Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eva who wrote (30551)	11/18/2002 12:41:42 PM
From: Larry S.	Respond to of 110652

check out dell refurbished section - i saw some really fine boxes for $400 range. windows xp, cdrw, 20-30 gig hd, 256 ram. go for it. larry

To: Eva who wrote (30551)	11/18/2002 3:33:33 PM
From: Nemer	Respond to of 110652

Eva .... This weekend a good friend of mine posed roughly the same query. He is an experienced box builder in his own right, as he has constructed perhaps twenty machines in the past .... together, he and I have built another twenty and no telling HOW many I've built on my own ....... He is currently running WinXP pro on one box, Win2k on another, and he liked my "dedicated to email ONLY" machine that he was asking if I'd help him build one fairly cheaply ----- he knows I am cheap ...... gggggg He is going to use this "new machine" to do more than just run email, but it will give an added measure of security as the other two machines won't have email access which will surely eliminate "some" transmission of viruses. My advice, which he took, was to buy a Dell 2300, with no monitor (he has several extras) with only a few small additions to the factory advertised special ===== 7200rpm HD bump up mem to 256 these two cost, as I recall, around $80 additional dollars, and he has to pay sales tax, (we live in Texas) but, free shipping helped and the total was a bit under $500. You can go one of two ways for you dual monitors on your "new" machine ..... ATI or Matrox both have good cards that I've used for dualies (various costs, but around $80-125 or (I prefer for MY use) leaving the AGP alone and adding a PCI ATI second monitor card (Radeon is fine) for around $50 I know nada about anything in computers OTHER than PCs ....(no Mac/Apple at all for ME) WinME is on one of the four boxes I'm running now, and I did have a bit of spotty trouble running dual monitors, especially on shutdown ... BUT some *(and I have NO IDEA which) of the Microsoft updates had to have fixed it, because I no longer have that difficulty .... So, all in all, I'd recco a new box .. Dell OR Gateway both can be had for under $500 and keep the Pavillion...... Gateway has a P4 while the Dell has a Celeron at those prices ...... but either one is a fine machine .... you can purchase a 4hole router and two NIC cards for around $50 bucks and network the two machines together very easily ....... matter of fact, my bud and I went to Office Max and he purchased Belkin brand ---- router for 44, and two NIC cards for 5 this past Saturday. when I can buy one more cheaply than I can construct one, things in the industry have to be going through rough times good luck

To: Eva who wrote (30551)	11/18/2002 4:43:53 PM
From: thecow	Respond to of 110652

Eva A 633 with 512 mb ram is plenty of machine to run XP. First you need to check the compatibility of your hardware to see if everything is compatible with the XP OS. Go here and run the test. pcpitstop.com After checking compatibility you should back up all the files and settings you are going to want to keep to floppies or cds if you have a writer. XP home upgrade only costs around $100 and can be found cheaper many places. As a general rule I would say it is much more stable and error free than WindowsMe (from what I have read..the most troublesome version of Windows to came out in years) If you don't want to go that route, there are many really good deals available on new systems.