all the other companies fail, including why SVC is on life support. Customers just want a place to order everything easily. If you tack 3-4$ on each part most of the time the customers just don't care if it's easier overall. The only other way to win is do like EK or other part companies do, and sell your own product. I remember times where I'd have to change the price on a waterblock 2-3 times a day because other resellers were undermarking each other by almost cents. That's how bad reselling watercooling parts has gotten.
P.S. Petra hit me up with those stories in PMs. I've got some good ones, too.
Last edited by Rinaun; 12-02-2012 at 05:20 PM.
do you have any suggestions on what sites have lower markup than frozen or perfornace-pcs, i had looked around this summer when i bought my new ek block and everything was about the same (within $1) that i found.
and is SVC really as bad as you make it sound? i thought that they were just small since they had a poor website and were always out of stock so i figured they were doing ok.
5930k, R5E, samsung 8GBx4 d-die, vega 56, wd gold 8TB, wd 4TB red, 2TB raid1 wd blue 5400
samsung 840 evo 500GB, HP EX 1TB NVME , CM690II, swiftech h220, corsair 750hxi
SVC repurchases everything from other vendors, and what we didn't repurchase was offered to other vendors before us. I can't think of any product they carried that was unique to them. They stopped selling the lapping kits that they made, and had roughly 2-3 mailbins full of useless 80mm-120mm grills with terrible designs they had custom made. I enjoyed working with everyone there EXCEPT Rodney Shervin and their relative CFO/COO. Our staff for upstairs at my time of resignation only consisted of 3 people, and now only one person I believe works there (the guy I referred to earlier). He drives like over an hour away to get to work and I know for a fact he isn't paid much with how cheap they are. I was still excited and still am thankful I was able to essentially run a company in my first actual job. It just was annoying that they weren't helping me make them money and that annoyed me enough that I had to leave. There was also a large amount of hazardous things going around (water leaking from the roof in a brand new facility, three-wheeled 12-foot ladders that aren't stable, etc) that made leaving just a no-brainer. Other examples of the circus that was SVC would be the COO coming to our department and either wasting our time talking about irl problems or talking down towards the other departments crew, IE basically treating them like cattle. The COO was so disorganized she printed the full payroll of the company multiple times to our upstairs printer. I've also never heard of someone in a payroll meeting (not for me) go "we can go to $15, but we'll start you lower". That's some magic right there. I think petra will agree SVC as a company would make an amazing blog with the amount of silly stuff that goes on.
If you want to purchase things on the cheap, I found a site while I was working there that had the same mom and pop feel as SVC does; http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/. We would buy things from here, especially tubing for resale. Another thing is shipping; make sure you account for shipping in the mix. If it's still cheaper for you to buy at SVC, then buy there! I still have picked up a few items for clients after I left, especially after microcenter closed. Frys sucks, and If it's the cheapest then who cares? I just wouldn't call in and expect any ordering as i highly doubt he even knows how to use quickbooks. I also typically save my orders up and just order with another vendor. If I do purchase over 1 grand I try and get on the phone and work out a deal with whomever I'm purchasing with since I'm buying volume. FYI Modright stuff comes from frozen-cpu. Another funny fact : Shervin apparently told me Mark from Frozen "does cocaine and isn't right in the head" or something along the lines of that in a meeting. This is coming from a guy who looks like he just hooked up with lance armstrong for 'roids, mind you.
I was planning on stocking custom anodized screws at SVC, so if modders needed to have a certain motif/colorset they could find matching hex screws and etc. The last project I was working on was preparing paracord for sale, since I found paracord to look 10x better when used correctly. THESE are the things that current resellers/vendors need to do. Without self-innovation, you really will end up like dangerden. You can't live off of selling the same thing over and over and not expect someone to reinvent it one better. Blocks are an extreme investment, if not the most expensive in this industry. You need some pretty insane machinery to make the blocks, same goes for radiators. Not many companies have the money to make these at the rate that they are purchased, either. It also isn't cheap to keep tearing up copper to reinvent the wheel. What amazed me though was dangerden's lack of design/style. They never once tried using acetal and practically gave up after the AMD 64's/Core 2 duos. I'd like to see less emphasis on getting the lowest possible temp and more on flow/durability(how much debris takes to clog a block)/compatibility/aesthetics. I don't see how shaving off more copper is going to make a noticeable difference and I'm already getting stunning temps. Making parts that are bullet-proof and making water-cooling less dangerous,easy, and expensive is what this specialized industry needs before it becomes a "corsair h100 or 600$ custom loop" industry.
Last edited by Rinaun; 12-02-2012 at 08:45 PM.
Rinaun, I think I'll need to send you a PM or something the next time I'm in the bay area...
I'm doing science and I'm still alive...
I'd love to talk to you next time you are down here, especially if it involves stories about SVC. I don't know why but that place is addicting even after leaving, lol. Like a train wreck I guess.
My father actually did cryo/water engineering for over 30 years, and I'm looking into doing some work with him at some point to test some of his ideas. He had this crazy idea for a LN2 pot with a controllable temperature/purge via drip system. He also was talking me into buying a vaccum table so we could do this without lubing the board up/worrying about condensation, etc. He also helped design most of the fab plants in the silicon valley during the 90's, and has shown me a few cool tricks regarding watercooling that aren't normal (using glycol in the correct amounts instead of just biocide, water turbulence, etc). Him and Martin would probably spend all day talking about water if they ever metHe has a few more ideas including a self-bleeding loop system. I'm using it currently and I have to say I was against it at first but it works pretty flawlessly. It also has the perk of being an output to measure flow, which is handy as well. I just fill until the res is capped turn on and bleeds it self regardless of closed loop or not.
Last edited by Rinaun; 12-02-2012 at 09:23 PM.
aw man
the days of crazy TECs come back to mind. DD was there since the very beginning, they represented a big foundation of the watercooling industry.
My condolences to Dennis, I wish him the best of luck in the future. Thank you for your huge contributionto this passion of ours.
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