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You can snag a HP for around $500.   Just lost the old XP machine last week.  Fucking hate Windows 10!

 

Pull the motherboard and replace all the 5V buss filter caps with 10V caps, and that XP will run forever!   6.5V caps running at 5V will eventually start puking their guts.  Idiot engineers running with no safety factor, just like those kaboom 50's.  Methinks they need a lesson about safety factors with 62,000 psi right next to their face!

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I build my own, and haven't bought a pc fully assembled in a long time.  I also typically buy busted stuff off of ebay and repair it.  I am on Windows 7, but I have to admit, I don't mind windows 10.  You really need to decide on what you want to use it for, how long do you want to keep it (upgrade-able and expandable) so on and so forth.  Gaming?  Photo/Video editing? Web surfing?  Then you can make your decision.

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Hp and comcrap are throw aways. I agree build your own.

Funny, there are a couple here at my place that have been running fine for years as home office machines. One desktop since ~2002. All I've done to it was replace a DVD drive and add memory, the other, a notebook, since ~2007. It got memory, a bigger battery and a SSD upgrade for speed. I'd say that's a pretty good run. 

....but what do I know? I'm just guy who was in network support for 5 years before moving on and up.

Edited by patriot
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I haven't had a desk top in a long time, but I have a HP with the second (or at least what I/ perceive as the second, lol) version of Vista on it that refuses to die and it is used daily at the shop (Intel processor). I mainly use that one as a music library and immediate research tool. I think I bought it in 2009 or 2010 and definitely got my money's worth. I also have another 2011 HP laptop (AMD) that was abandoned by a family member and has worked fine after I purged all of the BS they had downloaded on it. It had Windows 8 on it, which I thought I hated until I was force fed 10, which I really really hate. For out of the box machines they have both been good enough. I previously had Gateway, Toshiba, and Dell desktops that always seemed to have some sort of issue. If I were buying an out-of-the-box machine, be it desk top or laptop, I'd probably just go with a cheaper HP. The performance of late model machines exceeds that of very high end machines from 5 or so years ago, by far. I'd like to build something sooner or later or maybe even try a Mac, but I'm waiting for one of these to die first.   

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 or maybe even try a Mac

AAACK!

Ultra-Liberal Company warning!

Built with slave labor warning!

The only good thing about it is the Linux core.

 

I know and hate that, but it seems they all support liberals these days i  some way or another. When the time comes I'll do some digging and see if there is actually a company that remains unstained by the liberal scourge, lol.

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Another alternative would be to buy a good used machine a couple of years old, or just keep your old machine and load it with Linux Mint. The Linux distribution can be downloaded burned to DVD and will actually run from your optical drive (just a bit slower) if you want to see how it works. Once you choose installation, it goes automatically, and you can choose to keep your windows installation in a bootable partition, or overwrite it so that you can use your entire hard disk for Mint

 

Linux Mint is freeware, meaning you wont pay a dime for it. The GUI is very user friendly. Firefox, open office (first class office software which is MS office compatible), graphics software like Gimp (like Photoshop, but free) and a range of disk burning software are included.

 

The apps that come with the OS are as good or sometimes better than commercial software.

 

Caveats are few. Be sure you have a modern printer. Doesn't have to be expensive or fancy, but should be something a new Mac or Windows install will recognize automatically. If a new Windows or Mac distribution will recognize your printer, chances are the Linux Mint will as well.

 

Like Mac - Linux Mint software is far more robust and efficient than Windows, so it will run faster and more efficiently on older hardware, with less memory.

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I'm currently running a compouter made from junk throw a way parts and using Linux Mint 17.  $Free$.  I think more modern Linux stuff is now available but I a happy camper with my Dinkum Thinkum.   Running about 3.0 down, about .35 up which sucks.  Frontier Communications.  Horrible hookup.  Happy with my machine.  Not happy with my provider.  sad.pngsad.png

 

Edited by HB of CJ:   Yep ... confirmed.  Lenix Mint 17.  Firefox.  About 3.10 down, about .35 up.  Speed Check.  Works kinda.

Edited by HB of CJ
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Built my own 7 years ago for under $1k and just now piecing together another to hopefully last the next 10. Could keep going but I prefer to be up to the majority of standards which I no longer am. If you can spend some time on youtube to get the info down I'd suggest building your own. The savings in headaches and future issues is better on your own build than a big company POS. Plus it's like the old saying "give a man a fish...." the skills will be worthwhile to know 

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Nothing wrong with compaq or hp. Never had a problem with either. I build mine because i can get better parts and build it for far less then what i would pay for a already built machine. Thats just me. Plus i overclock the shit out of my amd (yes water cooled).

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Nothing wrong with compaq or hp. Never had a problem with either. I build mine because i can get better parts and build it for far less then what i would pay for a already built machine. Thats just me. Plus i overclock the shit out of my amd (yes water cooled).

I purchased my first computer in college, an hp, replaced every year due to failure under worstbuys extended warranty, when the last warranty expired i pulled it apart and got the highly sought after amd 2500+ barton core cpu out and then proceeded to build my new machine around that beast of a processor, it lasted me until i could no longer find a motherboard that supported overclocking. I ran that stable at 3200+ since that day, at one point i was testing how high a clock i could get and hit 5ghz for 5mins before the temp started spiking. Oh the fun of old times. The cpu is still sitting in a box to come out and play someday.

 

Wife had a compact laptop fan failure just after the warranty expired, good friend was a factory tech took on that beast and after he fixed it said if it fails again toss it, buy something better. Wife now has a refurbished dell i got from their outlet years ago, needs a new install of win 7 and an upgrade to a Samsung 850 evo ssd and will rock again.

 

Ive built a few machines, last being in 2013 for about 500 bucks after rebates and buying 2 used nvidia 450 graphics cards. Im looking to upgrade more ram now and get a 1050 or 1060 gpu so i can continue to game.

 

I will admit i am still a AMD fanboy and cant wait till the new cpu's hit the market

Edited by montec
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I built all of my own PCs, for gaming, since 1996.

 

About 5 years ago, I gave up PC gaming (too many wasted hours).

 

Now, I use my phone for 99.99% of my surfing and gaming.

 

Most any current laptop >$500 will suit most of your needs now.

 

(Desktops are becoming obsolete fast.)

 

I used to pay that much for a single video card, CPU, or RAM.

 

Good luck!

Edited by Sim_Player
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Yeap, Video cards will rape your wallet.  I had never built a water-cooled anything, so I just went knee deep into it and BAM!  There was of course trials and errors, but in the end I have a great machine that I run 3 monitors off of.  Just like any hobby, you can get stupid throwing money at them. 

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post-20243-0-73624400-1485862370_thumb.jpg

Edited by sjgusmc21
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 Big Thanks to you all for the input! I applaud all of you that are able to build and upgrade your own! That's something I don't have the time to learn how to do at this point in life. 

 

 I'm needing something for home mainly for web surfing and home schooling stuff. Hoping to find something for under $800.00 that won't become out dated to soon. The old HP has served well for most of its life. It was a wally world special- package deal from 2007.  Now it keeps showing that the hard drive is to full no matter how much we delete... been limping along for some time now.  

 The windows 10 was something the wife said she wanted due to using it for some work related stuff and soft ware becoming dated after we buy it.   

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or maybe even try a Mac

 

AAACK!

Ultra-Liberal Company warning!

Built with slave labor warning!

The only good thing about it is the Linux core.

Say what you want to about the companies politics but the machines work great...wife wanted a macbook for photo software and what not..got her one in 07..never had an issue out of...damn thing works everytime you go to use it...After 10 years if finally started getting slow...mostly because new OS...got the wife a new macbook pro for Christmas, cleaned up the old one and gave to my oldest son to use for school...I don't agree with the company politics but they build a good machine. Edited by sccritterkiller
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or maybe even try a Mac

AAACK!

Ultra-Liberal Company warning!

Built with slave labor warning!

The only good thing about it is the Linux core.

Say what you want to about the companies politics but the machines work great...wife wanted a macbook for photo software and what not..got her one in 07..never had an issue out of...damn thing works everytime you go to use it...After 10 years if finally started getting slow...mostly because new OS...got the wife a new macbook pro for Christmas, cleaned up the old one and gave to my oldest son to use for school...I don't agree with the company politics but they build a good machine.

 

I'm glad you're enjoying them. 

...at least until your conscience wakes up.

 

Think of the people literally enslaved to make them.

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While we are on the topic, I'm in the market for a very cheap but solid laptop. I'm thinking along the lines of buying a ~2 year old workstation type laptop off of ebay. 

 

I want it for work and a bit of everything else. FULL keyboard with 10 key and [delete] in a non-retarded location. The things that I care about are as follows: Win 7 or 10 preferred, 

 

Solid enough video card and resolution to be able to enjoy Blu Ray and the occassional game. My games are mostly older, and this isn't the deal maker. Oh, and I occassionally fumble around with the free version of solidworks and similar. The only thing I have found myself hardware limited on with my last one was video processing. A machine with the horsepower to do that without glitching out would be a real bonus for me.

 

Basically I need a very reliable glorified web browser with the full office suite. I prefer durability over lightweight, and same goes for battery life.

 

could anyone name a model that I should set an ebay search around? Something that meets my immediate needs for $100 is probably the most sensible, but I would pay up to around $250 for something good enough to stick with for a couple years.

 

Basically I killed my business PC right after dumping all my earnings into paying down bills. I am probably going to be getting a lot more business in the next few months, but in the mean time things are tight. I know it would be a really dumb move to get a broken computer and buy several hundred dollars of licenses to stick on it, then immediately change out machines, so if I buy the cheap version, it at least has to have MS office on there.

 

I need this for work, but I also am trying to save every penny to buy a ring. I really wanna get that second thing done ASAP, so every cent I spend on something else hurts.

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Check craigslist, better options. Besides that, check newegg for refurbished, dell i know has an outlet site with some reasonable deals. Local thrift shops may get some recycled machines in from businesses.

Edited by montec
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