@Bob
I know what you went through, I bought a prebuilt system about 5 years ago and had no end of trouble with it...and in the end spent a lot more time and money than I would have for a self-made system.
After this mistake I never even considere a pre-built again. I had been building my own systems before that for a long time, but was in a hurry and thought that a cheap and fully assembled system would help me save time and money.
First thing I did when I got the system was configure windows, update drivers and bios.
There you go...the system was dead.
What was the deal? Well, to update the bios I had followed the instructions in the manual (that came with the computer!). The trouble was that the actual mainboard was somehow modified (to save cost I guess) but the maunal wasn't, so I flashed the original bios from the website of ASUS onto a mainboard that was incompatible which meant...DEATH for my computer.
So, I was in a hurry and since I could not get anything repaired in a hurry (customer support...bad joke) I dimply bought a new mainboard (a cheap one) and that was it. Problem solved. Now, that was not how it all ended...I had problems with overheating, a defective GPU cooler (imagine how long it took me to find that one...the fan was spinning, but sometimes it just slowed down and thus the GPU overheated) and that was without even starting to think about upgrading...
So, after that I vowed NEVER to touch anything that is not hand-selected and hand-built by me. I've given the same advice to friends and also ordered and assembled systems for quite a few people I know...and every one of them has been happy with their system.
Building and configuring a System from scratch does not take more than one afternoon if you know what you are doing, even with liquid cooling and other "special features" onboard, so I guess it would have been a good alternative for you as well.
You can get superior components for the same (or even cheaper) prices, especially if you already have software (that is usually the only thing that makes Pre-Built prices look attractive) and you know exactly what is in that box and what it is for.
Sorry for the rant, but ever since that experience 5 years ago and some of the troubles my friends had with pre-built I'm a total enemy of those supposedly cheap alternatives to DIY...
