tower recommendations?

[rossid]

We may soon need to replace a seven-year old Gateway. It is SO slow to load FireFox and iTUnes, for example, so who knows when it will go

Just grabbed a link for a $560 HP as an example.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8773437&type=product&id=1203815923902

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core processor E2200
3GB DDR2 SDRAM
DL DVD±RW/CD-RW drive
LightScribe labeling (what does this mean?)
500GB hard drive
Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1

Add Vista Premium for $99? A friend who says you can just disable or not use features in Vista that are unimportant. Does that help it run better? Some of you mention XP and I don't have the knowhow to change operating systems.

We'll use our current 17 inch Gateway flat panel and HP 1610 printer/scanner/copier (until it dies - the display is going bad).

Thoughts?

[danbos]

Lightscribe labeling means your computer can "print" labels onto CDs that you burn. I am now running Vista home premium on my new HP laptop, and it seems to be running fine for me, and I have 2 GB of RAM, so I would think you would be fine with that.

[rossid]

They explained light scribe when I was in today...

There must be an error. It has premium so premium can't cost another $99. Maybe it is an upgrade to ultimate.

[danbos]

They explained light scribe when I was in today...

There must be an error. It has premium so premium can't cost another $99. Maybe it is an upgrade to ultimate.

Yeah, I have premium, I have no idea what the difference is between it and ultimate, so I can't help you there.

[middletree]

We may soon need to replace a seven-year old Gateway. It is SO slow to load FireFox and iTUnes, for example, so who knows when it will go

Can't comment on that tower, as I build my own machines. But to this part of your post: a lot of machines get slower because of crud that accumulates on them. Sometimes, it's spyware put on by seemingly innocent programs. It's always scanning your hard drive and slows everything down. Then there's the fragmentation of discs.

A format of your hard drive would solve both problems, and has been known to speed up many a computer. Of course, back up your data and make sure you have drivers for all your hardware before you wipe out your HD.

[Sam!]

Most of the extra features in Ultimate are network-related. I have a Home Premium laptop for work, and it's fine - but it won't let me do a couple of things on the network I'd like to do. I'm not complaining, since it was donated to the school. Bottom line, for 95% of home users, Home Premium is an excellent choice. With the amount of horsepower on that particular machine, I wouldn't worry about XP. My laptop has a slower processor and less RAM than that HP, and it's very snappy with Vista.

I know you probably think a DVD recording drive is probably a useless extravagance, but the ability to back up huge amounts of data onto one disc is very useful, even if you never use the DVD-movie-writing function.

[The Unknown Gomer]

I can tell you what NOT to buy.

An eMachine. :mad: That's what we got for Mom, who was looking for something cheap and basic, and well, she definitely got cheap and basic. It took us (well, ME, since I'm the computer guru in the house) about three weekends tinkering with things before we stopped hating it. Documentation was scarce, and tech support from eMachines was even scarcer.

And a word of caution about lightscribe drives. They probably work fine for most folks, but we got one that came included on our new HP XP machine here last year, and after burning several dvds that played fine on that machine but not on any other DVD player in our office (and we've got several, of all different makes and models), we ended up having to yank that drive and install a new one before we'd get the HP to burn anything remotely user friendly anywhere else.

Other than that, if you ARE in the market for a new pre-built system, I've heard pretty good things about HP/Compaq (my laptop is a Compaq, and it works great), and I've been running the same Sony Vaio desktop PC for about the last 6 years, no issues with that one, ever. :cool:

[rossid]

Can't comment on that tower, as I build my own machines. But to this part of your post: a lot of machines get slower because of crud that accumulates on them. Sometimes, it's spyware put on by seemingly innocent programs. It's always scanning your hard drive and slows everything down. Then there's the fragmentation of discs.

A format of your hard drive would solve both problems, and has been known to speed up many a computer. Of course, back up your data and make sure you have drivers for all your hardware before you wipe out your HD.
Another reason to get an external hard drive. Suggestions?
I can tell you what NOT to buy.

An eMachine. :mad: That's what we got for Mom, who was looking for something cheap and basic, and well, she definitely got cheap and basic. It took us (well, ME, since I'm the computer guru in the house) about three weekends tinkering with things before we stopped hating it. Documentation was scarce, and tech support from eMachines was even scarcer.

And a word of caution about lightscribe drives. They probably work fine for most folks, but we got one that came included on our new HP XP machine here last year, and after burning several dvds that played fine on that machine but not on any other DVD player in our office (and we've got several, of all different makes and models), we ended up having to yank that drive and install a new one before we'd get the HP to burn anything remotely user friendly anywhere else.

Other than that, if you ARE in the market for a new pre-built system, I've heard pretty good things about HP/Compaq (my laptop is a Compaq, and it works great), and I've been running the same Sony Vaio desktop PC for about the last 6 years, no issues with that one, ever. :cool:
I was going to stay away from 'economy' stuff like Acer. eMachine is right around them in the food chain is my guess.

[The Unknown Gomer]

Another reason to get an external hard drive. Suggestions?

I was going to stay away from 'economy' stuff like Acer. eMachine is right around them in the food chain is my guess.

Plus they're also actually built by Gateway. :eek: Another reason to avoid them, I think. Had I known that eMachines and Gateway were linked, I would have suggest that Mom buy something else...

Re external drives, we have several Western Digital USB connected external drives here at the office. They're nice because they're self powered, no bulky wallwarts to try to plug into our overstuffed outlets, and seem to work consistantly well.

[mindyhere]

I think the desktop you listed sounds like a good one for the price. Plety of Ram and HD space.

My laptop has lightscribe which is really neat - but I've only burned 2 covers with it.

I agree with Sam - DVD holds so much more space, and is great for backing up.

[middletree]

Another reason to get an external hard drive. Suggestions?
Mine is made by Buffalo. Very good drive, but the software that came with it bites.

[Sam!]

mmm...buffalo wings...

[mindyhere]

I had a pocketec that I loved. Nice and slim, and I used it every day for years. Even dropped it a few times, and still worked like a champ.

Here's the website:

http://www.pocketec.net/

[rossid]

Format seems to be a bit advanced for me. I don't think we have all of the drivers, my guess is OS software is a driver...

[rossid]

We made a purchase so the countdown has started. Moving from out old Intel to an AMD.

Soon I will be posting from this new machine:

AMD LIVE! Smarter Digital Entertainment
AMD Phenom™ triple-core processor 8400
3GB DDR2 SDRAM
DL DVD±RW/CD-RW drive
LightScribe labeling
640GB hard drive capacity
Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1

Add ons:
MS Office Home and Student 2007
Webroot Spy Sweeper with AntiVirus
Dynex 3.5" hard drive enclosure


Supposedly Vista's firewall is good.
Not sure if we will transfer much from our old hard drive so who knows if we'll keep the enclosure. Of course we cannot just TOSS the old computer. There could be personal stuff on that hard drive.

I'm thinking we'll have one Vista profile for the family. I should not need one of my own, which I have had on XP, and which was password protected. My 16-year old son gets his own profile but my wife and I have to have his password. None of his old music gets transferred if it is not stuff he has purchaed. He can load no illegal music like he has been - pray this gets communicated gently and he does not put up a fight.

[mindyhere]

How is the new computer?

[rossid]

The one where my 16-year old took out the fan yesterday afternoon? He's upset over the rules so he opened our BRAND NEW COMPUTER!!! We are ticked but he is lucky as it seems he has put it back in working order. He had put a note on the power button that it might not be a good idea to turn it on without a fan. You see he is apparently working through some high school sophomore/junior growing pains.

Tonite my wife gave him internet access, through the filter, and he does not have to ask us to sign on each time. Yes that was a bit strict but we were taking baby steps. What he really wants is administrator privileges. He would've gotten them if he hadn't freaked out but now who knows.

I did not have a chance to put this on P & P. Had a bunch of folks praying for the situation.

Oh, if he lives, and does not take the whole thing apart, it should be great.

But I'm out of town for a day and a half and trusting God.

Thanks

;)

[The Unknown Gomer]

The one where my 16-year old took out the fan yesterday afternoon? He's upset over the rules so he opened our BRAND NEW COMPUTER!!!

Aaaagh. :eek: There goes the factory warranty!

I always hate to break the tape on the back of the machine that shows you opened it up, in case the PC has to go back for any reason. But with Mom's I didn't have a choice, there was no other way to add the wireless card from the old PC to the new one without cracking to case open. And no wireless card = no internet or email. So that had to be one of the first things I did to it.

You might want to run the PC Decrappifier on the new machine, if there's a bunch of stuff on there you know you'll never use, it'll automatically uninstall any crapware it recognizes based on what you tell it to remove. It won't get EVERYTHING, but it did a nice job of getting rid of the majority of the crapware on my mom's PC. And then everything else, like Norton, which kept trying to set itself up everytime she booted up, we just manually uninstalled ourselves. Worked great. :)

[mindyhere]

You might want to run the PC Decrappifier on the new machine...

Can't find that option on my computer ... ;)

[rossid]

I'm unstalling Norton now...


Defrag?

[Jason]

Defrag?

What about it?

[rossid]

By decrappify did she mean defrag? Even on a new pc?

[The Unknown Gomer]

No, I actually meant the program PC Decrapifier (love that name, I mentioned it to my boss one time, and she cracked up :D.). You can download it here (http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/).

It just gets rid of a lot (but not all of) of the junk programs (aka "crapware") that come pre-installed on new computers these days, stuff that you KNOW you'll never use, and is just taking up hard drive space.

You just download it, run it, tell it which of the programs on their list that they show as being on your system that you want it to uninstall, and let er rip. It doesn't get rid of EVERYTHING, some of the stuff will manually need to be uninstalled. But it does get rid of a lot, automatically.

Depending on how much you get rid of, THEN a defrag might not be a bad idea. :)

[mindyhere]

Oh geesh - you were for real on that.

:P

That's funny that there's a pgm out there with that name.

[rossid]

Done - crap gone - thanks!

:D

[rossid]

So now for about $50 we could have this week's 'package' deal. A 17" monitor and printer. Well since it is not an all-in-one (print/scan/copy) and we have a good monitor the deal was not made. :(

[The Unknown Gomer]

It's hard to get a decent deal on JUST the tower, I know Mom and I looked for many weeks before someone finally had one on sale; most of the time they come with printers (unneeded, we have two), and monitors (she just bought a new one a year or so ago, so didn't need that either).

If you're in the market for a whole package deal though, you can find some really nice deals on a whole system most weeks.

(oh, and nice to see that the decrappification of your new PC appears to have gone well. ;) I probably need to run that on MY computer, even as old as it is. I'm sure there some stuff that Sony pre-installed on here that I never use that I've never gotten around to hunting down and killing that would free up some much needed space.)

[rossid]

It was $150. Where were my math skills the last 24 hours?