Digital Storm

I bought my brother a Vanquish ll level 4 January of 2015. I wanted to support a local Bay Area company. My brother receives his new pc and the computer crashes. It took five months for most things to be fixed. Since I am the one that paid for this I told my brother to contact support. They were able to log into the PC and see what was going on and they told him he had to take out the memory and check to see if it works. Wait… Didn’t I pay you guys to build this PC and work out any issues before hand as you talk about your build quality. I had to go over and take the computer apart and wait for new parts. Well this continues on as we changed the ram, graphics card etc. He even had to send in the PC a couple of times. It’s September now and most things work. I can show you the list of emails that were sent and it’s a long list. Could I have built this system myself and overclock it yes but I rather let the pros do it. I suggest anyone that reads this post please try another company because it wasn’t easy to get them to fix all of the issues. All and all these issues lasted five months and that is not acceptable. Even though we have a warranty for a year It’s really not worth it to deal with this company. I also have no need for you to respond to me about my review as I want to inform future buyers on how you run your company and for them to decide upon themselves. My 2 cents

Awful customer service.
I ordered a computer about a week and a half ago from Digital Storm based on recommendations about their professionalism and customer service. The first problem came two days after I ordered it when they had to downgrade my processor because they were out of stock on the one that I wanted. That would have been fine, but the woman that I talked to knew nothing about PCs and attempted to lie to me and claim I was getting an upgrade. That should have been enough of a warning signal for me to pull out, but I went ahead and authorized the bill and they happily withdrew my money.
Fast forward to today. I had received an email stating that my system was estimated to ship out on either the 1^st or 2^nd of September. Today is the 3^rd. I called Digital Storm for an update and was put on hold for nearly an hour. The customer service rep I was speaking to either forgot about me or thought he hung up on me. I was then told that my PC wasn’t going to make it to my house before Labor Day, which is what I paid extra for (priority service). I wrote an email to the management asking for either an email or a call back from someone in management so that we could discuss my grievances. A few minutes later the kid that I had originally spoken to called me back and asked if I was on hold. He called me to ask if I was still on hold. Let that sink in.
I received a very curt «sorry you were on hold» response from the manager, completely disregarding my other issues and the fact that I wanted to discuss these problems and made to feel better about spending so much money with them. In reality I just wanted one person there to act like they cared about me as a customer and I wouldn’t have canceled my order. They couldn’t even do that. They would’ve kept a customer and a large sale for the cheap price of showing a little humanity.
So they canceled my order as requested, and as of right now (4 hours after the cancellation) they haven’t submitted my refund. I assume that they are holding it for as long as they can out of spite. I find it hard to believe that a company could act that way, but in my interactions with them I’ve discovered that they are a poorly run business with no real customer service ability.
There are many other places that can build you a PC. Digital Storm is more of a headache than it’s worth.

Whatever you do, do not order a PC from Digital Storm. Do not be fooled by promises of top notch components, première customer service, and strong warranties. If your PC is defective, it is incredibly stressful and painful just to get someone on the phone to help. My PC was defective out of the box, and it was impossible for anyone to address my problems. After a month of endless troubleshooting, I was directed to send the system back, only to receive the same broken system and problems 3 weeks later. After being told I had to send it back once again, I was assured I would get a replacement system, but then after hearing nothing back for 2 weeks, I asked on the status of my replacement system and was flat out refused and they hadn’t even attempted to fix the broken system at all.
After all this, I requested a refund. I was promised twice by managers I would get a full refund, but of course nothing ever came. Three more weeks later, DS rudely calls to tell me they are shipping the system back to me or I would have to pay a 15% restocking fee. It wasn’t until posting my issues on their public forums that finally a manager agreed to give my money back, which still was not my full purchase price, but at this point I just want this nightmare to be over. Worst customer service experience of my life.
Management will now have a canned response to this review. Emailing management directly will NOT get you a response. It wasn’t until publicly airing my grievances on their forums was I able to get a response. No one will help you unless you threaten legal action. They are crooks and liars. Avoid at all costs!

Ok, I have to say I’m beyond upset with how this is being handled. I appreciated management reading my review and attempting to reach out. I did so and it took days to get a response. When support did finally get back to me I followed their suggestions and the changes didn’t work. I understand that’s how troubleshooting works, you try the next step and if that doesn’t work you try again, etc. But after writing back to them informing them that the suggestion didn’t work and I wanted to keep at it, I still have not heard back 3 days later. If you’re going to make the attempt to do damage control you need to actually do it and not just look like you’re trying! I’m not sure if there is a lack of effort to help here, or they are understaffed or what, but this is ridiculous.
D.S. management, if you read this review don’t bother following up. I gave you a fair chance and you blew it. I’m not looking for a hand out, replacement, or anything from you guys at this point. From where I’m sitting it looks like customer care is a joke to you guys and attempts to convince your customers otherwise are insincere or not worthy of serious effort. Look at the number of reviews out there that have similar horror stories.

They’re not everything they make themselves out to be. Their «tech support» is horrible. I waited a month for my PC in anticipation, receiving several emails how they’re testing it and they have me thinking it is going to work perfect out of the box. NOPE! It won’t even turn on, the graphics card and motherboard are shot. I call tech support and Vincent tells me to“unplug it then plug it back in, if that doesn’t work call us.” No WAY! It doesn’t take a rocket science to tell someone to unplug something and plug it back it, which I already have done and even bought new cables to test. SO here I am today, trying to get a hold of them and they’re not answering my calls, responding to my tech ticket, or voice mail I left yesterday (during their office hours). ALL IN ALL: Tech support probably isn’t qualified, it shouldn’t take a month to build a PC, probably doesn’t actually test their PC, and horrible customer support. What a scam.

Mixed, lukewarm feelings overall.
The tech support queue on Monday mornings is insanely long, given that they close over weekends. The person who wrote up my ticket for a future callback wasn’t very tech-​savvy… and let’s face it, no one likes relying on another service that will get back to you between X-​Y pm Pacific when you might not be hands-​on right at that moment. Then having to pay an extra round of shipping out of my pocket to replace a bad part rubs me the wrong way, as it implies a lack of confidence in their assemblies and makes me wonder how much stress-​testing is really applied– especially when the replacement SSD didn’t fix the separate graphics card crash issues as tech support had hoped; at this point I’m hoping a future driver update will save me. Also puzzled by 1) some of the hardware configurations, enough so that I suspect it’s contributing to my persistent card crashes, and 2) why the on-​board speaker was omitted from the motherboard.
That said, interactions with Mike were largely positive thanks to his confidence in directing me through troubleshooting the blue-​screen issues that started a month after my machine arrived. A lot of companies staff tech support only capable of reading through a pre-​written script, but that’s not the case with Digital Storm. Emailed follow-​up requests were rerouted to maintain consistent staffing throughout my service ticket. DS clearly doesn’t have an external list or documentation on hand for how to reinstall everything (I asked for a list and received an incomplete one that someone less familiar with hardware would have regretted stopping at), which is part of what I was paying for on a plug-​and-​play, and further infuriated me with the unplanned shipping fee. For how much money I’m budgeting to spend on a gaming machine, I doubt I’ll be ordering from them again, and would be rather hesitant to recommend them to anyone outside of driving distance. I think I’d rather go back to building it on my own next time I’m looking to start fresh.
TLDR: good knowledge base in-​house, poor company policies.

Horrible customer service. They never get back to you and every time you call back, they get irritated. If your pc comes out of the box defective like mine than good luck to you. Don’t expect your problems to be solved in one day or the next. It took three weeks for my problem to get resolved. It should of been done in one day.

I ordered a Vanquish II ultimate edition for my son for Christmas. We are thrilled with the performance of the model we ordered so far. Graphics are gorgeous and his games are running smoothly on the highest graphics settings.
My highest praise goes to the group at Digital Storm for their quick fulfillment of my order even tho I ordered this custom built computer only 13 days before Christmas! I really appreciated the order fulfillment update system that kept me informed of my order’s progress. I was nervous because I had not left them very much time by the time I made my decision about what to order and from whom. Top notch guys, thanks for the big smiles I got all day yesterday from one happy kid!

Digital Storm was an absolute pleasure to deal with. They answered MANY questions via both forums and email in the lead-​up to me purchasing 2 new gaming computers.
The build quality is phenomenal. The testing they do is absolutely second to none in the entire business. You will not get rock-​solid builds from ibuypower or cyberpowerpc, trust me. And you won’t get this quality or value or customer service from anywhere.
I have absolutely no doubt that my future computers will come from them and I will be recommending them to all friends and family who are looking for a quality home and/​or gaming PC.
You can get awesome prebuilts like the Bolt II up to ridiculous custom ones with watercooled everything and 3 video cards, to a range of computers and options in between. Everything can be customized except the Bolt, which is prebuilt, ships in a day or two, and is as affordable as generic computers from your local big box store.
We went with a very powerful but reasonable system, the Virtue with 16 GB 1866 ram, overclocked i5 with no-​upkeep watercooling, 250 GB Samsung EVO SSD, 4TB WD HDD. The jewel is the ASUS Direct CU II r9 290x beast of a graphics card. It powers our Yamakasi 30″ 1600p monitors on every single game on absolute ultra settings (even past ultra with tricks like RadeonPro and SweetFX — look them up if curious and have a beastly video card).
Digital Storm is the best and I am a very satisfied customer.

What a nightmare. Received my $ 4k+ PC on a Saturday, unpacked it, plugged it in and it wouldn’t boot up. DS has no week end or after hours tech support so I had to wait until Monday to call. Called and the receptionist iniated a support case but no techs available for immediate support so I had to wait for a callback. Tech called a few hours later and they had me pull the ram, then video cards, sound card and then power connections to the motherboard and still no luck.
After trying everything the tech suggested which included checking the power supply we determine my motherboard was shot, 72 hour burn in ??, so he was going to send me a return shipping label. Severals days pass with no word and no response to several emails but finally after six days I got my shipping label so I pack it up, re-​installed all the hardware to the way I received it and shipped it back.
It arrives at DS and then a day later I receive an email stating a clip or fastener on the motherboard was broken by me so they could not replace the motherboard for free and that I would have to spend another $ 500.00+ for a replacement. What? Really? They send me a PC that didn’t work and now they want me to pay fora new motherboard because some clip is broken which BTW I don’t think had anything to do with why the PC didn’t work.
We argue back and forth and I explain that even if I did damage a clip or fastener it was only because it didn’t work in the first place and their tech told me to remove hardware and connectors. Not to mention that he originally wanted to send me the replacement motherboard for me to replace.
They wouldn’t budge and fix the PC so I told them I wanted my money back and they said sure but we’re going to hold back the money for the motherboard, are you f’n kidding me, really. Now pissed I told them to fix it and give me what paid $ 4,200.00 for, working as it should have from day one and they still refused. I told them they had 24 hour to agree to fix it on their dime or I’m disputing their payment with my credit card company. They didn’t agree so I disputed and they’re still holding out.
After 3 weeks pass without a word I get a barage of emails regading the RMA stages of completion all with in two hours which included the final QC verification that is supposed to last 72 hours and then it would be shipping in a day or two, what, I’m done with these guys even though now they agreed to cover the motherboard cost but now it was too late. I told them 3 weeks prior I had initiated a dispute for the charges and I was done with them but they’re arrogant, obstinate and ignorant and I no longer wish to deal with them.
Worst company in wthe world IMHO.

It has been a very strange experience.
I had purchased a custom built system from digital storm in july 2012 for about $ 2300. I got emails about how they were testing it and burning it in so everything would work perfectly before being sent.
It was well packed with a HUGE box. Protected well. But man is it a huge full tower.
When it arrived it would not boot up. I checked and had to change some BIOS settings to get it to book from the SSD drive. Why this needed to be changed I do not know, but it was a bad omen.
The system is certainly very fast, but… it would have a blue screen of death crash usually once or twice a week. I also noticed a few weird things. They have a case that has a firewire connector in front, but there is no firewire on the board – so this connector is dead. No information about this.
The front case has 2 USB 3.0 ports. But they are HALF speed. There was no indication about this, i had to look it up to locate.
The BSOD issued continued for a while. I tried some things without any major resolution. Many emails to tech support were sent back and forth. Most of the advice was pretty generic – «re-​install windows» to unplug and plug back everything. I did use MEMTEST booted on a usb stick to test the system and memory and everything SEEMED ok on that part. Having to put in one stick and test it, then try the other stick, then try each memory stick in each memory slot – well as you can imagine I spent many hours trying to troubleshoot my own system.
Spending $ 2300 on a system that I have to spend hours to troubleshoot just seems very wrong.
After much more time and effort on my part, I realized that there is a KNOWN bug in some SSDs, including the intel 520 SSD that came with the drive. There is a bug in sandforce that when it shifts into power saving mode it might set off a n error that results in a BSOD.
Hence, THAT was the source of the error! Why they didn’t know this is shocking. At any rate I did check back in with both Digital Storm and intel. They really weren’t any help.
I was frustrated and made a terrible mistake – I went out and got another SSD to replace the intel drive. The sony 840 drive is better and faster. But now I get BSODs about once a week to 10 days with different errors. I threw more good money after bad sadly.
To Digital Storm’s credit I can pack up everything and send it back to them to fix. There is no labor cost, but if things need to get replaced I might have to pay something. On top of this, I will pay shipping to and from digital storm. This tower is HUGE! they say $ 120 or so for shipping to and from, but I imagine the bill will be much larger.
So I get to pay $ 120 to return to them, and maybe a few more bucks to get parts to solve a problem I had since it arrived? A problem I still have despite dropping a few MORE bills on a replacement SSD?
Yah I should have just sent it back right away. But there is something seriously wrong here – they couldn’t have spent so long building and burning in the system and then shipped it to me with the BIOS not set up correctly to boot from the SSD. And not knowing about a known sandforce bug is shocking to me.
I’m torn between sending it back for more tinkering or just… trying to sell it for scrap and getting something else. Given the amount of money to ship and maybe MORE money for some repairs on a 2 year old system… I’m thinking I’d rather spend more money on an xbox one maybe!
Perhaps the BOLT and any systems that are pre-​made and preconfigured are good. But this was a custom built and I regret it terribly.
I also concur with what some others have noted here – I get far more emails about surveys about my tech support experience than ACTUAL emails from tech support that have gone through every time to actually fix the problem.

I just received my new desktop (Bolt II) from Digital Storm. It is perfect and looks awesome. The customer service is great. I definitely will recommend it to those people who want a powerful gaming rig but too lazy to put one by themselves.

Ordered a 500 $ Asus G-​sync monitor from these guys and it has taken over a week to get to me. Now that It is in my local town, I HAVE to be home to sign for the package. After calling their customer support number for the 4^th time today I can confidently say that this is single handedly the worst I’ve ever been treated as a customer. I had the first Representative sigh in my ear when I asked them to change the permissions of the package pick up. I was told I would receive a call back 3 times now by 3 separate employees and not one of them has honored their word. My monitor is currently held hostage by UPS and I have no other option but to be around when they try and deliver it. If you work a normal 9 to 5 job and want to receive your purchase at all, don’t give these scumbags your business. If you want to be treated like a nuisance and like to give money away to liars and thieves, buy something from these criminals.

I own an original Bolt and have recommended Digital Storm to many of my customers. They have been great to me, the system did exactly what they said it would, it showed up a day earlier than expected, the build quality is great, and the noise level is what I expected.
All in all I am very happy with my Bolt. Can’t wait to get a Bolt II!

UPDATE: after threatening Digital Storm with a lawsuit under the California Lemon Law, they finally agreed to fix the computer. I drove it down again for the third time (it’s more than a three hour drive each way) and it took them a MONTH, literally, to fix it! It is now running fine, but the entire ordeal start to finish was a massive headache and waste of time and money. I have since switched to an iMac, and will never buy a PC of any kind again. Especially from Digital Storm.
PREVIOUS POST: Everything about how Digital Storm markets and promotes itself is well done and classy. They obviously do their best to deliver on their promise of screaming high end machines. The components are top notch, their assembly is impeccable, their packaging and delivery is outstanding… BUT:
I paid $ 4,300 for a liquid-​cooled high end desktop. Within 60 days, the 2 terabyte hard disk had a catastrophic failure. To save time, I actually drove the machine from north of Sacramento to Fremont to get it fixed, which took a full week. I then drove down again, picked it up, brought it home, and had an ‘overclocking error’ and another error message saying ‘no operating system installed’. Took it back down yet again, another week, got the machine back… and nothing that I had ordered installed was on the machine — no Windows 7, no MS Office. Screwed around with customer service for another week, got stuff going.
Then yesterday, same overclocking error. Turning it on and off several times got it to boot correctly. This morning: my secondary monitor is not working with the system, for no apparent reason.
I have had NOTHING BUT PROBLEMS with this machine and if I could get my money back, I would. As it is, I’m switching to Mac and I’ll use this desktop PC as a flotation device in my hottub.

After receiving my new PC in very excellent packaging, I was very excited to boot it up. I first noticed that the PC is packaged with large air bubbles which keeps the PC «floating» within the packaging. Very cool. No nicks, dents, or scrapes. I next find the documentation, very well put together and the software discs are easily accessible. So far I am very impressed.
I get it out of the box, plug everything all in carefully, and hit the power button. The familiar sound of spinning fans puts a grin on my face. But alas, that is all I get. I check the documentation and it asks me in case of no video to reseat all the components, video card, ram, HD cables. I do so and still no post.
Ever since my first PC I have been building my own. I pick the parts, fidget to get them all in the case, eventually install the OS, and then sit back and take pride in that accomplishment. After this last SSD drive failed I decided that I did not want to fuss with continuing to build and maintain my PC. I tried reading all the reviews and settled on Digital Storms. I was truly excited to see the status updates about my machine, it seemed like they were double and tripple checking my PC as it was being put together. I could not wait to get my new custom built PC that I did not have to fuss around with. It would just work when I received it.
Anyways back to the point. After an hour on the phone the tech decided that it was indeed a problem with the motherboard. Something happend to the sata connection to the primary drive which shorted the board. To me, seeing how well the PC was packaged I have to conclude that the PC left the installation factory in its current condition.
I feel like no actual QA checking of my PC was done. The drives were imaged and jammed into the PC just like any other «Big Box» computer company. The computer would not even post so how was the OS installed? If the PC was in working order when the OS was installed then someone damaged it and let it leave the facility. The best they could do was waste several more weeks of my time to «fix» my machine. After seeing all the emails with «status updates» how can I be assured the PC will make it back to me in working order? It would have been nice for them to offer to ship me a new one asap while I send back the damaged one. But this did not happen, I asked for a refund but all I got was «that is within your rights but we will not pay for shipping when doing a refund.»
Based on my experience I can not recommend this company to anyone.

I chose Digital Storm primarily based on this text found on their website: «Strict 72-​hour stress-​testing and benchmarking to ensure rock solid stable operation» and «Analyzed by an extremely dedicated production manager that is obsessed with perfection»
Unfortunately, the system I received was not stable. Several games would crash with a display driver error. This was repeatable, and fairly common. And on a few occasions, the system would restart itself while gaming.
Digital storm first sent me a new video card after hours and hours of my own troubleshooting and investigation proved fruitless. This did not resolve the driver crashing problem. (Seems that lots of people had this problem. Search ‘Zotac 580 display crashing”).
So I called back and they said they wanted me to ship/​deliver my machine to them so they could diagnose and fix it and thoroughly test it. Since I had *just* spend around $ 2,500 for this machine, there’s no way I was going to be without a computer for 1 – 3 weeks while they fixed a problem it never should have left their facility with in the first place. So I asked if I could just have a loaner system in the meantime. They said no, but eventually said that they would go ahead and build me a new one. Then once it was finished, I could bring the old one in and swap. So I agreed.
Unfortunately some of the parts I originally had were no longer available. The CPU heatsink, and the case were notable. The case eventually came in on order, but it delayed the shipment.
During the course of working with Digital Storm on this issue, I noticed a lot of general customer service foibles and missteps. I was handled by multiple people when good customer service involves having one person work through a person’s issue from start to finish for consistency. I won’t go into all the details here, but they were a lot of minor issues that added up.
In the end, I spent probably 30+ hours of my time having to deal with this issue (phone, email, personal troubleshooting, driving to their office to swap), with the end result being that I finally got a system that was stable. But that is what I should have had in the very beginning! If the computer was stable for a while then suddenly developed problems, I would understand. But this was unstable right from being built.
Listen. No one is perfect. And regardless of what they advertise, no ever system is going to work flawlessly when you first plug it in. I get that. I really do. But what separates a great company from mediocre is one that realizes that when something doesn’t go according to the way it should, and the customer is going through lots of hassle to get a working product, you *acknowledge* that effort, and make it a point to try to make it up to them. Something as simple as a «10% off your next computer purchase» would have made me a repeat customer and I’d be singing their praises for how they handled the situation.
As it stands now, I have no desire to give them repeat business, and I’ve suggested to several friends that they stay away based on my experiences. Why should I OR my friends risk having an imperfect system built for them, when getting it working properly is going to be such an unrewarding hassle? I have no answer.

Don’t fall for the marketing
I purchased a laptop from digital storm three months ago. For starters they shipped it with the wrong hard drives. After they shipped me the correct ones I had to put them in the computer and reinstall the OS and all the drivers myself.
From what I can tell they basically buy a laptop from another company and put a digital storm badge on it. The laptop still displays the original manufacturers name and logo when it boots up.
I tried to give it some time to see if it would grow on me but frankly this computer is crap.
AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE

Digital Storm assembles very nice, non-​branded computers. For what you are purchasing, the pricing is very aggressive and they do not install garbageware that you have no interest in. If the following issue had not come up or been resolved in a customer friendly way, they are a 4 star business on my scale.
The laptop I ordered stated in the «Overview» copy for the laptop series that they included fingerprint readers for logging in. I found this to be a compelling feature and made sure to order one from this series. When the laptop arrived, I discovered that it did not have a fingerprint reader. When I inquired via customer service, I was told that the overview copy did not necessarily apply to the specific products in a series. Obviously, I was surprised. They also informed me that copy had been removed and they apologized.
In a sense, they had confusing or incorrect copy that was a part of the inducement to order. They fixed the copy, but had no offer to fix or compensate the wrong towards my purchase. As a first time customer who does a lot of hardware purchase recommendations to friends, this did not leave a good taste.
Otherwise, though, the computer is fine, quiet (SSD), works as advertised (other than the misprint), was delivered on time and even came with a laptop bag. But I am mixed on whether I will purchase from them again. As confusing as new hardware purchases can be, it’s difficult to accept the risk that the copy on the website might not match the hardware in the box. In this era of ultra competitive computer hardware pricing, I might as well give the next guy a shot as to risk continued disappointment when Digital Storm has already demonstrated how they feel about customer assurance and confidence.

Summary: good hardware setup but expect to spend the first day with your new computer updating all its drivers, antivirus and OS patches.
Pros:
+ The hardware they build is great, well put together
Cons:
— They didn’t bother to bring the OS (Windows 7) up-​to-​date after installing it. I spent the first 5 hours on my machine installing the latest Windows updates, and I had to reboot 5 or 6 times during the updates.
— None of the drivers on the machine were up-​to-​date for any of the devices, including graphics card and sound card.
— They didn’t install the antivirus software I had purchased as part of the package. The Windows firewall wasn’t even turned on. And, they pre-​installed a game by downloading it from the internet via steam. In other words, THEY BROUGHT THE MACHINE ONLINE WHILE IT HAD NO ANTIVIRUS OR FIREWALL. Super sloppy, guys. Really awful.
— They offer the Creative X-​Fi Fatal1ty Champion as one of the sound card options, which I chose because the reviews were decent. They should strike it from their list. On Windows 7 turns out it has a stuttering problem for a lot of people where it will freeze the computer in an endless sound loop until you terminate the game you were playing, and the only way you can fix it is to stay with an older driver, which Windows update will then automatically replace over and over unless you disable automatic updates.