advice on a new PC

soolin

macman wrote: »

But you have already made a backup?

All my important items are copied onto an external hard drive so that when my PC does refuse to work I can at least access my work via my sons laptop. So as far as I understand it with my non techie brain that means I have 2 complete copies, one on the pC that I cna access and use and also one on the external drive that I can use as well.

Even things like turbolister have a copy on the external drive and when I update TL I try to remember to replace the last copy on the hard drive with the latest update.

Taffybiker

By all means go ahead and buy a new PC, but IMHO it would be worth having a chat with your friendly PC specialist first to find out the cost of replacing the motherboard.

soolin

Taffybiker wrote: »

By all means go ahead and buy a new PC, but IMHO it would be worth having a chat with your friendly PC specialist first to find out the cost of replacing the motherboard.

It was him that told me it was beyond economic repair, approx £175 for the amount of work needed for replacement to the burnt out bits and casing plus additional labour costs. I am already spending out month on month on bits and pieces that keep going wrong and now even the temporary USB port is playing up so I keep losing my keyboard and mouse connection.

This is no way to try and run a serious business.

MONEYSAVER_3

Hi Soolin

In my opinion if the pc is starting to giv eyou trouble the repairs will probably ending amounting to more and more costs not worth the bother. I would get a pc and if you need something that is good on service and reliable - Dell is good they provide good service and if you take the warranty and if your pc becomes faulty they will not leave in the lurch. If they need to take it away they will give you a pc until the repairs are done.

have a look at the dell site and also

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2010/01/11/what-hardware-should-i-buy-january-2010/1

have a look at this site its a bit techy but it maybe be able to help you compare when looking for what looks average,good and super

Marty_J

Hi Soolin, I know you do a lot of work with eBay.

Have you considered a Mac Mini and a copy of GarageSale?

It's a very powerful tool.

soolin

Thank you for all your help, I haven't finally made my mind up yet but I suspect I shall buy a PC mid range with a decent amount of scope in case I do decide to do more with it. I don't think I want to switch to a MAC as I am quite comfortable with what I have,I just hoped for something a little more modern that didn't give me so many problems. I'm not sure I want another Dell, although I haven't ruled it out yet.

I just have to resist my sons trying to persuade me to buy an all singing all dancing machine with more hard drive than I could possibly need.

macman

OP, before MartyJ gets here, I just wanted to point out that the computer you don't think you want to switch to is a Mac, not a MAC. A MAC is what you need to move your broadband account.
Good luck with your new computer, whatever it is.

Taffybiker

soolin wrote: »

It was him that told me it was beyond economic repair, approx £175 for the amount of work needed for replacement to the burnt out bits and casing plus additional labour costs. I am already spending out month on month on bits and pieces that keep going wrong and now even the temporary USB port is playing up so I keep losing my keyboard and mouse connection.

This is no way to try and run a serious business.

Ok, time to relent. I try to save money where possible but in your case I now agree that a new PC is the way to go. The question remains of which one.
As I said earlier, any new system should more than meet your needs but for your consideration there is one thing I would absolutely insist on, and that is a very high quality PSU. It's well worth the extra money.

soolin

Thank you, that's what I wanted to know, which bit of the jargon is important and which is not.

Richie-from-the-Boro

""
My problem is that I go to pC world on any other shop and get completely blinded by processors and memory and RAM, and I don't know which is more important for me. Some people tell me hard drive is the most important,others the processing speed and I am completely lost.All I use the PC for is documents, emails, browsing, plus ebay and Amazon etc. I also load photos and then transfer them to a portable harddrive for storage. I do like a PC though that cna cope with lots of open browser windows so I can cut and paste between various auction sites and upload photos quickly.
""
OPTIMUM for your needs

You need a low to medium level PC
A video card with 1GB of DDR3
Win7 O/S
A 500GB drive
& a 500GB external USB drive

PURCHASE

Pick any puter
- around the spec & price you show in your post
- but insist you do not want the monitor and make them take the £100 off the price!

SPEC

If you buy a model with on board graphics
- the on board means it steals memory from you computer to use for video purposes
- if the puter you buy has only 2GB you may end up with only 1.5GB after your video needs have stolen a 1/2GIG
- if you want it to ' cope with lots of open browser windows ' you need both a reasonable amount of both video & RAM memory
- in short your needs would be better realised with :

- 2GB of RAM & a 1GB PCIe video card
- 4GB of RAM and on board video

NOTE Win7 will eat most of 1GB and Vista will eat most of 2GB it's own leaving only the bit that's left for your personal needs.