Computer blues....1,2,3 let's jam
I officially have no computer. Haven't for a while now. The ones I was trying to piece back together are dead. Deceased. Kaput. Fershtunken. Fertig. Ferfallen. Ferlumpt. Ferblunget. Ferkackt. *can't remember the song Ms. Von Shtupp spontaneously breaks into here in Blazing Saddles, dang it!*
Sad, sad times they are.
However my parents, generous as ( Read more... )
Sad, sad times they are.
However my parents, generous as ( Read more... )
Either one of those computers will let you write and surf the internet and watch Youtube without any problem (if you have a monitor). Between the two, I'd recommend the first one.
I read up on them some more. If you haven't had a new upgrade in 8 years, those are absolutely going to knock your socks off. The only things they can't do are:
A) play games needing 3D rendering (you can play casual games like Farmville just fine, and older games will be fine too, but any game that's also out for the X360 or PS3, for example, ain't gonna happen).
B) be upgraded (the memory is maxed out, but 4GB is waaaay more than enough right now; the power supply literally will not support the addition of a graphics processor).
If you wanted some more flexibility and could piece them together, I'd suggest ordering from tigerdirect.com the following:
windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS OEM DVD - $99.99
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 RAM (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4531833&sku=P56-3980) - $26.99
550W Power Supply (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1147669&sku=U12-41529) - $34.99
Intel Pentium G620 Processor (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=567308&sku=I69-0620) - $69.99
Seagate 7200RPM 500GB Hard Drive (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1083959&sku=TSD-500ST) - $89.99
ATX Computer Case (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4974372&sku=G54-8019) - $14.97
Intel Z68 Motherboard (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=576024&sku=I69-2250) - $99.99
Total: $436.91 (free shipping, hopefully no tax - you might try newegg.com if you're in a tigerdirect tax state)
It's a little more money, and you'd have to reuse your DVD drive and your keyboard and mouse and speakers, but the advantage is that it's upgradable. It has four memory slots, so you could add more RAM in a few years if you needed it. The motherboard also supports current bleeding-edge processors, which means in a few years, you could double or triple the speed just by dropping a new processor on it. It also has a PCI-E slot for a graphics card, if you decide you want gaming later, and the power supply is strong enough to support those future upgrades. The hard drive is smaller, but substantially faster, and 500GB is more than enough for anyone who's not building a collection of pirated movies and TV shows.
That's the bottom line, really. If you want to write and browse and have it come preassembled, get the first Walmart one with the X4 645 chip. If you have the know-how to assemble the parts and want a foundation you can build on later, consider my suggestion above. And shop around. You might be able to shave a few dollars here and there on specific components.
Last-edit-promise: If you can wrangle your way to $500, get the Intel Core i3-2120. Also, if your case is ATX, you can reuse that. If your power supply isn't 8 years old, you can reuse that. Ditto for a hard drive, as long as it's SATA.
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How hard are computers to assemble, all told? I've done simple things, like switching out hard drives and RAM, but when it comes to installing a Motherboard and processor it seems slightly intimidating. Looked up a few 'how tos' and it didn't look all that bad, but going from the screen to actually doing it is always something, isn't it? So, given your experience, just how intensive would you say it is?
And let me just ask you a couple basics, (because for instance, I hadn't even known Hard Drives had speeds).
Hard Drive speed: are you looking at the RPM or the /sec? What's a decent speed?
Processors: speed of the cache(s), ghz, etc. I know it's all important, but since I'm a little new to this component, what takes priority?
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For example, the new standard is SATA 6G, which can get you about 750MB/sec of transfer capacity. Only solid state drives (expensive) can hurl data off that fast, so that's not the bottleneck.
RPM is a good proxy for how fast the hard drive can access data. The most common types are 5400RPM and 7200PM, but there's also 10000RPM, then there are solid state drives that don't spin at all.
If you only needed a little space, like 60GB, I'd say you should get a solid state drive, but for a good balance between speed, size, and price, 7200RPM is the way to go. It will access data about 1/3rd faster than a 5400 for very little additional cost.
Processors. There are so many dimensions that you would need a spreadsheet to figure out which one is faster. The way to evaluate a processor is to use benchmarks. Check out anandtech.com or tomshardware.com. They put processors through exercises and measure how long it takes them, or how many frames per second they can get on games. That gives you a one-dimensional appples-to-apples comparison. For example, here's a comparison between the Walmart processor (actually, one just a tiny bit better) and the G620.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/60?vs=406
Building a computer is about as difficult as building a castle out of legos. All the parts screw and snap together, with instructions. Just be patient and read the directions carefully.
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First off, thanks you so much for all the input and information. Makes me MUCH more comfortable about actually knowing what I'm getting and doing here. That's always a good thing, ne?
In the end I think I'm going with this guy, because yay good sale, and yay for full warranty. (Here's to hoping I remember what I'm doing this time with the html.)
I suppose I'm a little leery of my own ability in the computer building arena, because of my three ancient Hard Drives, two crashed fully so I wiped them and reinstalled windows XP on one. (After figuring out that my product key was for Service Pack 1, of course, and having to find a download for that, then manage to download all the updates. That was fun.) Everything seemed to be going swimmingly, then after about a week it wouldn't turn on because of an NTDLR error. I find a fix for that, make a bootable cd, but the fix only works insofar that the cd has to be in the computer for it to boot - which it shouldn't have to be. And the error links to the cd drive, which hadn't been tinkered with at all. Gah. So yes, a bit beyond me. So until I can figure that kind of stuff out without going crazy I think I enjoy having my full warranty that covers everything, including how the software and hardware interact with each other. Sad times.
Plus this way I get the Intel i3 and 8G of RAM. Not bad. As long as the HD holds up ^_-
Took me forever to find a site with specs about the rpms for the HD, which I now know to look for thanks to you, and lo and behold (or close enough at least.) I just need to look by the model sub-number instead I guess.
Haha, sorry, I'm totally chatting your ear off when you probably really don't much care, but I guess I'm just happy I finally came to a decision. I'm a rather indecisive person in general, and even more so when it comes to larger things. (For me, expensive electronic equals larger.)
So huzzah!
One last, quick question for ya though: I was thinking of making one of my old computers a kind of project computer to learn on. (I've probably learned more by necessity on that thing since everything started crashing, mistakes and all.) It was one a friend had built and sold to me super-cheap, but I have no idea what the body make is, so I don't know what other style/manufacturer's parts will fit if I do start playing around with it. It didn't look at all like the ATX you linked me to, but there are no visible markings of any kind that I can see. Am I missing something or do you just tell by the components?
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Find the motherboard model number off the manual, or somewhere on the motherboard itself, or by looking at the splash screen that comes up when you boot the computer. Then look that motherboard up on the internet, and that'll give you the starting point you need.
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