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Joined: May 05, 2003 Posts: 7698 Location: Western Washington
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 12:26 am Post subject: Need Some Geek Advice/Opinions (low-end comp upgrades)
I'm upgrading a computer for a client...
The lower price the better, but <$300 is the goal (which should be more than enough). It's a Win98 machine that will be used for internet and photo sharing... he's a stereotypical "elderly" computer user.
All I need is the mobo/CPU/RAM. It's just a barebones upgrade, so he already has the HDD, PSU, Floppy, Optical drives, case, etc. Mobo should have onboard sound and video.
This is what I have selected, but it may be a little overkill for what he needs... I have no experience with Sempron processors, though... is it just worth it to push out a little extra for a Barton? Thoughts on components below?
Joined: May 02, 2003 Posts: 493 Location: Under your couch
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 5:28 am Post subject:
Sounds fine to me. I'd upgrade him to XP Pro SP2 just to avoid future problems with 98. Oh, you sure the old case/PSU will work with the new MB? _________________
Joined: May 05, 2003 Posts: 7698 Location: Western Washington
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 1:34 pm Post subject:
I already have that planned for Kaji. He gave me a $500 budget including all fees and labor and whatnot, so I decided to try and stick his components at no more than $300. I may give him WinXP Pro *whistles innocently*, but I haven't decided yet.
$500
-$100 service fee
-$300 parts
=$100 remaining for anything that may not work. I've got plenty of spare PSUs I could toss in there that I'm sure would work, but I'm hoping his current case will work, as I hate ordering those things.
Revisions to the previous specs:
Mobo is now a BIOSTAR of similar nature (also nForce2, but higher quality/better reliability for $17 less)
RAM is now 2x 256MB Kingston ValueRAM, since apparently some onboard video with nForce2 chipsets have buggy issues if you're not using Dual Channel
Price has gone up to $213, leaving me with a budget surplus of $87. Yippee. _________________ Help me GoogleBomb for Joe's publicity!
Joined: Oct 11, 2004 Posts: 295 Location: The Greatest Party in the known Universe!!!
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 12:38 pm Post subject:
That all sounds pretty good. The only thing I would suggest is upgrading to WinXP Pro. Definitely worth it. May avoid some hardware conflicts. But yeah, the parts definitely seem fine. Depending on what XP "costs" you may want to put 512 MB RAM, just because it is nicer, especially with XP. That is just my 2 cents.
Joined: May 05, 2003 Posts: 7698 Location: Western Washington
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:46 pm Post subject:
Hmm... I may upgrade him to WinXP Pro, if for nothing else than to run Terminal Services and fix his computer from my house when he has problems
AND the best part of it all... I get me a fancy new Dual Layer DVD Burner as my commission! *dance* _________________ Help me GoogleBomb for Joe's publicity!
Joined: Feb 26, 2004 Posts: 1650 Location: Connecticut
Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:09 am Post subject:
Yeah, that is nice. now just get a second job and you might be able to afford a dual layer dvd-r or two. they're ridiculous right now. _________________ http://www.jeremyhalvorsen.com
"Just because I rock doesn't mean I'm made of stone"
Joined: May 05, 2003 Posts: 7698 Location: Western Washington
Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 11:29 pm Post subject:
I was thinking ahead... they'll come down in price eventually Oh, and my drive comes with a free 5-pk of single-layer DVD+Rs _________________ Help me GoogleBomb for Joe's publicity!
Did you know Apple currently doesn't burn to DVD+Rs? They only burn DVD-Rs. They, of course, do not make this knowledge public; I've had several customers call in only to find that they wasted a lot of money on DVD+Rs that they can't use. _________________ 28:06:42:12
Joined: Feb 26, 2004 Posts: 1650 Location: Connecticut
Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 10:46 pm Post subject:
Slade wrote:
Did you know Apple currently doesn't burn to DVD+Rs? They only burn DVD-Rs. They, of course, do not make this knowledge public; I've had several customers call in only to find that they wasted a lot of money on DVD+Rs that they can't use.
I don't feel they necessarily hide it.
The only option for getting a dvd burner installed in a new mac is a dvd-r which they show on their site.
I don't feel they're hiding it, you don't see them writing "doesn't play linux games" or "doesn't execute windows applications" because it's either assumed, or you do a modicum of research and you find out, or people tell you. I don't feel anything should be assumed when you have computers...
"oh, you mean this doesn't run windows apps? but windows does. and it doesn't have dvd-r and dvd+r? windows does."
Would you feel bad for them if they went out and paid for Doom 3 for windows, and it didn't work for them? and they said "well, they don't really tell you it wont work"
p.s. i'm sure you all expected me to come and argue this one
Joined: May 05, 2003 Posts: 7698 Location: Western Washington
Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:49 pm Post subject:
Heh, on a related note:
I had a girl come into the lab yesterday with one of those JumpDrive Secure things, and she was complaining about her files not opening properly and they were coming up all "encrypted" and with "funny characters". It turns out that the files she was trying to open were the files for the encryption software intended for Mac. PCs don't require this software, apparently, because it's not on there at all, but there's a folder called "Mac" with a .dmg file in it, and she was trying to open it, and thought her disk was corrupted when it came up with a bunch of nonsense... Great stuff.
jeremy wrote:
p.s. i'm sure you all expected me to come and argue this one
I guess the title does fit.
Mac suck, Jeremy. So there. But we've covered this topic at least 3 times now _________________ Help me GoogleBomb for Joe's publicity!
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Oh, and my drive comes with a free 5-pk of single-layer DVD+Rs 
