Computer takes a dump

[Parkbandit]

My computer bid farewell to me last night and sure as hell didn't give me a 2 week's notice.

So I'm in the market to purchase a new one. I don't need a computer screen, just the box and keyboard.

So... what's hot out there I can pick up on my way home tonight. I don't want to spend more than $2,000 on it.

Right now I am surfing Best Buy, Comp USA and Circuit City.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

I love my Dell at home... but I also like those Alien boxes.

http://www.alienware.com/

Go to www.ibuypower.com
for under 1,500 you can get the best of everything

[AnticorRifling]

For under 2g the market is pretty much yours. Avoid Dell and Gateway.



This would work:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=32516&Sku=S167-3190

[AnticorRifling]

And I know it's only 256mb of DDRAM but that's cheap to upgrade now adays. I'd send you a stick of 256 but you're a limey bastard.

[Czeska]

www.tigerdirect.com

[Parkbandit]

Never had a Sony before.. how are they as far as dependability?

Right now I'm leaning towards an HP m470n

Intel Pent 4 - 3 gz
160 GB HD
512 DDR SDRAM (Expandable to 2gb)
Read/write DVD and CD
ATI Radeon 9200 MCE AGP 8x Graphisc card with 128 MB DDR video memory
Personal Video Recorder with TV/FM tuners


Best Buy for $1,299.99

[Parkbandit]

And I'd like to pick the PC up tonight if possible... so online merchants are not practical for me.

[Czeska]

I am told that HP is "proprietery" in that if part of it goes, you have to replace it with HP parts. So I'm all for HP accessories, but not the computer itself.

[Czeska]

Also, Tigerdirect got me stuff within 2 days, their shipping has been awesome. You might want to check the prices once you know what you want. You might find it's worth a day or 2 wait.

[AnticorRifling]

Originally posted by Czeska
I am told that HP is "proprietery" in that if part of it goes, you have to replace it with HP parts. So I'm all for HP accessories, but not the computer itself.

You got lied to.

[AnticorRifling]

Originally posted by Parkbandit
Never had a Sony before.. how are they as far as dependability?

Right now I'm leaning towards an HP m470n

Intel Pent 4 - 3 gz
160 GB HD
512 DDR SDRAM (Expandable to 2gb)
Read/write DVD and CD
ATI Radeon 9200 MCE AGP 8x Graphisc card with 128 MB DDR video memory
Personal Video Recorder with TV/FM tuners


Best Buy for $1,299.99

Sony is a good computer as is that HP only one thing.....

Don't do SDRAM do DDRAM.

[Wezas]

Originally posted by Czeska
I am told that HP is "proprietery" in that if part of it goes, you have to replace it with HP parts. So I'm all for HP accessories, but not the computer itself.

Older HP's and Compaq's were proprietary, however people still may want to see if computers need RAM parity (for each pair of memory slots, they need to be the exact same MB)


Originally posted by Parkbandit
Never had a Sony before.. how are they as far as dependability?

Sony's are top of the line. Dependability is pretty damn good, and they're ususally a bit more expensive then other PC's. If you find a good deal on a Sony, I'd say hop on it.


Originally posted by AnticorRifling
Don't do SDRAM do DDRAM.

Agreed, though if you went with the HP, you can buy a few sticks of DDRAM for cheap and swap them out. (Pricewatch has some pretty good prices on the DDRAM)

[killjoymp]

DDR is much better and you will get better performance out of it. HP is a really good company. That sounds like a good deal.

[Parkbandit]

Originally posted by Parkbandit

Right now I'm leaning towards an HP m470n

Intel Pent 4 - 3 gz
160 GB HD
512 DDR SDRAM (Expandable to 2gb)
Read/write DVD and CD
ATI Radeon 9200 MCE AGP 8x Graphisc card with 128 MB DDR video memory
Personal Video Recorder with TV/FM tuners


Best Buy for $1,299.99

I bought this model. So far.. one word.

Wow.

Didn't realize it works as a TiVo... I can watch TV and pause it.. record shows and watch them later.

Twice as fast as my late computer and almost 3 times the storage.

Now I just have to set everything back up... Wizard, Psinet, email, websites, etc...

[Blazing247]

I could've put together that same computer with top of the line components for a lot less.

I just finished mine a week ago. I have the absolute best Mobo money can buy, twice that RAM (not generic RAM either), a way better graphics card, a better HD, and a damn nice DVD recorder, in a custom watercooled case. By the way, I'm overclocking my CPU to 3.4Ghz. Not that your machine isn't a fine machine, but it's always worth trying to find a geek like me to put one together for you.

Then again, not everyone is as obsessed with performance as I am. My goal was to build a machine that had flawless FPS benchmarks for UT2004 and EQ2. Mission: 1/2 accomplished.

[Artha]

I could've put together that same computer with top of the line components for a lot less.

Could you have done it in about an hour?

[Bobmuhthol]

http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=eMachines_T3085

[Blazing247]

<Could you have done it in about an hour?>

If I had the parts in front of me? Sure. The lengthiest part is mounting the motherboard on the case. Or were you just trying to be a wiseass? :smug:

[Skirmisher]

Bob?....being a wiseass? Heaven forbid!:whistle:

[Artha]

<insert Skrim here>

I != Bob.


Or were you just trying to be a wiseass?

I was trying to point out that you being able to build the same thing for cheaper is fairly irrelevent, as he walked into a store and bought it in about an hour (just guessing with the time...shouldn't have taken too much longer, since he knew what he wanted). I'd rather have a computer now for more, than in a few days for less.

[Edited on 5-28-2004 by Artha]

[Bobmuhthol]

wtf

[Parkbandit]

I know so little about computers that I am almost dangerous... and I don't have any truly geek like friends (I wish I did)

Like Artha said though.. I wasn't willing to have the computer shipped to me... so I certainly didn't want to wait for someone to build one for me.

I don't need super high performance for what I do.. so this will be fine for me for a good 2 or 3 years.

[Artha]

I'll be your geek friend for 10 million silvers.

[Sean]

You also don't have a warranty on the machine as a whole or tech support if you fuck up your comp building it yourself. I built my own as well and I'm not overly concerned. But for someone who readily admits not knowing a lot buying a computer retail is probably a better solution.

[Edited on 5-28-2004 by Tijay]

[Blazing247]

You're right about "as a whole", but every part you put into a machine that you build yourself is warrantied through the manufacturer. Not only that, but there's always the old switcharoo. I fried the motherboard of the first computer I built (back when the Mobo's cost like $500 on average). Instead of crying about it, I bought one from a chain, swapped them out, and returned the burnt out one. Haha, suckers!

Yes, but that is being dishonest, and basically stealing. Some people would rather keep their morals in tact over something that costs $500.

[Parkbandit]

Originally posted by Tijay
You also don't have a warranty on the machine as a whole or tech support if you fuck up your comp building it yourself. I built my own as well and I'm not overly concerned. But for someone who readily admits not knowing a lot buying a computer retail is probably a better solution.

[Edited on 5-28-2004 by Tijay]

Did Tijay just fucking call me stupid? I'm gonna have to give that bastard a necklace.

[Blazing247]

<Yes, but that is being dishonest, and basically stealing. Some people would rather keep their morals in tact over something that costs $500.>

One, I was 16. Two, chains overcharge. Three, they just ship it back to the manufacturer. If you've ever put together a computer and received parts that were DOA, you'd understand the plight. Oh, and you don't do anything wrong? Exactly, fuck you.

[Wezas]

Originally posted by Blazing247
<Yes, but that is being dishonest, and basically stealing. Some people would rather keep their morals in tact over something that costs $500.>

One, I was 16. Two, chains overcharge. Three, they just ship it back to the manufacturer. If you've ever put together a computer and received parts that were DOA, you'd understand the plight. Oh, and you don't do anything wrong? Exactly, fuck you.

Edine was just stating the way he, and I assume a few people (including myself) feel and you suddenly start swearing at him. And your motherboard was not *DOA*, you fried it yourself, so the comparison makes no sense.

[HarmNone]

Not only that, Blazing, but it is people who do things like what you did (I realize you were only 16, and would tend to make an allowance for that.) that result in the rest of us paying more for what we buy. That is another reason why people react negatively to that sort of behavior.

HarmNone

Originally posted by Blazing247
One, I was 16.
You did not say that in your first post


Two, chains overcharge.
That is business because they are making a profit off of what you buy does not make them deserving of being stolen from


Three, they just ship it back to the manufacturer.
That does not mean they do not incur a financial loss.

Oh, and you don't do anything wrong? Exactly, fuck you.

Of course I do things wrong, but nothing of the same nature. There are honest people in this World; I do my best to be one of them.


[Edited on 5-28-2004 by The Edine]

[Blazing247]

Hmm, I wish people would stop regurgitating the "this is why retail chains have to charge so much" mantra.

I used to have to give the same spiel when I worked in retail management. "Don't steal. People stealing is why the items cost so much, and why we get paid so little."

Well, no, actually it isn't. I've worked in chains where their shrink was .7%. If you have never worked retail or LP, then you wouldn't understand that .7% is nothing. It's barely a blip on your bottom line radar. Yes, this is minutely factored into the price of an item, as well as cost of production, but no...it's NOT why the item costs so much. The reason the item costs so much is because of greed.

Or are you trying to say that a box of Cheerios costs $4.75 because we all steal Cheerios, or we buy a box and then return our old stale ones in their place? Come on, duh.

[Blazing247]

<Edine was just stating the way he, and I assume a few people (including myself) feel and you suddenly start swearing at him. And your motherboard was not *DOA*, you fried it yourself, so the comparison makes no sense.>

I don't SUDDENLY start swearing at anyone. I swear like you say the words "I am a homosexual". They flow out of my fingers and into the keyboard. Take no offense if I swear in a general conversation. It's my "SERENITY NOW". I'm not a religious person, but I haven't so much as broken a commandment nor more than a minor traffic law in the past six years. What I did now, and what I did then are separate lives. To say that you've never BTDT is bullshit, which is what I was implying.

As far as receiving parts DOA, I was citing a specific example of a time I FUCKED up. I've received more parts DOA than I care to remember, and dealing with customer service (at least for ASUS and Sony) is like being assfucked with a sandpaper condom. We better now?