Decent All Around Desktop

[Clipper]

?

 

[Ringel05]

?

One that works............


I could recommend a hundred different desktops that are "decent". Maybe a little more info would help narrow it down some. What price range? How fast do you want it to be? You want an "all in one" or a more traditional desktop? What will it's primary purpose be? Windows? Mac? Linux? Touch screen or no touch screen? Etc, etc, etc.......

 

[Clipper]

One that works............


I could recommend a hundred different desktops that are "decent". Maybe a little more info would help narrow it down some. What price range? How fast do you want it to be? You want an "all in one" or a more traditional desktop? What will it's primary purpose be? Windows? Mac? Linux? Touch screen or no touch screen? Etc, etc, etc.......

I now have a Dell that is 3 years old & on it's last legs so I'm looking for something basically just to troll the net. No gaming, don't use it for work, etc. Running Windows & all I need is the tower. Wife does some FB gaming & that's about it.

 

[Ringel05]

I now have a Dell that is 3 years old & on it's last legs so I'm looking for something basically just to troll the net. No gaming, don't use it for work, etc. Running Windows & all I need is the tower. Wife does some FB gaming & that's about it.

Okay, what price range? Full tower? Short tower?

 

[Clipper]

Okay, what price range? Full tower? Short tower?

Probably $400-500. Short tower

 

[Ringel05]

Probably $400-500. Short tower

Right now the top rated (by numerous reviews) budget desktop under $500 would be the Acer Aspire TC-895 with the i3 Intel chip.
The thing that sets this one apart from most of the others is it utilizes a NVMe M.2 SSD (solid state storage) which is quite a bit faster than the old HHD hard drives. A 500 GB NVMe drive typically runs around $100 for a good one which makes this a great deal at $500.
This has everything you need and probably a little more.

Here's the Amazon link:
Amazon product

Now to go a little cheaper a top rated budget desktop is the Dell Inspiron 3891at around $460. Pretty much has everything the Acer has at a $40 savings but honestly the Acer is a better machine overall.

Amazon product

​

 

[Ringel05]

Right now the top rated (by numerous reviews) budget desktop under $500 would be the Acer Aspire TC-895 with the i3 Intel chip.
The thing that sets this one apart from most of the others is it utilizes a NVMe M.2 SSD (solid state storage) which is quite a bit faster than the old HHD hard drives. A 500 GB NVMe drive typically runs around $100 for a good one which makes this a great deal at $500.
This has everything you need and probably a little more.

Here's the Amazon link:
Amazon product

Now to go a little cheaper a top rated budget desktop is the Dell Inspiron 3891at around $460. Pretty much has everything the Acer has at a $40 savings but honestly the Acer is a better machine overall.

Amazon product

​

Interesting, I don't see the links.........

 

[fncceo]

There was an old "Cathy" cartoon from the '90s where the eponymous heroine claimed she was finally going to get computer. Nothing was going to stop her.

She marched into a computer store and declared, "I'm going to buy a computer!"

The salesman asked her, "What would you like to use it for?"

The last frame showed her explaining to a friend that she didn't buy the computer because the salesman, "Got too technical".

 

[Clipper]

Right now the top rated (by numerous reviews) budget desktop under $500 would be the Acer Aspire TC-895 with the i3 Intel chip.
The thing that sets this one apart from most of the others is it utilizes a NVMe M.2 SSD (solid state storage) which is quite a bit faster than the old HHD hard drives. A 500 GB NVMe drive typically runs around $100 for a good one which makes this a great deal at $500.
This has everything you need and probably a little more.

Here's the Amazon link:
Amazon product

Now to go a little cheaper a top rated budget desktop is the Dell Inspiron 3891at around $460. Pretty much has everything the Acer has at a $40 savings but honestly the Acer is a better machine overall.

Amazon product

​

Thanks, I'll take a look at those. Much appreciated.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

To add... you will be SOOO much happier with an SSD than the older hard drives.
Basically... instead of 30 - 45 seconds to boot up - we're talking 2 or 3 seconds.

 

[Clipper]

To add... you will be SOOO much happier with an SSD than the older hard drives.
Basically... instead of 30 - 45 seconds to boot up - we're talking 2 or 3 seconds.

My Dell takes a couple minutes to boot up.

 

[ProfessorHawthorne]

Right now the top rated (by numerous reviews) budget desktop under $500 would be the Acer Aspire TC-895 with the i3 Intel chip.
The thing that sets this one apart from most of the others is it utilizes a NVMe M.2 SSD (solid state storage) which is quite a bit faster than the old HHD hard drives. A 500 GB NVMe drive typically runs around $100 for a good one which makes this a great deal at $500.
This has everything you need and probably a little more.

Here's the Amazon link:
Amazon product

Now to go a little cheaper a top rated budget desktop is the Dell Inspiron 3891at around $460. Pretty much has everything the Acer has at a $40 savings but honestly the Acer is a better machine overall.

Amazon product

​

Hah! Another computer nerd like myself. Good suggestion on the ACER though.
Not only is NVME quite a bit faster than old HDs, it's faster than most SATA SSDs.

Let's talk him into building one - maybe with an 8 core Intel i9 and an Nvidia 3080 - yeah, and a 32 inch 4K 144Hz monitor.

Cheers

 

[Ringel05]

My Dell takes a couple minutes to boot up.

Is that why you think your 3 year old Dell is on it's last legs?

 

[Clipper]

Is that why you think your 3 year old Dell is on it's last legs?

No, it's been acting up for awhile. Freezing up, scrolling on a website it lags, etc. etc. I suspected a virus, ran a full system scan which found nothing. It does this when usng both Chrome & Edge browsers.

 

[Ringel05]

No, it's been acting up for awhile. Freezing up, scrolling on a website it lags, etc. etc. I suspected a virus, ran a full system scan which found nothing. It does this when usng both Chrome & Edge browsers.

It's possible there's a virus. Is it Win 7, 8 or 10? If it's Win 10 you could always do a reinstall, it wipes out all your data (do a backup) then does a fresh install giving you a "new" installed operating system. If that doesn't fix it then there's some hardware going bad.
Note that this for some is an extreme approach, I do it about once a year just because.

Start fresh with a clean installation of Windows 10

 

[Clipper]

It's possible there's a virus. Is it Win 7, 8 or 10? If it's Win 10 you could always do a reinstall, it wipes out all your data (do a backup) then does a fresh install giving you a "new" installed operating system. If that doesn't fix it then there's some hardware going bad.
Note that this for some is an extreme approach, I do it about once a year just because.

Start fresh with a clean installation of Windows 10

Using Windows 10. I had Avast, ran a complete scan, found nothing. Installed Norton, same deal.

 

[Ringel05]

Using Windows 10. I had Avast, ran a complete scan, found nothing. Installed Norton, same deal.

It's also quite possible there's some corrupted system files.

Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files

 

[Rogue AI]

To add... you will be SOOO much happier with an SSD than the older hard drives.
Basically... instead of 30 - 45 seconds to boot up - we're talking 2 or 3 seconds.

The loss of hard drive space is a hassle, for now. That was the trade off to keep SSD reasonable. The speed upgrade is pretty awesome though.