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Computers

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HR2

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Gentlemen my PC ist Krank so I have to get a new one [this is the landlords] Now I am unsure what to buy and need your help. I am thinking of a laptop and don't know which route to take. I need one that I can plug peripherals like the printer and external hard drives into and also that I can plus the HiFi system in so I can edit and transfer my LP record/tape collection onto CD with. It'll need to be a dvd writer too.

I need you to help me choose wether to have a PC laptop, A MAC laptop or a Linux laptop? Hard drives must be more than 100gb but I have external drives that I can use too. Your recommendations would be appreciated. There is no rush.
 
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Craig

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Do you need a laptop?

If not get a PC, you'll get more for your money. If you get a Windows one, you could always add an extra hard dirve to install Linux on.
 

PeterH

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Hi ive got a Hi grade PC with a Canon A3 Printer attached and a Lexmark Scanner /Printer which i use for surfing the net ect plus i have a Toshiba Lapptop just over a year old i love it cant go wrong with them this is my 2nd Toshiba plus i use a 160Gb external harddrive and graphics tablet ..Sony laptops cost to much if your going to use the lappy as a pc then get a laptop stand and keyboard and mouse hope that helps
 

compsci

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169
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Cambridge
Unless you need the portability of a laptop you will find a desktop to be more flexible and cheaper. Laptops are also more likely to give you RSI as you can't move the keyboard around.

The first step in buying a new PC is to stay as far away as possible from PC World and the other shops in the Dixons group. The rubbish they sell has terrible build quality and tends to skimp on parts of the system which are less well know to the general public but still vital.

You'd be better using a build to order mail order supplier. They don't keep piles of out of date systems in warehouses and then try to flog them to you as the best thing ever. Your best bet here is to look at reviews in magazines and on the web. Dell have a very good reputation among businesses for bulid quality and reliability, and will let you choose exactly what you want in your system. Ignore their exploding laptop batteries - these were manufactured by Sony and it could have happened to any other company which purchased them. They just happened to use more.

Linux unfortunately han't quite got to the stage where it can be relied on as your only system. It might just be possible to run BVE, MSTS etc but lots of voodoo will be involved. It would be easiest to add another hard drive (which cost peanuts these days) as trying to get Windows and Linux to share involves a bit of pain. I'm really happy with Ubuntu, which is by far the easiest to use variant that I've found. Everything seems to work out of the box (even though it doesn't come with one obviously). You can then browse the web without fear of viruses, spyware and other nasties.

It would be helpful to know how much you are willing to spend in order to reccommend something appropriate.
 
H

HR2

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Spend would be around £750 as it comes out of my pension. Is it possible to have the hard drives from the old PC put into a new system at all? I am quite keen on a Dell based system. The PC desktop I had went POP on monday morning and is dead. No power.. I am waiting for the PC man in the shop at the corner to come back from holiday before I fanalise things as it may be an internal fuse or something. The thing I am keenest on most of all is a MAC.
 

devon_metro

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Well that's quite a healthy budget. I'm sure you can get a good system with that. I'm sure Gareth will find you an AMD one. Personally i prefer Intel.
 

Craig

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HR2 said:
Spend would be around £750 as it comes out of my pension. Is it possible to have the hard drives from the old PC put into a new system at all? I am quite keen on a Dell based system. The PC desktop I had went POP on monday morning and is dead. No power.. I am waiting for the PC man in the shop at the corner to come back from holiday before I fanalise things as it may be an internal fuse or something. The thing I am keenest on most of all is a MAC.
How old is your current PC? If it's reasonably new you might be able to upgrade it, rather than buying a whole new system.
 

Simming

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I would go for dell. This laptop is brillaint, it does everything I want it to and does it well.

I think what dell is sucessful on is the fact that you can customise the build, its not a one-spec-fits-all. mine for example, I wanted decent graphics without having to pay stoopid amount, and you can do that with the customising
 
H

HR2

Guest
Craig said:
How old is your current PC? If it's reasonably new you might be able to upgrade it, rather than buying a whole new system.

It's 2 years old Craig and cost me £1500. I am, as I say, awaiting the return of our PC shop man from holiday as then he will look at it on the desk in front of me for only a nominal charge. If it is a serious defect I'll by a new 'un. If not I'll have it mended. I have a sneaky feeling that overheating is the problem as despite being unenclosed space wise and open to fresh air you could fry eggs on the case. :sign1: :dark1:
 

Guinness

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Simming said:
I would go for dell. This laptop is brillaint, it does everything I want it to and does it well.

You can customise them to set themselves on fire to warm you up on a cold day. Provided you want to sacrifice Data and a £700 quid laptop to keep you warm for a few minutes, go for it!! :thumbup:
 
H

HR2

Guest
Chaz said:
You can customise them to set themselves on fire to warm you up on a cold day. Provided you want to sacrifice Data and a £700 quid laptop to keep you warm for a few minutes, go for it!! :thumbup:


Can I customise them to shove down your trousers and blow your balls off? :happy5: :happy4: :laughing:
 

compsci

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169
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Power supplies go bang (literally) relatively frequently. They're one of the cheapest bits in a PC though (about 30 pounds) so if that is the issue it will be well worth fixing.

Even if you do go for a new system it will be worth your while keeping your monitor, keyboard and mouse if you are happy with them. Dell have very good case design, so putting in an existing hard drive probably won't require the use of a screwdriver, just pushing a few clips around. The only slightly tricky bit is using the right cable and selecting the right switch (jumber) setting on the drive.

A Mac will cost rather more for an equivalent hardware setup (minimum 879 pounds for an iMac), especially as you can't shop around as such, but they have a habit of just working out of the box. You can even run Windows on them now using their Boot Camp software. You also get a variant of Linux hiding under the bonnet which you can get to if you want.

If you don't need high powered hardware for games you could just get a Mac mini. But they're rather overpriced for what they are and not really upgradable at all.
 

Gareth Hale

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An Ideal system for you HR2 will be

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Socket 939 £54
1024MB PC3200 Memory (4x 256MB for optimal performance) £53.32
Socket 939 Motherbooard £32.79
nVidia 7300GS 256MB Graphics Card £36.40
Windows XP Home £118
400W Power Supply Unit £23.81


This PC will look to cost you £318, It will play BVE, Microsoft Train Simulator, Auran Trainz and the new Train Simulator very well, along with other games. I did not put a hard drive in the list as you can very easly transfer your current one over, I also did not put as case in with it, as you can still use your case (unless its damaged).

If you are not comfortable building a PC however, I reccomend this

Maxdata AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Specs are
Processor Speed 3200+ - 1GB Memory DDR at 400MHz - 250GB HDD - DVD-RW - Windows XP

It is priced at £340 although I still reccomend you getting this to put into it as lets face it... Intergrated is no good!

If you are looking to move onto a laptop, I believe this will perform pretty nicely for gaming.

It is a
Acer Ferrari 4003WLMi AMD Turion 64 ML32 and it is priced at £680

Specs are

Processor Speed ML32 - 1GB Memory - 80GB HDD - Windows XP Home.

If you need help, dont hesitate to ask!




 
T

Tom

Guest
If you enjoy annoying Gareth Hale, push 1 now.
If you are psychotic, the voice will tell you which number to push.
If you are Gareth Hale, please hang up.

Gareth, I'm not sure he wants a PC that highly powered.....!!!!!!!!!!!
 

Ben

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Messages
999
Tom said:
If you enjoy annoying Gareth Hale, push 1 now.
If you are psychotic, the voice will tell you which number to push.
If you are Gareth Hale, please hang up.

Gareth, I'm not sure he wants a PC that highly powered.....!!!!!!!!!!!
Tom I would press 1 but its been Pressed so much its Broken again! Can we swap to 2?
 

Gareth Hale

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Messages
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Tom said:
If you enjoy annoying Gareth Hale, push 1 now.
If you are psychotic, the voice will tell you which number to push.
If you are Gareth Hale, please hang up.

Gareth, I'm not sure he wants a PC that highly powered.....!!!!!!!!!!!
That is not high powered at all! I consider that a very cheap and low budget PC!

We aint in 2004 anymore, were in 2006 where technology has changed.
 

Gareth Hale

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Messages
941
I have just been browsing, and for your budget I thought id show you something.

Enjoy!

AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800+ Experience the best, experience Dual Core processing power at its best!
2048MB PC3200 Memory (1024MB x2)
500GB S-ATA Hard Drive (250GB x2)
nVidia 6800 512MB AGPx4/x8
ABIT S939 Motherboard
Creative Labs Audigy Sound Card (I have one, miles miles miles better than Intergrated!! And lets face it, Intergrated is no good!)
16x DVD-RW Drive
Antler PC ATX Case
Alaska Power Supply @ 550W

The total for this rig is £704.00 and it will be future proof for a very very very long time to come!

Only thing left is an OS, and if you currently own a licence and CD for your XP, you can install it onto this.
 
H

HR2

Guest
Thanks to all for the info/advice men. I don't want anything high powered or moonshot. I want a good system for multimedia. I never play games except scrabble and patience. That sort of thing. As long as it has an excellent CD/DVD burner I am not too fussed. It may well be that I can get my present one repaired so we will see.
 

Gareth Hale

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941
HR2 said:
Thanks to all for the info/advice men. I don't want anything high powered or moonshot. I want a good system for multimedia. I never play games except scrabble and patience. That sort of thing. As long as it has an excellent CD/DVD burner I am not too fussed. It may well be that I can get my present one repaired so we will see.

That Will do the job perfectly for what you want to do :)
 

Dave A

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Joined
7 Jun 2005
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1,161
If your not into gaming, then Intel Processors are a better choice than AMD!

What about asking your repair guy to upgrade the one you've got!?
 

Gareth Hale

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941
David V2 said:
If your not into gaming, then Intel Processors are a better choice than AMD!

What about asking your repair guy to upgrade the one you've got!?

Or better still, why not upgrade yourself by looking at your CPU socket, Memory socket etc etc.
 

Dave A

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1,161
Because thats long, boring and can easily go wrong. If he has the money to pay someone else to do it, then it makes more sense. :)
 

Gareth Hale

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11 Jun 2005
Messages
941
David V2 said:
Because thats long, boring and can easily go wrong. If he has the money to pay someone else to do it, then it makes more sense. :)

Its not long at all, its most certainly not boring and you could go wrong.
 

Simming

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Gareth Hale said:
Its not long at all, its most certainly not boring and you could go wrong.

Fecking and farting by trying to get a load of electronic components to work, which often goes wrong and needs farting about with. also with past experiance, home made PCs are high maintance, they dont always run perfectly.

It would be best, if you were to start from scratch, and buy indervidual components, to pay your local pc wizz kid to do it all for you. I know I would.

(wow, I manged to stick in the "1" key down, so its pressed all the time now)
 

Gareth Hale

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You just need to know how to work on computers.

Rather than polluting the air with big diesel locomotives, use the enviromental friendly PC!
 

Simming

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I didn't personally do it, I got my brother in law to do it, whos quite a wizz with computers to do it, and it was still crap.

and as much as I would love to have a knowledge likes yours, I have, along with alot of other people, a life.
[EDIT]
Gareth Hale said:
Rather than polluting the air with big diesel locomotives, use the enviromental friendly PC!

I cant wait till platform 5 realise there new spotting book

"Different types of B0ll0cks that gareth hale posts"

Im sure we would be able to spot all of them in one week!
 
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