Computer help?

I don't honestly have any idea at this point.Seriously, though, window shopping is fun. It's no waste of my time. I'll price some stuff and get back to you.

Ars TechnicaTom's Hardware GuideAnandtech

I don't play games or compile, but I do lots of things simultaneously, like downloading while watching video and updating an iPod. Javascript is especially slow on my current machine.--Percy

Sounds like you definitely could do with a dual core processor. Quite possibly more than one.

Especially when someone says "I want it hot and cost is not the overriding factor" Constraints are where the fun is but when they are relaxed occasionally...Don't spend it all in the one shop, y'hearEdited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Ok. The fastest Dell system:

quote:

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Components
Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor x6800 (2.93GHz)
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition with re-installation CD
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 DIMMs
640GB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 320GB SATA 3Gb/s 7200 RPM HDDs)
Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable
20 inch UltraSharp™ 2007FPW Widescreen Digital Flat Panel
Dual 256MB nVidia GeForce 7900 GS
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeMusic (D), w/Dolby® Digital 5.1

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Accessories
Dell AS501 10W Flat Panel Attached Spkrs for UltraSharp™ Flat Panels
Dell USB Keyboard
Dell Optical USB Mouse
No Floppy Drive Included
No Modem Requested

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Software
Microsoft Office Basic - Includes Word, Excel and Outlook email
PC-cillin Internet Security with AntiVirus and Spyware removal 24-months
No preinstalled software

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Service
2Yr Ltd Warranty, 2Yr At-Home Service, and 2Yr HW Warranty Support
No ISP requested
Also Includes
Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.0
XPS, Specialized Support
Windows Vista™ Capable

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That weighs in at $3922. A Crashfrog special:

quote:

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Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor x6800 (2.93GHz)
ASUS P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard (comes with built-in 802.11g)
2GB (2x1GB) Kingston HyperX 800 mHz DDR2 Dual-Channel RAM (faster than the Dell machine offers)
2x320 GB SATA 3.0 Gb/s 7200 RPM drives (like the Dell machine, I'll stripe those together into a RAID 0 setup for more speed)
LITE-ON 16X DVDR DVD Burner Black ATAPI/E-IDE w/ LightScribe (just one drive compared to the Dell's two, but we can add more)
NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT video card
Acer 22" widescreen LCD monitor
Cooler Master case (as seen above) and power supply
Cooler Master CPU heatsink/fan

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XP Home
Office 2003

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As parts that comes to $2695. You can save $400 or more if you opt for a slower CPU (the next fastest would be the $550 Core 2 Duo E6700, at 2.6 gHz.) No keyboard or mouse but I suspect you have those already (and I hate when they come bundled, I'm picky about my keyboards.) I'd assemble them for $200, and for that I'll set the thing up, stripe your drives as a RAID 0, install Windows and Office, and spend a few hours tweaking the hardware settings for the best performance. For support you can call me up occasionally and ask me stuff about it, with no guarantee that I can solve your problem. Obviously, I'd pass along the bill for the final shipping from me to you.Maybe it's not worth the hassle, perhaps. And 2 years of professional service is worth quite a bit. When you build it yourself you're essentially on your own.It's fun to window shop, though. I had a good time compiling this. Thanks for the excuse to do so.

Looks good Crash. As a tip in your direction I can get any MS stuff from a neighbour who works at Microsoft: full Office for $50 IIRC and post across (to Percy only - he runs the show and for all the grief given he deserves a nod every now and then). I assume your costing for legit stuff. What'd that save?Not mad about the case - looks like those doors are servo motor driven - breakdownEdited by iano, : No reason given.

Hi Crash,You're right about the benefits of the warranty, but who knows, if we can save a few more bucks it might be too interesting to pass up. How much do we save if we drop the monitor?Questions, issues and things I forgot:

• Sound card?
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• Number of USB ports?
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• Firewire?

The case is a bit, uh, unusual. What's behind the doors?What's the new rollup?--Percy

Monitor was $325. Motherboard has 5.1 audio + mic input (as well as S/PDIF). Although in researching the board, some had complaints that the audio quality was poor. An Audigy SE card with 7.1 support (which you can configure for 5.1) runs about $27 and would solve that issue. I'm not very audio-savvy so you'd have to make that determination. 4 on the back panel, 2 on top of the case. Of course a USB hub can extend that number quite a bit but that's one more piece of clutter on your desk or floor. One port on the back panel. The case is unusual. I saw it on bit-tech.net a few weeks ago and it caught my eye. The doors clamshell open to reveal the drive bays.It's just a suggestion, of course. The fun of building your own system is that you can cram it into any box you feel like. If a plain ol' beige box is more to your liking you can do that. I just saw the interesting design of the XPS machine and figured that a comparable custom PC should exhibit some comparable design. But there's plenty of nondescript cases avaliable, too. The sky's the limit, really. Poke around Newegg.com if you want. Any ATX case will work. (Expect to discard any power supply that they come with, a case is a case but power supplies are not created equal. I've never had a PS/case combo where the PS didn't burn out on the first boot-up.) Sans monitor? $2370 or so.

XP Home is $90 and Office is $170. But...I'm almost certain that your buddy is violating license agreements by purchasing software at employee discount on behalf of friends, family, and dudes on the internet. It would be like my wife using her student ID to purchase software from the campus bookstore at student prices. Totally legal for her but it's illegal for anyone not a student to use that software - including, theoretically, her, when she stops being a student. I presume it's probably the same boat for your buddy. Legal for him to buy the software for his own use; illegal for non-MS employees to use it under that license.Up to Percy, I guess. I think they just swing open by hand, actually.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Please help, somebody.First, I want to publically thank my brother in Christ Ian (Iano) who ordered me a brand-new beautiful Dell computer, which arrived two days ago. It seems to make him as happy to serve the Lord this way as it makes me happy to receive it.It's a great thing to have a new computer but I'm a techie nightmare. I did get the thing up and running all by myself, including crawling around under the desk, unhappy arthritic joints and tears of frustration notwithstanding. I had various run-ins with various customer support and tech support departments in the process, and now I'm having a problem Dell support says I have to pay for, which I can't. Ian has been very helpful via email but he's unavailable at the moment so I thought I'd try the computer thread here.I'm trying to hook up an HP printer to the Dell machine and it won't happen. I finally found the Setup Guide for the printer and it tells me to remove the USB connector, uninstall the software and restart the computer before proceeding.I removed the connector, I removed the disk too, but the software is only partially installed and is not showing up on the list of programs in order to be uninstalled, and I cannot turn off the computer because it says I must wait until the program that is installing, at the rate of 8 KBps at the moment, down from 78 when I first noticed, about three hours ago, finishes, which will be never.I can't even press the button to turn it off. It still tells me I have to wait for the program to install.I suppose this is a dumb question, butWhat if I unplug it?Or is there a better solution?Thank you, geek friends.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The computer is really brand new?In that case everything is plug and play and you need do nothing, just plug the printer into the USB port.But it sounds like you already installed the printer software, or you stopped installing it in the middle?Anyway, yes, the machine can be turned off. Push the power button and hold it down for 5-10 seconds and it will turn off.While it is off, plug the printer into the USB port, unless it was already plugged in when you powered down.Wait 10 or 20 seconds, then push the power button to turn it on again.Now what's happening?--Percy

That wasn't the deal ex-sis in Christ But what Percy is saying is about it. Just take it slow and don't panic. Step by step ok?

OK I unplugged it and it finally aborted the installation process.I do things VERY slowly because I can't stand the panic feeling. Every time something goes wrong I go do something else for a while. That means I've been doing a lot of something else in the last few days.Next step follow the printer Setup Guide I guess. Can't be a simple plug and play situation. I mean, surely it needs the software installed , doesn't it?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Right out of the boxes. That's what I assumed at first, but it asked me for the disk, which I managed to find and load. I figured THAT's all it would take but then it wouldn't load it all the way. Yes, stopped installing in the middle. It was slowing down and not loading. The first two parts loaded rapidly, but in part 3 it got 6% loaded and then the rate at which it was loading slowed over a couple of hours from at least 78 KPps down to 8, when I finally realized this just wasn't going to load at all. That's when I called Dell support who said since it wasn't a Dell printer I'd have to pay for the service. Done, and back on and finally the installation process did abort. Thanks. I was afraid it might do something terrible. I'd unplugged it from the USB port because that's what the Setup Guide said to do. It says to start the disk first and THEN plug it into the USB port when prompted. So now that I've unplugged and restarted the machine that's what I will do next. Thanks Percy.