Looking for a "NEW" computer? [Archive]

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paularoid

10-11-2007, 10:30 AM

From today's issue of PC Mechanics PC Daily Tips comes this:

Looking For A “New” Computer?
http://www.pcdailytips.com/2007/10/10/looking-for-a-new-computer/

If you, or someone you know, is in the market for a new computer, but doesn’t have a need or want for the latest and greatest, then take a look at Dell Outlet.
http://outlet.dell.com/

Dell Outlet is primarily comprised of systems returned by customers because the computer had cosmetic damage (”dent and ding”), there was a defective part which was fixed (refurbished) or the customer just didn’t want the system. Regardless, you can get some great systems, both desktop and laptop at really great prices. I have personally seen 2 “dent and ding” models people purchased and I couldn’t see where the damage was and the system ran great.

The drawback to purchasing through Dell Outlet, is since the systems are already assembled you cannot fully customize the options on it. However, they do come with a full warranty.

aabram

10-11-2007, 11:24 AM

Amy in Vermont

10-11-2007, 02:08 PM

I have bought, and helped several folks buy, both laptops and desktop throught the Dell Outlet for several years.

When I do my search for what's availabe, I exclude Refurbished and Off lease machines. That leaves me with Scratch and dents, and Previously Ordered New ( ordered by someone, or a business, and never delivered.)

One can specify several aspects in doing the searches, and many of the machines are nice, high end, current models. Good deals can be had by all!

DaveM

10-11-2007, 03:10 PM

I've bought a couple of "refurbished" HPs over the years. Assuming, as you say, that one does not need the latest and greatest, they're not bad, and the discounts are considerable. My current machine must have been at the end of the production line or some such--it is marked on the front as having a Pentium 4, but actually runs under a dual-core Athlon at a pretty decent speed. Not bad at all for $509.

AceOn6

10-11-2007, 03:42 PM

Apple has a similar area. We've bought several machines there and have been very happy.

paularoid

10-11-2007, 11:41 PM

Paul, I'm starting into decline that my baby will ever work properly again. It's cutting out now and hasn't worked since Sunday, and I know it still needs attention and something new, but precisely what is anybody's guess :( I still need help with it.

Annabel
Didn't you just get that back from repairs? If you did and the "repaired" system is the one that's in decline, I would suggest that you start looking elsewhere for future maintenance and repair procedures.

If the machine truly is "into decline" and the folks can't seem to fix it then it may be time to start shopping around for a new(er) system. If you've still got a good hard drive on the system that's "into decline" then you should be able to get a new(er) system and hook up the old hard drive as a slave and shoot all the data over to the new one. Other options are available as well. That's just -one- scenario. Other scenarios are to leave both hard drives hooked up, hook the old one up as master and have the new one as slave, etc. etc. etc. Seriously though I'd start looking around for somebody else to look after your system since these folks can't seem to get it straight or they're not being straight with you because they aren't telling you everything.

When I work on a system if I can't fix it then there's no charge or your money back. I'll be straight up with the person and tell them it's beyond my capabilities. I -also- tell them where to go to get it fixed as an alternative (even though it most assuredly costs more). I've had to do that more and more recently because of WinXP issues. I keep telling people that I'm a "hardware" person and not a software person and WinXP problems are software. I don't "do" software because I can't guarantee it. It's too unpredictable. I can go right down to individual chip and trace diagnoses but when it comes to software, all bets are off.

aabram

10-12-2007, 09:54 AM

Didn't you just get that back from repairs? If you did and the "repaired" system is the one that's in decline, I would suggest that you start looking elsewhere for future maintenance and repair procedures.

If the machine truly is "into decline" and the folks can't seem to fix it then it may be time to start shopping around for a new(er) system. If you've still got a good hard drive on the system that's "into decline" then you should be able to get a new(er) system and hook up the old hard drive as a slave and shoot all the data over to the new one. Other options are available as well. That's just -one- scenario. Other scenarios are to leave both hard drives hooked up, hook the old one up as master and have the new one as slave, etc. etc. etc. Seriously though I'd start looking around for somebody else to look after your system since these folks can't seem to get it straight or they're not being straight with you because they aren't telling you everything.

When I work on a system if I can't fix it then there's no charge or your money back. I'll be straight up with the person and tell them it's beyond my capabilities. I -also- tell them where to go to get it fixed as an alternative (even though it most assuredly costs more). I've had to do that more and more recently because of WinXP issues. I keep telling people that I'm a "hardware" person and not a software person and WinXP problems are software. I don't "do" software because I can't guarantee it. It's too unpredictable. I can go right down to individual chip and trace diagnoses but when it comes to software, all bets are off.

Paul, it's something else now. The symptoms were showing before it died the last time. I shall take it back to the repairer and hope he can help me with it, because I don't want to lose the music on it. 40G Hard Drive is/was a good hard drive, although I know they're alot bigger now. I'm moving with the times but only slowly.... :p

Annabel

paularoid

10-12-2007, 01:09 PM

Paul, it's something else now. <snip> 40G Hard Drive is/was a good hard drive, although I know they're alot bigger now. I'm moving with the times but only slowly.... :p

Annabel
Hey, don't take yourself to task about technology and moving slowly with the times. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using only(?) a 40G drive. The system I'm using (at the moment) is "only" sporting an AMD K6-2 cpu and "only" running at 100mhz and "only" using 64M of RAM. :eek: It works great... albeit a little slow but it works just fine. My main, "play" machine is running with a full gig of RAM at 512mhz and two hard drives of 30G and 400G. Strangely enough I find myself using the lesser capable machine more. I've even still got an old floppy-only laptop around running at 10mhz on an old 8086 cpu along with a slough of other older machines and they all work just fine. The -only- thing that limits them is the operating system and the programs (or lack thereof) that they can run.

aabram

10-13-2007, 10:45 AM

Hey, don't take yourself to task about technology and moving slowly with the times. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using only(?) a 40G drive. The system I'm using (at the moment) is "only" sporting an AMD K6-2 cpu and "only" running at 100mhz and "only" using 64M of RAM. :eek: It works great... albeit a little slow but it works just fine. My main, "play" machine is running with a full gig of RAM at 512mhz and two hard drives of 30G and 400G. Strangely enough I find myself using the lesser capable machine more. I've even still got an old floppy-only laptop around running at 10mhz on an old 8086 cpu along with a slough of other older machines and they all work just fine. The -only- thing that limits them is the operating system and the programs (or lack thereof) that they can run.

:eek: floppies???? Those keep falling to bits on me!!!!!
Anyway it's going back in next week, and we shall see what's what with it.

Annabel

paularoid

10-13-2007, 02:47 PM

:eek: floppies???? Those keep falling to bits on me!!!!!
Anyway it's going back in next week, and we shall see what's what with it.

Annabel
:D Yes, floppies.

My first system was an old CP/M Kaypro with a single 5 1/4" floppy that got hotrodded up to two 5 1/4" floppy drives. Back in those days the speed of a system wasn't measured in mhz (megahertz) but was instead measured in khz (kilohertz). That was a LONG time ago (in computer terms). One of my prize possesions shortly after was a CP/M machine that had a 300 baud modem, a color monitor, and a 10M HD. At the time, that was the greatest thing since toilet paper! :D

FYI, "CP/M" was the operating system that DOS in whatever form CAME from. It's the predecessor of DOS, whether it was IBMDOS, PCDOS, MSDOS, DRDOS, etc. etc. "DRDOS" was/is Digital Research Disk Operating System and CP/M was mainly a Digital Research product.

DaveM

10-13-2007, 04:01 PM

I can remember my father getting a computer for his office, the dreaded "IBM Compatible" which really wasn't, but it ran the most common business packages. As I recall, he laid out about $200 extra for the "big" 20 megabyte hard drive as opposed to the standard 10 megabyte model. Yep, it took 5 1/4" disks. Single Density, too.

aabram

10-14-2007, 09:25 AM

:D Yes, floppies.

My first system was an old CP/M Kaypro with a single 5 1/4" floppy that got hotrodded up to two 5 1/4" floppy drives. Back in those days the speed of a system wasn't measured in mhz (megahertz) but was instead measured in khz (kilohertz). That was a LONG time ago (in computer terms). One of my prize possesions shortly after was a CP/M machine that had a 300 baud modem, a color monitor, and a 10M HD. At the time, that was the greatest thing since toilet paper! :D

FYI, "CP/M" was the operating system that DOS in whatever form CAME from. It's the predecessor of DOS, whether it was IBMDOS, PCDOS, MSDOS, DRDOS, etc. etc. "DRDOS" was/is Digital Research Disk Operating System and CP/M was mainly a Digital Research product.

Sorry Paul :confused: I'm lost!!!!! :confused:

Annabel

DaveM

10-14-2007, 04:46 PM

When Commodore came out with the C128 in, I think, 1985, they set out to make it "a computer for all time" by allowing it to run both Commodore software AND CP/M ("Control Program for Microcomputers"). That went over like a lead balloon, as you may imagine. Though I did enjoy mine for a number of years. Back when people used computers for things other than the Internet, it was actually a pretty decent word processor. And it had more display colors and higher resolution than the "IBM compatibles" of the time.

Really lame as a flight simulator though, sigh....

Amy in Vermont

10-14-2007, 06:18 PM

My very first computer, given to me in 1982, was an Apple II+. My father's company had purchased it with the hopes of using it in their acoustical engineering department. However, there was no software available, and none of them were programmers, so it was useless to them.

I had taken a course in Basic, and was able to write simple programs to do statistical calculations for my grad school work to run on it.

It had a single 5.25 floppy that one booted from to load the OS into RAM. You could then take out that disk and put in another to save your work to. It had a 9 inch B&W monitor, no mouse ( it did have a pair of game controller paddles), and a thermal printer that used rolls of special paper.

I added a 300 baud modem card to it and was able to dial in to the main frame at the university and use the statistical package SPSS that was available. I could not use their word processor, Word Star, because the Apple II keyboard did not have upper and lower case. Word Star could compensate for this if you sent an "up arrow" before the letter you wanted to capitalize, but the Apple keyboard didn't have one of those either!

It was a fun little machine, and I honed my simple programming skills quite a bit, even writing a program to make it play "Mary Had a Little Lamb", and one to display randome dots on the screen, much like the "Starfield Simulation" screen savers that now come with Windows.

paularoid

10-14-2007, 06:36 PM

Sorry Paul :confused: I'm lost!!!!! :confused:

Annabel
Well..... this -is- known at the "Geek-O-Rama" forum afterall. :p

aabram

10-15-2007, 09:56 AM

Well..... this -is- known at the "Geek-O-Rama" forum afterall. :p

And I'm brain-dead compared to all of you lot :p

RedjackRyan

10-15-2007, 11:25 AM