System76Reviews of system76.com

System76 sells rebranded Clevo laptops and custom desktops with PopOS or Ubuntu pre-installed. It's marginally more expensive than Clevo who already charged premium rates, but System76 provides customer support(which I haven't needed yet) and a useful public forum for troubleshooting on Reddit(which I have relied on somewhat). The first and most significant issue I encountered on my "Adder Workstation" was comically loud fan noises. I tried a few methods to fix it, and I'm not sure what worked but it did go away somewhat. I should have expected that anyways with an i9HX processor. The real benefit I encountered was the smooth and polished feel and driver installation process for Ubuntu and PopOS which are clearly heavily optimized for this machine. I'm currently using Ubuntu which has a few special apps for System76 users that enables quick bios updates and custom fan curve control amongst other features. Overall I think you get plenty back for what you pay, but you should also be sure of what you want before you buy at these prices.

I bought a system 76 laptop and love it. The problem I have is with their support. I had trouble setting up the printer which works some times and then not others. I had their service plan but when I reached out to them I got no reply. Extremely poor service. I will not buy from them again.

Ordered a Desktop Computer from System76. Upon arrival, when I powered it up it ran for a short while then crashed and rebooted. I opened a support ticket and System76 responded quickly and agreed to replace the computer. I packed up the old one and waited a couple of weeks to get the replacement. When I turned the replacement computer on, it was hard to tell because the power on light was not working. I reported this and was told the case might not be set properly. So I disassembled the case and the light started working. After using the computer for a while I tried to boot into a USB drive and could not. Seemed to me that the Bios was buggy. At this point I had lost all confidence in this computer so I asked for a refund and they readily agreed under their Money Back Satisfaction Guarantee program. I shipped the computer back after receiving a return authorization. Credit to my credit card was delayed and a couple of my requests for status were ignored. Finally after they had custody of the returned computer for two weeks, I filed a dispute with my credit card. Hours after doing that I received the credit posting from System76. I cannot in good conscience recommend this company. I was disappointed because I wanted to do business with someone in the US.

I bought this System76 Serval WS 17 several months ago. From Day 1 ....I complained to Support that the Laptop was incredibly noisy.... as if a Jet Engine was taking off with the most minimal workload (surfing the internet via browser.) Support followed up with me asking me to perform various diagnostic tests to which did absolutely nothing. 3 months went by and I asked to have my money back. Well, of course it was beyond their Return Policy date. But I stated that I complained about this issue within the first 2 weeks of purchase with no resolve. Ultimately, Support had me send in the laptop computer for technical evaluation. I got the laptop back from support with absolution ZERO solution or fix! WARNING: Do NOT buy this computer. You have been Warned! The Keyboard has an ackward layout that creates many errors when typing..... and the Noise from it's fans are totally Unacceptable and 1000% Unbearable! Up until this point, I'm just using this Laptop to surf the internet... no heavy workload whatsoever! I spent close to 3k on an unbearable product. Totally Unacceptable.

I bought a System76 Serval WS 13 (64G, i9-13900HX, RTX 4070) for about 3k back in June 2023, TL;DR: - Unusably loud fan noise, even on low workload, the fan is always turning at ~3000 RPM minimum and producing ~70dB minimum - Low-quality cheap plastic and flexing casing - Low-quality camera and microphone (unusable: you can only hear the fan noise and chassis vibration) - They are just reseller of Clevo's laptops - Buggy software: black screen, crash on resume, GPU falling from the bus, sound crackling, bugs with wifi that require reboot... - No battery life (at most 2 hours) + extremely heavy charger - Annoyingly weird keyboard layout + No led for numlock - Deceiving performance, everything feels slow and laggy (It takes like 10s to launch the calculator, the text editor, or the settings). And you always have to use battery mode (to reduce fan noise) - Bad customer service. I first contacted them in the first few days after I received the product, tried countless things since then, but ultimately they gave me no working solution and did not want to refund me

I've been using System76 computers since 2016. I've been a Unix System Admin so I prefer Linux based PC's. While the machines are pretty good, not great, System76 has resorted to email or messaging via their web site for customer support. This process will delay a troubleshooting process immensely. I had a boot problem with a laptop that went on, literally, for months while working with their techs. I finally just completely reloaded the machine with a new O/S. I'm currently having another issue with a new machine and communication with System76, again, has gone on for days, with days between contact from them. I cannot recommend their Technical support.

On 2/18/2022 (warenty ending 02/2023) me and a coworker bought two Gaze16 for $1,626.00 USD a piece. This review will be broken down into three sections: The Buying Process, the Usability, and Final Thoughts Buying Process - 0/10 While my co-worker was in town for an on-site event, we thought it would be awesome if we both ordered System76 laptops. We saw the price at $1,626.00 and figured for the user-freedom we were willing to pay the slight markup to get GNU/Linux laptops with 3060s. This apparently is considered "fraud" by the team at System76, while we were working at our on-site event System76 called us 1 time, while we were working. When we woke up the next day we found out that System76 had refunded our order. We had paid extra money for the expedited build process (which essentially was wasted, since it took them over a week to get our order back on track). Another issue was my co-worker used a European credit card, resulting in the loss of a few hundred dollars due to exchange rates on the refund and having to pay a second time. This could have been avoided if System76 reached out in a reasonable way (like by email). Another disturbing fact is that we never provided System76 our phone number. To this day it is unknown how system76 got a hold of our phone #, nor why they felt the need to cancel our order after calling a phone number they were not authorized to call. Getting a call from a business you did not give your phone # to leaves a bad taste on your mouth. More so when they cancel you order after you didn't answer the phone to an unknown number, on a line you do not give out to ANYONE. I found this business practice unacceptable. I have asked system76 how they got my phone #, and they have refused to answer. It is not publicly listed, and does not show up on google searches. Maybe 5 people in the world have this emergency line, and system76 was not one of them. Very unsettling. A few weeks after the laptops were supposed to come, and having to pay them twice the laptops did come. No real compensation was given for the extra trouble system76 caused. They gave us the "Expedited build" for "Free" - but its hard to see this as compensation weeks after it was supposed to be shipped. Usability - 3/10 Both laptops appeared to be what we paid for. However in less than a year my laptop had major GPU issues with their 3060s causing them to freeze every 10mins, making it unusable. The error was "GPU had fallen off the bus" - Which research shows is a complete GPU failure. A few months later, my co-workers laptop had the same "GPU had fallen off the BUS" error, making their laptop unusable. System76 had a warranty program, the laptops were repairs. Since the laptops shipped with these issues it does not feel like any quality control has been taken on their end of any kind. While my co-workers laptop developed this issue a few months in, mine was shipped with this complete GPU failure on day 1. It took me a few months to debug, research, and report this to System76 as I was traveling, and was unsure why my laptop was crashing daily. I was unsure if I had messed up the drivers, or if the laptop was a lemon. It turned out to be the latter. We are both less than two years of ownership, and there are now new critical failures happening to both machines that are no longer under warranty. These failures are: My Laptop: Hinge broke, shortly after returning from repair. Since no longer under warranty had to 3d print replacement parts. Very sub-optimal. When repairing the broken hinge, I noticed there was NO THREAD LOCK on the hinge screws. What happened was the hinge screws got loose during shipping, and created additional leverage against the push-ins, causing them to rip out and completely destroy the mounting system on the screen side of the hinge when opening. This could have been prevented with proper repair and assembly. Co-workers laptop: The laptop is completely out of service due to a failed GPU fan. The fan was reported as an issue during the last usage of the in-warranty repair feature. And started hard failing with in 1 month of receiving the laptop again. Either system76 replaced the fan with a broken fan, or they completely ignored the fan replacement request, knowing that by the time the laptop was returned, the warranty would be over. No matter the cause, the end result is a broken GPU fan that should have been replaced under warranty but was not. The laptop is a brick until they can replace the entire heat-sink assembly. System76 does not list part numbers for customers nor-publicly, they are gated behind their support desk. There support desk does not work weekends nor holidays, so be aware that simply getting a part # can take over a week. Final Thoughts - 0/10 (Will never buy again) Major build quality issues, RMA issues, bad customer service. Would never buy again.

I bought a System76 Oryx Pro, and expected a lot more for it than it's delivering. Trying to get updates installed reliably using Pop_Shop is a pain-the app constantly freezes or crashes. The fans seem to only have 2 speeds; 0 or 100%; and they're extremely loud when running. The laptop completely freezes every few hours after the last firmware update.