I Need to Purchase 2 Computers for the Children Monday and Need Freeper Imput

10.040.03 | mlmr

[mlmr]

I am going to purchase two boxes for my children's homeschooling, their curriculum will be almost totally web and cd based with lots video and some interactive work. I have been looking at the E machines at Best buy. I am thinking that 512K and 120MB would do it. I am not sure how fast a processor I need I think the E machines use an Atheron. I am not sure what kind of video card for multimedia cds. It will be going on the network I am installing in my home. Any other tips for buying mid level boxes for short-type people would be appreciaed. I am going to put two of the darlings to bed right now.... I willl be back to check the thread in a lttle bit

If I read one more Ramona book...........

[Dan from Michigan]

Avoid Gateway like the plague. I went through 3 motherboards and 2 hard drives from them. I wasn't impressed with HP either(My parents have one)

My parents also have a Dell and haven't had any problems(5 months). I got an Alienware back in 99(expensive but great service and quality).

[billbears]

I'm using an emachine right now. Only complaint I would have is the video card. I upgraded that and the memory and haven't had a problem out of it in a year. For the price I have to say you can't beat it

[Leroy S. Mort]

Then stop harrassing *me*. Duh.

I'll let you have the last (two) words. Have a nice night.

[varon]

I think that I am going to have to marry a techie to get this little problem resolved!!

Sorry that I"m not a techie or the marrying kind but would consider going straight to the honeymoon, though ;-)

[arjay]

I have a refurbished Dell and love it. No problems at all. You should check out their refurbished machiens.

You might also check out www.ubid.com. I have bought several machines from them and have been happy with what I have gotten.

[Axenolith]

Check out Micron (buympc.com). They're pricier but do they kick butt and have great support and warranties. I'm still using my 350Mhz PII bought in 1997 and its probably pushing 30,000 hours of "on" time.

[Dusty Rose]

Sorry about your lemon Emachine. We have three Emachines and High Speed Internet, and we love them. They were inexpensive and zero problems. The college where my daughter attends recommends Dell, and ask for the student price when you purchase one.

[Old Professer]

And I suppose everyone just happens to have a spare copy of Windows XP or whatever laying around, collecting dirt, right?

[Old Professer]

Oh, gawd; the dreaded thread police have arrived....

[2111USMC]

"I have a refurbished Dell and love it. No problems at all. You should check out their refurbished machiens."

Good Advice!

I recently purchased a refurbished Dell at Computer Renaissance. Most of these units are new machines that were dead on arrival upon receipt of the original purchaser. Typically, the problems are minimal. The factory repairs them and sells them to resellers at hugely discounted wholesale prices. Although the warranty period may be shorter, it is the best "bang for your buck".

I purchased a Pentium 4 with 128 MB of RAM and a 20 GB hard drive for less than $270! It also came with a free refurbished Lexmark printer. (You will still need monitors and keyboards. They also have relatively good deals on these too.)

It's been about 1 year and I have not had a single problem.

[Tribune7]

What are you going to use it for?

[HogFixer]

You could also save some money and use Open Office.

http://www.openoffice.org/

[2111USMC]

"Seems to me like you should have done some homework yourself long before now. This is not the type of thread that belongs on this forum. There are plenty of more appropriate places to get the general information you need about purchasing computer hardware. I am surprised this hasn't been pulled."

Actually, this is an excellent forum for her to utilize in requesting information/advice on hardware. Free Republic is a community based on communicating with each other via computers. There are many people on FR with extensive knowledge and experience in this area of expertise.

Who pissed in your Corn Flakes today?

[arjay]

Whoops. machiens=machines

[Katya]

If you can get a hold of the Dell business catalogue, their prices are even lower. I'm not sure if you have to have the PC's sent to a business address.

[StopGlobalWhining]

See www.k12.com These virtual public and private schools provide everything you need to give your child an excellent education. Schools in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin use the program, with schools in more states coming soon!

If you are in one of the above states, they will even loan you the computer.

[Iris7]

Yeah, sorry to be obscure, by W2K I mean Windows 2000 Pro. W2K is about the same thing as XP with the first two or three so called "easy to use" layers not there. I think XP is awkward, and every time you install XP you have to get it activated by Microsoft, and satisfy them that you are doing things their way. Windows 2000 Pro has none of those hassles. Many people use their CDs on all of their machines, though don't try it if you are corporate!

If you buy W2K at retail it is expensive. If you buy a used machine with no operating system installed, as I suggested earlier, most used machine dealers (ask an enthusiast to suggest a good store near you - can't help unless you are in Southern Wisconsin!) have a license to sell, as part of the sale of a machine with no operating system, a complete cd set from Microsoft of W2K for about $80. You might need help loading drivers, but probably not. Most desktops from major brands have good drivers as part of W2K. Many laptops need special drivers. This is not hard, but there is a learning curve.

Buy a machine coming off of lease about two or three years old. The corporate guys lease a lot of PCs and there are tons of them available, I mean hundreds of pallet loads. Most go overseas because Americans always insist on brand new. Buy them for $110 to $220. A thirty day warrantee is the usual. Get the machine running right away and make sure all functions work and then run it constantly during the warrantee period. These machines likely have many years left with little or no maintenance. Most failures happen early in the machine's life cycle, then comes a usually long period of no problems, then after that failures pick up again.

There are many ten year old machines out there that work perfectly, but require special hard to find drivers if you get earlier than what is called Phoenix Bios 4 version 6. This is a gadget inside the machine that installs the initial program so that the machine can do stuff like read the hard drive, keyboard, and such like.

[martin_fierro]

That looks SUSPICIOUSLY like the FuturePower E-Power:

Or is it the other way around.

[Iris7]

#106 is good advice.

[martin_fierro]

That, my dear, is the now-ancient Visual Commuter, kind of a really heavy early laptop with crappy little optional portable screen. It ran on DOS 2.11, had two 360K floppy drives (hard drive? Whazzat?), an 8088 processor running at a whopping 4.77 MHz, and a mind-boggling 512K of RAM.

This "bombshell" of 1986 came bundled with a (not-so-portable) monochrome amber monitor (graphics? whazzat?) and daisy wheel printer.

I actually had to put several layers of tinfoil and some distance between the CPU unit and monitor to prevent the latter's magnetic field from interfering with the floppy drives.

Couldn't have made it through grad school without it.