New Computer

[catchaserguns]

my old machine died on me and I'm thinking of getting a Dell. I saw a refurbished dell Optiplex 520GX with 750g on its HD and 4g of Ram for a killer price. I would like some advice and possible warnings so I can make an informed decision.

[AlumiuN]

Be ready to have your eardrums blown out by the jet engine cooling. :D

[Juanca]

will you run it on win xp or vista? if on win xp no need 4gb of ram...

[angry axe]

also, if it is vista (99% sure it is) be careful if you are going to upgrading to xp because sometimes it forfeits the warranty/guarantee or whatever you call it

[AlumiuN]

also, if it is vista (99% sure it is) be careful if you are going to upgrading to xp because sometimes it forfeits the warranty/guarantee or whatever you call it

Definitely. DEFINITELY.

[Wicky]

Dell is worse than crappy, sorry but Dell is charging 50% of the value for it's 5 year warranty. I'd rather ask a friend to build a PC from components if you know somebody nerdy enough.

[Juanca]

Dell is worse than crappy, sorry but Dell is charging 50% of the value for it's 5 year warranty. I'd rather ask a friend to build a PC from components if you know somebody nerdy enough.

No need of a nerdy it is very easy to build it and all the information (http://www.google.co.in/search?q=build+your+own+pc&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a) with screenshots and all is posted on the internet.

[Xhumed]

my old machine died on me and I'm thinking of getting a Dell. I saw a refurbished dell Optiplex 520GX with 750g on its HD and 4g of Ram for a killer price. I would like some advice and possible warnings so I can make an informed decision.

What's actually died on your PC?

As Juanca said it's not that difficult to build a PC and if your on a tight budget you might be able to keep the cost down by using some parts from your old PC even if it's only the case, CD/DVD drive and maybe power supply unit, I couldn't recommend the Dell as they are usually over priced for what you get and if you buy the components they should all come with at least a 12 month warranty which costs nothing.

An easy option is to buy a motherboard bundle that many companies put together, that's the motherboard, the CPU and often the RAM as well, that way you can be sure the components work together and if you have any problems you only have one company to deal with.
If you think you would like to build your own PC I would definitely say "Try it" you will learn a lot and you will save yourself money by being able to fix, build and upgrade your PC's in the future.

[Maxor127]

I throw my vote in for building a PC too. It can feel overwhelming, but it's not that hard. You just have to research to pick the right parts, but it's worth it because your computer will probably run better than anything you could buy pre-built for twice as much. It's like putting together legos and the instructions that come with the parts is all you'll need. The part that usually scares me is attaching the heatsink. The AMD heatsinks I had to attach always felt like the latch was going to snap, and the Intel heatsink I attached for my new computer felt like it was going to snap the motherboard, but it all worked out. The worst thing that can happen is you'll end up with a faulty component, and if you're new to building, that can be scary and frustrating.

[catchaserguns]

Well, I'm too much a dumbbass to build my own so I went for what I thought was a good deal. Its a dell GX 520 with a Intel Pentium 4 processor 3.0 ghz with 4G of DDR2 RAM with a HD of 1 terabyte. it also has a Wifi card. I also upgraded the video card to a Nvidea GeForce 6200. and it was all for $485 and its free shipping. Please don't crucify me too bad.

[Japo]

I just bought a Dell too and found it very competitive price-wise. I compared with other possibilities, including building a computer from components, but getting the same machine that way was much more expensive actually, at least with high-end components. If I had wanted just something to browse the web, read email and write documents I might have chosen different, there are great deals in shops for low-powered machines, any manufacturer can make that and there's much competition.

Be ready to have your eardrums blown out by the jet engine cooling. :D

Yeah my father's Dell is noisy as Hell; but it's a Dimension 5150C (http://www.dellmania.co.kr/bbs/zboard.php?id=info_dimension&page=1&sn1=&divpage=1&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=4), a Pentium D enclosed in a tiny case, very difficult ventilation (and lousy mechanical design). However my new XPS is all but silent--it's huge though.

[Juanca]

well it is your decision and thats ok.
But you could have saved around 100 dollars buliding it and ordering the parts (i did a little search of all the components of the gx520 and thats what I found) or even better getting a better cpu... just for starters look at this price on a screen(http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=lcd+screen+19&cid=1836120612165530141&sa=title#ps-sellers) which is sometimes the costliest part...

BTw everywhere it says that it comes with win xp so you don't need 4gb of ram, I think win xp can only read up to 3 gb of ram (that is already a lot). are you thinking on runnig it on Vista or win7?


anyway, the way you did it is easier and you can "feel" more safe...
congrats :max:
what are you going to play now on that computer?:clap:

[Japo]

BTw everywhere it says that it comes with win xp so you don't need 4gb of ram, I think win xp can only read up to 3 gb of ram (that is already a lot). are you thinking on runnig it on Vista or win7?

It doesn't depend on XP or Vista, but on 32-bit or x64. Both XP and Vista x64 can address virtually unlimited memory, and both XP and Vista 32-bit address 4 GB (=2³² bytes). Of these 4 GB the default setting is reserve 2 GB for applications and the other 2 GB for kernel-mode processes. You can tweak this to 3 and 1, although I don't know if that's a good idea depending on what (my guess is that you're in the clear if it doesn't cause Windows to crash).

[Saccade]

I change my memory allocation, on PC, to be programmes3:1background if I need to use things like Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Illustrator and Photoshop, Office and FireFox at the same time.

If I use games, I set it the other way.

I haven't experienced any problems so far... I've never bought a PC ready made - always built them.

Only problem I have is power-supply and RAM.
It's hard to find a PSU that is affordable and has enough output and cables for everything you need now.
And I'm just stupid with RAM. I always get the one option that doesn't fit.

[Juanca]

It doesn't depend on XP or Vista, but on 32-bit or x64. Both XP and Vista x64 can address virtually unlimited memory, and both XP and Vista 32-bit address 4 GB (=2³² bytes). Of these 4 GB the default setting is reserve 2 GB for applications and the other 2 GB for kernel-mode processes. You can tweak this to 3 and 1, although I don't know if that's a good idea depending on what (my guess is that you're in the clear if it doesn't cause Windows to crash).


I was referring to this from the fifth horseman on an old thread about Doubler's new computer (http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=17075)
"
Quote:
2x1Gb DDR3 (or 4x1Gb)

The 32-bit version of Windows XP has a limitation of memory adressing space to 4GB. That is both RAM and pagefile combined, so if you get 4 GB of RAM the pagefile will have to go (and good riddance - it wears down your HDD faster).
It seems the OS won't detect full 4 GB of RAM anyway, so I suggest to draw the line at 3 GB (2x1 + 2x512). "

[Saccade]

That's odd... My RAM allocation is what it's supposed to be and my page-file's at 2046MB across all drives (that have the space).

I don't think I could run as many programmes at once if I didn't have my trusty old swapfile.
I hate having to save, close, open, load, change, close, open, load, decide it was better before, close, open, load, revert, save...

My apps desktop is littered with duplicates. I really should tidy it up.
And my games one... I've been lazy and written batch files for all my DosBox games so I can just open them.