"My only gripe is that my system took a week or so longer to make without notification of it being late. Other than that, I am very happy with the custom system they made for me, it runs flawlessly."

"I bought a complete Dual-Core Opteron system (no OS) on 12/30/05. Support for Linux, good reviews I saw here, Monacrh's pricing and all the many options they make available convinced me to try them for the first time.

I found their online customization tool to be very helpful! After finalizing, I got contacted about a MB change to my configuration which I accepted (and was thankful for, should their experience with Opteron problems with my original choice of MB be correct).

Promised shipping date was 10-15 working days. In the end, they shipped after 4 weeks. I contacted them by e-mail 2 times and they told me of being over-whelemed by orders and a backorder of one of my items. They upgraded my shipping to 2-day for free.

The machine came packaged well, and very nicely and cleanly assembled. But it had the wrong graphics card! Instead of my choice of ATI, they shipped a comparable (but $13 cheaper) NVIDIA card. I'm OK with the card and after contacting, they promised me to reimburse me the $13.

All in all the machine works nicely and I'm happy. I still wish faster shipping plus that they are more pro-active in informing of delays, don't wait for customer complaints!!

update 02/13/06:
Monarch rep contacted me about my review here at resellerratings. They said they appreciate my comments/review and give me back my shipping costs for my inconvenience of delays and the wrong card. That's a very nice gesture (hopefully an affordable one for Monrach in the long run). "

"Very unhappy with purchase and communication with the store. Product was shipped 6 weeks after order date despite claims of 1-2 weeks shipping time. Very poor communication with customer support. Complaints handled with weak apologies."

"Ordered a high-end system and upon assembly the case's front facia cover hinge broke. I contacted Monarch and although they do not usually RMA the CASE cover, they made an exception and sent me a new cover, no problem.

That was 16 months ago. Just this week I went online to find the invoice for that order on their site, but they don't maintain old account info. So I sent in an email asking if they could just tell me the date of my last order, and without asking they sent me an actual copy of the invoice. Wow! I didn't expect such great customer service. They went above and beyond the call of duty! I've ordered from them twice and would do so again. The products have been very solid and good.
"

"I am reserving judgement until my system arrives, order date is January 30, 2006.

I've emailed them on what my status is and I havent got an email back from them.

edit I got an email back, so far so good

Fidel C"

"I bought a custom Furia system on November 1, 2005. It took nearly a month to ship, but this is consistent with Monarch's shipping policy on custom systems.

Within days of receiving the PC, I realized that I was getting no audio from the left channel when using the speaker port on the rear of the machine. I contacted Monarch, which instructed me to send it back for repairs.

Over a month passed before I saw my PC again. Monarch declared that the "front panel electronics" were to blame -- whatever. They sent it back, and it worked for about a month.

Today I tried to listen to an MP3 and found that the same problem was occuring. No left-channel audio at all from the rear speaker output, despite trying multiple speakers and headphones.

I'm tempted to just blow $50 on a cheap soundcard so I don't have to be without my PC for another month. Frankly, Monarch's QA process sucks, and their repair turnaround times are ridiculously long. I will never buy from them again.

Update (2/13):
I was contacted by a manager at Monarch who was very apologetic and said he would "do anything" to fix my situation. He offered to overnight ship me a sound card, free of charge. I received the new card today, but it has no pinouts for my case's front audio panel -- so it's not very useful to me and will probably get sent back.

At least Monarch is interested in getting my PC working, so I give them credit for that. I will post further updates if/when my issue gets resolved, but right now, I still do not have a 100% functional PC."

"I run a huge callcenter and know Customer Service I contacted you(Monarch) two times and each exchange was professional .Prior to getting pinged fot eh online survey. I actually wanted to call and commend you on your service. KUDOS

"

"I ordered a MSI Neo4 Platinum Motherboard from Monarch, decent price, great shipping price. Took a few days to process the order, but not the long wait I've heard about in other reviews. All in all it was a good professional experience. I'm not blown away by Monarch, but I'm definately going to order from them again."

"Got a lot of good help and advice from the sales associate when I was configuring my system. I found the service leading up to purchase to be excellent. After submitting my order, though, I am not quite as pleased. After my card had been charged and the money withdrawn from my account, my order still was not showing up on their status page several business days after. I emailed to ask about this to make sure they were in fact processing my order, and never heard back from the company. My order has since shown up as processing, so I'm comforted by that, however I do not appreciate being ignored.

I will update this review after my system arrives and I can comment further on the quality of the company's workmanship and support, if applicable."

"I purchased a system from them nearly two years ago and added an extended three year warranty for $49. I was happy with my purchase until December when my power supply died and I arranged to have a new one shipped. Now the problems started. They wouldn't send me a new part until they received the defective part. Not wanting to wait, we arranged to do an advanced exchange that required them to charge my credit card and then issue a credit when they received the defective part. I agreed to this and gave them my credit card number. They told me it was declined (although there’s no reason it would have been), so I gave them a different card number. It went through, and I got my new power supply within a couple of days. I shipped the defective part back (at my expense), and I eventually got a refund. Mysteriously, however, a $70 charge appeared from Monarch Computer on the card that they said had been declined. It was a huge hassle to get someone on the phone to dispute this, and finally I was told on Nov. 15 that a credit would be issued for the $70. On Dec. 1 I hadn’t yet received the credit, so I e-mailed them again, and eventually contacted my credit card company. Finally on Dec. 8 they applied the credit, a full month after it appeared. Allow me to restate that the $70 charge did not correspond to any purchase I had made.

Then my video card went bad. They did an advanced replacement again and shipped my replacement card fairly efficiently, and they even included a return label this time. I thought maybe this time they had their act together. I returned the defective card on Jan. 10. As of Jan. 20 I hadn’t heard anything from them, so I e-mailed them. They told me that it had not been “received into our system as of yet”, although FedEx tracking indicated that they had received the package on Jan. 12. Apparently it takes over a week for them to open packages they receive. The next business day, Jan. 23, I was notified that a refund had been issued and it would take 3 to 10 business days. 14 business days later, I’m still waiting. I e-mailed them three days ago about this, and I haven’t heard back. I’ll e-mail them again today, and if I don’t hear back from tomorrow I’ll dispute the charge with my bank.

The other day the door on the front of my computer’s case fell off. Clearly this is something that the warranty should cover, but I probably won’t bother since I don’t want to go through another return with Monarch Computer. It almost seems as though they don’t want to honor their warranties by making the return process such a headache."

"Had no problems placing and receiving the order...easy to deal with and great communication...keep up the good work!"

"I would like to post a follow-up review on Monarch. Their sales rep contacted me today with concerns about my problem. He said they overnighted my connector. The very fact that he called me personally on the phone gave me relief that this incidence was an isolated case. I retract the earlier review and wish this one to stand as "I will buy from them again." Nice to have had them call, class act in doing so."

"I ordered this sound card from Monarch on the 23rd of January and received it by the end of the week. I couldn't be happier with the speed and quality they offered. I also emailed them concerning other items about a computer I am building and their communications are excellent as well as their knowledge. I wouldn't hesitate to use them again in the future. Great store, great products and great staff. Thanks"

"Top notch customer service (I had a question about the case) coupled with superfast shipping made this a GREAT online buying experience."

"I ordered my computer on around 10 Jan. They were very helpful with picking out options, and even help me save a little money. When I called I waited on hold for a while but hey they are busy, no problem. I get an e-mail saying the video card will be back, ordered, it will be in on Jan 16th again no problem. I figured plus the 10-15 busness days and a little wiggle room, I fugured I would see my system around 1 Feb. I called and they said about the same. I called on 31 Jan so I could schedule with work to pick up my computer ( Fed Ex requires a signature). They tell me its late and send me an E-mail saying according to the production manager that it will ship Mon Feb 6 at the latest. I call on the Feb 6 just to find out that it is just now going in to burn in. No problem, they say they will try to work something out with shipping and they would e-mail me back. It's been a day no e-mail. I got out of work late so by the time I called they were closed. I sent an e-mail we will see how that goes. I don't mind them taking the time to get the computer right, just let some one know. I feel like I'm lost in the shuffle. When this is resolved I will post another rating. "