Seeking opinions of current parts.

CPU

Motherboard

Hard Drive (SATA)

DVD (SATA)

Monitor

A friend ask me to build him a new system. (no problem)

Windows 7 – clean install...

If you've built a system in the last year or two or had one built for
you I would appreciate your comments.

Just the above parts are what I'm interested in. Been awhile since I
built mine :-\

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 14:53:57 -0700, Oren wrote:

Seeking opinions of current parts.


This is the wrong group, I'm sure-- but the last 3 I put together were
'bare bones' from either Newegg or geeks.com.

The last one was from geeks.com a few months ago--
A *de*branded HP-
slimline tower- dual core E6700 processor 3.2GHz, 2GB ram, 750GB HDD,
DVD burner- wireless keyboard & mouse- $200.

It would have been a real breeze if I'd known that hardware could be
OS dependent. I spent a couple days trying to figure out why it
wouldn't work before I emailed geeks and asked for help. They sent
me to the HP page with the driver set-- which was only available for
Windows 7 -- So I bought a copy of windows 7, retired my XP CD- and
I've got a pretty nice machine for $300-- and a Windows 7 CD for the
next box.

[I think my last monitor came from Walmart or Staples]

Jim

On 07/14/12 05:53 pm, Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

CPU

Motherboard

Hard Drive (SATA)

DVD (SATA)

Monitor

A friend ask me to build him a new system. (no problem)

Windows 7 – clean install...

If you've built a system in the last year or two or had one built for
you I would appreciate your comments.

Just the above parts are what I'm interested in. Been awhile since I
built mine :-\

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

For years I've bought nothing but Asus motherboards, AMD CPUs and
Seagate hard drives (except that I bought Hitachi drives for notebooks)
-- almost all my dead drives are Western Digital. Most recently I've
been buying G.Skill RAM but previously bought mostly Kingston. The DVD
drives I've bought recently have been whatever was on sale at the time.

My most recent purchases have been from NewEgg.com, but TigerDirect.com
has occasionally had better prices.

Perce

On 7/14/2012 7:15 PM, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 07/14/12 05:53 pm, Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

For years I've bought nothing but Asus motherboards, AMD CPUs and
Seagate hard drives (except that I bought Hitachi drives for notebooks)
-- almost all my dead drives are Western Digital. Most recently I've
been buying G.Skill RAM but previously bought mostly Kingston. The DVD
drives I've bought recently have been whatever was on sale at the time.

My most recent purchases have been from NewEgg.com, but TigerDirect.com
has occasionally had better prices.

Perce

Western Digital has a perceived lower failure rate than Seagate the last
few years from the websites I buy from.

On 7/15/2012 6:48 PM, Duesenberg wrote:
On 7/14/2012 7:15 PM, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 07/14/12 05:53 pm, Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

For years I've bought nothing but Asus motherboards, AMD CPUs and
Seagate hard drives (except that I bought Hitachi drives for notebooks)
-- almost all my dead drives are Western Digital. Most recently I've
been buying G.Skill RAM but previously bought mostly Kingston. The DVD
drives I've bought recently have been whatever was on sale at the time.

My most recent purchases have been from NewEgg.com, but TigerDirect.com
has occasionally had better prices.

Perce

Western Digital has a perceived lower failure rate than Seagate the last
few years from the websites I buy from.


The only time I've ever had a modern hard drive fail was due to
overheating caused by extreme numbers of dust bunnies plugging up the
air vents in a case. O_o

TDD

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 18:58:03 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 7/15/2012 6:48 PM, Duesenberg wrote:
On 7/14/2012 7:15 PM, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 07/14/12 05:53 pm, Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

For years I've bought nothing but Asus motherboards, AMD CPUs and
Seagate hard drives (except that I bought Hitachi drives for notebooks)
-- almost all my dead drives are Western Digital. Most recently I've
been buying G.Skill RAM but previously bought mostly Kingston. The DVD
drives I've bought recently have been whatever was on sale at the time.

My most recent purchases have been from NewEgg.com, but TigerDirect.com
has occasionally had better prices.

Perce

Western Digital has a perceived lower failure rate than Seagate the last
few years from the websites I buy from.


The only time I've ever had a modern hard drive fail was due to
overheating caused by extreme numbers of dust bunnies plugging up the
air vents in a case. O_o

TDD
You don't work on many computers then. Average lifespan appears to be
just around the 3 1/2 years for "consumer" drives. Yes, some last 5 or
six, but enough fail at less than one to even out the average.
Laptop drives in particular. I've got one here on a Toshiba, 1 1/2
months out of warranty - junk.

On 7/16/2012 3:00 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 18:58:03 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 7/15/2012 6:48 PM, Duesenberg wrote:
On 7/14/2012 7:15 PM, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 07/14/12 05:53 pm, Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

For years I've bought nothing but Asus motherboards, AMD CPUs and
Seagate hard drives (except that I bought Hitachi drives for notebooks)
-- almost all my dead drives are Western Digital. Most recently I've
been buying G.Skill RAM but previously bought mostly Kingston. The DVD
drives I've bought recently have been whatever was on sale at the time.

My most recent purchases have been from NewEgg.com, but TigerDirect.com
has occasionally had better prices.

Perce

Western Digital has a perceived lower failure rate than Seagate the last
few years from the websites I buy from.


The only time I've ever had a modern hard drive fail was due to
overheating caused by extreme numbers of dust bunnies plugging up the
air vents in a case. O_o

TDD
You don't work on many computers then. Average lifespan appears to be
just around the 3 1/2 years for "consumer" drives. Yes, some last 5 or
six, but enough fail at less than one to even out the average.
Laptop drives in particular. I've got one here on a Toshiba, 1 1/2
months out of warranty - junk.


I work on lots of computers and the drives that I had the most problems
with were some horror story clones of Seagate that came out of India.
Perhaps you didn't grok what I meant, my fault. I should have written
"My personal hard drives." It's been quite a while since I had one of my
own hard drives fail. We've had some out of box failures of voice mail
system hard drives lately and I replace drives in servers and point of
sale systems all the time but I find those computers plugged up with
dirt which I believe leads to the failure of most computer systems. ^_^

PS, Some of my hard drives are still working after 10 years but they're
not hammered 24/7. ^_^

TDD

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 19:48:55 -0400, Duesenberg wrote:

On 7/14/2012 7:15 PM, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 07/14/12 05:53 pm, Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

For years I've bought nothing but Asus motherboards, AMD CPUs and
Seagate hard drives (except that I bought Hitachi drives for notebooks)
-- almost all my dead drives are Western Digital. Most recently I've
been buying G.Skill RAM but previously bought mostly Kingston. The DVD
drives I've bought recently have been whatever was on sale at the time.

My most recent purchases have been from NewEgg.com, but TigerDirect.com
has occasionally had better prices.

Perce

Western Digital has a perceived lower failure rate than Seagate the last
few years from the websites I buy from.
Emphasize the "percieved"

On Jul 15, 8:28*pm, wrote:
On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 19:48:55 -0400, Duesenberg wrote:
On 7/14/2012 7:15 PM, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 07/14/12 05:53 pm, Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

For years I've bought nothing but Asus motherboards, AMD CPUs and
Seagate hard drives (except that I bought Hitachi drives for notebooks)
-- almost all my dead drives are Western Digital. Most recently I've
been buying G.Skill RAM but previously bought mostly Kingston. The DVD
drives I've bought recently have been whatever was on sale at the time..

My most recent purchases have been from NewEgg.com, but TigerDirect.com
has occasionally had better prices.

Perce

Western Digital has a perceived lower failure rate than Seagate the last
few years from the websites I buy from.

I have magnets from a couple dozen bad hard drives from various
sources, usually "dead" machines I was given.. several were drives I
bought. Most were from W/D Caviars. Certainly more than every other
brand combined. I won't ever buy one again.
Unfortunately there are only a couple companies making all the brands
these days.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm not sure that proves much about W/D. Isn't it
just possible they were the supplier for the systems
you bought. Meaning if they had used brand Y,
you would have gotten a lot of dead machines with
brand Y drives instead.

On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 05:24:10 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:


I'm not sure that proves much about W/D. Isn't it
just possible they were the supplier for the systems
you bought. Meaning if they had used brand Y,
you would have gotten a lot of dead machines with
brand Y drives instead.

WD has a good rep now. It's gone up and down, like all the others.
Worst drives I've had were IBM. Maxtors were good, but the WD Caviar
Blacks I've been running for the past +2 years are the most flawless
I've had.

--
Vic

On 7/16/2012 8:37 AM, Vic Smith wrote:
On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 05:24:10 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:


I'm not sure that proves much about W/D. Isn't it
just possible they were the supplier for the systems
you bought. Meaning if they had used brand Y,
you would have gotten a lot of dead machines with
brand Y drives instead.

WD has a good rep now. It's gone up and down, like all the others.
Worst drives I've had were IBM. Maxtors were good, but the WD Caviar
Blacks I've been running for the past +2 years are the most flawless
I've had.



I agree with your statement that all manufacturers take turns at being
the worst. Western Digital did have a bad rep for a while I thought.

I was always a Quantum fan, then Maxtor fan and always avoided WD but
when Maxtor got bought out I tried a WD drive about 6 years ago and was
won over.

The one Seagate I purchased in that time was about 8 months ago and of
course to my luck, S.M.A.R.T. says it's gonna fail.

There are alot of WD haters out there and I understand why.

The worst was Futjitsu(sp?) back in the mid 90's I think.

On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 07:37:08 -0500, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 05:24:10 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:


I'm not sure that proves much about W/D. Isn't it
just possible they were the supplier for the systems
you bought. Meaning if they had used brand Y,
you would have gotten a lot of dead machines with
brand Y drives instead.

WD has a good rep now. It's gone up and down, like all the others.
Worst drives I've had were IBM. Maxtors were good, but the WD Caviar
Blacks I've been running for the past +2 years are the most flawless
I've had.
Just need to rember black and blue are different.
TOP LINE drives from any manufacturer are generally pretty decent.
"consumer grade" stuff from pretty well any manufacturer is pretty
dicey.

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 20:28:41 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 19:48:55 -0400, Duesenberg wrote:

On 7/14/2012 7:15 PM, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 07/14/12 05:53 pm, Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

For years I've bought nothing but Asus motherboards, AMD CPUs and
Seagate hard drives (except that I bought Hitachi drives for notebooks)
-- almost all my dead drives are Western Digital. Most recently I've
been buying G.Skill RAM but previously bought mostly Kingston. The DVD
drives I've bought recently have been whatever was on sale at the time.

My most recent purchases have been from NewEgg.com, but TigerDirect.com
has occasionally had better prices.

Perce

Western Digital has a perceived lower failure rate than Seagate the last
few years from the websites I buy from.

I have magnets from a couple dozen bad hard drives from various
sources, usually "dead" machines I was given.. several were drives I
bought. Most were from W/D Caviars. Certainly more than every other
brand combined. I won't ever buy one again.
Unfortunately there are only a couple companies making all the brands
these days.
I've amassed a colection od about 100 HDD magnets from all
manufacturers - and definitely more WD Cavs than Seagate Baracudas.

Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

CPU

Motherboard

Hard Drive (SATA)

DVD (SATA)

Monitor

A friend ask me to build him a new system. (no problem)

Windows 7 – clean install...

If you've built a system in the last year or two or had one built for
you I would appreciate your comments.

Just the above parts are what I'm interested in. Been awhile since I
built mine :-\

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

Hi,
I usually buy barebone kit from eBay and add thing as I need.
I always had good luck with ASUS, or Gigabyte mobo, HDD, the bigger
cache the better. And good video card is very important.

On Jul 14, 7:34*pm, Tony Hwang wrote:
Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

CPU

Motherboard

Hard Drive (SATA)

DVD (SATA)

Monitor

A friend ask me to build him a new system. (no problem)

Windows 7 – clean install...

If you've built a system in the last year or two or had one built for
you I would appreciate your comments.

Just the above parts are what I'm interested in. Been awhile since I
built mine :-\

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

Hi,
I usually buy barebone kit from eBay and add thing as I need.
I always had good luck with ASUS, or Gigabyte mobo, HDD, the bigger
cache the better. And good video card is very important.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When you can buy a whole system for $400,
and given the problems that can arise,
the idea of building a system for someone else
out of parts doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.
Also factor in that the $400 system comes
with a legal version of Windows 7, a warranty
and someone to go to for support. You can also
typically get MSFT office for another $100,
3 years of antivirus for $40, etc.

Just saying, sounds like aggravation and a good
way to ruin a friendship.

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 17:00:42 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

When you can buy a whole system for $400,
and given the problems that can arise,
the idea of building a system for someone else
out of parts doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.
Also factor in that the $400 system comes
with a legal version of Windows 7, a warranty
and someone to go to for support. You can also
typically get MSFT office for another $100,
3 years of antivirus for $40, etc.

Just saying, sounds like aggravation and a good
way to ruin a friendship.

We disagree. Bought my bride a "system" for some bucks under or
around $400. The system is full of OEM trash-ware, much of the
software is useless or not used. I don't need stuff, except the OS.

Built mine (for 20 years) from scratch without ALL the bloat ware..

As to warranty, any system can fail in a matter of days. Burn in is
around 3 days. After that it will run for years.

Windows 7 has *free* AV and Open Office is free (open source) and
just as good (better) as MS Office, plus compatible. No cost, ever.

PS. My friend will not be lost. He asked, because he trust me.

I didn't mean to upset anyone. I appreciate this group for the
intelligence and vast knowledge of common sense.

In a few hours I can build a system for him as I WOULD want for
myself or meet his expectations. I'm not looking for what an OEM
"thinks" he needs.

I think for myself. Hardware advice?

Oren wrote in news:kh2408drodq2ioric67lsmssf22702lcls@
4ax.com:

Bought my bride a "system" for some bucks under or
around $400. The system is full of OEM trash-ware,


You probably bought a boxed unit from a chain store.

Get one of those independent hole-in-the-wall places to build one for you.
That way you get total control over hardware choice, partitioning, and
software installs. Plus the builder then takes care of the burn-in and the
warranty, and he'll be up on all the new hardware in a way you and I are
not. Tiger Direct will also build-to-order, and they're probably better
than the hole-in-the-wall places on account of their sales volume.

I gave up rolling my own years ago. It just wasn't worth it any more.


--
Tegger

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 17:38:49 -0700, Oren wrote:


We disagree. Bought my bride a "system" for some bucks under or
around $400. The system is full of OEM trash-ware, much of the
software is useless or not used. I don't need stuff, except the OS.


I've not built my own, but we have a guy we use for our computers for
work and he has built mine for a number of years now. Yes, the big
difference is all the crap that comes with the typical store bought
system. Only thing worse is the Gook Squad that fine tunes them to
the point they hardly run at all.

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 22:29:51 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 17:38:49 -0700, Oren wrote:


We disagree. Bought my bride a "system" for some bucks under or
around $400. The system is full of OEM trash-ware, much of the
software is useless or not used. I don't need stuff, except the OS.


I've not built my own, but we have a guy we use for our computers for
work and he has built mine for a number of years now. Yes, the big
difference is all the crap that comes with the typical store bought
system. Only thing worse is the Gook Squad that fine tunes them to
the point they hardly run at all.

Yep. I supervised the (contract) building of a LAN network. Then
setup 75 PC nodes. Ran that LAN in an acting capacity for two years
after the IT manger left. This LAN was on a WAN with ~500 PC nodes.

Computers were not the problem as it was always the users sigh. They
would swear up and down they turned the monitor on.. Get to their
office, flip it on and magic happened.

I prefer to build a system that I would want for myself. Simple, fast
and without all the crap loaded on them - clean and efficient.

wrote:

The main advantage of buying a name brand PC is you can usually get a
driver disk that has drivers that will work together.
Otherwise you are on a scavenger hunt looking for all the drivers you
need and about half the time there will be one that won't play nice
with another one.

If a component needs software it comes with what you need.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

Winters getting colder? Tired of the rat race?
Maybe just ready for a change? Check it out...
http://www.floridaloghouse.net

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 23:12:22 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 22:29:51 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 17:38:49 -0700, Oren wrote:


We disagree. Bought my bride a "system" for some bucks under or
around $400. The system is full of OEM trash-ware, much of the
software is useless or not used. I don't need stuff, except the OS.


I've not built my own, but we have a guy we use for our computers for
work and he has built mine for a number of years now. Yes, the big
difference is all the crap that comes with the typical store bought
system. Only thing worse is the Gook Squad that fine tunes them to
the point they hardly run at all.

The main advantage of buying a name brand PC is you can usually get a
driver disk that has drivers that will work together.
Otherwise you are on a scavenger hunt looking for all the drivers you
need and about half the time there will be one that won't play nice
with another one.
I am always one generation off he bleeding edge and I buy off lease
commercial machines pretty cheap.

I always load them from a formatted disk.
I worked 5 years for a computer manufacturer - and the combinations
that did NOT work were much more numerous than those that did.

The research that goes into assembling a properly configured computer
can be quite extensive. I have just about finished instaling 50
off-lease Lenovo Think Stations to replace old terminals and PCs at a
small industrial concern where I spend 2 afternoons a week - excellent
fit for the job at extremely good pricing - and as noted, no searching
for "orphan" drivers.

With QC in the tank like it is with so many Chinese manufacturere,
assembling a system from parts can be a lot of "fun". When it doesn't
work, which part is causing the problem? Is it defective or just
incompatible? Without having at least 3 of everything on hand you
cannot troubleshoot by substitution with any confidence.

"Oren" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 17:00:42 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

When you can buy a whole system for $400,
and given the problems that can arise,
the idea of building a system for someone else
out of parts doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.
Also factor in that the $400 system comes
with a legal version of Windows 7, a warranty
and someone to go to for support. You can also
typically get MSFT office for another $100,
3 years of antivirus for $40, etc.

Just saying, sounds like aggravation and a good
way to ruin a friendship.

We disagree. Bought my bride a "system" for some bucks under or
around $400. The system is full of OEM trash-ware, much of the
software is useless or not used. I don't need stuff, except the OS.

Built mine (for 20 years) from scratch without ALL the bloat ware..

As to warranty, any system can fail in a matter of days. Burn in is
around 3 days. After that it will run for years.

Windows 7 has *free* AV and Open Office is free (open source) and
just as good (better) as MS Office, plus compatible. No cost, ever.

PS. My friend will not be lost. He asked, because he trust me.

I didn't mean to upset anyone. I appreciate this group for the
intelligence and vast knowledge of common sense.

In a few hours I can build a system for him as I WOULD want for
myself or meet his expectations. I'm not looking for what an OEM
"thinks" he needs.

I think for myself. Hardware advice?

Bloatware can be removed

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 23:48:39 -0500, "Atila Iskander"
wrote:

Bloatware can be removed


Or never installed in the first place -- my preference.

On 7/14/2012 11:48 PM, Atila Iskander wrote:

"Oren" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 17:00:42 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

When you can buy a whole system for $400,
and given the problems that can arise,
the idea of building a system for someone else
out of parts doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.
Also factor in that the $400 system comes
with a legal version of Windows 7, a warranty
and someone to go to for support. You can also
typically get MSFT office for another $100,
3 years of antivirus for $40, etc.

Just saying, sounds like aggravation and a good
way to ruin a friendship.

We disagree. Bought my bride a "system" for some bucks under or
around $400. The system is full of OEM trash-ware, much of the
software is useless or not used. I don't need stuff, except the OS.

Built mine (for 20 years) from scratch without ALL the bloat ware..

As to warranty, any system can fail in a matter of days. Burn in is
around 3 days. After that it will run for years.

Windows 7 has *free* AV and Open Office is free (open source) and
just as good (better) as MS Office, plus compatible. No cost, ever.

PS. My friend will not be lost. He asked, because he trust me.

I didn't mean to upset anyone. I appreciate this group for the
intelligence and vast knowledge of common sense.

In a few hours I can build a system for him as I WOULD want for
myself or meet his expectations. I'm not looking for what an OEM
"thinks" he needs.

I think for myself. Hardware advice?

Bloatware can be removed



"http://pcdecrapifier.com/" is a good starting point. ^_^

TDD

On 2012-07-15, Oren wrote:


Open Office is free (open source) and just as good (better) as MS
Office, plus compatible. No cost, ever.

You might prefer to go with LibreOffice, as OO needs some plug-ins:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari..._office_suites

nb

--
vi --the heart of evil!

On 15 Jul 2012 14:51:01 GMT, notbob wrote:

On 2012-07-15, Oren wrote:


Open Office is free (open source) and just as good (better) as MS
Office, plus compatible. No cost, ever.

You might prefer to go with LibreOffice, as OO needs some plug-ins:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari..._office_suites

nb

Thanks for that link. The other day I checked for updates for OO and
was pointed to "Apache" OO. From the link you gave, it makes sense
what happened. OO is now under the Apache Foundation. The predecessor
of LibreOffice is OpenOffice.

On Jul 14, 8:38*pm, Oren wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 17:00:42 -0700 (PDT), "

wrote:
When you can buy a whole system for $400,
and given the problems that can arise,
the idea of building a system for someone else
out of parts doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.
Also factor in that the $400 system comes
with a legal version of Windows 7, a warranty
and someone to go to for support. You can also
typically get MSFT office for another $100,
3 years of antivirus for $40, etc.

Just saying, sounds like aggravation and a good
way to ruin a friendship.

We disagree. *Bought my bride a "system" for some bucks under or
around $400. *The system is full of OEM trash-ware, much of the
software is useless or not used. I don't need stuff, except the OS.

I don't know what all the "bloatware" that you find
so objectionable is. I'm sure some of that comes
with SOME systems, but it's never been a problem
for me. I believe that was more of a problem
years ago when systems would come loaded with
offers from AOL, Mindspring, and other ISP's, etc.

I recently bought two HP systems about a year
apart and they have an HP support assistant on them,
and free limited use versions of MSFT Office,
but other than that, there isn't anything else. The
support assistant keeps track of any updated drivers
or bios that HP might have and it will install them if
needed and you OK it. It doesn't bother me and
I don't bother it. The MSFT office starter software
was a plus and I use it. Even if it has other software
on it, if your friend doesn't use it, I don't see the
big issue.


Built mine (for 20 years) *from scratch without ALL the bloat ware..

It would seem in a few minutes you could also just
remove the bloatware that you don't want.




As to warranty, any system can fail in a matter of days. Burn in is
around 3 days. After that it will run for years.

Yes, the failure rate is higher in the beginning, but
clearly they can still fail at 6 or 9 months too. With a
system from HP or Dell then it's their problem. And
building the thing for a friend, those failures in the
early days would seem to be YOUR problem to
then deal with.



Windows 7 has *free* *AV and Open Office is free (open source) and
just as good (better) as MS Office, plus compatible. No cost, ever.

PS. My friend will not be lost. He asked, because he trust me.

I didn't mean to upset anyone. *I appreciate this group for the
intelligence and vast knowledge of common sense.

I didn't mean to imply that your friend doesn't trust you
or that you aren't competent. The common sense
aspect you speak of is why I suggested that for me,
building a system for someone else or even myself
for general purpos use doesn't make sense because
you're not saving much, if anything. It's been that way
for a decade or more now.





In a few hours I can build a system for him *as I WOULD want for
myself or meet his expectations. *I'm not looking for what *an OEM
"thinks" he needs.

I think for myself. Hardware advice?

You said elsewhere that he's just using the thing for
email and web browsing, nothing special. Hundreds
of millions of folks are doing exactly that with all kinds
of off the shelf systems so I don't see why his
expectations would not be met with a $400 system
from say HP. And you can customize those to a
reasonable extent, change the CPU, memory,
hard drive size, etc.

Being in the position of building a system for someone
else today, from as you say a common sense standpoint,
is not where I'd want to be because I can see a lot
of downside and not much upside. But clearly you
can and should do as you please.

I recently bought two HP systems about a year
apart and they have an HP support assistant on them,
and free limited use versions of MSFT Office,
but other than that, there isn't anything else. The
support assistant keeps track of any updated drivers
or bios that HP might have and it will install them if
needed and you OK it. It doesn't bother me and
I don't bother it. The MSFT office starter software
was a plus and I use it. Even if it has other software
on it, if your friend doesn't use it, I don't see the
big issue.


I can build a system for him as I WOULD want for


I do 95% stuff on iPad. Laying on couch. Thank god.
I had a acer vista laptop I gave away. I hated vista. Occasional boot
problem.
I bought a hp laptop. Hp assistant has done some good things, but it's a
pain. Especially when you say no, and it does it anyway. Between Microsoft
and hp support, I go crazy. It screwed up the computer after one update,
but recovered somehow.

My last desktop from tiger. Amd quad core, no problems. Probably $250. No
software included except drivers. I loaded XP, also had Symantec end point.
It's great, except like my laptop, just set back for a while while
everything settles down, scanning, loading, connecting,

Greg

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 17:00:42 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:



When you can buy a whole system for $400,
and given the problems that can arise,
the idea of building a system for someone else
out of parts doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.
Also factor in that the $400 system comes
with a legal version of Windows 7, a warranty
and someone to go to for support. You can also
typically get MSFT office for another $100,
3 years of antivirus for $40, etc.

Just saying, sounds like aggravation and a good
way to ruin a friendship.

Right. Unless you have "special needs" like gaming, fooling around
with the hardware, etc, the cost curve went against building you own
at least 10 years ago.
I still do it, because I'm particular about that, and game and tinker.
It's not cheap, because you pay retail for components.
High end parts cost.
Going with used eBay parts can make it work, but that has its own
traps. You have to know the real values.
Then, as you say, you'll be obligated to support it.
Reminds me of what somebody on a another newsgroup years ago.
Paraphrasing: "Why would somebody spend years writing a novel when you
can pick one up at a bookstore for a few bucks."

--
Vic

On Jul 14, 8:44*pm, Vic Smith wrote:
Unless you have "special needs" like gaming, fooling around
with the hardware, etc, the cost curve went against building you own
at least 10 years ago.

My old new thing was to buy an OEM package, wipe the HDD and install
an OEM version of Windows. Even with the extra $100 I feel I'm ahead,
short and long term. If I should decide I want a load of useless crap
on my machines I can always find it all over the 'net.

My newer thing is to buy an extra HDD and install the OEM Windows on
that,
-----

- gpsman

wrote in message
...
On Jul 14, 7:34 pm, Tony Hwang wrote:
Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

CPU

Motherboard

Hard Drive (SATA)

DVD (SATA)

Monitor

A friend ask me to build him a new system. (no problem)

Windows 7 – clean install...

If you've built a system in the last year or two or had one built for
you I would appreciate your comments.

Just the above parts are what I'm interested in. Been awhile since I
built mine :-\

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

Hi,
I usually buy barebone kit from eBay and add thing as I need.
I always had good luck with ASUS, or Gigabyte mobo, HDD, the bigger
cache the better. And good video card is very important.- Hide quoted
text -

- Show quoted text -

When you can buy a whole system for $400,
and given the problems that can arise,
the idea of building a system for someone else
out of parts doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.
Also factor in that the $400 system comes
with a legal version of Windows 7, a warranty
and someone to go to for support. You can also
typically get MSFT office for another $100,
3 years of antivirus for $40, etc.

Just saying, sounds like aggravation and a good
way to ruin a friendship.

Not to mention that for $400, you can get a decent laptop with a built-in
emergency power supply.

How about a refurbished Dell for $158?

http://preview.tinyurl.com/8827jsp

On 2012-07-15, Willie Walmart wrote:
How about a refurbished Dell for $158?

http://preview.tinyurl.com/8827jsp

Fer a P4!?

I got 2 P4s. Got 'em both free. And I'm way out in the boonies. If
I was in a large metro area, could probably find a p4 out by the curb
with a "take it" sign on it. $100 of that is fer Winblows 7. I will
admit it has a decent P4 and 2G RAM and USB 2.0. Musta been one of
the last iterations of that family of Pentiums. I'd pay the $60 if I
could get it w/o Win7.

nb

--
vi --the heart of evil!

Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

Usage (and budget) will dictate the best choices. For instance, do you
need hard drive capacity or graphics performance. Personally, I'd get
an SSD drive rather than a hard drive--but that is because I place a
premium on performance over capacity. I think the Dell medium end
monitors are a good value (on sale for $239 recently from $300, I
think). Let me know if you are interested and I'll look up the model.

tomshardware.com has LOTS of information on components.

Good luck!



CPU

Motherboard

Hard Drive (SATA)

DVD (SATA)

Monitor

A friend ask me to build him a new system. (no problem)

Windows 7 – clean install...

If you've built a system in the last year or two or had one built for
you I would appreciate your comments.

Just the above parts are what I'm interested in. Been awhile since I
built mine :-\

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 19:50:42 -0400, Bill wrote:

Usage (and budget) will dictate the best choices.

Just a simple system. The fellow is not a gamer or video editor and
the like. Basic E-mail and Web browsing.

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 09:01:14 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 19:50:42 -0400, Bill wrote:

Usage (and budget) will dictate the best choices.

Just a simple system. The fellow is not a gamer or video editor and
the like. Basic E-mail and Web browsing.
A $99 P4 or $119 i5 off Lease ThinkCenter is about the best bargain
you will get - 3 years old, industrial strength, high compatability
and reliability Tier 1 machine. Can't ask for more for non video
iintensive (not a gamer) machine.

Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

CPU

Motherboard

Hard Drive (SATA)

DVD (SATA)

Monitor

A friend ask me to build him a new system. (no problem)

Windows 7 - clean install...

If you've built a system in the last year or two or had one built for
you I would appreciate your comments.

Just the above parts are what I'm interested in. Been awhile since I
built mine :-\

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

It might be less frustrating to start with a bare-bones system or a used
one, then upgrade.

I saw some desktop Dells that came back off lease to a school district:
* $99 - Intel dual core, 2.4GHz, 1GB DDR2, 160GB drive, CD-RW/DVD, WinXP-Pro
* $148 - Pentium D dual core, 17"LCD monitor, keyboard, optical mouse, 1GB
DDR2 memory, 80GM drive, LAN, XP Pro. Add $100 for a terabyte drive and $75
for 3 MB more of memory.
* and so on

The above were discovered at Directron in Houston.
http://search.directron.com/newsearc...used&x=18&y=33

Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

I replied earlier that you hadn't specified any system goals or a budget.

One of the best arguments made against you doing this is that you become
the "fix it" man when ANYTHING goes wrong and, as you must surely know,
something surely will, and then you will likely be sorry.

Build for yourself, maybe. For someone else, forgetaboutit! : )

I think you would be being a good friend if you located a system to
consider.

Good luck!
Bill


CPU

Motherboard

Hard Drive (SATA)

DVD (SATA)

Monitor

A friend ask me to build him a new system. (no problem)

Windows 7 – clean install...

If you've built a system in the last year or two or had one built for
you I would appreciate your comments.

Just the above parts are what I'm interested in. Been awhile since I
built mine :-\

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 22:54:19 -0400, Bill wrote:

Oren wrote:
Seeking opinions of current parts.

I replied earlier that you hadn't specified any system goals or a budget.

One of the best arguments made against you doing this is that you become
the "fix it" man when ANYTHING goes wrong and, as you must surely know,
something surely will, and then you will likely be sorry.

Build for yourself, maybe. For someone else, forgetaboutit! : )

I think you would be being a good friend if you located a system to
consider.

Good luck!
Bill


CPU

Motherboard

Hard Drive (SATA)

DVD (SATA)

Monitor

A friend ask me to build him a new system. (no problem)

Windows 7 €“ clean install...

If you've built a system in the last year or two or had one built for
you I would appreciate your comments.

Just the above parts are what I'm interested in. Been awhile since I
built mine :-\

My work for him is free -- start to finish.


Acer Veriton.

"Oren" wrote in message
...
Seeking opinions of current parts.

CPU

Motherboard

Hard Drive (SATA)

DVD (SATA)

Monitor

A friend ask me to build him a new system. (no problem)

Windows 7 - clean install...

If you've built a system in the last year or two or had one built for
you I would appreciate your comments.

Just the above parts are what I'm interested in. Been awhile since I
built mine :-\

My work for him is free -- start to finish.

Tell him to buy himself a laptop
At the prices of laptops today, the savings for a desktop are not worth
the effort.
Plus the laptop provides a built-in backup power supply, aka battery.