Need Help About I Am About to buy Dell Desktop

11/21/03 | Old Professer

[Old Professer]

My present computer is dying; I must replace it. I need answers to a few questions and I can think of no better place to get them.

[johnb838]

I just bought an Athlon 1800+, 40GB HD, CD-RW, WIN XP Home, 218MB Memory, from Microcenter for $350. It is really nice, though I bought half a gig of memory from Crucial cuz it was 69.00, no tax, no shipping. I think I want a new video card, I have an S3 geforce4 FX, and I hear they suck.

I also had a 6 year old computer, K5 133. Even though I work on screamers at work, it has still been GREAT to have something with some juice at home.

The one I bought is an HP Pavilion 304w. I could have gotten a faster processor for 399 (I paid 349) but it would have been a celeron and I had read that they are not so great. I'd rather have a Top of the line AMD than a second-rate Intel.

[Alberta's Child]

I'll add my two cents on this.

I had a major problem with my Dell last December when my monitor started acting up. I had a terrible time getting the thing replaced (due to an unusual circumstance that will probably not affect you at all), but in the end I think Dell did OK (particularly one of their customer service reps in Canada).

In the space of a week I went from, "I'll never buy another Dell for as long as I live" to "I'll never buy anything BUT a Dell for as long as I live."

Go figure. LOL.

[finnman69]

I have bought a dozen Dell's, the only thing ever to go wrong was a keyboard with spills, OR Windows had a problem. Tech support from Dell is great, and it's not all Indians as some claim. I love the friendly Texans.

My first computer was a Gateway. it was a lemon out of the box and I never looked back.

[MD_Willington_1976]

01. Turn both computers off.

02. Open up both computer cases.

03. Take the old hard drive out of the old computer.

04. Set the old hard drive jumper to slave.

05. Set the new hard drive jumper to master.

06. Attach the old hard drive via the ide ribbon cable to the new hard drive.

07. Attach internal power cable to the old hard drive.

08. Start up new computer.

09. New OS will detect the old hard drive and asign it a drive letter.

10. Move all your old files* from the old hard drive to a new folder on your new hard drive via drag and drop. * NOTE: files not programs, programs should be properly re-installed on the new OS if supported.

11. Shut down new computer, remove old hard drive.

12. Close new computer case.

13. Re-assemble old computer.

14. Keep old computer for messing around with or donate to charity organization.

Internal IDE transfer is the fastest way to do the transfer.

[Porterville]

Yes, but was the monitor a LCD??? Good deal anyway. Dell and Gateway appear to be each others only real competition... HP & Compaq are junk in service and deals; completly pschizophrenic in how their company is run. I expect their cpu's to be sold in K-mart before long

[Mike the lurker]

" It would be nice if my copy of Winfax would work with XP but I doubt that, anyone know for sure?
"

XP has a built-in Fax capability.

I use it.

I would advise that you first call a local computer shop, & see if they can match or beat that deal. The reason is, if anything goes wrong, it's always faster to get service or replacements when you can call 'em, & say I'm bringing it in. If you go the dell way, any interaction with them will be by telephone or UPS :>

[Protagoras]

Yes, but was the monitor a LCD???

No, flat screen not flat panel. And like you said, a good deal anyway. I was all over the net trying to beat the deal, no way. But it's a sale, so you have to watch the ads. Free shipping is a biggie. The printer is nothing special, but for my home use it is more than adequate. And it's a throw in so you lose nothing. The HD was bigger than I'll ever need, but it was a throw in as well as the double memory.

I've bought tons of PCs over the yars for my business and I have found Dell to be by far the most reliable, including custom jobs I had built.

[JerseyHighlander]

I own an 10 month old Dell 4550. The Maxtor 40 Gig hard drive just died. I'm on my old computer wading through support.dell.com as I wandered into FR to calm my nerves. Looks like my local computer guy is getting some repair business.

Go online and look for Dell discount coupons! I saved $150 by getting additional rebates by finding Dell "special online deals." The machine I bought was great, but I would second the suggestion to upgrade to 512 mb of RAM for windows XP, only time until today I needed to open the machine to fix anything.

Don't go for the extended warranty. It's the biggest profit margin sales item for Dell, because almost all problems will be apparent immediatelywithin your 30 return period. Also, test your machine thoroughly as soon as you receive it.

For your monitor, check pricewatch.com

[meadsjn]

this computer's cd has been broken for 3 years.

That happens. I think they are only rated to hold 6oz coffee cups.

[Zeppo]

If you think that you will ever need support of any kind in the future, even if it is as trivial as returning a defective part for replacement, stay far away from Dell. I've had the most frustrating experience imaginable trying to get Dell to replace a defective network accessory. I've spoken several times to "support" reps in India, but no dice. Lots of wasted time and energy.

The only reason why I would continue to buy from Dell is if I were to get a really good price, knowing that support would be nonexistent. For example, last month I bought a Dell 4600 desktop system, 2.4 GHz Pentium IV, Windows XP Home, 40 GB 7200 rpm drive, and 256 MB memory, but no monitor, for a total after-rebate price of $157 (with free shipping). At that price, I'll throw it away if I have a problem, sooner than I will call Dell support.

The only way that you will find deals like that (they're rare, but they happen often enough to make it worthwhile to look for one), is to look at sites such as www.edealsinfo.com or www.fatwallet.com on a daily basis (or more frequently) and be prepared to jump in on the deal as soon as you see it posted and before the hoards descend on it. But maybe you aren't looking for that much of a hassle to save a few hundred $$...

[FlameThrower]

Get some cheap ethernet cards and an ethernet patch cord. Network the two systems and transfer the files.

[Petronski]

I'm sort of crashing your party here, but I'm looking for a printer (laser quality) or a really good black/color printer in the $300.00 range (is there such a thing?).

hp LaserJet 1200 series

I use it in legal practice, it should be good enough for anything else using b/w. Oh, and the toner cartridges can be refilled 4-5 times before the drum fails. Highly economical.

[RandallFlagg]

Sorry, did you say you had a Packar---

I... I can't...

I suppose I can't talk. I had one, too...

[dvwjr]

You can usually find very good deals on DELL computers with on-line coupon discounts from this web site: Got|Apex?. This site has discounts for many products, but their DELL discounts can be very good every few weeks. I purchased an excellent DELL flat-panel 15" monitor for use as a secondary screen with my 21" CRT at a great discount.

DellSB - PowerEdge 400SC Server with i875P Chipset, 2.26Ghz P4, 128MB DDR, 40GB HD, 48x CD-ROM, and AGP Slot for $374 after Rebate with FREE Shipping! 2.8Ghz P4 Based for $99 More! (Posted by: Apex)

Dell`s giving an instant $25 discount, along with a $100 rebate, a free processor upgrade, 1/2 price hard drive upgrade, plus free shipping on this computer. The PowerEdge 400SC is an Intel i875P chipset based server with an 8x AGP slot, which means you can pretty easily turn it into a gaming, multimedia, or graphics workstation. Leon and I both own one of these and we love it. It is compatible with 533Mhz and 800Mhz processors (hyperthreaded too), there`s built in 2 channel S-ATA, there are 6 USB 2.0 ports, there`s built in 10/100/1000 ethernet, 4 PCI slots (with both 5.0v and 3.3v universal support), ADI 198x audio, and loads of other features. The AGP and audio are not "officially" supported by Dell, but they work. Mine is incredibly stable and fast.

Fine example, but would need to be bumped from 128mb RAM to 512mb for Windows XP

Have no association with company, just used their info... Best of luck.

dvwjr

[Petronski]

Gunny's got it exactly right. And you did not make the initial mistake, Microsoft did, with a checkbox called 'always open this kind of file with this program.' They fill it in automatically, when it should be blank by default.

[highnoon]

I have been working with Dell computers for 8 years and have had nothing but glowing results with them. I have prepared at least 60 of them for customers who also use our optical imaging software. I buy the majority of mine from www.dell.com/outlet

The computers are as good as new, but cannot be sold as new since they were not built to your order.

Make sure and get a cd burner. I would also recommend trying to find one with Win. 2000 instead of XP. There seem to be alot of OS specific hardware on teh XP boxes, that wont work with Win 2000 after replacing the software.

I have yet to purchase one without a floppy, and I purchased 8 in the last 3 months. For a home computer, the Dimension line is the way to go. Optiplexes are for business IMO.

Good luck, and enjoy!

[Richard Kimball]

Go to Best Buy or something and get a system that is just as good and they will fix it if it breaks (while you wait)...

I wouldn't buy anything from Best Buy. They've burned me once too often.

[Sloth]

Go to http://www.gotapex.com/deals.php

They link great deals on Dells, and they offer coupon codes & stuff, too, sometimes. You can pretty well customize what drives you want, and so forth.

[dhs12345]

I agree. I bought two 10/100 cards and a cable for 50 bucks. The cable was more expensive than each card. Could probably found cheaper.

I love it!

Procedures for setting the network up can be found on the internet -- search for "peer ethernet."

I used:

http://www.zedex.net/peer.htm

[lilylangtree]

bump for future reading.