Since there aren’t a whole lot of digital cable ready PCs out there, finding a place that sells ATI Digital Cable Tuners (aka CableCARD tuners) can be a challenge. Since I bought my XPS 420 in February from the Dell Outlet I had to find a way to purchase some from other places. When I called Dell Home they would not sell me any tuners mainly because they couldn’t seem to find the product number or any other information.

In order to find two ATI DCTs I went through a couple different methods. I was content with having just one for a little while but my goal was to get two eventually. The first thing I did was check eBay. I ended up doing a search for the tuners and saving that search as an RSS feed in my personalized Windows Live page (my.live.com). I was really lucky to find someone had posted one for $165 shipped Buy-It-Now and didn’t hesitate to make the purchase. I wanted to try to keep the price under $200 for my second one as well but that was proving increasingly difficult on eBay as they were all going for over $200.

The next thing I did was post a want ad on the The Green Button’s For Sale forum. I was lucky to find someone who was willing to sell me one more for $165 so I got both of my tuners for $330. It seems the prices have gone up on eBay lately and thus on The Green Button as well. Here are some other methods that I know of where you can find the ATI DCT for sale:

Sony Style has REFURBISHED ATI DCTs for $199.99 plus shipping but it appears as though they are currently out of stock.

Cannon PC has brand new internal ATI DCTs for $299.99 plus shipping and external ATI DCTs for $315 plus shipping.

Someone on The Green Button also apparently had luck getting one from Dell over the phone. According to TGB user ChrisCicc, he was able to purchase an external ATI DCT from a customer service representative at Dell named Randy. His phone number is 1.800.289.3355 ext 2168763 and apparently the Dell product number for the ATI DCT is A1741718 and you will need this to have a chance at placing the order. I don’t remember the exact price that ChrisCicc stated but I’m quite sure it was under $200 so this would probably be the best option to start with. I haven’t been able to verify this method of purchase because I haven’t had the need for a 3rd ATI DCT yet. If you try this method and are able to purchase one from Dell, please comment back so it can be verified again for other consumers.

Update: It appears as though Dell now has the tuners on their website for $258.99 listed under item number A1210307. It does say it is ONLY for sale with the purchase of a Dell XPS 420 but I was able to go pretty far in the checkout process without it indicating such a requirement. I didn’t actually finish the checkout process, however, because I don’t currently need another tuner. If anyone has actually purchased one using this method, please post a comment below.