Comments | belinus: [Misc] Dell Rolls Over

belinus

[Misc] Dell Rolls Over

Jan 31, 2006 10:21

I purchased my no-longer-trusty Dell Inspiron 8600 back in the fall of 2004. I was quite happy with it as it had an nVIDIA display adapter, a secondary battery option, 15.4" wide screen display, and a non-celeron processor. Unfortunately the damn thing turned into a lemon. I was averaging a service call every two months and, if tech support had its ( Read more... )

computers

Comments 9

philos_arbiter February 1 2006, 03:12:48 UTC

Hi J.L.,
I got my 7th Dell Desktop (one at a time every few years) about a year ago, it's a Dimension 8400, with: 3.4Gz Intel, 1Gb memory, 80 Gb Hard drive. I had to immediately add a new 240 Gb Sata Hard Drive, and I am running out of space already after one year. I like my system, and it has decent speed.
I am a programmer/analyst/webmaster so I use mine a lot. I enjoy using Dreamweaver 8 and Macromedia Studio 8. I also drive my TV with it, and both record and play TV shows and movies from different sources. I love using it to control both my TV and stereo.
How's the job search going? I wish you luck bud.

Sorry to hear about the Dell... devx1101 February 1 2006, 06:33:45 UTC

A wipe is a good idea if you ever decide to discard a hard drive that carried user data. I'm not familiar with the Gutmann wipe though, I only know of the wipes that simply write zeroes out to the disk and they make several passes, usually about 3. Is the Gutmann wipe the same principle?

Btw, you are very effective with your complaints and writing government officials, :).

Re: Sorry to hear about the Dell... belinus February 1 2006, 16:41:51 UTC

A Gutmann wipe means that pretty much only MI-5 & MI-6 could potentially retrieve the data on the drive. Since I plan to do at least 3 complete runs with it, I doubt anyone will ever be able to get the data off.

The 0-wipe is lowest security and is recommend only for reinstalls.

And as for my use of government, so far I'm 2-0 :)

thrion February 1 2006, 12:39:56 UTC

I *was* happy with my Dell when I first bought it, but over the years I have had 2 hard drives, 3 CD ROMs, and now the screen and keyboard don't work. I just don't believe the Dell quality (including that of tech support) is what it used to be.

chigibby February 1 2006, 16:33:36 UTC

I'd rather die then buy another Dell. I'm just about done building my new desktop an AMD Sempron 3300+. It's fine for running Fedora, and i can retire my Dell Dimension. I'm throughly jaded by the motherboard capitor problem they had though, so i can never go back to Dell.

belinus February 1 2006, 16:40:12 UTC

Dell wasn't the only ones who got burned though. My beloved SuperMicro also got nailed big time by that.

Hopefully they gave you an nForce board with that Sempron and not a shitty VIA one. If it's VIA, you may wish you bought a Dell :).

chigibby February 1 2006, 18:00:08 UTC

Nope it's nForce! Duh! I picked it out :)

vorpal February 28 2006, 12:58:40 UTC

*pssst*... you should have bought a Mac and avoided all these problems :D.

belinus February 28 2006, 14:46:05 UTC

LOL! Chances are the new ones are made by the same Malaysian company that makes Dell and the other major x86 folk.

Not to mention I do not think my addiction is available on Macs.