Murderbox crafts high-end computers with a flair for design and personality
Marke Andrews
Sun
Charles Harwood (left) builds custom-made, high-end computers, each of which is dubbed Murderbox. Customer Simon Barry’s model moves liquid coolant around the computer to cool the machine, letting him do away with a noisy fan. Photograph by : Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun
Charles Harwood’s Murderbox is a cottage industry, literally.
Harwood builds Murderbox, a custom-made computer, in his Vancouver condo, and the business is — at least for now — strictly local. Harwood gets his message out by word-of-mouth, builds a single computer unit when he gets an order and personally installs it at the client’s house.
“I’m only selling them locally for now because I want to have the ability, if an issue arises, to deal with it first hand,” says Harwood. “I don’t want to just build them and ship them off and hope for the best.
“If I’m going to be in this market, I want to make sure I’m providing 100 per cent service to my customers.”
These are early days for Harwood’s business. He built his first Murderbox for a friend, Vancouver screenwriter Simon Barry, last summer, and has made just three units thus far.
Harwood began using computers professionally in 1994 when he worked in the visual effects industry in Vancouver. He kept wanting to modify the machines he used at the office, seeing the shortcomings of each design. He also had an interest in esthetics, “which in the PC world is something that doesn’t exist.”
When Barry approached him about designing a PC for the screenwriter, Harwood researched the technology and came up with the Murderbox, an attention-grabbing name meant to play on the term “killer” when used to define the best of the best. At first, Barry’s computer was a one-off, but that changed once the machine was built.
“Just seeing the way Simon reacted to it, and seeing how he appreciated the workmanship that went into this, that’s when I came up with the idea of doing this [as a business],” says Harwood.
The Murderbox (details of which are at www.murderbox.com) uses an existing aluminum chassis, the Silverstone TJ07, which Harwood modifies with his own interior design. The machine is water-cooled, a quiet alternative to noisy fans. He then installs the latest video card, hard drive and processor. Because technology for these latter items changes so quickly, Harwood does not want to stockpile machines, preferring to build them on an order-by-order basis.
“If a new product comes out tomorrow and you’ve commissioned me to build a computer today, if I haven’t already ordered the [older] product, I can put the newest product in your computer,” says Harwood, who will also upgrade a Murderbox if a buyer who already has one wants the latest technology.
A Murderbox sells for $6,200, and is guaranteed for delivery within three weeks.
Design is an element Harwood feels is missing at the big computer manufacturers, who mass-produce their products, and is often overlooked by hard-core computer users, who stress efficiency and performance.
“I wanted Simon’s computer to look clean, unique and elegant,” says Harwood. “I was very happy with the result, and I’ve since modified it.”
Barry is a satisfied customer.
“The most important thing for me is it’s completely silent,” says Barry. “It plays high-definition movies and runs the latest video games, which is important because I sometimes do video-game adaptations for screenplays. It’s a restriction-less machine.”
Harwood’s cottage industry is partly by choice (quality control), and partly out of necessity (he’s in this business on his own).
“I’m looking for some venture capital to get this to the next level,” says Harwood, whose long-range plans include having a rep in every major Canadian city who could do the hands-on care that he’s performed in Vancouver.
