Hoss

To make a long story short, I needed a new computer at home.

My wife and I made the decision to go with Dell because the Dell I have at work has been running 24/7 for four straight years now and it has never had a single problem.

Last Monday, December 27th, we ordered our new CPU over the phone from Dell at about 3:30 in the afternoon. They told us it would ship on or before January 3rd. On Tuesday, December 28th, we were notified via e-mail that our computer had shipped. Around 9:00 Wednesday morning the UPS man rang the doorbell with a new Dell in his hands. Less than 48 hours from the time I ordered it to the time it showed up on my front porch!!

I've had the computer for less than a week now, but I highly recommend Dell for anyone in the market for a new computer. For around $700 (including tax since they're in Texas like me) we ended up with a new computer that exceeds BY FAR the limitations of our old Compaq (which cost us around $2K when we bought it in 2001).

The guts of the thing are a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 processor, an 80 Gig hard drive and 512 MB dual channel SDRAM. The OS is Windows XP Professional. Good deal on a good computer. If you're in the market, consider a Dell.

mestdagh

I'll second the Dell. Just bought my 2nd Dell a few weeks ago. It was a good deal even thought I planned to remove the Microsoft operating system (i.e. strip the disk) to install Linux (Fedora Core 3 distro). For those interested, the Linux install went fine on the Dell hardware.

butchera

I maintain about 100 Dell notebooks, desktops and servers. Great machines....

I get to use the corporate side for tech support and it is GREAT. I call, describe the problem (there have been very few of those) or what is broke and they send the part the next day (or in the case of the notebooks, a tech (my fat fingers can't get into a notebook)).

99% of the problems I have are PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair).

I also have a couple of Dells at home (get a good deal through the employee purchase program.

You can find less expensive machines but you get what you pay for.......

joefarmer

I've had bad experiences with the Dell home system support. I always get a human on the otherside of the world that doesn't understand how I arrived at my diagnosis of the broken part.

The corporate support had always been good to me until last year. It took them 5 techs and 8-9 hours of phone time to replace the memory in a workstation. I really dislike their offshore support. I feel it's too much time spent trying to understand the tech and not enough actual support.

That said, the Dell systems are still the easiest of the 75 machines I maintain daily. There's no question that they'll replace/repair anything. The question is how long will it take them.

brandon.

Cumminsdude

I also agree with the poor customer support. I just bought an Inspiron 9200 and it's pretty good, maybe a little overpriced but it's not bad. The real only complaint is the wireless network card they put in it. Yes I could have upgraded for $50 but I shouldn't have to for what I'm using it for. During high speed transfers and some other times it just drops the connection for a few minutes. I've tried everything from updating the software many times to buying three different routers. Now I have to spend another $50 just to get away from this but so far it's been pretty good. I'm dreading having to make that call for a new card though.

BigBlue

I bought a dell when I moved to college and it's been a great machine. The only problem I've had with it is for some reason it wouldn't recognize my CD burner. Called them up and they told me how to fix it over the phone and it's been working ever since.

mikmaze

if a stock computer is all you want stick with the dell, however bombin away on a comp is almost as much fun as bombing away on a truck, I don't need some wealthy pos to decide what parts go in my machine, a little research and I built my own, saved a ton of money and have a screamin perfomance monster. watercooled and overclocked. Dell is impossible to do any bombing on, all the parts are proprierary and there are no options for overclocking- makin it run faster. how much faster is mine over stock? I have a 2.8 chip running at 3.6 all day every day and let me tell ya the difference is awesome, much like the upgrade from 280 hp to 360 hp as for "torque" Ill just think of the amount of info that can go through this rig in a second as mind boggling. For what use? a lot of digital image work, large files and heavy manipulation.

Begle1

Unfortunatly, modifying computers draws more similarities to Ricers than bombers.

I agree that if you know how, (i.e. aren't technically retarded), or if you know someone that knows how, build your own. Always cheaper and you can tune the machine better.
It annoys me to see Dell's for sale that have a 3.2 GHz processor, and then 128 megs of unmatched memory... Equivalent of having Mach 6 EDMs without a turbocharger. They come up with a lot of computer configurations that come from marketing rather than engineering. Not that it takes a degree to build a computer.

I built mine. Didn't go watercooling, but I did get over 400 CFM of airflow in one side and out the other. Along with some ridiculous heatsinks, my 3.06 GHz'er maxes out at 3.6 with no slow-down. I turn it on and my lights dim!
(It's also louder than a jet, but with loud speakers that don't matter...)

You need to watch while ocerclocking, however. If you don't adequetly cool the overclocked chip, it actually decreases performance. A cooler stock chip will beat the pants off an over-clocked hot chip. And I do not think overclocking video cards is that good of an idea as my Radeon 9700 Pro ALL-IN-WONDER died and I didn't get a warrenty... I had extra CFM over it, I figured I could over-clock it a little. Wrong-O. Running a 9600 now with a passive sink on it that I could probably overclock to be faster than the 9700, but I don't want to risk it.

Dr. Evil

My Athlon 64 with 1 Gb of dual channel ram will do the 1/4 mile in 12 sec.

argve

I'm in the market for a new computer for at the house (mine is dragging a paw) so other than just replacing the cd drive I have figure it's time to upgrade from 850mhz... yes there are still many of these speeds still out there... I think I will give Dell a look after seeing the adds on TV here of late and these posts.

doomgaze

I'll go with the few guys that are building there own on here. I've been building my own computers since I was 14. It's a lot easier than it sounds.

If you are able yourself, or are able to get someone to build you a computer, do it. The difference is amazing. Even if you build a computer with the exact same technical specs as a Dell (or any other brand), it will be faster because these companies load their computers with TONS of un-needed programs. When you build your own you know exactly what is going onto the hard drive.

nickleinonen

i'd love to build my own systems, but i hate computers enough to not want to deal with them more than i have to. we just got a new boxed system [3g p4, 512ram, 160G hd, dual layer dvd burner...] and i probably could have saved like 1/4 the price if i had built it myself. but i don't know how to do it, and i break stuff when things don't go as planned... so this works out best for me [and i only paid 50% of it, pop paied the other half, as my sister is the one mostly using this thing...]

but at least the sales guy messed up in my favor, he punched in their premium warrenty into my deal no charge [he did it accidently, and it's a $200 option ]

ArcticWolf

I don't know about now but a couple years ago the main problem I had with a manufactured Comp was the fact that they only put in a power supply large enough to handle the accessories that they add and don't leave you enough power to make modifications. I spent the better part of a week driving back and forth to a computer store after the initial purchace of a video card (think I made 4 or 5 trips) because they refused to work in my comp. As it turned out the manufacturer only put in a 185 watt power supply and the vid card (GeForce 3 Ti 500) required more power than that thing was putting out - DOH!!!!!

Cause of a Christmas gift from my son (new comp case - full tower) I'm running 550 watts with plenty of reserve for 2 HD's, DVD 2 level R/W, 48X CD R/W, Vid and Sound cards and 6 case fans that will not let anything get over 25 degrees Centigrade (has a pair of temp guages on the front and fan controlers for both the Power Supply and case.

Built my own first comp (P4 1.7 ghz) about 2 1/2 yrs ago with next to 0% experience and it's really not all that hard at all. My son has the 1.7 and my current one is a P4 2.4 ghz and I'm planning on upgrading this thing before long also.....

Dr. Evil

Guys....building a machine is easy....and YOU get to pick/spec out all the parts...I picked up things like my CD Burner, DVD Burner, case, LCD monitor etc. etc. over a period of several months and found some real smokin deals on this stuff....For example: $90 for a DVD Burner, $126 for a 250 GB HD, $540 for a 19" LCD monitor....(Canadian Pesos)

I would have easily paid double or more if I walked into the computer store and bought a machine from them.

ArcticWolf

Exactly....

I think the total price I payed for both comp's I built was about half of a brand new HP P3 500 I had bought and took back 2 days later (that thing was about $3k!!) - it was a POC!

There's plenty of websites with information to help you out also. I wish some of these were around when I did my first one! LOL

Here's a couple examples:

PC Mechanic

Build Your Own PC - WITH PICTURES!!!
(WHERE WAS THIS WHEN I NEEDED IT!!! LOL)