Help... I Need a new CPU (but not a dell)

Miss_Cakey_Bun

Before we start my husband would rather bite his own feet off than buy a Dell so please don’t keep suggesting I get one from them
I have a lovely monitor but after 4 years of teenager abuse my Tesco cpu has all but died, I can still access the internet (yipee) but none of the disk drives work!!! and it would probably be quicker to use a hand crank to get it to do much other than that. I really would like to get a new computer (only need the cpu as have the rest) over this weekend, I now have 2 I-pods (lucky competition winner) but can only upload the very few songs (that are not death/black metal care of teenager) that are on the PC and I have a lot of photos on it that I want top edit but its so painfully slow it drives me insane trying to do anything.

I really need some advice on what to look for I have read and read the stuff on dozens of threads but it is all a total foreign language to me and don’t want to just go to PC-world and be ripped off.

1 - I need a PC to access the internet (broadband in place)
2 - for Daughter to do homework/coursework
3 - Store & edit photographs (I take a LOT of photos) I am happy to by additional external storage /hard-drive if that would help
4- upload music from CD's and burn to cds for the car and to my i-pod
5 - Word processing and spreadsheets for work reports.

We don’t play games on our PC and don’t watch DVD's on it so don’t need stuff for that.....

However I just cant get to grips with any of the jargon....I am not daft but its incredibly confusing if anyone can offer suggestions (in idiot proof language) on what I need to look for or even off actual items and places to get them I would be very grateful

Thank you all in advance for any help

albertross_2

Every new PC under the sun will do all of the above, you have ruled out Dell and PCWorld, and the Tesco one didn't last... Aldi?

Or you could just fix your old one. If by disk drive not working, you mean the CD writer, they are about a tenner nowadays. A bit of ram from https://www.crucial.com/uk and/or an OS reinstall would probably cure the slowness

Miss_Cakey_Bun

Thanks for that, I do realise that every PC under the sun can do the above but from my admittedly limited understanding some are better than others ....for example some processors are better than others after all tesco budget fish fingers and caviar are still forms of fish but its horses for courses....

and I don’t think that mending a !!!!!!e@ disk drive will make a 4yr old PC work faster unless you know magic I don’t????

Dell? after they repeatedly messed up (polite version) and customer service (I think that’s what they called it) messed up my fathers computer and at least 2 others of people he works with I am no longer happy to get a PC from them....my choice surely?

It seems that this was not the place to ask for help? Well maybe not from you ? just don’t pop into the local library where I work and ask me to get you a book you really want....I may just lend you the Beano in a fancy dust cover!

[Deleted User]

funny, i'd rather bite my hands off than buy a PC from a supermarket, i got a fantastic deal on my latest dell - 280 quid (no monitor, already had a flatscreen) and it's amazing. No Vista, I got it from their outlet so I had XP on it.

I'm an IT bod, i can happily build one myself, but i love the build quality on Dell (ok, they can occasionally be ropey, but i've seen quite a few of them and its usually good)

As the last post said, you don't need high spec for what you want to do. My only thing to say is, if you do end up with Vista, get lots of ram, ideally 2gb. I've got 1gb on Windows XP and its great, I also have a lot of photos (easily taken 1000+ in the last year), these are stored on the hard disk and backed up on an external disk I recently bought from Maplins (something like this : http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?TabID=1&ModuleNo=217918&doy=30m8)

Take a look at Dell.. it really is a reasonable option..there's honestly nothing wrong with them

edit: There's nothing stopping you backing up all your pictures / music onto an external disk, then wiping your old PC and reinstalling windows. It's generally known in IT circles that you should reinstall windows at least once every 2 years.. it really can improve the performance

edit 2: Just noticed you are asking for CPU advice. You do realise the CPU is the little computer chip in the very heart of your PC that does the majority of the 'thinking' ? Yes, you can replace these, but you usually have to pair up the right CPU with the right motherboard (the big circuit board that the CPU sits on).

Just don't walk into my IT department and ask for a CPU... you might just get what you asked for ;-0

mostly

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/cc.aspx?bn=10306 drop the monitor on the AMD home & it comes to 359.

bat999

Hi
If you're happy to keep your own monitor then you should look for 'base units'.
Such as these from ebuyer (where you buy a monitor as an extra).
Here:-http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/store/5/cat/Home-PCs
(When you say 'CPU' it means the microchip that is inside them.)
I don't know which to recommend for you, but I'm sure that others will suggest good buys.
:cool:

albertross_2

You haven't said what your budget is. You asked what to look for, and I told you, anything, there is no point spending a grand, when £150 will do the job. I then suggested ways of saving money by sorting out your old PC, with the "magic" of ram and reinstall, which you think is a stupid answer. Was it slow when you bought it?

You are unlikely to get a mail order PC by the weekend, so that leaves the supermarkets/curry's/comet/pc world/local PC shop.

My PC is older than yours, works fine, does all of the above speedily, and is a Dell.

Ask a question, you get an answer, what is the question?

I want a book before the weekend is out, but not by Archer or Amis, not from Waterstones or Tesco, what should I get?

banger9365

i now other on the forums are saying repaire your old and spend £150 to do it put for same you can replace most off the in side for that with AMD Athlon Dual-Core Bundle from CCL and a nice HDD 160GB for £30 /
cases and dvdrw are cheap too or us the old ones.
so a compleate new pc box will cost about £200 if you go with all new or £150 if you do not +pp

U've_been_framed

I have no personal experience of these companies www.advancetec.co.uk and www.powerc.com but they both sell barebones systems which consist of case, motherboard, processor and memory with prices starting at less than £90. Add another £50 for a hard drive and DVD drive and Bob's your mother's brother.
To put things simply, a faster processor(cpu) is better. Intel dual core are considered better but cost more. The more memory (ddr2 ram) the better.
Go for the biggest hard drive that you can.

Little_John

pm me your address and you can have this CPU


Some people amaze me Albertross gives you some advice bsaed on what information you gave and you replied like that.

I didnt know tesco made CPU's I learn somthing new everyday. I am asumeing you bought a PC they sold thay have used many in the past I think they currently use gateway.
Your best bet is to buy from Dell, the systems they produce work and their support is usually excelent, there is the odd occasion that they fall over in their service but you need to remember they sell thousands of PC's a year and no one who's pc works with out fault ever complains or sings about their failings or lack of them its only those where the fault is that moan if you take this forum there are a few but you need to remember this is a money saveing website and dell save people a lot of money so lots of people on here buy dells. I have been useing Dell systems for my customers for about 7 years becasue they are decent and inexpensive, if it goes wrong phone dell and they are there next day if you take that warenty option.

PC world are just bad because their sales people sell what they are told to sell and make money selling the extras that you don't need, any commision driven sales person is the same. if you know what you want your ok but dont go in there in your currect state of mind.

PC World samesman head on
So what do you need, Internet, word processing, photo editing and you have 2 ipods.
Well you need to buy Microsoft office 2007 pro, Adobe photoshop CS3, for your ipods you wll need these chargeing cradles 1 for each and this arm bands and this silicone case music editing software, Norton internet security suite and our super dooper warrenty package that includes the tech guys a chance to have a look at your photos every year and blow the dust out of the system with our air hose. £1000 later start on the pc. You need a huge hard drive to store all your music and photos (actually correct) you need the latest quad core cpu as photoshop is quite intensive and at least 2GB of ram again for photoshop. Why not upgrade the monitor to a 24" widescreen so you can see more on the screen and display your 10mp photos without any zooming? ok another £1500 gone.

Lets go to dell, you buy one of the md range PC's it will do what you need, say £500 office student as your daughter is at school £100ish antivirus is usually included with dells but you can remove and go for AVG if you wish. you will end up with a monitor most dell home systems come with one, stick it on ebay and get £50 for it. you get all you need with the ipods. and buy yourslf an older copy of photoshop or use picasa or any of the other inexpensive image editing tools. total cost about £700 less the £50 for the sale of the monitor.

I know what I would choose. By Dell tell hubby to ignore all the slateing they get I have installed maybe 1200 Dell machines and I think only 10/15 have had any problems usually due to a power surge in 1 office that was blowing componenets every few months.

PistonBroke_2

Little_John wrote: »

Some people amaze me Albertross gives you some advice bsaed on what information you gave and you replied like that.

I'd like to Echo that ^^^^ Albertoss gave some reasonable advise Adding more Ram & a complete format and re-install is usually enough to get a few more years out of a PC + the information you gave was very Shoddy the CPU is the "Central Processing Unit" which is the heart of the machine i think we all assumed you just meant "PC" & if all your Hard drives had died i can assure you that you would not be able to access the internet ? as you wouldn't be able to boot up at all ?


Back on Subject like others have said Dell are a perfectly reasonable company & supply pretty decent low end machines if you want another company that is similar to them then I'd recommend http://www.meshcomputers.com i've used them for many years and find their machines good value and super reliable(if there is such ia thing with Pc's) &I'd never buy an off the shelf PC but that's just my preferance