Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew

On 7/13/2011 11:05 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:
Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew



I have a neighbor that has a computer business. He just built me a new
one 8 weeks ago. I am very happy with it. i5 processor, 125 GB Solid
State primary drive, 1 TB data drive. 8 gig DDR5 memory, USB 3.0, 4
fans, etc. Win 7 pro. Boots up and ready to go with all my start up
programs, 11 of my own, in 30 seconds.

http://viper-computers.com/testimonials.html

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in news:4e1e6b23$0$19596
:

Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew



I ordered mine directly from Lenovo. Don't let them sell you anything
other than a Thinkpad, the ONLY system available with a decent keyboard.
(Toshiba had a good layout, but the keys are slicker than a properly
polished table saw top.)

Online, I usually check Newegg (newegg.com) and Computer Geeks (geeks.com
-- they usually have slightly older stuff).

Puckdropper

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in news:4e1e6b23$0$19596
:

Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew



Lew,

Check out these guys. In San Diego but they ship everywhere. I have had
very good luck with them over the years.

http://www.thechipmerchant.com/store/

Good Luck,
Steve

On 7/14/2011 3:45 AM, Steve wrote:
"Lew wrote in news:4e1e6b23$0$19596
:

Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew



Lew,

Check out these guys. In San Diego but they ship everywhere. I have had
very good luck with them over the years.

http://www.thechipmerchant.com/store/

Good Luck,
Steve
Have you considered the online sites of the major computer dealers like
HP, or your favorite brand?

What about the nationwide office supply stores like

http://www.staples.com/

The online sellers

http://www.buy.com/

Finally I believe Frys is in Southern California, but I know it is online.

http://www.frys.com/

I have bought things from each of the above and been quite satisfied.

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in news:4e1e6b23$0$19596
:

Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew

Have you considered building it yourself/hisself?

Next time for a desktop I'll do it myself, either using parts from Newegg,
as last time,or from Microcenter.com (they have a store close by me, in
Paterson, NJ. They also have stores in CA:
http://www.microcenter.com/at_the_stores/index.html)
Microcenter has good prices, knowledgeable people, at least around here.

Lew Hodgett wrote:
Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?


Check the Computer section of Craigslist.

In my city, there are two or three guys who get TONS of computers back from
lease, spiffy them up, and ship them to Nigeria by the pallet load. They
will eagerly sell one to you.

I've gotten three in the past six months, two Dell Inspirion desktops (for
$65 each) and one HP laptop ($140). Happy with all of them.

Aside:
Ever wonder what happened to all the CRT monitors? One place I visited must
have had over a thousand being crated up for shipment to Patagonia,
Rhodesia, or some other third-world customer.

On Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:39:46 -0500, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

On 7/13/2011 11:05 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:
Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew



I have a neighbor that has a computer business. He just built me a new
one 8 weeks ago. I am very happy with it. i5 processor, 125 GB Solid
State primary drive, 1 TB data drive. 8 gig DDR5 memory, USB 3.0, 4
fans, etc. Win 7 pro. Boots up and ready to go with all my start up
programs, 11 of my own, in 30 seconds.

Holy ****, Maynard! What'd you pay for that beast?

It's a Macbook?

--
Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.
-- Robert J. Sawyer

On Jul 14, 8:28*am, "HeyBub" wrote:
Lew Hodgett wrote:
Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Check the Computer section of Craigslist.

In my city, there are two or three guys who get TONS of computers back from
lease, spiffy them up, and ship them to Nigeria by the pallet load. They
will eagerly sell one to you.

I've gotten three in the past six months, two Dell Inspirion desktops (for
$65 each) and one HP laptop ($140). Happy with all of them.

Aside:
Ever wonder what happened to all the CRT monitors? One place I visited must
have had over a thousand being crated up for shipment to Patagonia,
Rhodesia, or some other third-world customer.

Makes sense. Ship all the inefficient monitors to countries with
underdeveloped power grids.

On 7/14/2011 7:37 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:39:46 -0500, Leonlcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

On 7/13/2011 11:05 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:
Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew



I have a neighbor that has a computer business. He just built me a new
one 8 weeks ago. I am very happy with it. i5 processor, 125 GB Solid
State primary drive, 1 TB data drive. 8 gig DDR5 memory, USB 3.0, 4
fans, etc. Win 7 pro. Boots up and ready to go with all my start up
programs, 11 of my own, in 30 seconds.

Holy ****, Maynard! What'd you pay for that beast?

It's a Macbook?

--
Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.
-- Robert J. Sawyer

Also running at 3.3GHz plus it has a turbo boost but I never use it.

What did I pay,,, $1325. PC

On 7/14/2011 8:01 AM, Angela Sekeris wrote:
On Jul 14, 8:28 am, wrote:
Lew Hodgett wrote:
Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Check the Computer section of Craigslist.

In my city, there are two or three guys who get TONS of computers back from
lease, spiffy them up, and ship them to Nigeria by the pallet load. They
will eagerly sell one to you.

I've gotten three in the past six months, two Dell Inspirion desktops (for
$65 each) and one HP laptop ($140). Happy with all of them.

Aside:
Ever wonder what happened to all the CRT monitors? One place I visited must
have had over a thousand being crated up for shipment to Patagonia,
Rhodesia, or some other third-world customer.

Makes sense. Ship all the inefficient monitors to countries with
underdeveloped power grids.

Most all used computer components go to over seas but they tend to
dismantle the items for the gold and reusable parts. Nasty business.

dadiOH wrote:
Lew Hodgett wrote:
Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew

Are you or friend willing to spend an hour or so putting a mobo in the box
and plugging stuff into the mobo? Probably no monetary saving but it is an
easy task and one winds up with exactly what one wants. The hardest part is
just *deciding* what is wanted.

Yes, and then deciding what sort of memory the motherboard likes too.
One needs to read a motherboard manual or two, or three. Not only that,
one has to do his or her homework on CPU/motherboard compatibility (it's
not one-size fits all). Then one needs to made sure he or she has an
adequate power supply, especially considering the video card they have
chosen. And you can't assume that you'll be done after you put
everything together--that seems to never happen. Something in the BIOS
will need to be tinkered with--but what? This is not a task for
someone who just wants a computer--they are surely better buying a
pre-assembled system from Dell, or similar. They even come with a
warranty. At the low-end, I think they will even save money.

I built a system a year ago for about $1250 (not including keyboard,
monitor or a separate drive for backup). I don't think I saved any money
but I got what I wanted: a *quiet* (Intel) I7 system. It has a specially
designed (noise insulated) case, no loud fans (none on the Gigabyte
9800GT graphics card), a SSD (solid-state drive) instead of a hard disk
drive (this was months before these were available on prebuilt systems),
on which I installed Windows7 Professional (OEM). One won't find this
configuration in a retail store. Also, it has a fairly high-end Corsair
power supply. You'll never see that on a unit in a retail store--simply
because there's not enough glitz to it. Its quality the typical shopper
won't value enough. I use my systems for a few years before my wife
uses them for a few years. So I think this sort of quality is a
reasonable investment. She doesn't "push" a computer, and is not even
willing to learn how to blow the dust out of it--let alone do a
backup..lol. She's was very pleased with her last upgrade.

I just outlined at least a $300 computer design for you Lew. I can
print out a detailed order form of materials from NewEgg for you if you
like. I forget your estimated value of the first lighting design you
did for me. Maybe I'm underestimating the value of my experience..lol
: ) I can tell you just what you need to change in the BIOS so that
the mouse doesn't make annoying noises when you move it. It's the
automatic CPU fan speed monitor/adjustor (set it to "always on"). it
took me at least a week to figure that one out... Choose your battles...

Bill



If you should ever go that route, get a case that is large enough to work in
and with good ventilation. Lian Li and Altec are two that make nice cases.

For electronic parts, Newegg and Tiger Direct have a wide assortment but
check online for other better (?) prices. For RAM, hard to beat Crucial. A
couple of years ago, Western Digital Caviar Black drives were about the best
you could get, things may have changed but even if so they are excellent
drives with a 5 year guarantee.

What is needed is...
case
power supply if not bundled w/case
mobo
cpu (I like Athlon Phenom 2, maybe something better now)
hard drive (get SATA)
RAM
CD/DVD drive
monitor
OS (use the one he/she now has)

It is doubtful that either a sound or video card would be needed as those on
the mobo are quite good now,

dadiOH wrote:
For electronic parts, Newegg and Tiger Direct have a wide assortment
but check online for other better (?) prices. For RAM, hard to beat
Crucial. A couple of years ago, Western Digital Caviar Black drives
were about the best you could get, things may have changed but even
if so they are excellent drives with a 5 year guarantee.

Pricewatch is essential for locating the best prices on components.
http://www.pricewatch.com/

"k-nuttle" wrote in message ...

Have you considered the online sites of the major computer dealers like
HP, or your favorite brand?

Which often means you pay too much and get proprietary software you don't
need or want and proprietary hardware that is expensive to fix.

When my top-of-the-line Dell died recently I discovered it would cost twice
as much to replace the motherboard as it should have, so I had a local shop
build a new computer that ran circles around the Dell for half what the Dell
had cost me.

On Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:05:54 -0700, Lew Hodgett wrote:

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

JDR Microdevices?

http://www.jdr.com/

I've seen better web sites, but call up and get a catalog. They're not
in SoCal, but at least in CA (San Jose).

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

dadiOH wrote:
_____________________

) I can tell you just what you need to change in the BIOS so that
the mouse doesn't make annoying noises when you move it.

I've only had about 5 computers but I've never had one that made noise when
the mouse moved.


Going from a relatively passive state, the movement of the mouse
throttled the CPU Speed and/or CPU fan speed and the on board audio
amplified the electronic waves involved in the dynamics of the process.

A just looked in up in my Gigabyte motherboard manual: It's called
the "CPU Smart Fan Control".

When that happens every couple minutes it gets really annoying
(especially after going out of your way to build a *quiet* system).

Disabling the CPU Smart Fan Control solved the problem. It took me over
a week to isolate the problem/solution. It wasn't so hard to fix, but
it was frustrating. I don't think Lew wants to put himself in that
situation--obligated to learn computer repair. Maybe I'm wrong?

Bill

"Bill" wrote

Disabling the CPU Smart Fan Control solved the problem. It took me over a
week to isolate the problem/solution. It wasn't so hard to fix, but it
was frustrating. I don't think Lew wants to put himself in that
situation--obligated to learn computer repair. Maybe I'm wrong?

Reminds me of a story a friend told me of his navy days. He was an
electronics guy who maintained much of the ship board electronics, back in
the day when they had no replaceable boards. Everything had to be trouble
shot down to the bad component, which was then removed and replaced.

They were conducting some kind of fleet exercises. About twenty ships were
involved. The admiral was on board and this ship was the command ship.
Everything was going fine until some important piece of gear broke down.
The exercise had to stopped until it was repaired. He was called in to make
the necessary repairs. He quickly figured out which item broke down and got
out his manuals and started the laborious job of checking out the boards,
component by component, circuit by circuit. This was done in the presence
of the entire fleet command staff. And it was taking awhile. No quick
solution was happening.

His irritated commanding officer yelled at him, "How long is this going to
take?" He stood up, looked at him eye to eye, and yelled back at him,
"Fifteen minutes AFTER I FIND THE PROBLEM!" The red faced officer backed
off. Not a word or sound from the rest of the staff either.

I always remember that story. A lot of time a problem is easily solved. It
is just finding the damn thing to begin with! How many times have you
struggled to do something and it took and inordinate amount of time? And
the second time it was a breeze and happened easily and efficiently. the
first time was learnin' time. The second time was doin' time.

#########
Go to Craiglist in you state/city.
Low prices and freebees
Smitty
########


On Jul 13, 6:05*pm, "Lew Hodgett" wrote:
Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew

On Thu, 14 Jul 2011 08:09:48 -0500, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

On 7/14/2011 7:37 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:39:46 -0500, Leonlcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

On 7/13/2011 11:05 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:
Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew



I have a neighbor that has a computer business. He just built me a new
one 8 weeks ago. I am very happy with it. i5 processor, 125 GB Solid
State primary drive, 1 TB data drive. 8 gig DDR5 memory, USB 3.0, 4
fans, etc. Win 7 pro. Boots up and ready to go with all my start up
programs, 11 of my own, in 30 seconds.

Holy ****, Maynard! What'd you pay for that beast?

It's a Macbook?

Also running at 3.3GHz plus it has a turbo boost but I never use it.

What did I pay,,, $1325. PC

Not too awfully bad. His site didn't list any PCs in stock.

--
Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.
-- Robert J. Sawyer

Larry Blanchard writes:
On Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:05:54 -0700, Lew Hodgett wrote:

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

JDR Microdevices?

http://www.jdr.com/

I've seen better web sites, but call up and get a catalog. They're not
in SoCal, but at least in CA (San Jose).

I've bought over a hundred custom systems from these guys (Santa Clara, Ca)
in the last 8 years. They're very good. I'm not sure if they do one-off's tho.

http://www.hdlfocus.com/hpc.html

Larry Jaques writes:
On Thu, 14 Jul 2011 08:09:48 -0500, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

On 7/14/2011 7:37 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:39:46 -0500, Leonlcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

On 7/13/2011 11:05 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:
Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew



I have a neighbor that has a computer business. He just built me a new
one 8 weeks ago. I am very happy with it. i5 processor, 125 GB Solid
State primary drive, 1 TB data drive. 8 gig DDR5 memory, USB 3.0, 4
fans, etc. Win 7 pro. Boots up and ready to go with all my start up
programs, 11 of my own, in 30 seconds.

Holy ****, Maynard! What'd you pay for that beast?

It's a Macbook?

Also running at 3.3GHz plus it has a turbo boost but I never use it.

What did I pay,,, $1325. PC

Not too awfully bad. His site didn't list any PCs in stock.


I picked up one of these the other day:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-023-_-Product

dual core, 64-bit, GPU on cpu die (AMD Fusion), HDMI, SATA 6Mb/s, 1Ge, USB 3.0
pulls 11 watts idle; 18 under load[*]. Supports virtualization (I'm running 2 web servers
and a mail server, all in individual virtual machines).

Price can't be beat. Should be sufficient for most home surfing/word processing
and media center applications.

scott
[*] Measured at the 120v wall plug.

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
eb.com...

Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew

======================

Newegg.com

The prices are good,you can choose your parts individually and they will be
there the next day.


--

Eric

On Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:08:18 -0500, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

What did I pay,,, $1325. PC

Not too awfully bad. His site didn't list any PCs in stock.

I ordered mine from him on a Friday afternoon, he delivered on Monday
afternoon. He builds to his customers needs so he really does not keep
an inventory of assembled machines IIRC. He does not just buy parts and
assemble, he apparently knows which parts work best together.

Excellent service! Having a local computer guru is the best insurance
you can buy.


I was sold on an i7 processor and he talked me out of it. Apparently
nothing that the average user would use would ever need an i7 processor
in the foreseeable future or as he put it, the life expectancy of the
machine.




It would have been significantly less expensive had I gone for a 1TB
primary hard drive instead of the 128GB Solid State drive.

Why did he talk you into the SSD?


I have really enjoyed the simplicity of having the OS and program files
on the SSD and my data files on the HD. No convoluted tree/directory to
track down a data file.

Right, nice!


I use Quicken home and business and when I installed the program it
placed my data file on the SSD also. Launching the program was
instantaneous. As soon as I clocked or let go of the enter key the
program and file were on the screen. Now that I have moved the data
file to the HD it takes 2 seconds. Seems like an eternity. :~)

I'm well aware that Instant Gratification Takes Too Long.


Component Details Subscore Base score
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz 7.5 7.0
Determined by lowest subscore

Windows Experience Index on score 1.0 to 7.9

Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB 7.8
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 5670 7.0
Gaming graphics 4852 MB Total available graphics memory 7.0
Primary hard disk 64GB Free (119GB Total) 7.9
Windows 7 Professional

I like (and use) Win7Pro. My graphics card drops my system down to
3.8. Wah! Mine is only a 32-bit and 2.5GHz with slower RAM.

You officially SUCK, Leon!

--
Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.
-- Robert J. Sawyer

On Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:43:08 -0700, "DGDevin"
wrote:



"k-nuttle" wrote in message ...

Have you considered the online sites of the major computer dealers like
HP, or your favorite brand?

Which often means you pay too much and get proprietary software you don't
need or want and proprietary hardware that is expensive to fix.

When my top-of-the-line Dell died recently I discovered it would cost twice
as much to replace the motherboard as it should have, so I had a local shop
build a new computer that ran circles around the Dell for half what the Dell
had cost me.
" Dell from Hell"

On Jul 14, 11:09 pm, "Lew Hodgett" wrote:

NewEgg would be a winner, they are litterly out my back door.

Now if I can just figure out how to configure a system for them to
quote.

Lew - go to their website, and they literally have bundled kits ready
to go that provide just about anything and everything. With their
already aggressive pricing, this just makes it a bit sweeter if you
don't mind spending the time to put it together. Look at the bottom
right of this page:

http://www.newegg.com

I have bought the components for my last two computers there, and it
*seems* that they have better than the normal stuff at the discount
computer places around here. Plus, my experience is that they really
stand behind their products.

They have good prices on their finished boxes, too.

As for me, I split the difference. Although I don't mind working on
one, I didn't want to build it myself either as I would be spending an
entire day doing it. So I paid a friend of mine to build it for me at
the going rate of $100, including having him do all diagnostics on the
machine and print out reports. I got it from him, took it home,
hooked up the monitor, modem, mouse and speakers and off I went.

Remember, due to licensing agreements, these things aren't always what
they seem. If you buy a prebuilt machine, you will get some form of
Windows if it is a working box, even with no keyboard, monitor or
mouse.

But if you buy a kit or box of parts, you need to remember that you
will be buying your operating platform, so don't forget to figure that
into the price. For an apples to apples comparison.

DAMHIKT. Lessons learned.

Robert

On 7/14/2011 8:24 PM, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:08:18 -0500, Leonlcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

What did I pay,,, $1325. PC

Not too awfully bad. His site didn't list any PCs in stock.

I ordered mine from him on a Friday afternoon, he delivered on Monday
afternoon. He builds to his customers needs so he really does not keep
an inventory of assembled machines IIRC. He does not just buy parts and
assemble, he apparently knows which parts work best together.

Excellent service! Having a local computer guru is the best insurance
you can buy.

That was a big point in my decision making process, him living 3 doors down.




I was sold on an i7 processor and he talked me out of it. Apparently
nothing that the average user would use would ever need an i7 processor
in the foreseeable future or as he put it, the life expectancy of the
machine.


It would have been significantly less expensive had I gone for a 1TB
primary hard drive instead of the 128GB Solid State drive.

Why did he talk you into the SSD?

He didn't, he mentioned that they were offering that as a primary drive.
I jumped at the opportunity. A little more expensive for the machine
as a whole but extremely fast, no moving parts. IIRC the 128Gb SSD was
about $125 more than the 1Tb HD. With the OS and all of my program
files loaded I have only used about 1/2 the capacity.



I have really enjoyed the simplicity of having the OS and program files
on the SSD and my data files on the HD. No convoluted tree/directory to
track down a data file.

Right, nice!


I use Quicken home and business and when I installed the program it
placed my data file on the SSD also. Launching the program was
instantaneous. As soon as I clocked or let go of the enter key the
program and file were on the screen. Now that I have moved the data
file to the HD it takes 2 seconds. Seems like an eternity. :~)

I'm well aware that Instant Gratification Takes Too Long.


Component Details Subscore Base score
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz 7.5 7.0
Determined by lowest subscore

Windows Experience Index on score 1.0 to 7.9

Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB 7.8
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 5670 7.0
Gaming graphics 4852 MB Total available graphics memory 7.0
Primary hard disk 64GB Free (119GB Total) 7.9
Windows 7 Professional

I like (and use) Win7Pro. My graphics card drops my system down to
3.8. Wah! Mine is only a 32-bit and 2.5GHz with slower RAM.

You officially SUCK, Leon!

Why thank you Larry!

wrote:
On Jul 14, 11:09 pm, "Lew wrote:

NewEgg would be a winner, they are litterly out my back door.

Now if I can just figure out how to configure a system for them to
quote.

Lew - go to their website, and they literally have bundled kits ready
to go that provide just about anything and everything. With their
already aggressive pricing, this just makes it a bit sweeter if you
don't mind spending the time to put it together. Look at the bottom
right of this page:

http://www.newegg.com

I have bought the components for my last two computers there, and it
*seems* that they have better than the normal stuff at the discount
computer places around here. Plus, my experience is that they really
stand behind their products.

They have good prices on their finished boxes, too.

As for me, I split the difference. Although I don't mind working on
one, I didn't want to build it myself either as I would be spending an
entire day doing it.

An "entire day" huh? I trust the people making comments like this are
the same ones that walk into a woodworking store and buy a TS on the
first visit. I almost hate to say it, and it may be difficult to
believe, but I think a computer is at least as complicated as a TS and
you can easily, even accidentally, devote as much time to choosing the
components for one. For instance, try to answer the question, "Which
SSD drive" should I choose? A year ago, there was a clear answer, but
"marketing" will (try to) obscure your ability to find it.

After choosing an SSD (or HDD) you can play the same game with "Which
graphics card?". You should probably choose your platform and MB before
you choose your SSD or HDD. It's sort of a circular process, with your
applications leading the way, and some choices dependent on others
(consider various HDD interfaces available).

Not all graphics cards fit in all cases, but I also expect that no one
here is afraid to cut sheet metal. Anyone can build a computer and it's
getting easier every year, it seems. I'm just sayin'.

I blew the $10 on an anti-static mat, and in the wintertime I left a pot
of water on the stove to create humidity while I installed the
components, but that's just me. In California the steam is probably
unnecessary.

Bill



So I paid a friend of mine to build it for me at
the going rate of $100, including having him do all diagnostics on the
machine and print out reports. I got it from him, took it home,
hooked up the monitor, modem, mouse and speakers and off I went.

Remember, due to licensing agreements, these things aren't always what
they seem. If you buy a prebuilt machine, you will get some form of
Windows if it is a working box, even with no keyboard, monitor or
mouse.

But if you buy a kit or box of parts, you need to remember that you
will be buying your operating platform, so don't forget to figure that
into the price. For an apples to apples comparison.

DAMHIKT. Lessons learned.

Robert

On 7/15/11 12:57 PM, Bill wrote:

An "entire day" huh? I trust the people making comments like this are
the same ones that walk into a woodworking store and buy a TS on the
first visit. I almost hate to say it, and it may be difficult to
believe, but I think a computer is at least as complicated as a TS and
you can easily, even accidentally, devote as much time to choosing the
components for one. For instance, try to answer the question, "Which SSD
drive" should I choose? A year ago, there was a clear answer, but
"marketing" will (try to) obscure your ability to find it.

After choosing an SSD (or HDD) you can play the same game with "Which
graphics card?". You should probably choose your platform and MB before
you choose your SSD or HDD. It's sort of a circular process, with your
applications leading the way, and some choices dependent on others
(consider various HDD interfaces available).

Not all graphics cards fit in all cases, but I also expect that no one
here is afraid to cut sheet metal. Anyone can build a computer and it's
getting easier every year, it seems. I'm just sayin'.

I blew the $10 on an anti-static mat, and in the wintertime I left a pot
of water on the stove to create humidity while I installed the
components, but that's just me. In California the steam is probably
unnecessary.

Bill

I worked for a "grey" market computer dealer back in the mid to late
eighties
and have built literally hundreds if not thousands of machines. Back
then between the proprietary parts in Compaqs, microchannel stuff in the
IBM boxes, and just the odd assortment of stuff built into the clones
you had to know what you were doing, just to get it to work.

IRQs, I/O addresses, DMA channels etc., now days, if it will fit, it
pretty much is guaranteed to work, not to say there is no research
involved, but the actual technical knowledge required is a lot less.

--
Froz...


The system will be down for 10 days for preventive maintenance.

FrozenNorth wrote:

I worked for a "grey" market computer dealer back in the mid to late
eighties
and have built literally hundreds if not thousands of machines. Back
then between the proprietary parts in Compaqs, microchannel stuff in the
IBM boxes, and just the odd assortment of stuff built into the clones
you had to know what you were doing, just to get it to work.

IRQs, I/O addresses, DMA channels etc., now days, if it will fit, it
pretty much is guaranteed to work, not to say there is no research
involved, but the actual technical knowledge required is a lot less.


Yes, I was around computers during those time too. Sun and DEC were
kings of a sort. I've only built 4 systems, but "Guaranteed to work" is
not a suitable standard for a computer for me. I would want to know:

- The manufacturer and rating of the power supply (PSU)
- How well does it run OpenGL (I like SketchUp)
- I need all the processing power I can justify with respect to cost
(to run programs most people don't have or need).
- Is is 64 bit compatible, which OS am I getting (pro?)
- How much noise (db) does each component make, how well does the case
insulate noise (best do your own homework).

"Guaranteed to work" doesn't consider any of the above. Let's not even
get into "monitors" or "mouses" and keyboards--I am sort of particular
about them. I'm currently quite pleased with Dell's "Ultrasharp". I'm
not adequately familiar with the current model/version to comment. I
really, really like MS Natural (shaped) keyboard.

Yes Froze, I agree. Almost anyone can build a computer without knowing
about a single thing I wrote about above, and feel justly proud of the
accomplishment. And I'm sure it will work fine.

Consider Levels 0-5 of drywall finishing. Sometimes level 3 is good
enough. However, in general, I prefer the following quotation: "Good
enough is seldom good enough".

I wonder how much time manufacturers spend sharpening those drill bits
that they sell 160 for $40? I wonder how much time Fry's spends
threading wires through the case to ensure good air flow? I don't know
the answers to either question, but the kid would probably be on break
before I was finished.

Bill

Crap! I am in Canada and ordered two 2TB external harddrives for my kids on
the week of last Christmas last year. I ordered them on Monday and they
arrived on Wednesday, two days later, and three days before Christmas!

The price was slightly more than half the staples prices (I bought one
locally just in case the timing didn't work out), the quality of the brand
was better (had sleep modes and lower power) and I took the one back to
Staples and got almost the same amount refunded as the two from NewEgg.ca.

They shipped the units from New Jersey somewhere, cleared customs and was at
my door in under two days! Online I could track them and was informed of the
delivery time within an hour of stated ETA. I have always been impressed
with these guys. Their website has lots of feedback ratings and warranty
coverage stories where they have stood behind their products. Their tech
help has been available in the past for "tweaking" hardware and software to
make it work when I called, also.

------------

"Eric" wrote in message ...
Newegg.com

The prices are good,you can choose your parts individually and they will be
there the next day.


--

Eric

On Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:05:54 -0700, "Lew Hodgett"
wrote:

Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew


Are you wanting to build a computer, or to find someone who can build
one for you?

If the latter, I have no advice for you. If the former, I have one
and only one suggestion, based on personal experience:
http://www.newegg.com/

Reply-to address is real
-- John

In article , frozenNorth123
@gm.nospam.ail.com says...

On 7/15/11 12:57 PM, Bill wrote:

An "entire day" huh? I trust the people making comments like this are
the same ones that walk into a woodworking store and buy a TS on the
first visit. I almost hate to say it, and it may be difficult to
believe, but I think a computer is at least as complicated as a TS and
you can easily, even accidentally, devote as much time to choosing the
components for one. For instance, try to answer the question, "Which SSD
drive" should I choose? A year ago, there was a clear answer, but
"marketing" will (try to) obscure your ability to find it.

After choosing an SSD (or HDD) you can play the same game with "Which
graphics card?". You should probably choose your platform and MB before
you choose your SSD or HDD. It's sort of a circular process, with your
applications leading the way, and some choices dependent on others
(consider various HDD interfaces available).

Not all graphics cards fit in all cases, but I also expect that no one
here is afraid to cut sheet metal. Anyone can build a computer and it's
getting easier every year, it seems. I'm just sayin'.

I blew the $10 on an anti-static mat, and in the wintertime I left a pot
of water on the stove to create humidity while I installed the
components, but that's just me. In California the steam is probably
unnecessary.

Bill

I worked for a "grey" market computer dealer back in the mid to late
eighties
and have built literally hundreds if not thousands of machines. Back
then between the proprietary parts in Compaqs, microchannel stuff in the
IBM boxes, and just the odd assortment of stuff built into the clones
you had to know what you were doing, just to get it to work.

IRQs, I/O addresses, DMA channels etc., now days, if it will fit, it
pretty much is guaranteed to work, not to say there is no research
involved, but the actual technical knowledge required is a lot less.

But when it doesn't work it's a bear. In theory there are ways to
override the automatic assignment of IRQs, I/O addressed, DMA channels,
etc, and in theory there are now enough to go around anyway, but in
practice every once in a while you get two boards sharing an IRQ or the
like that just plain don't like each other, and getting them moved to
different IRQs etc can be a royal pain. Used to be with 8-slot machines
you could play musical boards until the problem went away. Now there
aren't all that many slots and they aren't all ther same.

These days the CPUs are so fast and the drivers are actually written
properly to enable sharing or IRQs and DMA channels without crashing.
Most of the MoBos have more IRQs now anyway.

--------------
"J. Clarke" wrote in message
in.local...
But when it doesn't work it's a bear. In theory there are ways to
override the automatic assignment of IRQs, I/O addressed, DMA channels,
etc, and in theory there are now enough to go around anyway, but in
practice every once in a while you get two boards sharing an IRQ or the
like that just plain don't like each other, and getting them moved to
different IRQs etc can be a royal pain. Used to be with 8-slot machines
you could play musical boards until the problem went away. Now there
aren't all that many slots and they aren't all ther same.

On Jul 15, 11:57 am, Bill wrote:

An "entire day" huh? I trust the people making comments like this are
the same ones that walk into a woodworking store and buy a TS on the
first visit. I almost hate to say it, and it may be difficult to
believe, but I think a computer is at least as complicated as a TS and
you can easily, even accidentally, devote as much time to choosing the
components for one. For instance, try to answer the question, "Which
SSD drive" should I choose? A year ago, there was a clear answer, but
"marketing" will (try to) obscure your ability to find it.

Hmmm.... reading your posts, it does seem that you might have a bit of
a comprehension problem. I never said I picked out all components for
construction in a day. I never said that I checked parts for maximum
compatibility in a day. I never said I bought a case, fan, power
supply, video card, memory, in a day, nor any other part.

Having all carefully selected parts in front of me (last two computers
I labored over parts for a month), I can indeed get one together in an
eight hour period.

Might I

I trust the people making comments like this are
the same ones

that don't read and understand the written language? Ones that might
jump to conclusions based on their own arrogance?

With little doubt, I would say that anyone that did not select their
parts beforehand is an idiot. Was that your assumption, even though
it was never expressed, written, or alluded to in any way by me?

With all selected parts in hand, my computer guy can put a machine
together in a couple of hours, install the OS, and run all his
diagnostic software in a couple of more. He can have a new machine
out the door in 4 - 5 hours, but her prefers overnight self
diagnostics. He has done it for me and my business associates many,
many times as he does it all day long. The diagnostics run far longer
than the assembly time from him.

As I said, for me, it would take a full day (if all assembly went
right and there were no DOA parts.)

It appears, your mileage may vary.

Robert

wrote:
On Jul 15, 11:57 am, wrote:

An "entire day" huh? I trust the people making comments like this are
the same ones that walk into a woodworking store and buy a TS on the
first visit. I almost hate to say it, and it may be difficult to
believe, but I think a computer is at least as complicated as a TS and
you can easily, even accidentally, devote as much time to choosing the
components for one. For instance, try to answer the question, "Which
SSD drive" should I choose? A year ago, there was a clear answer, but
"marketing" will (try to) obscure your ability to find it.

Hmmm.... reading your posts, it does seem that you might have a bit of
a comprehension problem. I never said I picked out all components for
construction in a day. I never said that I checked parts for maximum
compatibility in a day. I never said I bought a case, fan, power
supply, video card, memory, in a day, nor any other part.

Having all carefully selected parts in front of me (last two computers
I labored over parts for a month), I can indeed get one together in an
eight hour period.

Might I

I trust the people making comments like this are
the same ones

that don't read and understand the written language? Ones that might
jump to conclusions based on their own arrogance?

With little doubt, I would say that anyone that did not select their
parts beforehand is an idiot. Was that your assumption, even though
it was never expressed, written, or alluded to in any way by me?

With all selected parts in hand, my computer guy can put a machine
together in a couple of hours, install the OS, and run all his
diagnostic software in a couple of more. He can have a new machine
out the door in 4 - 5 hours, but her prefers overnight self
diagnostics. He has done it for me and my business associates many,
many times as he does it all day long. The diagnostics run far longer
than the assembly time from him.

As I said, for me, it would take a full day (if all assembly went
right and there were no DOA parts.)

This is what YOU WROTE:

As for me, I split the difference. Although I don't mind working on
one, I didn't want to build it myself either as I would be spending an
entire day doing it. So I paid a friend of mine to build it for me at
the going rate of $100, including having him do all diagnostics on the
machine and print out reports. I got it from him, took it home,
hooked up the monitor, modem, mouse and speakers and off I went.


You didn't want to spend an "entire day" building a computer???
My reply was NOT directed at you. I wrote: I trust the "people making
comments like this". That was not meant to include you. Just forget it
and go on with your life. F*** your arrogance.



It appears, your mileage may vary.

Robert

wrote:

Having all carefully selected parts in front of me (last two computers
I labored over parts for a month), I can indeed get one together in an
eight hour period.


Gosh, I hope so. Like you said when you were being a jerk, that's not
the time-consuming part.

In article , says...

These days the CPUs are so fast and the drivers are actually written
properly to enable sharing or IRQs and DMA channels without crashing.

Except when they don't.

Most of the MoBos have more IRQs now anyway.

Which doesn't mean that the automatic assignment actually uses them.



--------------
"J. Clarke" wrote in message
in.local...
But when it doesn't work it's a bear. In theory there are ways to
override the automatic assignment of IRQs, I/O addressed, DMA channels,
etc, and in theory there are now enough to go around anyway, but in
practice every once in a while you get two boards sharing an IRQ or the
like that just plain don't like each other, and getting them moved to
different IRQs etc can be a royal pain. Used to be with 8-slot machines
you could play musical boards until the problem went away. Now there
aren't all that many slots and they aren't all ther same.

In article , says...

wrote:

Having all carefully selected parts in front of me (last two computers
I labored over parts for a month), I can indeed get one together in an
eight hour period.


Gosh, I hope so. Like you said when you were being a jerk, that's not
the time-consuming part.

Christ, my students used to be able to tear one down and reassemble it
in 4 hours.

"J. Clarke" writes:
In article , frozenNorth123

IRQs, I/O addresses, DMA channels etc., now days, if it will fit, it
pretty much is guaranteed to work, not to say there is no research
involved, but the actual technical knowledge required is a lot less.

But when it doesn't work it's a bear. In theory there are ways to
override the automatic assignment of IRQs, I/O addressed, DMA channels,
etc, and in theory there are now enough to go around anyway, but in
practice every once in a while you get two boards sharing an IRQ or the
like that just plain don't like each other, and getting them moved to
different IRQs etc can be a royal pain. Used to be with 8-slot machines
you could play musical boards until the problem went away. Now there
aren't all that many slots and they aren't all ther same.


This hasn't really been a problem since 1995. Once PCI superceded
ISA/EISA/MCA as a bus architecture, and ACPI came along as a standard
mechanism for the BIOS to convey confguration information to the
operating system, hardware has truely become plug and play. PCI (& PCI-X)
only had 4 defined interrupts (per PCI bridge) orignally anyway; until
MSI and MSI-X came along. With PCIe (PCI-Express), multiple PCI root
complexes and MSI-X, there are effectively more physical interrupt vectors
available on the I/O side than the processor can handle (the x86 processors
are limited to 256 entries in the interrupt vector table).

That's not to say that particular operating systems (such as win2k or xp)
don't have driver conflict issues - but that's not a hardware problem.

scott

"J. Clarke" writes:
In article , says...

wrote:

Having all carefully selected parts in front of me (last two computers
I labored over parts for a month), I can indeed get one together in an
eight hour period.


Gosh, I hope so. Like you said when you were being a jerk, that's not
the time-consuming part.

Christ, my students used to be able to tear one down and reassemble it
in 4 hours.


My lab guy routinely does it in 30 minutes. 15 minutes to swap out a
power supply, mobo or processor. 5 minutes to swap out dimms (most of that
removing/attaching cables so the system will slide out of the rack). There
are currently about 300 1U and 2U boxes in the lab (all servers); including one
that has 192 cores, 1 TB DRAM and 100TB disk.

But he's been building mainframes, large MPP machines, small unix boxes,
servers and PC's for 30 years.

scott