Computer Buying Advice

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longarm said:
So how do you get the company to send you the backup disc,
will they send them if you ask or must you buy?
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Depends on the company, and "times change."

Just a few years ago, a guy I was tutoring to get his amateur radio license had the typical load 'o crap, had punched every button that says "you need this" and downloaded every stupid doo dad that people emailed him, until it would barely run

It was still under (extended) warranty. I called Dell, fed 'em all the answers they wanted, and here comes a package of about 6 CD/ DVDs, for Winhosed, burner software, the works, whatever was on the machine.

In the "good old days" you could actually buy a machine that CAME with backup


Now don't get me wrong---most? all? machines have a "run it once" program in the machine that will burn you backup disks, BUT these are "home burned" and I really don't trust 'em. I want FACTORY disks.

All it takes is ONE machine, NO disks, and there you sit, a dead hard drive..................

Now there IS other ways around this in SOME cases

If you can scare up the proper edition of Winhozed fer cheap, IE borrow a friends and burn a copy, you can reload Windoze with the product key on the machine, BUT

The last two desktops I've had were PAPER stickers on the bottom of the machine and became unreadable in short order, so you want to be sure and write down the product key, like on a sticker on the top of the keyboard

And to pull off th above, you must have the "just right" version of Winhored. You cannot use a "retail" or an "upgrade" version with an "OEM" product key, and it matters whether it's home, pro, whatever.

AND that doesn't take care of your office, photo, other software that may have come with the machine originally.

SO, we're back where we started -- you want factory backup disks for your machine.
 
I bought my HP new, when I had problems with it, I had to call
their service in India, they did get it fixed but I had a terrible time
understanding their english.
 
OwdKasd said:
Lenovo(IBM) Thinkpad! Think Pads are business grade machines and Kick A$$. The stuff you get at best buy is mostly lower grade consumer stuff. If you musy have a Desktop Vs. Laptop then Lenovo is still the way to go. I know you'll get a ton of opinions on this but Mine is the only right one.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with OwdKasd. I am on my Thinkpad right now. Have had other brands and this one is the best. Mine is now 4-5 years old and I should really by a new one, but this one just keeps on ticking!
 
longarm said:
I bought my HP new, when I had problems with it, I had to call
their service in India, they did get it fixed but I had a terrible time
understanding their english.
Click to expand...

When I was going to buy a new one, and ended up with this POS Asus, I actually called HP and went through about 6 people attempting to find out if there backup disks were available, and if so for how much. They could NOT even answer that simple question. The 6 of them must have asked me at least 20 times "what is the model of your machine?"

So I patiently (a stretch for me) explained I had not BOUGHT one yet, and if "you can't answer this I won't be, either"
 
Might try Dell or HP SCRATCH AND DENT some pretty good buys there. My son buys computers for county from dell. I got a pc for my buddy that does everything he wants to do, not a gammer. 300.00 to his door
Moe
 
Went through the bs 12 years ago, actually got sent 5 HP comuters under warranty, tried compac- crap. fead up, and bought parts to build my own- worked great. Less than 800, including a new Windows 2000 pro, gawg, I miss that OS. Built 10 more for people, they loved them.

Problem is, so much BS loaded into factory OS.This computer; amd 3.1 or so, tetra Hard drive, mega ram, dvd burn, usb ports out the wango, media cards reader, sound and vid on mobo, windows 7 ; $800, Guy at shop, said, you building a big one here, from parts on my counter, I will build and install all your old drives for $100. Shazzam, Sgt Carter.
 
Sounds like its buy one and hope for the best.
My butt hurts just thinking about it.
 
Most all computers are built with parts made by one of several larger companies. So, all computers are basically the same. I've owned a Gateway desktop, HP Desktop, built my own desktop, owned HP laptops, dell laptops, Compaq laptops, Acer laptops and played with tons more. I've used linux distros from Mandrake, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Fedora (same as red hat), gentoo and many more. They're good OSs, but aren't completely user friendly.

If you're set on getting a PC and not a Mac, most any will do what you're looking for which is just an online machine. You don't need to spend tons of money on a fancy machine with upgraded graphics, sound, processor, memory etc. If you go with a Windows machine, Vista is crap. You'll be better using Win7, or XP.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Lenovo+...&skuId=4603017&st=Computer_Systems&cp=1&lp=13

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dell+-+...itor/2976125.p?id=1218368603868&skuId=2976125

$560 for the above and you'd be good to go for several years.

I'd probably go with this 24" monitor from tigerdirect.com
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1961935&CatId=4420

and this desktop

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2075515&CatId=5138

for $500 shipped with no tax.

Good luck.
 
67Dart273 said:
So do a lot of other machines, probably most

WHAT DO YOU DO when the hard drive dies?

That's why you need the disks. If more people would "raise hell" they would be provided with the machine --just like they used to be.
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If your hard drive dies, You're screwed anyway. :banghead: And Trust me Lenovo will come to your home and get it up and running same or next business day. Lenovo is still the Business machine of choice. Plus It's simple to burn the Backup from the Hard drive Partition and have backup Disc if you really want one.
 
Just a thought. If you're really on a tight budget, You can get great deals on used Desktops. Like at Goodwill. Or through Craigslist. Even a 2-3 year old Machine will do everything 90% people need it to.
 
Not trying to go too cheap, just want the most bang for my buck.
I've got $650.00 in the budget for a CPU and monitor.
I was most worried about the prosseser, ram, board qaulity/expandabilty.
I can add to it later, I just was trying for intel i5 or similiar as that seems to
be the middle benchmark for home units.
Thank for the Suggestions!
Please keep them coming

This was the one I was looking at before, It was reasonably priced
and has some extras,, A little afraid to buy it now after talking
to you guys.

http://deals.bestbuy.com/desktops+a.../gateway++desktop++8gb+memory++1tb+hard+drive
 
OwdKasd said:
If your hard drive dies, You're screwed anyway..
Click to expand...

.................Uh....................NO, you are not "screwed anyway."

1 You buy a new hard drive at your choice of "places to get stuff."

2 You pop the new drive into the machine

3 You get out your FACTORY backup disks and recover the system!!!

I don't know what world you live in, I don't know of a world where most of us can pay Lenovo to "come to my house." For that money, might just as well buy a new machine.
 
This was the best comment so far and I agree, although there will be no support for win xp after 2012 it will be sunset, and you can't use explorer 9 on it either, but there are lots of other browser's out there.
BKBOND12: "If you're set on getting a PC and not a Mac, most any will do what you're looking for which is just an online machine. You don't need to spend tons of money on a fancy machine with upgraded graphics, sound, processor, memory etc. If you go with a Windows machine, Vista is crap. You'll be better using Win7, or XP."

Also just my .02, while Macs offer alot of good features, inside they are the same as all pc's, since they have gotten away form the Power pc chips they now use x86/64 Intel chips they are now susceptable to the same issues and virues as all pc's, but they are THE BEST option still for graphics, video editing, sound editing, those are all easier and faster on a MAC, but Macs are still pricey, and for just surfing the internet I can;t see why you need to spend $$$.
For a PC do not fall into the PAY for an antivirus, all you need is the microsoft security essentials, (FREE) and get some other malware software such as Malware bytes, or spybot, both have free versions.
 
longarm said:
Not trying to go too cheap, just want the most bang for my buck.
I've got $650.00 in the budget for a CPU and monitor.
I was most worried about the prosseser, ram, board qaulity/expandabilty.
I can add to it later, I just was trying for intel i5 or similiar as that seems to
be the middle benchmark for home units.
Thank for the Suggestions!
Please keep them coming

This was the one I was looking at before, It was reasonably priced
and has some extras,, A little afraid to buy it now after talking
to you guys.

http://deals.bestbuy.com/desktops+a.../gateway++desktop++8gb+memory++1tb+hard+drive
Click to expand...
Nothing wrong with that pc, if the extended warranty is not too $$ I would prolly get it since stuff happens, Gateway is owned by Acer which also owns Emachines, like most have said inside they are pretty much all the same, you have to be comfortable with YOUR purchase, so hows YOUR Best Buy?? our store here in Green Bay SUCKS, if you have had good experiance with your best buy then your ok, are there any independant pc stores near you?? I worked for Cyber Works for 10 years they custom built ALL there pc's AND had 3 year warrantee on all their systems, if you go custom built you will prolly pay about $100.00 more, but you will know exactly what is in it for parts and they are much more easier to upgrade down the road.
 
Stay as far away from dell as you can I have had four that all conveniently crash and have major hardware issues right after the warranty runs out and two more that liked to crash with hardware errors right after the waranty but I ignored them and after I fdisked and installed a fresh copy of windows they were fine so to me it feels that Dell codes them to crash after so many months so you send them back in. Normally I would say I just had a bad apple but six computers i dont think so.

Hp/compaq are decent for the money I had to send mine in for a repair and it was an easy process.

I have no experience with gateway.

Asus makes good motherboards but computers eh they are decent.

The best bang for your buck if your able is to surf places like tigerdirect for barebones kits and assemble them yourself. Mine has been running solidly for three years now without a single failure and it was a good pc when I bought it.
 
Oh, that budget. Go to walmart; buy a $300+ laptop, and a 17" monitor for $170. Sound sucks. But 500 gig drive.
 
2 months ago, I bought a walmart Toshiba, 500 gig, 3 ram, windows 7, 3.1 cpu, 15" screen. hooked old mouse and 17" screen to it, good. I just can't get anything plugged into sound port to work; may be my old crap.
 
67Dart273 said:
.................Uh....................NO, you are not "screwed anyway."

1 You buy a new hard drive at your choice of "places to get stuff."

2 You pop the new drive into the machine

3 You get out your FACTORY backup disks and recover the system!!!

I don't know what world you live in, I don't know of a world where most of us can pay Lenovo to "come to my house." For that money, might just as well buy a new machine.
Click to expand...
On-site warranty is only around $50 And like I said you burn the discs when you first get it. But this silly bickering of ours isn't helping the OP at all with his decision. :smile: I'd rather spend a bit more up front than spend hours dealing with HP Gateway etc... I've just heard too many horror stories about them.
 
I like my ASUS laptop. I've had a Sony Vaio desktop and it has lasted 11 yrs. It still works fine.
 
mullinax95 said:
I like my ASUS laptop. I've had a Sony Vaio desktop and it has lasted 11 yrs. It still works fine.
Click to expand...
I used to build machines with nothing but Asus Mother boards. Great stuff! The thing is that a lot of Best Buy's stuff is cheap these days. I promise you going up to business class is worth every penny. I just have had such great great success with Lenovo(IBM). This is the age old scenario of "You get what you pay for"
 
412 Stroker said:
This was the best comment so far and I agree, although there will be no support for win xp after 2012 it will be sunset, and you can't use explorer 9 on it either, but there are lots of other browser's out there.
BKBOND12: "If you're set on getting a PC and not a Mac, most any will do what you're looking for which is just an online machine. You don't need to spend tons of money on a fancy machine with upgraded graphics, sound, processor, memory etc. If you go with a Windows machine, Vista is crap. You'll be better using Win7, or XP."

Also just my .02, while Macs offer alot of good features, inside they are the same as all pc's, since they have gotten away form the Power pc chips they now use x86/64 Intel chips they are now susceptable to the same issues and virues as all pc's, but they are THE BEST option still for graphics, video editing, sound editing, those are all easier and faster on a MAC, but Macs are still pricey, and for just surfing the internet I can;t see why you need to spend $$$.
For a PC do not fall into the PAY for an antivirus, all you need is the microsoft security essentials, (FREE) and get some other malware software such as Malware bytes, or spybot, both have free versions.
Click to expand...


Thanks. As far as browser support, I use Mozilla Firefox, but Google Chrome is pretty good too. I'm not a big fan of explorer. Antivirus isn't really a huge necessity if you stay away from **** sites and p2p downloading. With that said, I stay away from those sites and still run an AV (Bitdefender...best IMO).

The systems now days are made cheap, but for what he wants to use it for, a cheap system with a backup external hdd will be his best choice. Just regularly backup your data on the external and the $300 system will be fine.
 
Oh, btw....it's prolly just your power supply that's fried, but it could be the motherboard and processor. Do you have access to a PS that you could use for testing purposes?


What does your computer do when you try to power it up? Does it do anything? Post up some specs of the computer and I can give you some prices on repair...prolly put a new mobo, and ps in for under $200.
 
Buy an Imac. Take it home, plug it in.

Right now I am on a 7 year old Imac. I turn it on, turn it off, it always works perfectly.
 
Thank you for all the advice!
I bought the Gateway in the link from BestBuy.
My thinking is I use it mostly for surfing and pictures
and won't be taxing it abilities, if it lasts for a couple years
with minimal problems thats all I could ask for.
Time will tell and I need off this tiny laptop, too hard on
my old eyes.
Wish me luck :yawinkle:

Thanks again to all that responded.
 
1968FormulaS340 said:
Buy an Imac. Take it home, plug it in.

Right now I am on a 7 year old Imac. I turn it on, turn it off, it always works perfectly.
Click to expand...

Yup, born to Run. No if ands or butts about it.

Who on this Forum has a windows based machine that is 7 Years old running flawless like the first day you turned it on?? I say "None". Most likely you are on your 3rd or 4th windows based machine instead or you fight your computer on a daily basis.

MAC NATION
 
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