Thread: Need a New Computer

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I'm looking at new computers and not sure that I want a lap top yet - but that isn't what I want to ask. Microsoft has come out with Vista but are still offering XP. My wife has Vista at work and the new version of Office 2007 (I think). It has been a horror story for her company. Reading a lot of posts on a computer web site, it seems that many are having the same problems - that Microsoft made changes just for the sake of making them and that many(most?) of the old appilcations will not work in Vista. I'm not sure that I'm seeing the correct story on the computer website. I do like XP and my Office '97, it's working well, but the PC is getting cranky and I think it's telling me it needs a new home.

So:

Vista - and why you like it and why I should
XP - and why the new PC should have it

Help

buy the system with Vista and load XP on it, you will have the restore disk for going to vista later after bugs are worked out of it, and most importantly the license covers vista AND XP. i run 2007 as one of the IT staff we are testing it out, I hate it, really I do. Things have been moved around too much and simple tasks have to be re-learned.

laptop versus desktop is an interesting question, lots of people want laptops and then when I talk to them about it they don't really have a need for it. any time somebody asks me for advice about what to get I spend time talking to them about 1. what they currently use computers for 2. what they realistically see themselves using it for in the future. most systems are overbuilt for what a real user needs.

Red

when i bought my new lap top the queen of mean scrubed my hard drive and reloaded xp on it , i have not had any problems with xp at all , a few of my fellow co-workers have vista on their computers and its a nightmare , the program is not user friendly at all , maybe one day it will be but for now im personally gonna use the xp..

I got Vista on my new laptop, don't get it. I'v had 2 counts of driver faliure because Vista likes to change them to make them better..

Cant change w/o getting new HD cause Acer decided to put the recovery stuff ON the hard drive, on a partition I cant remove w/o loosing all.

Looks like XP is still the winner tho I do like Dago's idea. I don't have a separate full XP OS disk, unfortunately, to go that way. I'm leaning towards the XP and dump most of the bloatware that manufacturers seem to want to install and load up the hard drive. Maybe, if my ship come in I can buy a good desk top and a low end lap top (wishful thinking) but like Denny, I have many pictures and they really fill up the lap top quick. Now, another Dell, an HP or possibly a Lenovo(which I believe is now Chinese owned)?? Dell service has hit the bottom and HP is sounding good - I wish I had the skills to build my own. Did a 386 once with some geek help long ago, but it was very mediocre in performance. Not a decision that needs to be made today but gotta get the research started and a plan going.

Originally Posted by IC2

Looks like XP is still the winner tho I do like Dago's idea. I don't have a separate full XP OS disk, unfortunately, to go that way. I'm leaning towards the XP and dump most of the bloatware that manufacturers seem to want to install and load up the hard drive. Maybe, if my ship come in I can buy a good desk top and a low end lap top (wishful thinking) but like Denny, I have many pictures and they really fill up the lap top quick. Now, another Dell, an HP or possibly a Lenovo(which I believe is now Chinese owned)?? Dell service has hit the bottom and HP is sounding good - I wish I had the skills to build my own. Did a 386 once with some geek help long ago, but it was very mediocre in performance. Not a decision that needs to be made today but gotta get the research started and a plan going.

Buy a barebones system w/ the motherboard and prosessor/ heatsink and fan installed. AMD dual core ( Athalon 64 X2 ) or Pentium dual core ( core duo or core 2 duo ) would be great, especially if there 2ghz per core or better.. this will give you the basics, the motherboard will be hooked up, all the pins for the lights will be plugged in, motherboard power ect... then all you do is add a hard drive, CD rom and memory, probably have it for $500 or so. Don't go For SATA HD's, there marginally faster but for the cost it's not worth it. IDE HD's are easier to hook up anyway, pin 1 ( red line on cable ) almost always points to power plug. set the jumper to cable select, make shure it is plugged in b4 the CD rom, set the CD rom to slave jumper.

hey dave maybe this would work

I've just got a cheap old HP, and a cheap HP laptop for tuneups on the chipped stuff we play with. Both are about 5 years old and still work great.....

Oh, I was looking on Ebay yesterday, there is a laptop refurbishing company that gives 30 day warrantys on laptops. I was looking at an IBM 600 they had listed, because I have 1 ( beater, non working screen, needs to be plugged into monitor but I use it as a backup ). it was gaurenteed except the battery wasn't ( 20$ new on ebay ) the laptop was somthing like $50 buy it now. theres a lot of laptops on ebay in the $10-150 range, some need stuff like hard drives and cd roms, but some are working.

All my computers (5 including the one at work) have XP Pro and Office 2000 to Office 2003 on them. I have both Vista and Office 2007 in my desk drawer and that is where they will stay until they get some bug fixes out on the market. Way too many problems considering how much they have been marketed.

The problem with most new systems, you don't get a choice of operating software. Vista is what nearly all companies are installing. Some might install XP / XP pro, or Linus, but not many. You may be able to get a seller to install XP Pro, instead of Vista, but you would have to buy from a company such as Dell or Gateway or a specialty computer builder, to get that option. Most big box computer stores won't give you the option.

You could also get a new computer with out any operating system installed, and then install one of your own choice. Some companies will do that as well. Check out systems at Tigerdirect.com, I believe they have systems without operating systems installed or will give you a choice of systems. I like Red's idea, but have never tried it myself. Just make sure you got all of the restore disks. Some companies load the restore software on to a partition on the harddrive. Great place to have it in a disk crash.

As others have stated, my advice is to stay away from both Vista and Office 2007, until the bugs are killed. Besides from what I have seen Vista will likely be repaced with another system in the very near future.

Keep it simple and however you do it install XP. You can't install it over Vista. You have to wipe the HD clean. Reformat it. XP Home has been bullet proof for me over several years with a handfull of freeze ups attributed to a zillion things open at once multi-tasking.

But you MUST run clean up utilities no matter what OS your run. Clean the browser cache or your machine will drag ass. Run Disc cleanup and defrag weekly. I use a couple freeware utilities that can do a bit more also.

DO NOT discount the value of having a 2nd HD on your PC. I have for many years. You can easily back things up or out lesser used programs there to keep C drive lean and mean. It is dead simple on a new machine to put the old HD in as drive D slave and simply drag files to new locations instead of endless copying to move them. Also you can install a different OS on the other drive if you have any issues with certain programs not running on a later OS. At boot up you can usually key into the boot menu and choose the which HD you want to boot with. Wanna run Vista and Windows 98? Knock yourself out.

Lots of good ideas here - but I sure can tell the young guys that grew up with computers from the frosted top seasoned folk.

I really think I could build a decent home brew unit myself - at least the desk top. Lap tops?? Not so sure but am going to look into both before I jump in for the big bucks pre made. Never thought about EvilBay for a dead lap top and I even have a listing there now!!

Originally Posted by DennyW

Dave, it's really not hard to build one. Look at me. 1999 was the first time I turned one on, and the blue screen made me cuss.

I built my son's dual core gaming computer for 530.00. The like ones all done were 13-1500.00. You just have to decide what you want it to do first. Some boards are not expandable. There you have to be careful. The low priced ones new, are usually that way. I have built mine also. Not as bold as my son's, because I do not game like him. I have 450.00 in mine. That's new case, new board, pen 4 processor, 3 hard drives. (I just got a 500 gig western digital, new, for 106.50) for the added pictures. I run the case air tight. I use 2 120 x 1" fans on the side, with filters. 2 80 fans on the back for exhaust. No dust, and runs really cool.

I guess I'd best start figuring out if this is the way to go - and quite frankly, think it is. BUT, I still have to make my wife happy as well so she can do her HR thing occasionally at home. The separate monster hard drive for pictures intrigues me as well as it is eating my current one, even with putting many on CDs.

I'll spec out a set of components and run by you via PM for a sanity check - any problem with that?

I started building my own in 1985 with off the shelf hardware. At that time you could build for a lot less than you could buy. In many ways you still can if you do enough research and have reliable deep discount places to shop. Last year I was going to build a new pc, and I wanted a core 2 duo system with ram expansion capability up to 8 gb and a large 320 - 500 gb hd plus two dvd burners. After pricing the parts I found that I could buy a ready built system for less than it was going to cost me. (I paid $599, couldn't build for that price). Not as much self satisfaction, but it got me to where I wanted to be, cheap. This isn't always the case, but like I said if you do the research, it can happen.

The most important thing is the motherboard, and that is where all of research time should be spent. There are so many variables it's almost mind boggling. And needless to say, it is very difficult to find a motherboard at a reasonable price with all the bells and whistles that your heart desires. One good thing about building versus buying is that you won't end up with a proprietary system where many of the additional or replacement parts have to purchased from the OEM. I hate those bastards.

In any case, good systems can be had for under $500 or you can spend $3500 if that is what you desire. As for a laptop, I would never consider building one. The best rugged ones are Panasonic, but they are pricey. Toshiba's are the most reliable, but Dell is a close follower. With Dell you can pick and choose your components, which is a good thing.

The most reliable systems, desktop or laptops, are Apples, but they are not big sellers in the business world.

I just want to participate so I get updates on what you folks find/learn. I have a four year old Toshiba Satellite laptop which was the fastest CPU I could find then at 3.01 GHz as a monoprocessor. I use it for the Internet, WORD for writing the book and number-crunching quantum Chemistry calculations. I have run into overheating on long runs but I have a RubberMaid lap unit that I cut holes in under the PC and that helps cooling. I am worrying over a replacement unit and I am disappointed that the duo core CPUs are slower than my mono-3.01 GHz although I do see that running calculations does conflict with Internet action. I think I will look into a local company here in Virginia that makes souped up game PCs and get something fast for calculations; I don't care about super game graphics as long as I can draw still pictures. I use the laptop like a desktop but sitting in my living room recliner with the TV on in the background. The only advantage of the laptop is when I have to travel so I can take my calculations and results somewhere. I dropped a previous laptop on a gravel driveway and lost some data from the hard drive but it still ran. That means maybe the laptops are a bit sturdier in some ways. My wife has a PC which was one of the last available monoprocessor Pentiums but with VISTA. In our effort to put our main program on a CD in the book we found our program (Visual Basic V5 + WATCOM f77 code) would run on Windows 98, Windows Millennium, Windows XP Home and Windows XP Pro but choked on WINDOWS Vista (at first). Then we found that VISTA is downward compatible to a large extent if you go to the trouble to release a LOT of permissions, so that we now can run our same program(s) on VISTA as well, but it is more complicated to use VISTA. My preliminary interpretation is that VISTA has too many security restrictions and that makes it more complicated. I am interested to learn what you folks find/recommend and inparticular I am interested in the top speed in floating point arithmetic. For the nostalgia buffs with Commodore 64s we gave ours away long ago but I do have (somewhere) a Sinclair with the extra 16K memory, wow!

Don Shillady
Retired Scioentist/teen rodder