My boss (a U.S. veteran) wants a new computer, which is no problem. But then he added a little wrinkle to his request, he'd like it to not contain parts made in China and would prefer U.S. made parts when possible. Price isn't much of a concern.

My question is: Is this even possible? Do you know of manufacturers who do no manufacture anything in China or that do manufacture in the U.S. Other countries are okay, just no China-made parts...or at least as few as possible.

Any help finding such manufacturers would be greatly appreciated.

mrsbytch you should be banned from this forum asap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hmmmmm........
You can make your own brand.....

It is possible, but you would end up with a system cost on the order of $10k (IMO). It wouldn't operate with a standard PC architecture, so getting many favorite programs to run would be a challenge.

My suggestion: Select name-brand components whose manufacturer's are known for high quality, and paint the case red, white, and blue!

that shouldn't be to hard....
a lot of parts are not made in china but made in Thailand.
my seagate HD is made there...

Why?

Bold task. Even if you could do it you will not know whom the subcontractors are. I guess for example he does not wear athletic shoes or off the rack cloths. Things can be made by company X but assembled by company Y. Next you need to find out if he includes Taiwan in his request. If he does it will be difficult and expensive.

Supermicro is the only respectable U.S. motherboard maker. Crucial is Microns (Idaho) memory sales arm. Case you are out of luck. Seagate for disk drives some assembled in China, some in Thailand, some ii think n Malaysia. Samsung for monitors (Korea); Sony (Japan) but I think Sony assembly is in China same for a DVD so look for Samsung on those also or LG. Video cards ATI specifically and not just the GPU that would be Canada. Power supply I would have said PC Power and Cooling but they were purchased recently and I no longer know. Most supplies are assembled in China. Printers HP or Lexmark but double check in a store.

Your boss has to realize that with mainland China's intense industrialization and low wage cost that they have become contract manufacturers to the world for anything that weighs 50 kilos or less. Therefore things like keyboards, mice etc will be difficult.

Touchy subject that you stepped into being your boss and all. I am U.S. vet also but wars generally are like sports games when it is over it is over. I will use what ever gets the job done the best.

good luck

Thank you for all the details. I'll definitely check into the manufacturers you mentioned.

I think he'd be satisfied knowing that the majority of the parts aren't directly supporting China (if I need to get a couple that do I don't think he'll have major objections). I'm not exactly sure what his specific objection is to China, aside from the fact that some recalls of goods made in China have hit the news lately. I know he'd prefer Taiwan over China, if I do need to get parts from that area.

I'll see what I can throw together...

Even the most innocent of items, say a shovel, could be assembled in the USA from components made elsewhere.... the metal for the blade in Korea and the handle from China or Thailand, with glues from Brazil.

The shovel will say "made in America".

Yea, right.

build him a PC and stick a "made in america" sticker on it. case closed.

This can be done. Now it is true that to find something that has nothing to do with China, you are out of luck. Even if it says "Made somewhere other than China" on the sticker, pieces of it could of came from there, or the machines that made it could of come from China, and so on.

This is why trade agreements tend to get free-er not more restrictive. Whether you know it or not, there is no such thing as a "emerging global economy," its already global. I once tracked the production process for the wheels on my car (Lexani Firestars). Actual assembly was in the US, but the metal was made in Thailand, mined in China, with engineering staff in Canada, and supportive staff (everything from shipping to administrative tasks) in Germany (the ship that carried the metal was german in origin), Switzerland (Lexani's financing), New York (its a country in its own right to me), and of all places the shipping labels, the paper for them, was milled in South Africa!

Or try tracking where a bag of lettuce comes from. The lettuce may be grown in the US even, but that packaging? Who wants to bet the plastic came somewhere else, the ink on it maybe even a whole other place?

Thats why new trade restrictions are so hard to create. It sounds easy to just say "stop imports from China," but then a legal battle ensues as to what what constitutes a chinese product. Something made there, or just stuff shipped from there? And also, how can we be completely cut off from China? The whole world gets stuff from China, and China gets stuff from the whole world. No one, not the Chinese not America not Europe, even properly knows where everything comes from anymore. You pretty much have to track down a product just by itself, but its entirely possible that even products that are the same were made in different places. Those Lexani wheels? Whats to say that although mine were put together here, other wheels in the same style were not put together in China? I could of opened the box and half the wheels were from America, the other half from China!

There is this rosy picture that anyone country actually stands for something anymore, that there are absolutes and that what you make is who you are. I'm sorry to tell you that we have been in Post-Modernism for decades now. The only thing you can be absolutely certain of is that things change. A country may make bombs and preach peace, a peacemaker now owns bombs. What you make does not have to be about you: I know carpenters who love electronics, electronics salesman who dream of a naturalist lifestyle, and CEOs who despise money and affluence (those two guys are particularly charitable, I eat out with them whenever I can because they always pick up the bill!).

And China is much different from what it was even 30 years ago. Its no longer a nation of Mao-suit wearing communists. Today the Chinese people shop at Wal-Mart, wear the latest European fashions in addition to wearing oodles of Denim, and listen to Rap and R&B. Its true there is a particular "China Style" of Hip Hop (mainly hip hop lyrics on top of chinese opera music), but every country has a slightly differing hip hop scene (with the exception being Europe, there they all listen to pop hip hop and nothing else, ick).

The only thing still like the China of thirty years ago at all is the government, but even it has a lot of differences in it. IF the Chinese government tried another cultural revolution, they'd be stoned to death. The leaders were Armani suits and Prada shoes. They drive Buicks and Cadillacs. There is even a slow building movement toward democracy.

And they have American problems, just 50 times worse. Pollution, overcrowding, too many cars (and they dont have many yet!), and overwhelmed social services are the norm there. Just like here. Try getting universal health care in China! Just like America, that'd be tough to pull off.

Tell your boss that it sucks Chinese guns shot at him 30 years ago. But the Chinese eat up American made cars, clothing styles, music, art, and even our way of life. Tell him that they have forgiven America for anything it did way back when, and that in Vietnam today, American is as good of title as any (we have both free trade agreements and diplomatic relations now).

Its a different world. And its easier to accept a good world than change it to a bad one.

exactly, even if he got a mobo that says made in america, where did all the caps, resistors, and ic's come from?

i'd be willing to put money that making a pc COMPLETELY from parts made in the US is impossible.

Nice post scryer. Too bad there are Chinese counter parts to OP's boss, and like OP's boss probably wont be inclined to change their views.

this is an unreasonably big deal over a straight forward task of buying a new computer. does this boss actually want you spending all this effort and time (most likely company time) looking for a way to build this "china-less" computer?

this is just my opinion on the situation. I don't know your boss, or am i trying to make any judgements on him as a person. But as a boss, it's not the most responsible thing to ask an employee to do.

As for the problem, my suggestion for a solution is to design all your own components and solder them together with "china-less" solder, using "china-less" tools to assemble it. or buy him a dell.....hehe