Chip

As my PC is getting old and very slow the kids have told me its time for a new one. As I know little about whats good and bad about them any advice about what to look for, where to go, what to pay would be really useful.

Also what do I do with all info etc that is already stored on my existing PC. Can I transfer this over to a new one.

Chip.

[Edited by Chip - 12/24/2001 12:39:19 PM]

Luke

"MESH". Also try advertising for one here in the "Wanted" section. This BBS is full of "Keyboard Junkies" that tend to sell some good stuff.


Who has a nice 19-21 screen for me (pref "trinitron") must be close to London???

BuRR

How about this company for prices? 21" Sony trinitron for less than £400 with 3 years on-site warranty? Digi-uk.com.

Let me know what you think?

BuRR

They are refurbished, but they explain this one the website:

Good enough for me

MattN

dell are offering Intel P4 1500 (or something like like that) for about £600.

Lots of people sell secondhand but want way to much

as a guide

PIII 500 with 128 Ram usual gumpf and 17" monitor should set you back £300 tops

look at www.dell.co.uk/hotdeals

DazV

Chip, there's some great PC's deals around right now - I'm constantly amazed at how much kit your money buys these days.

Your best deals are probably from the mail order guys like:
www.simply.co.uk
www.novatech.co.uk
etc

Be warned - buying this way saves money, BUT in the event of a problem, you can't package your PC back up and WALK into these places and get it fixed on the spot, you have to send your gear back in the post a week or more. So in that respect there is advantages from buying locally. Just don't get the f%ckwit salesman - all the shops have one.

-Darren

McMiata Man

I tend to buy all my stuff from a smaller local company (www.creativecomputing.co.uk) if your interested. If anything buggerz up they actually know what they're talking about.

There's bound to be a place like that close to you. I'd stay away from all the bigger "package deals". They tend to buy in loads of cheap discontinued bits from all over the place and if anything goes wrong they just pass the buck.

With regards to your current files, if you buy a new PC, you will prolly get a years warranty, but this will be void if you open it to attach up your old HDD for example. You could ask the PC builder to shove your old hard drive in as a slave when they make the new pc, then you can transfer all the info over at your leisure. They don't make the transfer of emails as easy as I'd like so give me a shout if you get stuck at that point

Recommended Minimum Spec (if you want it to last more than a year):

HDD - 40gig
Ram - 256 megs (REALLY cheap at the moment, only about 30 squid!!)
CPU - Hmmm, depends on budget, but not under 1000 ghz
I'm an Intel man myself but AMD is good for gaming

Display card - 32 meg 3D card (3d prophet 2/ge-force is cheap now)
Monitor - 17 inches
CDR - you can get a 24 speed writer for 90 squid (Lite-on)

I would also suggest a good 300 watt power supply and about 4 USB sockets on the mainboard since EVERYTHING is coming out with a USB connector.

Oh, and I don't recommend windows XP yet, everyone I know is complaining about it. Win ME has been good for me.

Dave.

AndiThompson

RAM has sadly increased in price again...

and Win ME??? Supposed to be the worst of the lot!! I'm still on Windows 98 and it works fine, a lot of people say its the best of the lot.

Sith

XP is the most stable out of the box platform I've seen from MS yet. Certainly no probs with testing at work.

P.