Need a new tower

[Adam]

Here's my predicament. Have two homes and I'm selling one and moving
permanently to the other. The permanent home has ME and I'm giving
Win98 to my son. I only have 100MB zip and given that I have a lot of
stuff (a lot of pictures and apps), it will take an inordinate amount of
time to copy to zip disks. I
figured that taking the hard drive and installing into ME would do the
trick. Will it? If not, and with many telling me that ME (Dell tower
is about
4 years old) is not the greatest OS, I guess I could buy a new tower
with XP Home loaded on. So, if this is the case and considering that
I'm starting to get into
photography as a hobby, whose tower would be most appropriate in the
$1000 (+/-) range. I'd like to be able to go wireless (maybe in the
future), get a P 4 2.8GHz w/800MHz FSB (or whatever you may suggest),
512MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz (2x256M), 40-80GB Ultra ATA/100
Hard Drive (7200 RPM), Single Drive: 48x CD-RW / DVD-ROM Combo Drive or
Single Drive: 48x CD-RW / DVD-ROM Combo Drive (which would you
recommend?), 128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200. This is essentially the
Dell Demension 4600 (on sale for $1030, with monitor, mouse, speakers
and keyboard...all of which I don't need). However, I'd consider
whatever similar set up you might recommend, or where to go to have it
built (I'll be in the Boynton Beach area of FL). Thanks,
Adam

 

[Dave C.]

Here's my predicament. Have two homes and I'm selling one and moving
permanently to the other. The permanent home has ME and I'm giving
Win98 to my son. I only have 100MB zip and given that I have a lot of
stuff (a lot of pictures and apps), it will take an inordinate amount of
time to copy to zip disks. I
figured that taking the hard drive and installing into ME would do the
trick. Will it? If not, and with many telling me that ME (Dell tower
is about
4 years old) is not the greatest OS, I guess I could buy a new tower
with XP Home loaded on. So, if this is the case and considering that
I'm starting to get into
photography as a hobby, whose tower would be most appropriate in the
$1000 (+/-) range. I'd like to be able to go wireless (maybe in the
future), get a P 4 2.8GHz w/800MHz FSB (or whatever you may suggest),
512MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz (2x256M), 40-80GB Ultra ATA/100
Hard Drive (7200 RPM), Single Drive: 48x CD-RW / DVD-ROM Combo Drive or
Single Drive: 48x CD-RW / DVD-ROM Combo Drive (which would you
recommend?), 128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200. This is essentially the
Dell Demension 4600 (on sale for $1030, with monitor, mouse, speakers
and keyboard...all of which I don't need). However, I'd consider
whatever similar set up you might recommend, or where to go to have it
built (I'll be in the Boynton Beach area of FL). Thanks,
Adam

Your best bet would be to buy or build a complete new system including
monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers and built-in NIC. Then get yourself a
NIC for your old system, if you don't have one already. Either that, or
borrow one from somebody. WinME and WinXP are both capable of file sharing.
So you enable file sharing on both systems and hook them together with a
router or a cross-over cable. Now you can see both hard drives in Windows
Explorer. When you are certain you've got all the data you want off the old
system, format that hard drive, reinstall windows and then sell the old
system on ebay. The rest is copied from an earlier thread where I ran an
experiment to see what kind of system my wife could design. My wife knows
nothing about computer hardware, and that's deliberate, as in she doesn't
CARE to know anything about hardware. But below is what she came up with,
with just a few filler components that I added in later. All of this was
from www.newegg.com -Dave


Now lets look at what I had to do to my wife's system to
make it complete:
Add 17" CRT monitor
Add Windows XP home
Add Microsft Works*
Add HSF for Athlon 64CPU

I ended up with:

APEX Beige Mid-Tower Super Case with 350W Power Supply, Model "7C574-115"
Item# N82E16811154017
$24.00

Plextor 12X DVD+RW/-RW Drive, Model PX-712A, Retail
Item# N82E16827131326
$196.99

Arctic Cooling CPU Cooler For AMD Athlong 64/ Opteron, Model "Silencer
64" -RETAIL
Item# N82E16835186108
$9.49

Maxtor 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model 6Y120P0, OEM Drive Only
Item# N82E16822144148
$95.97

Aopen KB858 Keyboard USB 107keys -OEM
Item# N82E16823144011
$7.80

Kingston ValueRAM 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail
Item# N82E16820141425
$49.00 X 2
$98.00

SCANPORT NB-1701 17" CRT Monitor -RETAIL
Item# N82E16824149010
$65.00

ASUS "K8V SE Deluxe" K8T800 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 754
CPU -RETAIL
Item# N82E16813131490
$119.00

Logitech SBF69 Optical Wheel Mouse PS/2 -OEM
Item# N82E16826104137
$10.00

AMD Athlon 64 2800+, 512KB L2 Cache, 64-bit Processor - OEM
Item# N82E16819103450
$173.00

Microsoft Works 7.0 - OEM Full Version
Item# N82E16832102210
$31.00

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack SP1a - OEM
Item# N82E16837102141
$91.00

GIGABYTE ATI RADEON 9200SE Video Card, 128MB DDR, 64-bit, TV-Out, 8X AGP,
Model "GV-R92S128T" -RETAIL
Item# N82E16814125116
$48.00

Total (Before tax): $ 969.25

This is roughly equal in price to a similar Dell 4600, but only
because the Dell is on sale at the moment. Even for the same
price, the system my wife spec'd is a much better deal, once it
is fitted out with OS and software and all necessary hardware.

Without even really trying, she kicked the crap out of Dell.
Imagine what she could come up with if she put some effort into it. -Dave

*Although newegg doesn't carry wordperfect, they do carry something called
(family pack?), but it's not in stock.

 

[Adam]

Your best bet would be to buy or build a complete new system including
monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers and built-in NIC. Then get yourself a
NIC for your old system, if you don't have one already. Either that, or
borrow one from somebody. WinME and WinXP are both capable of file sharing.
So you enable file sharing on both systems and hook them together with a
router or a cross-over cable. Now you can see both hard drives in Windows
Explorer. When you are certain you've got all the data you want off the old
system, format that hard drive, reinstall windows and then sell the old
system on ebay. The rest is copied from an earlier thread where I ran an
experiment to see what kind of system my wife could design. My wife knows
nothing about computer hardware, and that's deliberate, as in she doesn't
CARE to know anything about hardware. But below is what she came up with,
with just a few filler components that I added in later. All of this was
from www.newegg.com -Dave


Now lets look at what I had to do to my wife's system to
make it complete:
Add 17" CRT monitor
Add Windows XP home
Add Microsft Works*
Add HSF for Athlon 64CPU

I ended up with:

APEX Beige Mid-Tower Super Case with 350W Power Supply, Model "7C574-115"
Item# N82E16811154017
$24.00

Plextor 12X DVD+RW/-RW Drive, Model PX-712A, Retail
Item# N82E16827131326
$196.99

Arctic Cooling CPU Cooler For AMD Athlong 64/ Opteron, Model "Silencer
64" -RETAIL
Item# N82E16835186108
$9.49

Maxtor 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model 6Y120P0, OEM Drive Only
Item# N82E16822144148
$95.97

Aopen KB858 Keyboard USB 107keys -OEM
Item# N82E16823144011
$7.80

Kingston ValueRAM 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail
Item# N82E16820141425
$49.00 X 2
$98.00

SCANPORT NB-1701 17" CRT Monitor -RETAIL
Item# N82E16824149010
$65.00

ASUS "K8V SE Deluxe" K8T800 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 754
CPU -RETAIL
Item# N82E16813131490
$119.00

Logitech SBF69 Optical Wheel Mouse PS/2 -OEM
Item# N82E16826104137
$10.00

AMD Athlon 64 2800+, 512KB L2 Cache, 64-bit Processor - OEM
Item# N82E16819103450
$173.00

Microsoft Works 7.0 - OEM Full Version
Item# N82E16832102210
$31.00

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack SP1a - OEM
Item# N82E16837102141
$91.00

GIGABYTE ATI RADEON 9200SE Video Card, 128MB DDR, 64-bit, TV-Out, 8X AGP,
Model "GV-R92S128T" -RETAIL
Item# N82E16814125116
$48.00

Total (Before tax): $ 969.25

This is roughly equal in price to a similar Dell 4600, but only
because the Dell is on sale at the moment. Even for the same
price, the system my wife spec'd is a much better deal, once it
is fitted out with OS and software and all necessary hardware.

Without even really trying, she kicked the crap out of Dell.
Imagine what she could come up with if she put some effort into it. -Dave

*Although newegg doesn't carry wordperfect, they do carry something called
(family pack?), but it's not in stock.

Thanks for the info. Looks like your wife got herself a good one.
However, I may be in the wrong place as I'm not into building my own
unit. Just wondering where I can go to to get what I want built for me
at a reasonable price.

 

[Dave C.]

Thanks for the info. Looks like your wife got herself a good one.

However, I may be in the wrong place as I'm not into building my own
unit. Just wondering where I can go to to get what I want built for me
at a reasonable price.

In that case, order from Dell, but deliberately buy as little RAM as
possible when you order. That's because Dell Ram is usually about four
times the going rate. Then order more RAM from www.crucial.com For
example, if the minimum amount of RAM available at Dell is 256MB, take that
.. . . but make sure that it comes in ONE stick. Then order a 512MB stick
from Crucial for a total of 768MB, which is reasonable.

If you don't know what kind of RAM to order, don't worry . . . just plug
your system (dell 4600, for example) into the web page at crucial and they
will show you what you need. -Dave

 

[Adam]

In that case, order from Dell, but deliberately buy as little RAM as
possible when you order. That's because Dell Ram is usually about four
times the going rate. Then order more RAM from www.crucial.com For
example, if the minimum amount of RAM available at Dell is 256MB, take that
. . . but make sure that it comes in ONE stick. Then order a 512MB stick
from Crucial for a total of 768MB, which is reasonable.

If you don't know what kind of RAM to order, don't worry . . . just plug
your system (dell 4600, for example) into the web page at crucial and they
will show you what you need. -Dave

Great idea about ordering reduced RAM. Makes a lot of sense and so
cheap and easy to install.
Adam