now that I think of it, what does buying a "prebuilt" do that avoids these problems? you avoid putting it together at first but it can still fail and need repair. prebuilt or not, the components can fail, require diagnosing, and replacing.

a big difference is whether it's a modular system (PC) or not (console, though I think they're a tiny bit more modular these days). but prebuilt PCs are still PCs (and still modular). (right?)