Especially, if there is anyone who has had personal experience with a particular website (good or bad) I would really appreciate hearing about it.
Try the “Not Exactly New” section of http://www.pricewatch.com/
The deals are usually better than eBay, and you also get a warranty.
Hmmm… where to begin.
I’ve bought lots and lots of refurbed PCs over the years from many different vendors. I’ve had the best luck with HP Pavilion refurbs from ubid.com that were refurbed by HP. They are essentially new PCs with all docs and software and I’ve never really had problem them. The worst luck is with Compaqs from ubid.com and other vendors. Where the auction houses get them I don’t know (it’s not from Compaq). They are usually not even “refurbed” but glanced at by the laziest techs in the known universe and thrown back into the box for sale. They invariably have some problem after being booted up and put into use.
Bear in mind the auction or sale site does not always warranty the PC this is usually done by the OEM (if still in orig warranty) or a third party (like Micro Exchange). The Compaq warranties start ticking when the PC is originally sold so if you get a year old refurb you have a no OEM warranty only the 3rd party 30 or 90 day warranty. The product description should also have a description of the warranty.
http://www.newegg.com has some great HP refurb deals going on.
I’ve been looking around and seen some deals on some HPs but…doesn’t HP use proprietary parts with its PCs? I am concerned a bit about this making future upgrades a hassle and/or more expensive.
Well yes… in that the MB’s and whatever is on the MB (inc sound and video in many cases) is somewhat unit specific. Drives, memory and to a limited extent the CPU, are usually upgradable, but if you are looking for a good deal on clone compatible, extremely upgradable PCs then refurbs are sort of beside the point as the majority of refurbs are typically somewhat proprietary OEM machines.
If you want a truly upgradable PC you should look into rolling your own or having a small PC builder in your town put one together for you. You will pay more for a custom unit vs a refurbed OEM unit but you have more flexibility with future configuration options as well.
see http://www.thechipmerchant.com
for more advice see http://arstechnica.com/
A great site for PC info and they have a message board that’s bigger then ours!
Off to IMHO.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Here is a great site for reseller ratings.
Anyone else look at sites like the one above and just look to read the complaints for the lowest rated stores? 
Anyway, I bought a computer about a year ago from Micro Exchange. It came on time, but was DOA. Called technical support and they were as helpful as one can possibly be when the problem is “It won’t turn on” (there’s only so many routes you can really take there) and they gave me an authorization number with the option to get a different computer since mine was out of stock or a refund. They were also paying for return shipping. As it turns out, on the night before I was going to return it, I decided to open the case and saw the jumper on the power button had fallen off. Plugged it in and it worked fine.
Never got to test their warrenty as I haven’t had any problems after that. I’m not sure if the disconnected jumper was something that happened during transit or a testament to questionable machine testing, but the customer service itself wasn’t a problem and I’d probably use them again if shopping for another refurbished machine.
Dell has a free shipping on their new Pentium4’s right now, thats spiffy.
tigerdirect.com has specials on refurbs. $299 for 600hz recently.
I never could figure out why monitors aren’t usually part of the packages though.
Dell sell refurb’s. The prices are pretty decent, too.