**buying new P.C., would love advice**

[Ringel05]

Do you want a $3000 dollar computer that will cost you around $1000 or less? Build your own. You will have an easily upgradable system without all the bloatware that comes with the retailers boxes.
(For $2000 I can do it for you.........)

 

[Ringel05]

How about I send you a tweet of my weiner and we call it a deal?

I was joking about the $2000 but not the rest. Are you being a dick or is this your idea of humor?

 

[Ringel05]

How about I send you a tweet of my weiner and we call it a deal?

I was joking about the $2000 but not the rest. Are you being a dick or is this your idea of humor?

I'm never a jerk when not speaking to a jerk. I wasn't being a dick, It was an Anthony Weiner joke.

My idea of humor far exceeds any other, all you have to do to find out is to explore this warped mind. One day, you will come to realize that it thinks diagonally while all others think in straight lines or circles

Okay, I'm not all that familiar with you so I wasn't sure. Emoticons are you friends in these instances, it tends to remove doubt and confusion.
Honestly, building a system these days is easy if you can follow simple instructions. 3 years ago I knew very little about building systems, now I do it all the time. If you want a great system I'd be willing to offer help and advice on building it for free.

 

[kwc57]

I wouldn't recommend and HP. Sure, they have a lot of bells and whistles, but they are like a Jaguar - pretty and perform, but in the shop half of the time.

I have had to send my laptop back to HP so many times.

Such a hassle that I would trade off the bells and whistles for something else.

If IBM were still in the business, I would definitely go back to one of their machines - never, ever crashed. Ever. I don't know if that is the case now that they are Lenovo, but maybe read some reviews - if they seem to say the quality is similar to IBM, go for it...in a NY minute.

Otherwise, the Vaio seems good and stable, but pretty expensive.


So, that's my experience. Hopefully, Ringel will post - he knows the hardware, so I would listen to him.

My wife bought a top of the line 17 inch HP laptop that is a piece of crap. She would be using it and it would overheat and shut down, so now she can't use it without it being on a chill mat. She has had to reload from scratch about 3 times and the wireless card is constantly going up and down with the router in the same room. She took it to the Geek Squad who was required to send it in to HP for the wireless issue. All they did was reload her operating system. Hello! She already did that 3 times herself.

 

[kwc57]

First off that shit you're editing isn't music.
Second you ever heard of saving up and then buying ?
Of course not. Yer uh murkin.

Negged simply for being an asswipe.

 

[Ringel05]

I'm never a jerk when not speaking to a jerk. I wasn't being a dick, It was an Anthony Weiner joke.

My idea of humor far exceeds any other, all you have to do to find out is to explore this warped mind. One day, you will come to realize that it thinks diagonally while all others think in straight lines or circles

Okay, I'm not familiar with you so I wasn't sure. Emoticons are you friends in these instances, it tends to remove doubt and confusion.
Honestly, building a system these days is easy if you can follow simple instructions. 3 years ago I knew very little about building systems, now I do it all the time. If you want a great system I'd be willing to offer help and advice on building it for free.

That's awfully kind of you. I think, though, that I'm going to save taking that next step of building my own until the next time.

Not because it's not the wiser thing to do, but because there's a real sort of urgency inside of me to get my vocals back on the mic. Plus I bought a house two weeks ago and I'm in the middle of a complete renovation.....learning something like that as opposed to swiping my no interest card and having it there for me........just too much for me right now.

No problem, just offering. Oh and my first build took me a half an hour to put together, it's like a small puzzle that only goes together one way.
Now for what you want, you're definitely going to need good ram, DDR 3 will work best, you will eventually need a good graphics card (for the video) and a good sound card. You do not need an i7 chip so you can go with AMD Phenom II x4 or and i5 chip, stay away from the i3 processor. I'll see what I can dig up online.
Oh and Dell has an outlet site, I think they currently have 3 day free shipping and you get the full years warranty with it.

 

[Ringel05]

http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?rn=3540&SC=&c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh

With this next one you can add a bigger (2 terabyte) hard drive later for around $70.

http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?rn=3201&SC=&c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh

Best Buys listings of systems that fit your requirements

1TB -1.9TB|8GB|Premium : Towers Only - BestBuy

 

[Si modo]

I wouldn't recommend and HP. Sure, they have a lot of bells and whistles, but they are like a Jaguar - pretty and perform, but in the shop half of the time.

I have had to send my laptop back to HP so many times.

Such a hassle that I would trade off the bells and whistles for something else.

If IBM were still in the business, I would definitely go back to one of their machines - never, ever crashed. Ever. I don't know if that is the case now that they are Lenovo, but maybe read some reviews - if they seem to say the quality is similar to IBM, go for it...in a NY minute.

Otherwise, the Vaio seems good and stable, but pretty expensive.


So, that's my experience. Hopefully, Ringel will post - he knows the hardware, so I would listen to him.

My wife bought a top of the line 17 inch HP laptop that is a piece of crap. She would be using it and it would overheat and shut down, so now she can't use it without it being on a chill mat. She has had to reload from scratch about 3 times and the wireless card is constantly going up and down with the router in the same room. She took it to the Geek Squad who was required to send it in to HP for the wireless issue. All they did was reload her operating system. Hello! She already did that 3 times herself.

Exactly! The freaking overheating...it's nuts, and my battery somehow didn't make it on any of the recall lists, but it overheats so much that I can no longer put it on my lap.

Freakin' A...never again.

 

[Ringel05]

That's good advice.

I lost over 300 songs with this one going awry, unless I want to pay to do the data transfer. Not sure I want to. I consider my music a hobby and don't really need it sitting around but once I get "polished" enough I might better get an external hard-drive for back-up.

If the mobo is fried your hard drive is probably still good which means the stuff on it is intact. You can add the old hard drive to the new computer if the old drive is SATA (round or square cable as opposed to a ribbon cable). It will automatically set it up as drive D, E or F when you turn the computer back on.

 

[Ringel05]

I wouldn't recommend and HP. Sure, they have a lot of bells and whistles, but they are like a Jaguar - pretty and perform, but in the shop half of the time.

I have had to send my laptop back to HP so many times.

Such a hassle that I would trade off the bells and whistles for something else.

If IBM were still in the business, I would definitely go back to one of their machines - never, ever crashed. Ever. I don't know if that is the case now that they are Lenovo, but maybe read some reviews - if they seem to say the quality is similar to IBM, go for it...in a NY minute.

Otherwise, the Vaio seems good and stable, but pretty expensive.


So, that's my experience. Hopefully, Ringel will post - he knows the hardware, so I would listen to him.

My wife bought a top of the line 17 inch HP laptop that is a piece of crap. She would be using it and it would overheat and shut down, so now she can't use it without it being on a chill mat. She has had to reload from scratch about 3 times and the wireless card is constantly going up and down with the router in the same room. She took it to the Geek Squad who was required to send it in to HP for the wireless issue. All they did was reload her operating system. Hello! She already did that 3 times herself.

I don't know how old her laptop is but HP had a recall on batteries that were overheating in 2009.

 

[kwc57]

I wouldn't recommend and HP. Sure, they have a lot of bells and whistles, but they are like a Jaguar - pretty and perform, but in the shop half of the time.

I have had to send my laptop back to HP so many times.

Such a hassle that I would trade off the bells and whistles for something else.

If IBM were still in the business, I would definitely go back to one of their machines - never, ever crashed. Ever. I don't know if that is the case now that they are Lenovo, but maybe read some reviews - if they seem to say the quality is similar to IBM, go for it...in a NY minute.

Otherwise, the Vaio seems good and stable, but pretty expensive.


So, that's my experience. Hopefully, Ringel will post - he knows the hardware, so I would listen to him.

My wife bought a top of the line 17 inch HP laptop that is a piece of crap. She would be using it and it would overheat and shut down, so now she can't use it without it being on a chill mat. She has had to reload from scratch about 3 times and the wireless card is constantly going up and down with the router in the same room. She took it to the Geek Squad who was required to send it in to HP for the wireless issue. All they did was reload her operating system. Hello! She already did that 3 times herself.

I don't know how old her laptop is but HP had a recall on batteries that were overheating in 2009.

I believe she got it early 2010.

 

[Ringel05]

My wife bought a top of the line 17 inch HP laptop that is a piece of crap. She would be using it and it would overheat and shut down, so now she can't use it without it being on a chill mat. She has had to reload from scratch about 3 times and the wireless card is constantly going up and down with the router in the same room. She took it to the Geek Squad who was required to send it in to HP for the wireless issue. All they did was reload her operating system. Hello! She already did that 3 times herself.

I don't know how old her laptop is but HP had a recall on batteries that were overheating in 2009.

I believe she got it early 2010.

Just checking however that doesn't rule out the possibility, a bad one still could have found it's way through QC. Check the battery after it's been on for a while, especially if it's plugged in, it'll be warm but really shouldn't be very hot.
That said a lot of the higher end laptops experience heat issues simply because of the processor's heat output and inadequate cooling built into such a compact area.
What's the model number/designation?

 

[kwc57]

I don't know how old her laptop is but HP had a recall on batteries that were overheating in 2009.

I believe she got it early 2010.

Just checking however that doesn't rule out the possibility, a bad one still could have found it's way through QC. Check the battery after it's been on for a while, especially if it's plugged in, it'll be warm but really shouldn't be very hot.
That said a lot of the higher end laptops experience heat issues simply because of the processor's heat output and inadequate cooling built into such a compact area.
What's the model number/designation?

Not sure of the model, I'll have to check it at home.

 

[Ringel05]

I believe she got it early 2010.

Just checking however that doesn't rule out the possibility, a bad one still could have found it's way through QC. Check the battery after it's been on for a while, especially if it's plugged in, it'll be warm but really shouldn't be very hot.
That said a lot of the higher end laptops experience heat issues simply because of the processor's heat output and inadequate cooling built into such a compact area.
What's the model number/designation?

Not sure of the model, I'll have to check it at home.

Cool, let me know, I'll see what I can find out. Oh and I just found a couple of other potential issues. The air intake/exhaust ports are easily clogged with lint from upholstery, bedding, etc, also it seems some of the units have been leaving the factory without thermal past between the heatsink and processor, not good! Plus HP has a tendency to be cheap when it comes to the cooling systems in these units and they can fail.

 

[Kooshdakhaa]

I like HP and have never had any problems with them. I like to order them on-line, and pick the various components to make exactly the system that I want.

Of course, if you want a powerful computer, the price is going to add up.

I would never buy a computer off the shelf anywhere. Some will say you can get a good deal that way, but I think there's a reason it's a "good deal." It's surely going to be lacking in some way for my needs.

I don't know about the credit, I've always just used my own credit cards, not asked them to finance it.

Oh, one thing...I've not bought a custom laptop from HP, so don't know how those are. I always get desktop computers as I don't need them to be mobile and a laptop powerful enough just costs way too much.