David Lock

I need to replace my ageing home business standalone tower PC. I don't need anything too fancy and biggest task would probably be helping with digital photos although my son would probably want to "borrow" it for gaming and some music software (Cubase). Dell do a model 3000 at £449 which I think would suit and seems to be pretty good value to me. However I was very unimpressed with sales help line when I called to ask some basic questions. So question is "Am I going in right direction by looking at Dell products?" thanks PC peeps. david

Iain Young

They make good machines (we've got loads of them here at work, most of which are on 24/7, and I've got a dell XPS Gen 2 laptop at home). We've never had any problems with their support, and I have a couple of friends who have their machines at home, and are very pleased with them.

David Lock

Thanks Iain, that's an encouraging start david

wez_sti

well i actually work for Dell as a contractor, and i must admit i've been very impressed with their reliability.

been on the contract for about 7 months now, installing approx 5 machines a day 5 days a week and am yet to have one that doesnt work! nor have any of the other engineers as far as i know.

no idea what the customer service/support is like though to be honest.

David Lock

Thanks Wez, my call to Dell first thing this morning took me to India and an operator who was obviously trying but couldn't answer my questions and I found it hard to understand what she was saying. Anyhow I called again and got through to a very helpful guy in Dublin who answered everything and will be sending a personalised quote. So things looking up! david

kernel

Little thing to be careful of with a 3000 series Dell is the lack of AGP slot for a grahics card. Depending on the games your son may play you may find the onboard option a bit slow and with no AGP you are stuck with whatever you can get on a PCI card these days.

David Lock

Thanks - I have no idea what an AGP slot is but my son will know and if he comes home sometime today I will discuss

NickAdams

iTrader: (5)

Yep,I too can vouch for how good the machines are (We have a couple of hundred or so on site here plus another twenty thousand or so worldwide within the organisation)
I've been buying and selling them recently to colleagues because Dell are renowned for making **** ups on their website!
Last ones I bought were the following spec:

Dimension 5100 (Better than the 3000 because it has a PCI-E slot)
P4 3ghz 630 2mb cache cpu
1gb ram
250 sata hard disk
Media card reader
17in flat panel monitor
16x dual layer dvd writer
ATi Radeon X300SE graphics card (Not the best but easily upgradable)
Dell speakers
Mouse/Keyboard
1yr collect and return warranty

I bought 7 of those at £407 each inc vat and delivery (Kept one back for a second machine for home and they are lovely!!)
Although it was a pricing error (Normal price on that little lot was £843) my four orders somehow managed to sneak through the Dell net!! lol

Good luck and you really can't go wrong with a Dell

Nick

Iain Young

It's a specialized expansion card slot on the motherboard for plugging a graphics card into. You really either want one of those, or a PCI-Express motheboard so you can easily upgrade it in the future...

Dunk

iTrader: (1)

It's always worth trying the Dell outlet shop.........
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/de...dt1&l=en&s=dfo
or
Online Ordering Helpdesk 0870 907 5219

D

SC008Y_MAD

iTrader: (5)

Im on my 5th dell desktop. They are good machines. Their customer support is ok when you can get hold of someone. Oh and btw the call centre is in africa.

David Lock

Thanks guys. I just checked into the PC place in my village who builds his own machines. He has tower with 17" flat panel monitor with usual bits and pieces to include:-

AMD Sempron 3100 Processor
Rewriter/CD-RW
128MB ATI Radeon AGP Graphics Card
Lots of USB 2.0 sockets
1024 Megabytes Memory
XP
200GB hard drive.
£590 + VAT

Said he would take the old hard drive out of my current machine, mount it externally and use this to load new machine with my existing data. Plus I get a decent Warranty. Big advantage to me is that he is next door and not in Africa if I get stuck. If I can decide today I could get all this sorted by this time tomorrow. Decisions, decisions. Input above most helpful

Iain Young

What graphics card has it got. You say 128Mb ATI Radeon, but that can cover a mutlitude of great, good and not so good cards.

You also don't mention what sound hardware it has got. Might be important if you want to use cubase with it...

I'd also ask if they supply all the driver discs etc. I've had to spend too much time looking for drivers etc when trying to repair "locally built" pcs that friends / relations have bought. It's a right pain in the backside tbh...

Also, I'd ask if they "burn in" the machines. I know when you buy a Dell, they leave them running on a test bench for a period of time to double check they are all ok before sending them out, and they also know that the hardware components inside are well matched to each other...

Just things to be aware of

David Lock

I'll ask !

Really need one of you guys to hold my hand (oo-er!!)

Going off air now for 24 hrs - will try and report back. Thanks again. david

minted_aye

Well I have been in Trade IT for over 15 years and the general feeling is dell rhymes with hell, get yourselve a bespoke system using an abit mainboard ax8, Athlon 64 3200, with a maxtor hdd serial drive with cooler as a basis, done 100's of these and no returns whatsoever.

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Much depends on a) what you plan to use the machine for, and b) whether you want an upgrade path.

Upgrade first: VERY difficult with OEM systems like Dell. Not impossible, and things like graphics can be done, but not things like the motherboard, and possibly the processor. This is important if (as mentioned above) you've been shafted over the graphics port. PCI = rubbish, AGP = rapidly dating, PCI-E = mutt's nuts and future-proof for a few years.

Which brings me to what you plan to use it for. If you plan to game, then you must get one with PCI-E. AGP is slowly being phased out, and more and more cards ranges won't have the high-end cards in AGP, only PCI-E (like the 7800 range for instance). But if you don't plan to game, only world process/surf etc, AGP is fine. Note that picture editing = heavy graphics use = good graphics card.


M

16vmarc

My dads just bought one. No complaints here.

Iain Young

Strange. We've had hundreds of Dells over the years and never had any real problems, but we have had many problems with users who have bespoke systems.

smokebelch

Around half of our desktops at work are dells and they seem pretty stable considering their age etc.

Also a mate of mine bought one from them about 6 months ago and hes very happy with it.

Personally I have always built my own, but I think there are such good deals around now that I will consider buying off the shelf next time. ... hassle free with a warranty
Dell will certainly be on the list of possibles.

I agree though that its essential to list your needs and see whether they are met properly

Stueyb

Be aware however, to save a quid or so, Dell no longer ship restore disks, which imho is pretty poor. They are reasonable machines just they are taking penny pinching to the extreme.

Iain Young

I had a full set of restore discs with the Dell laptop I bought a while ago, and my last desktop had them as well. If you are considering buying one, perhaps it's worth a call to their sales desk to ensure they are included...

kernel

Restore disks supplied with my Laptop I bought 5 weeks ago as well