Medion refurbished PC £199.99 + £4.98 Delivery

Friend had bought one of these and I helped him set it up this very day.

Delivery was within 48 hours!

Observations:
- No refurbished/cosmetic issues apparent on his model
- "Assembled in Germany"
- 512MB memory was a single stick, leaving one slot free
- DVD Writer was a Sony
- The keyboard and mouse were USB and NOT PS2
- Came with 90 day eSure Anti-Virus
- Home page is ALDI.COM so presumably these were German or UK ALDI returns (they were advertised by Aldi 9-12m ago)
- The 160GB hard-disk is partitioned into 3 volumes C:/D:/E: : about 48% 48% 4%
- Preloaded with lots of AOL software - ie immediate Control Panel Software Remove needed
- Needed a lot of Microsoft online updates (fortunately friend had hi-speed cable broadband link)
- Only 90 day warranty - ie same as 'basic' Dell warranty on NEW systems!

The only architectural weakness is I think the motherboard graphics which are really suited to 2D rather than 3D. However Scan this weekend have an AGP 6600GT for under £40 which was 3 times that price 18m ago!

VERY impressed indeed for the £204 total which includes:
Estimate value/replacement cost:
MS Windows XP Home £150
CPU/Fan £45
Memory £40
Hard-disk £40
Motherboard £35
Case/PSU £35
Keyboard/Mouse £15
DVD drive £25
Memory card reader/USB panel £10
TV/FM card £25
"Delivery by Dell" £60 (versus £4.98 from Medion!)
Sun's Star Office 7 was £50 (now Star Office 8)
Various other software ££
So that's somewhere £400-£500 worth

No guidance found in their literature about how to "enhance" - eg to add in a floppy drive and a second DVD drive (left over from friend's old PC). So will have to find out how to bend out the metal blanking, and whether to slide in from inside or outside, without damaging the fascia for ourselves.

Only oddity was the front SLIDING cover over the memory card reader/USB etc connections. Took a LONG time to work out how to open it!

So here's the MSE usability TIP: The sliding cover has a 'silver' arc protruberence across its middle - this is purely cosmetic. However the similar BLACK arc protruberence just above the silver slider is the RELEASE - ie it needs pressing in to 'unclick/latch' the silver cover which then slides down.

not gone for the pc but the heads-up on the 6600gt from Scan has now been ordered. Will sit well in the media pc for some HD content. Thanks.

I gotta get me one of those XFX 6600GT's, I've been on the look out for one for a good price for months! Thank you very much for the info

Miser_maz wrote:

I had one of these cards around 18 months ago, its a good card, but be warned it had an extremely noisy fan, so noisy that I got shot of it within a week and got the Gigabyte version, which was a lot quieter.

That's no problem, the fan can be upgraded with a Zalman VF700, no need to have changed the whole card lol

Here's a review of the Zalman VF700 gpu cooler.

Instead of a gpu cooler upgrade you could use the Experttool from Gainward which works on all 6600GT's. Get it here. If you install this and set the fan speed to ‘dynamic’ it takes the fan speed down to about 50% which is considerably less noisy. Even though the application is developed by Gainward, because NVidia cards are mostly the same it will work on XFX and other brand cards.

Ebay is the cheapest place for the Zalman.

I have a feeling these were being sold in Aldi a few months ago? Anyone? I'm tempted, I must say...


Oops, just seen this mentioned in an earlier post.