dead PC

[gonzolawyer]

Wednesday night I came home and my PC was on but I couldn't get the monitor out of power-save. I was left with no choice but a reset. A few resets later, still no change with the display.

Swapped out monitors and still no change. Now, the PC doesn't even beep as it starts out. mccalix couldn't figure it out either. Prolly the motherboard

Comments

[phanatic]

If you're going to go with a namebrand, I'd go with HP. I've built probably a dozen or so boxes, so I'm speaking from that perspective, and my HP's just great. There's nothing integrated on the board except drive controllers and the network and the USB and the Firewire, nothing you'd choose to dick around with if you didn't have to. Actual Soundblaster in a slot, actual video card in an actual AGP slot, honest-to-Glub ASUS motherboard, and so forth. The case is big and roomy and completely screwless. Since I've had it, I've upgraded the video card, the RAM, the CPU, and flashed the BIOS, and not once have I had a single problem with it.

If I were building one, I'd grab a Shuttle case and put together something nice and small and potent, like an Athlon64 3200+, gig of RAM, the biggest SATA hard drive I could find, and an ATI FX-5900XT or rough equivalent. But if I were gonna buy a name brand, I'd go for a custom HP job.

[gonzolawyer]

I've been building my own PCs since 96, but I've gathered plenty of opinions from people along the way on brand-name PCs. Just this evening mccalix was mentioning a recent disaster related to an HP PC.

But your explanation is exactly what I'm looking for. A roomy case (I always buy full towers - I need elbow room!) with plenty of expansion slots and very few peripherals integrated on the board. I'll check out HP.

I just don't have the patience for building my own PCs anymore. Too much going on in my life.

Thanks for the advice!

[starling321]

We've bought our last two computers with HP and been quite happy. The option of getting an AMD chip vs. Pentium, which is your only choice from Dell, is a deal sealer for us.

Previous to this we've done clone shops, but it's been nice to put them together on the HP site.

[parilous]

Chris just found a great PC on UBid (some of our friends pooled money together to buy another friend a computer after his completely died).

Here's the specs (considered top -- or close to top -- of the line):

Manufacturer refurbished HP Pavilion a475c
---------------------------------------------
Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz (wow!) w/512K L2 cache
512 MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM
160 Gig UDMA HD
8x DVD+R/+RW drive
7 in 1 card reader (Compact flash, smartmedia, various other memory
sticks, etc.)
Floppy
V.92 data/faxmodem plus
Integrated sound (non-integrated is better)
ATI Radeon 9200SE card (AGP)
Windows XP Home Edition (Professional edition is better)
Speakers, keyboard, mouse.

Total for this was $658.00. It was a steal, because it was refurbished. New, from Dell (because I just priced some computers at work), this would be over $1700. You still may want to check out UBid, once you determine what the specs are for high-performance.

HP Pavilion a475c

[gonzolawyer]

http://www.ubid.com/actn/opn/getpage.asp?AuctionId=9927137

here's one where the bid is now at $559 and an hour left. I can give this a try - thanks!

[gonzolawyer]

I waited until the last minute, then upped the high bid by $50. Eliminated one of the proxy bidders and the other couldn't keep up. However, the overtime policy meant I had to wait another 10 minutes. But I got it for $651, definitely a good price.

Thanks again!

Good jarb!

[parilous]

Congrats on your computer purchase. :-)

Glad I could help -- Chris was really impressed by the specs, and you know he doesn't impress that easily.