Building a computer

We learned the hard way about buying a pre-built system...

Turns out that the motherboards used had a bug in the chipset that caused them to shut down for no reason....

Oh yeah, among other things....

I installed "Speed Fan" and temperature sensor 1 reads -40c degeress and temperature sensor 2 reads 60c at power up!

Had I done a web search and read the reviews it would have saved me and my daughter a lot of grief!

SMM

 

Don't assume that all prebuilt system are bad. I have used many of both and you can go wrong either way.
I have never had much problem with HP but I would stay away from Dell.
I don't have any recent experience with many other manufacturers other than custom built and Apple.

From a hardware standpoint in my experience,

I have really liked Apple, HP and well configured customs that I built myself.
THe ones I built myself though I went to a good parts dealer and they configured it for me and I just assembled the parts and they made sure I got things that worked well together.

But before you decide....check out www.apple.com/macmini
THis is what I use mostly and I love it. No viruses ever..no spyware ever and very easy to use.

 

The benefit of a computer you build yourself is that you get to choose what is going in it from the get-go... not click on chack boxes on a web page and then have to trust that that is what you'll receive.

By buying your own parts, you know what it can or cannot do, you know what slots are there, you know what software is installed (because you install it... most pre-builts come chocked full of useless stufff, even spyware {Dell}).

Plus, you have the satisfaction of knowing you did it. And if something up and dies, you can take it out and replace it yourself without voiding the warranty.

Oh, and if it costs a little extra when compared with some pre-builts' bottom-dollar deals, rest easy in knowing that you know what you have... which ain't no pig in a poke.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

I think I saw on the web the other day that Microtsoft is offering a bundle of programs worth $1200 for people who buy custom PCs.

I suppose it is an attempt to make a custom more attractive compared with the typical PC that comes with bundles harware, the thing is though that most of the bundled hardware that comes on PCs is typically junk that you would want to remove anyway.

 

I use my Mac MIni with a USB TV tuner and it is great. I kind of wish I had gone for more expensive Firewire tuner with a hardware mpeg 4 encoder but this one does pretty well.
It would be hard to go back to regular TV again.