This is the longest I have owned a PC

[baron calamity]

Floppy drive? What is this floppy drive?

Seriously though its been about 5 years since I had a floppy drive. When I did, I think I used the same one for 11 years.

[D.A.Lewis]

almost 3 years with my crappy but totally functional little 2.53 Emachine

upon purchase I transferred in a Geforce T!4200,
an Audigy 1 and my old hard drive.

It's now running a geforce 5700
with 1 gig of ram and the same audigy card.

I looked into upgrading the processor but my motherboad will only accomodate a 2.8 processor. And at 280 bucks, why not get a brand new computer for only 200 dollars more (Dell special).

So I thinking Oblivion won't make me upgrade, but Gothic most certainly will.

[JonathanStrange]

Working for Intel 3 years now, I've had 4 computers (2 desktop/2 laptop) . Two were supplied by and for Intel work although they've since become mine. Before that I had the same computer my "Univac 3000" for 4 years and even though the vacuum tubes kept burning out and the chicken wire I'd wrapped around the processor case was a bit loose, it still ran, sorta.

[Kobra]

I looked into upgrading the processor but my motherboad will only accomodate a 2.8 processor. And at 280 bucks, why not get a brand new computer for only 200 dollars more (Dell special).

Because Dell's suck! Seriously, build your own, you can build a damn super machine for around $800-1000 these days. Not some mass produced stuff that will be obsolete before it ships to ya.

[D.A.Lewis]

Of course if you buy the 500 dollar dell special you aren't getting much, but they can be configured (meaning more money) to be a pretty decent machine. Additionally after a while, many folks get tired of going the self build route and no longer have the time nor the inclination to build a great machine.

And I fall in the catergory. Upgrade yes, build no.

BTW, i did find a 2.8 Ghz chip on ebay with final bid prices around 80 bucks. But those are waters I dare not tread. Buying a book or computer game is one thing, but a computer chip?

[SlyFrog]

I looked into upgrading the processor but my motherboad will only accomodate a 2.8 processor. And at 280 bucks, why not get a brand new computer for only 200 dollars more (Dell special).

Because Dell's suck! Seriously, build your own, you can build a damn super machine for around $800-1000 these days. Not some mass produced stuff that will be obsolete before it ships to ya.

Although I've constantly heard this, I've yet to find someone who can come up with a build your own that is cheaper than a fairly standard Dell.

Yes, you know what's in it and can upgrade it, blah blah. The stuff that most people are putting together just doesn't beat Dell's standard packages in terms of price.

I'm currently looking around for a computer - I'd be very happy to see a DYI equivalent to a P4 3.2g 1g+ RAM 19"LCD monitor dual optical DVD/CD-RW decent video card for around $8-900. Do you have one? I'm serious, because I've put together various packages on NewEgg and other sites, and haven't been able to get within $100 of a Dell.

[baron calamity]

Although I've constantly heard this, I've yet to find someone who can come up with a build your own that is cheaper than a fairly standard Dell.I'm currently looking around for a computer - I'd be very happy to see a DYI equivalent to a P4 3.2g 1g+ RAM 19"LCD monitor dual optical DVD/CD-RW decent video card for around $8-900. Do you have one? I'm serious, because I've put together various packages on NewEgg and other sites, and haven't been able to get within $100 of a Dell.

First of all, even using Gotapex and other discount sites I could not find a dell with a decent videocard and a 19 inch screen for anything less than 1,100 and then it was just an entry level "good" video card and 256 megs of memory.

Per those specs I got to $903 at Newegg (using AMD64 instead of Intel) . Mark that about $100 less if you don't need to buy Winxp.

[Gwar21]

I've had my Dell for slightly over 3 years now, and it's still working so well for me that I hopefully won't need to upgrade for at least 2 more years. It's a 2.26 Ghz Pentium 4 with 1 GB RAM, a GeForce4 Ti4600 (128 MB), and a 17" monitor. The only upgrades I've made to it have been to add 512MB of RAM and a second harddrive. Since I've rarely had performance problems in any of the games I've played, and since I have a ton of older games still untouched, I figure this system will last me for quite awhile yet. So far, Battlefield 2 is the only game I know of that I can't play at all, though I'm sure I'd have trouble playing Farcry or Doom 3 with the graphics maxed.

[Kobra]

Man i'm really floored people that know anything about PC's would buy a Dell. They just don't use good components, and if you upgrade them to good stuff, their prices start to get pretty bad.

Thats not even pointing out you can't get a Dell with a Aluminum Server Case and other things. You generally have to pick from their limited selection, and each one is pretty unreasonable. How much are Dell 19" LCDs? I have 5 19" 12ms LCD's that cost me about $239 each (name brand). Last I checked, they were still $400-500 at Dell, and were generics.

My brother-in-law insisted on ordering a Dell last year, what a nightmare. It was "Running Slow" out of the box, so he called me over. 319 bad registry entries, 72 processes loading at boot, and more. I cleaned everything up, and even then, it was a pretty slow running box - and he purchased many upgrades.

I just think they are slow, use poor components, don't configure them right, have aweful upgradability, and generally aren't worth it. Sure, you can buy a reasonably good sounding box from them for a decent price - but when you get down to it, they are no better than any other mass produced box designed to appeal to people that either don't know, or don't care.

[D.A.Lewis]

Man i'm really floored people that know anything about PC's would buy a Dell. They just don't use good components, and if you upgrade them to good stuff, their prices start to get pretty bad.

I dont know. It just may be the opposite case. The more you know, the less you worry. I think you can get a dell rig with a sweet spot video card, a 3.2 ghz and a flat panel monitor at Dell for around 1300 bucks. For me, after buying over 10 computers in the past 20 years, it turns out to be pretty dumb to get state of the art stuff. All you need is something that will run your games adequately.

My current rig is a crappy little Emachine thats worked out nicely for almost 3 years. If the V31 motherboard was right, I would pop in a 3.2 ghz and be good for another 2 years. but alas my moboard will only accomdate a 2.8. I am absoultely certain Dell makes better rigs than Emachines, so unless I get a lemon I have no fear buying a computer from them.

[baron calamity]

Man i'm really floored people that know anything about PC's would buy a Dell. They just don't use good components, and if you upgrade them to good stuff, their prices start to get pretty bad.

My last system was a dell. I liked it, its still running. I use to recommend dells but not anymore. They have gone down hill quite a bit in the last 3 years. Back in the early 200s though, you really couldn't beat their price, quality and service. Then one day Dell woke up and decided they could make more money by charging the same prices but offer shitty componets and even shittier service

[Gwar21]

Man i'm really floored people that know anything about PC's would buy a Dell. They just don't use good components, and if you upgrade them to good stuff, their prices start to get pretty bad.

The reason I went with a Dell back in 2002 was in large part because the corporation where I work switched to Dells exclusively for their thousands upon thousands of PC's and laptops. Since I'd had nothing but good experiences with my PC at work, and since I didn't know anyone at work who had had problems, I was pretty comfortable going with Dell. They might very well have gone downhill since then, I've no idea...but even now, I still haven't known anyone at work who's had any computer problems whatsoever, and that's in sharp contrast to our experiences with our previous PC supplier.

[SlyFrog]

Although I've constantly heard this, I've yet to find someone who can come up with a build your own that is cheaper than a fairly standard Dell.I'm currently looking around for a computer - I'd be very happy to see a DYI equivalent to a P4 3.2g 1g+ RAM 19"LCD monitor dual optical DVD/CD-RW decent video card for around $8-900. Do you have one? I'm serious, because I've put together various packages on NewEgg and other sites, and haven't been able to get within $100 of a Dell.

First of all, even using Gotapex and other discount sites I could not find a dell with a decent videocard and a 19 inch screen for anything less than 1,100 and then it was just an entry level "good" video card and 256 megs of memory.

Per those specs I got to $903 at Newegg (using AMD64 instead of Intel) . Mark that about $100 less if you don't need to buy Winxp.

Hmmm. Got to be fair here, I just looked and couldn't find the price I got a friend a few weeks ago. It is a little higher, and only a 17" LCD. Here is the best I could do (shipped free):

P4 3.2g
1g RAM
256 MB nVidia GeForce 6800
80 GB HD

$1,008 shipped.

What's the $903 Newegg one?

[The Meal]

Man i'm really floored people that know anything about PC's would buy a Dell. They just don't use good components, and if you upgrade them to good stuff, their prices start to get pretty bad.

That's funny. I purchase Dell PCs in part because of the superior quality of certain components. The difficult-to-upgrade parts are not typically things I've upgraded in the past, so that aspect doesn't bother me. And I'm savvy enough to modify the installations on the PC that slow-downs are not an issue.

I just think they are slow, use poor components, don't configure them right, have aweful upgradability, and generally aren't worth it.

I'd say that my experience is that they're fast, use quality components, don't prevent me from configuring them just how I want them, are everybit as upgradable as I desire and are a tremendous value.

~Neal

[Effidian]

I'd say that my experience is that they're fast, use quality components, don't prevent me from configuring them just how I want them, are everybit as upgradable as I desire and are a tremendous value.

Same here.

I'm on my 3rd Dell and have liked every one. Most of my friends buy Dell systems. My lucky friends work at places that use Dells. I say lucky because Dells are typically far better than the systems you get from other companies. Those who use Dells at work typically have far fewer hardware problems than most of the other brands (as well as IT created) systems that we've used.

I haven't bought a new system for 4.5 years, so if they've tanked since then I haven't heard. And the fact that I've upgraded this old system and had it last 4.5 years also says something about Dell. I certainly hope they haven't started selling crap, since I'm sure I'm going to need another system in a year or so.

[CeeKay]

We sue Dells at work, and that's what sold me. They are nice solid machines. Granted, if you upgrade it when you order it it is expensive, but I got $750 bucks off so it only really cost me less than 2 weeks pay. If it's crappy, it beomes a server for me to host games on and I buy a different one.

[baron calamity]

Although I've constantly heard this, I've yet to find someone who can come up with a build your own that is cheaper than a fairly standard Dell.I'm currently looking around for a computer - I'd be very happy to see a DYI equivalent to a P4 3.2g 1g+ RAM 19"LCD monitor dual optical DVD/CD-RW decent video card for around $8-900. Do you have one? I'm serious, because I've put together various packages on NewEgg and other sites, and haven't been able to get within $100 of a Dell.

First of all, even using Gotapex and other discount sites I could not find a dell with a decent videocard and a 19 inch screen for anything less than 1,100 and then it was just an entry level "good" video card and 256 megs of memory.

Per those specs I got to $903 at Newegg (using AMD64 instead of Intel) . Mark that about $100 less if you don't need to buy Winxp.

Hmmm. Got to be fair here, I just looked and couldn't find the price I got a friend a few weeks ago. It is a little higher, and only a 17" LCD. Here is the best I could do (shipped free):

P4 3.2g
1g RAM
256 MB nVidia GeForce 6800
80 GB HD

$1,008 shipped.

What's the $903 Newegg one?

The original specs:
CHAINTECH S1689 Socket 939 ULi M1689 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
$67.00
Rosewill TU-155 Black Steel/Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 400W Power Supply - Retail
$42.99
NEC Black IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3540A - OEM
$48.00
EXCELSTOR J840 40GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA133 Hard Drive - OEM
$46.00
2x Rosewill 256MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model RW400/256
$38.98
AOpen F90JS Black 19" 16ms LCD Monitor - Retail
$299.99
Microsoft Windows XP HOME Edition With Service Pack 2 - OEM
$83.95
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester Integrated into Chip FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3200BIBOX -
$190.00
SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600XT 128M Radeon 9600XT 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card - OEM
$91.00
Total: $907.91
(The video card and ram went up a bit since the other day)

As for the new specs, Newegg misses it by about $40

[CeeKay]

here's a cut and paste from my Dell confirmation. I didn't bother with a monitor though. The final price is at the bottom:

Dimension 4700
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 540 w/HT Technology (3.20GHz, 800FSB), Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition Qty: 1
Unit Price: $1,536.00
Dell Dimension 4700 Series Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 540 w/HT Technology (3.20GHz, 800FSB)
CP328H

Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 400MHz (2x512)
1GB4

Video Cards 256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800

Hard Drive 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)

Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition

CD or DVD Drive Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write capability

Sound Card Sound Blaster® Audigy® 2 ZS (D) sound card w/ Dolby 5.1, and IEEE

Dell Home Customers: Save $750 on select Inspiron™ notebook or Dimension Desktop™ purchases of $1499 or more (before tax and shipping)! These order codes ONLY i2200A2, i6000A5, i6000A6, i6000A7, i600mA2, i700mA2 , i9300A2, and D47AF. (affialite only) Expires on 2005-06-23 10:59:00 - $750.00

ADDITIONAL DISCOUNTS AND COUPONS

Dell Home Customers: Free Ground Shipping on any Dell Dimension order greater than $499!
Expires on 2005-06-23 11:59:59 - $99.00

Sub-Total $786.00
Shipping Discount -$99.00
Shipping and Handling $0.00

Tax $6.80
Total $792.80

[Exodor]

Another Dell owner here.

I work as a one-man Help Desk/ Network Admin for a company of about 70 people. The last thing I want to deal with when I get home is a home-built PC with parts that may or may not play well together.

I bought my current PC 3 years ago from Dell for >$500. It's showing it's age (1.6 gHz PIV, 512 MB of RAM) and the motherboard doesn't support more than 512 of RAM - but I've more than gotten my money out of it.

And since all I play now is OOTP, Fate and Mount & Blade, I think I can squeeze at least another year out of this rig.

[gorky1]

I've been using the same floppy drive since I built my first computer 6 years ago!

EVERYTHING else has changed.

My floppy drive is 12 years old, first used in a 486DX2/66.

I still use the same keyboard, too. It's a bit dirty by now, but those newfangled "windows keys" confuse me...

Otherwise, it's a brand new Athlon64 3000+, 1gig Corsair XMS cl2, Audigy 2, and soon a 6600GT, since my trusty 9700 Pro died yesterday.

[D.A.Lewis]

Thanks for the floppy drive tip. I have a Pent 4 - 300 mhz sitting in a closet
with a floppy. No need to ever buy anohter one of those things ever again.

As far as keyboards, I just bought a new Saitek keyboard with the glowing keys. (as opposed to the other Saitek keyboard that just had a light under the keyboard). When cheap keyboards go for as little as 20 bucks new and even the expensive ones go for about 80 bucks, I seem to buy a new keyboard about every year.

[The Meal]

White box & Notebook loyalty

ABS, Alienware, Dell, Shuttle Outperform In Desktop Brand Loyalty, While Apple, Dell, IBM Shine In Notebooks

~Neal

[EvilHomer3k]

Dell's don't use really high quality components compared to what I'd put in a rig myself. They don't use high performance components in general, either. They use safe components that they can purchase cheaply. I used to be a big proponent of DIY. I still am for anything I build. However, Dell sells stuff super cheap and anymore, you can get a Dell just as cheap (after coupons) as you can build it yourself. It won't be quite as fast nor have hand picked components but it will be solid.

My latest PC is not a DIY. I previously built dozens of pc's, even going so far as to modify cases, lap cpus, and spend hours tweaking and overclocking. Today, I'm running a Dell 9300 laptop as my main rig. My wife has a Dell 700M as hers. Previously, I had a 3.0c P4 (northwood), 6800 OC (modded to a 6800GT), a gig of mushkin ram, a 160gb SATA Samsung drive, and a 4x NEC dvd burner sitting in an Antec Sonata. Quiet, fast, and very nice. My wifes pc was an older Athlon XP 2600 mobile (overclocked to roughly an AXP 3600) with a Radeon 9600 Pro in an Antec Aria. Quite frankly, the mobility of the 700M and the 9300 are great. The 9300 doesn't perform quite as well as the old rig but it performs well and only cost me $1500 with an 80gb drive, 512 meg of ddr2, a 6800, integrated wireless and bluetooth, and a 17" WUXGA screen with Truebrite. I bought an external SB Live, and a 4 port hub. The laptop will also hold its resale value significantly better than my desktop. A 300mhz laptop still goes for about $200 while you can barely give away a 300mhz desktop.

[The Meal]

Dell's don't use really high quality components compared to what I'd put in a rig myself. They don't use high performance components in general, either. They use safe components that they can purchase cheaply. I used to be a big proponent of DIY. I still am for anything I build. However, Dell sells stuff super cheap and anymore, you can get a Dell just as cheap (after coupons) as you can build it yourself. It won't be quite as fast nor have hand picked components but it will be solid.

I wouldn't purchase a Dell for the video card (in fact, the two Dell desktops I've purchased both had their video cards replaced ASAP -- generally rolling the higher-powered card out of whatever had been my current system). However, I'd purchase one for the hard drive.

The highest quality drives my company manufactures get sent to Dell. Even within a given product family there is a lot of differentiation between the quality. Clearly there are major differences between 320 GB drives and 240 GB drives and 160 GB and 80 GB drives. That major difference is "platter count," although with 160 GB per platter (say), then the difference between the 160 and 80 GB designs isn't so much the number of disks inside, but how the drive gets formatted.

But deeper than just that is the various component manufacturers that supply parts that get tossed into each drive. There are different basecasting vendors, motor vendors, head/suspension vendors, media vendors, preamp vendors, etc. Some of these components, provided by multiple vendors, have design differences (more significant, say, from suspension to suspension than from basecasting to basecasting). These design differences certainly lead to different quality levels of the end product. More typically there are manufacturing differences between component suppliers, and these too lead to differences in end-quality. Certain combinations of parts will not be sold to Dell, as they are inferior.

Additionally, Dell requires more testing of the components than their competitors. If there is a batch of product that won't hit certain targets (say seek times or acoustics or heat or power or well, anything), then those drives are *not* going to Dell. They'll get dumped elsewhere (the bottom of the bucket being the internal drives sold with an employee discount). I'm not going to sit here and say that the drives you get at Best Buy are crap, but they're not nearly as well tested as a drive from the same product line that got purchased inside a Dell system.

No component loss is more frustrating than the hard drive. You lose your motherboard or PSU or video card, and you go out and replace it and move on. You lose your hard drive, and chances are decent that you can't just replace it and move on as if nothing's happened. I'm all over the piece of mind offered by doing everything I can to ensure that I'm getting the most reliable hard drives I can get my hands on. And I've got more alternatives for getting drives than just about everyone reading this forum. I purchase systems from Dell, in part, because those *are* the highest-quality drives available on the planet.

Now I've spoken with other folks about the rest of the circuitry within the PC, and that's not necessarily the case for other componets. Dell typically sells their boxes with underpowered video cards for instance (and I can't say a thing about the quality of those cards within their product families -- although if the hard drive experience holds, then Dell tells the video card providers that they need to only sell them cards that are extensively tested from quality component mixes). This doesn't bother me (I rarely game needing the highest-quality of video processors).

If you're a frequent upgrader of your video card, then getting something behind the curve when you pick up a new box probably isn't that big of a deal anyway, as likely before you purchased your new box, you tried to squeeze every last drop out of your old PC by upgrading its video card, and once you've got the new PC, it's generally trivial to swap in that "old" high-end card that you had recently purchased.

Dell also frequently underprovides RAM for their systems (and overcharges for upgrading the baselines they do provide), but again this is a trivial upgrade, and one easily circumvented by going through Crucial or whomever at the time of your purchase.

I own no stock in Dell, and the company for whom I work currently *limits* the number of drives we sell to Dell as they beat us up on pricing despite demanding the highest of quality in drives. Over the past few years there have been times when Dell has frozen us out and not purchased *any* drives from my current employer (generally due to reliability issues). There is no personal gain (personally or professionally) for me in promoting Dell products, and yet I've been a staunch supporter of them since I started going that route for purchasing my own personal computers. I've had a limited number of great experiences with Dell (and ABS before them), and I *know* how they select hard drives (at least, and possibly what sort of practices they use for selecting other components from other manufacturers). I have no troubles in promoting Dells (properly couponed, and with the expected upgrades as I've identified above) for any of my friends or family.

~Neal

[Lee]

That is really interesting Neal, thanks for the info.

[KiloOhm]

Man i'm really floored people that know anything about PC's would buy a Dell. They just don't use good components, and if you upgrade them to good stuff, their prices start to get pretty bad.

That's funny. I purchase Dell PCs in part because of the superior quality of certain components. The difficult-to-upgrade parts are not typically things I've upgraded in the past, so that aspect doesn't bother me. And I'm savvy enough to modify the installations on the PC that slow-downs are not an issue.
l

I've been building my own rigs for ..ooo...15 or so years now and I consistantly reccomend Dell's to friends. For people who don't care about things like maxing out the graphics or 3dmark scores it's a much better deal than going with a roll your own super rig. (I'm including things like less hassle, good customer support (from personal experience) and ease of purchase)

One Caveat with Dell super cheap $500 systems...they ARE slow. I bought a 2.8GHz PIV buisness model for my parents at a great price (it was like $450 total) from dell and while it's wasn't a P.O.S.. My Athlon 1.4G I handmade 2 years prior outpaced it on many fronts.

I didn't really look into why it was so slow (shared video card was probably the biggest offender) so maybe just throwing an extra $75 into it will make it a decent rig. Sometiems these super cheap systems delete things like the AGP port so beware.

If you went with a model that let you customize the video / sound from Dell I think you'll be happy with your purchase.

[EvilHomer3k]

Our work machines are all AGP-less. Makes it hard to put a decent video card in for lunchtime multiplayer mayhem.

[Exodor]

The highest quality drives my company manufactures get sent to Dell. ~Neal

<--- Just got done pulling a dead 40 GB Maxtor out of a Dell Optiplex GX260.


We have ~70 users, with probably 50 of those using Dell machines (the rest are on old Compaqs *shudder*). I'd say I have a drive fail at least every other month, which seems like an awfully high failure rate for such a small number of machines.

[The Meal]

Exodor, I'm very sorry to hear you're having consistent drive troubles. Is Dell at least being cool about replacing them?

~Neal

[Exodor]

Exodor, I'm very sorry to hear you're having consistent drive troubles. Is Dell at least being cool about replacing them?

~Neal

Very. Generally if I email and explain the troubleshooting steps I've taken they just send a replacement.

[The Meal]

I've never had the "opportunity" to use them for component replacement, but I've only ever heard good stories out of them for that sort of thing (assuming the troubled customer doesn't come in as an asshat with entitlement). But drives suck to lose, even if folks are cool about replacing them.

~Neal

[Biyobi]

Man i'm really floored people that know anything about PC's would buy a Dell. They just don't use good components, and if you upgrade them to good stuff, their prices start to get pretty bad.

That's funny. I purchase Dell PCs in part because of the superior quality of certain components. The difficult-to-upgrade parts are not typically things I've upgraded in the past, so that aspect doesn't bother me. And I'm savvy enough to modify the installations on the PC that slow-downs are not an issue.
l

I've been building my own rigs for ..ooo...15 or so years now and I consistantly reccomend Dell's to friends. For people who don't care about things like maxing out the graphics or 3dmark scores it's a much better deal than going with a roll your own super rig. (I'm including things like less hassle, good customer support (from personal experience) and ease of purchase)

One Caveat with Dell super cheap $500 systems...they ARE slow. I bought a 2.8GHz PIV buisness model for my parents at a great price (it was like $450 total) from dell and while it's wasn't a P.O.S.. My Athlon 1.4G I handmade 2 years prior outpaced it on many fronts.

I didn't really look into why it was so slow (shared video card was probably the biggest offender) so maybe just throwing an extra $75 into it will make it a decent rig. Sometiems these super cheap systems delete things like the AGP port so beware.

If you went with a model that let you customize the video / sound from Dell I think you'll be happy with your purchase.

I usually recommend my IT clients buy Dells and I've noticed the same slowness in the cheapie models. I was running an Athlon 1.4 until January of this year and I noticed that my system was a lot "snappier" than their new mahines. I bought that 1.4 when it was the brand new hotness on the scene.

My new machine is an AMD64 3500+, 6800Ultra, 1GB ram, and two 74GB Raptor drives (non-raid). The boot times make my heart sing! I don't think I'll be upgrading anything in there for another two years.

[moss_icon]

We have ~70 users, with probably 50 of those using Dell machines (the rest are on old Compaqs *shudder*). I'd say I have a drive fail at least every other month, which seems like an awfully high failure rate for such a small number of machines.

yeah, we have a similar failure rate at our college with our Dells.

[The Meal]

We have ~70 users, with probably 50 of those using Dell machines (the rest are on old Compaqs *shudder*). I'd say I have a drive fail at least every other month, which seems like an awfully high failure rate for such a small number of machines.

yeah, we have a similar failure rate at our college with our Dells.

Is your issue hard drive failures, too?

~Neal

[Kraken]

The reason I went with a Dell back in 2002 was in large part because the corporation where I work switched to Dells exclusively for their thousands upon thousands of PC's and laptops.

I've always seen Dells as very good business machines, and that's what at least 95% of PCs are used for. A hardcore gamer who buys all the latest action titles and expects peak graphics performance probably won't be happy with a Dell. AFAIK, Dell has never made a serious play for the tiny hobbyist market, which isn't very price sensitive anyway. Dell's schtick is value, meaning decent quality at a good price. I wouldn't buy one as my desktop gaming machine, but I've had a couple of very sturdy, workhorse Dell laptops and would certainly consider buying another.

Now if you want to talk crap, let's talk Compaq.

[EvilHomer3k]

Dell's XPS line is their push for the hardcore gamer. The Inspiron XPS 2 is one of the best gaming laptops around. It isn't super expensive, but it isn't cheap.

Now, a hardore hardware junkie wouldn't be interested in the XPS but a gamer certainly could be.

[EvilHomer3k]

Compaq's are not the best machines around. I will say that when we had a problem at work with 1000 compaq deskpro's hard drives going bad, they replaced every one of them and even payed us to put them in.