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

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 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 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 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 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.

"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 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"

wrote in message ...


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"

DELL -- Doesn't Ever Last Long

They wanted about four hundred and sixty bucks for a new motherboard (and it
would probably have been a refurb). Hell, they wanted sixty bucks just to
talk to a service tech on the phone to figure out what was wrong. It's the
only PC I've ever owned that died due to a parts failure that I couldn't
fix, it was their top-of-the-line model too. I'll never buy another DELL.

"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 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 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.

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

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

#########
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

"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

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

On Jul 14, 12:05*am, "Lew Hodgett" wrote:
First thought "Begin with the end in mind."

That is, define the needs the device is to meet. That allows you to
determine the hardware, operating system and software required. From
there,one can add RAM and storage option upgrades, video card
enhancements, etc. and so forth.

If you examine the files saved on your friend's old computer, that
will give you a good idea of what he/she uses the device for. Add to
that the current "wish list" ranked by importance/value to the
intended end-user.

If it turns out that an off the shelf Laptop will suffice, you'll have
the specs requisite to effectively putting out a "Request For
Proposals" or shopping pecs sheet.

Then go looking for suppliers and deals on price, quality, warranty,
service, etc.

UPDATE:

The deed is done.

Thank you all for your inputs.

When I started this project, knew friend had a Toshiba lap top and was
very happy with it.

Turns out it was Micro Center located in Tustin, CA, that supplied it.

This was the same outfit suggested by Han based on his dealings with
their NJ operation.

So Micro Center got the order to build a puter.

Will pick it up this week end.

Once again, thanks for every bodies input.

Lew

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in news:4e41ea77$0$32188
:

UPDATE:

The deed is done.

Thank you all for your inputs.

When I started this project, knew friend had a Toshiba lap top and was
very happy with it.

Turns out it was Micro Center located in Tustin, CA, that supplied it.

This was the same outfit suggested by Han based on his dealings with
their NJ operation.

So Micro Center got the order to build a puter.

Will pick it up this week end.

Once again, thanks for every bodies input.

Lew

I just bought an ASUS X53E laptop there, with the extended warrantee. I
put at least 3 full days in installing all kinds of software and tweaks.
Then I noticed the funny light spots on the screen, and soon they became
really distracting. SO I brought the machine back and exchanged it
(everyone agreed there was a screen defect). While there I swapped the
hard drives, so the software I had (partly) purchased for the first
machine now resided on the replacement. Didn't want to spend days
reinstalling again. That worked almost flawlessly. The only software
that protested being in a different box was Perfect Update (driver
updates), but I got a new license key for it from the nice folks at Raxco
after explaining what I had done. Now I wish I could get the SD card
reader to work ...


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On 8/10/2011 6:30 AM, Han wrote:
"Lew wrote in news:4e41ea77$0$32188
:

UPDATE:

The deed is done.

Thank you all for your inputs.

When I started this project, knew friend had a Toshiba lap top and was
very happy with it.

Turns out it was Micro Center located in Tustin, CA, that supplied it.

This was the same outfit suggested by Han based on his dealings with
their NJ operation.

So Micro Center got the order to build a puter.

Will pick it up this week end.

Once again, thanks for every bodies input.

Lew

I just bought an ASUS X53E laptop there, with the extended warrantee. I
put at least 3 full days in installing all kinds of software and tweaks.
Then I noticed the funny light spots on the screen, and soon they became
really distracting. SO I brought the machine back and exchanged it
(everyone agreed there was a screen defect). While there I swapped the
hard drives, so the software I had (partly) purchased for the first
machine now resided on the replacement. Didn't want to spend days
reinstalling again. That worked almost flawlessly. The only software
that protested being in a different box was Perfect Update (driver
updates), but I got a new license key for it from the nice folks at Raxco
after explaining what I had done. Now I wish I could get the SD card
reader to work ...


Obviously and or hopefully a setting change isall that is required.
When I got my new desk top a few months ago the DVD player would not
work, not recognized was the reason. Odd since this is how the builder
installed the OS. I went into properties and the DVD was set up to act
as something else, virtual HD IIRC.. Changing to DVD player/burner
solved the problem. I am probably totally off base here but similar
problem.

Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote in
:

On 8/10/2011 6:30 AM, Han wrote:
"Lew wrote in news:4e41ea77$0$32188
:

UPDATE:

The deed is done.

Thank you all for your inputs.

When I started this project, knew friend had a Toshiba lap top and
was very happy with it.

Turns out it was Micro Center located in Tustin, CA, that supplied
it.

This was the same outfit suggested by Han based on his dealings with
their NJ operation.

So Micro Center got the order to build a puter.

Will pick it up this week end.

Once again, thanks for every bodies input.

Lew

I just bought an ASUS X53E laptop there, with the extended warrantee.
I put at least 3 full days in installing all kinds of software and
tweaks. Then I noticed the funny light spots on the screen, and soon
they became really distracting. SO I brought the machine back and
exchanged it (everyone agreed there was a screen defect). While
there I swapped the hard drives, so the software I had (partly)
purchased for the first machine now resided on the replacement.
Didn't want to spend days reinstalling again. That worked almost
flawlessly. The only software that protested being in a different
box was Perfect Update (driver updates), but I got a new license key
for it from the nice folks at Raxco after explaining what I had done.
Now I wish I could get the SD card reader to work ...


Obviously and or hopefully a setting change isall that is required.
When I got my new desk top a few months ago the DVD player would not
work, not recognized was the reason. Odd since this is how the builder
installed the OS. I went into properties and the DVD was set up to
act as something else, virtual HD IIRC.. Changing to DVD player/burner
solved the problem. I am probably totally off base here but similar
problem.

Whatever it was, it now works.


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid