Have I found the one item that didn't exist before Mesh???

Czari Zenovka · June 11, 2013

Ah, a woman after my own heart...or head - I love using bullet points in discussions; so easy to read and organize. Loved your bulleted response.

I hadn't thought of PC clubs, although you and I were reminiscing about them a few weeks ago. Not sure if this little burg in which I now live has one BUT, I do live in a college town so...hmmm...that opens new possibilities. Maybe checking in with their technology classes/areas if they have that curriculum - it is a smallish, private, liberal arts college.

Going out in the sun sounds like a good idea...once it cools down a bit here.

Dillon Levenque · June 11, 2013

Czari, I just sent you a PM with a link to a pretty decent computer. It's from a place that buys and sells surplus PC's and at work we've been buying from them for several years when we need inexpensive computers for in-house use.

This is an Asus PC (a respected and well-known manufacturer—the new PC's we buy use Asus motherboards exclusively). It has an Intel i5, 8GB of RAM, and a decent hard drive.

The graphics are just 'Intel integrated', but Asus sold the product with a wide range of Nvidia upgrades available, so dropping in a graphics card would be a snap. It only has a 350 Watt power supply. You'd need to upgrade that as well, but power supplies are cheap and easy (kind of like me:smileywink:). Okay I didn't really say that last part.

It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium and sells for less than $500. That's not bad, especially if you can shop around and find an Nvidia card on sale somewhere. There are plenty of less expensive options available that will work okay. This just happened to be a relatively upper level PC at what I thought was a pretty good price.

Brayla Ravenhurst · June 11, 2013

Czari Zenovka wrote:

I really appreciate your input, Dillon & Madelaine (may I call you Maddy?). After literally months of researching, getting the opinions of friends - some of whom are techies - more research, looking at big box stores in RL and online and more recently having watched building vids, I have come to a crossroads:

1. I definitely want a PC that will be easy to upgrade. When I check out the brand names online (Win7 having apparently disappeared from the brick & morter stores) - some of the cases seem either plastic-looking/flimsy and/or not as wide as my custom-built steel box. I had a situation years ago when I purchased an HP and when I needed to replace a component discovered only HP parts would fit it. I suppose if I found a brand name that was decent and there was a case issue, I could purchase a case later and transfer the components over.

Try Alienware - although their designs are rather masculine, they specialize in gaming rigs.

2. From watching a gazillion building PCs vids, I don't see any price difference in building one vs. buying the identical PC prebuilt; in fact in some cases it is more expensive. The one area in which the prices are on par are the gaming PCs. I configured several PCs on iBUYPOWER, that someone on the forums highly recommended. I could get the low end of what I'm shooting for and stay in budget BUT iBUYPOWER charges a $75.00 shipping fee. Bleh. The main issue that concerns me about building a PC is not wanting to buy parts online that I would have to send back if it arrived damaged, etc. Dillon, I visited a friend in San Jose years ago and you're right - PC city!!! I LOVED going to Fry's and would definitely give building a try if a Fry's or Microcenter, etc. were in my area. The closest thing I have are small PC shops that stock parts.

I highly recommend Directron.com. Not only do they have great prices, but their service is excellent. I build my own PC's - but not for the price. I build mine so I get exactly what I want.

3. Which brings me to the third route (and the one I initially preferred) - having a PC custom-built in a small shop like my current PC was. There are three such shops in town. I have estimates from 2 of them and posted the specs/prices of one shop in the forums awhile back. I was told many of the parts were very old, especially for the price (cheapest one being $725.00!!! and only an i3 chip). The 2nd shop's estimate was $850.00 for "an AMD quad core processor" (how generic), 500 GB HDD, and "High Resolution Graphics." Errr, could we be a bit more specific? At any rate $850.00 is way out of my budget so...NEXT.

The last shop is the one that sells PC parts as well. I have not obtained an estimate from there yet but, based on the other two, I can't imagine their competitor would be much less expensive, if at all.

So that's where I stand. At this point I have "overthought" the whole deal, and probably annoyed my friends who begin IMs with me saying, "How is the PC search going? *ducks*" :matte-motes-bashful-cute:

The main reason I'm trying to be careful is this money is so precious to me that, if I pick a PC that can't be upgraded, etc., I won't have any more money to correct the issue.

Bleh....this is making my head hurt. :matte-motes-confused:

I hear you. I don't make PC purchases lightly, either. Back in the old days, I could experiment more - but now the PC is as an essential appliance as your fridge or oven. I added some notes in the above quote.

Aethelwine · June 12, 2013

Jinnywitha Cleanslate wrote:

Sadly, I have zero budget to spare. I was long term unemployed due to illness, so SL was my outlet and escape. Then after a hard slog of looking for work for over 2yrs, I finally got a job, and was in it for 8weeks, only to have an industrial accident in December, which has left me unable to walk properly, and has made me disabled. There is no compensation to be claimed, due to the circumstances and a change in UK law regarding compensation claims - and the company fired me for 'lack of attendance' in spite of hospital and medical letters, leaving me with no income whatsoever. So basically - even for $10 I couldn't afford a new computer right now. Thank God the internet is a gift from my brother! I often wish I were a smoker or drinker, so I could give it up and reallocate spare cash - but I'm not. Lol.

Ah well - I have faith.... LL don't let me down, on the giving me a new computer thing!!!! LMAO!

More than 10$ i am afraid but there is a special offer on in June for eople on benefits to get a basic PC and broadband internet for a year for £25 (under special offers on the website).

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/get-online-home-and-microsoft-offer-pcs-from-24-118648

Source:

http://www.getonlineathome.org/special-offer.aspx

The PC will be better than your current 10 yr old one, but I am not sure it would really be enough to give me much satisfaction playing without at least getting more memory and graphics card, but if you are used to 64m view distance and everything on low settings it may well work on singularity, Catznip or one of the other viewers that seem to have less resource requirements than the linden labs viewer or firestorm.

Marigold Devin · June 12, 2013

Aethelwine wrote:

Jinnywitha Cleanslate wrote:

Sadly, I have zero budget to spare. I was long term unemployed due to illness, so SL was my outlet and escape. Then after a hard slog of looking for work for over 2yrs, I finally got a job, and was in it for 8weeks, only to have an industrial accident in December, which has left me unable to walk properly, and has made me disabled. There is no compensation to be claimed, due to the circumstances and a change in UK law regarding compensation claims - and the company fired me for 'lack of attendance' in spite of hospital and medical letters, leaving me with no income whatsoever. So basically - even for $10 I couldn't afford a new computer right now. Thank God the internet is a gift from my brother! I often wish I were a smoker or drinker, so I could give it up and reallocate spare cash - but I'm not. Lol.

Ah well - I have faith.... LL don't let me down, on the giving me a new computer thing!!!! LMAO!

More than 10$ i am afraid but there is a special offer on in June for eople on benefits to get a basic PC and broadband internet for a year for £25 (under special offers on the website).

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/get-online-home-and-microsoft-offer-pcs-from-24-118648

Source:

http://www.getonlineathome.org/special-offer.aspx

The PC will be better than your current 10 yr old one, but I am not sure it would really be enough to give me much satisfaction playing without at least getting more memory and graphics card, but if you are used to 64m view distance and everything on low settings it may well work on singularity, Catznip or one of the other viewers that seem to have less resource requirements than the linden labs viewer or firestorm.

Being also in the UK, and on long-term benefits, I was extremely interested to read all in the link. Thank you for providing that, Aethelwine.

I also showed my disabled brother, and he said "jingle jangle" warning bells were ringing in his head. He reminded me of a similar scheme that our mother got involved with - it was called it2eat, and it was aimed at getting the older generation in the UK connected up to the internet. They provided a computer, and basic training on it, which my mother absolutely lapped up. As an ex-typist, she certainly had no problem with navigating the keyboard, and there were technical people always at the end of the phone for her to contact.

However, when something looks so good to be true, it often is too good to be true. And what happened with our mother was that time ran out on this wonderful scheme, and all the computers were removed from the subscribers' homes. By this time, she was tied in to a broadband contract, minimimum being 18 months, and as she had got used to being able to order shopping via the internet, she felt left high and dry. Fortunately she had a little bit of a nest egg put by, and purchased a computer from Dell, got it all set up, but ended up paying several hundreds of pounds in the end for this, plus maintenance, plus all the extra broadband that the ISP somehow managed to persuade her that she needed!

So the thing is, not wishing to be cynical, I want to believe that this scheme via GetOnline is as wonderful as it sounds. Also, being in the UK, I am extra cautious when the government is somewhere involved, and aside from getting everybody who is registered disabled or claiming benefits to eat a ton of baked beans and fart into the national grid, so that we are not totally parasitic, I get the feeling they are trying to find all kinds of ways to get us trained up for some kind of slave labour.

Its always nice to have a purpose in life, but Big Brother is watching you certainly comes into play here. I mean, no doubt when somebody takes advantage of a £24 computer, and associated broadband (minimum is actually £18.20, which is £14.99 monthly line rental plus minimum broadband costs), that will be registered with some department in our government.

Also, expect to be bombarded (and I mean BOMBARDED) by broadband bumph. Even when you are signed up as a low user, they deluge you with carrots-on-sticks (actually this feels like a carrot on a stick).

So, as I say, not wishing to be cynical, just be very careful what you sign up for, because if it seems too good to be true, then it usually is too good to be true.

The lord giveth and the government taketh away!

Edited to add:

Think about this also, they would have to register that a computer has been supplied to whoever at whatever address, otherwise look how easy it would be to obtain a £24 computer and sell it on for a profile on ebay!

If someone does take up this offer though, I shall be extremely interested to hear how it pans out for them. After all, in the original techweek article it does say that the intention is to get the many hundreds of thousands of people all connected to the internet, be they on benefits or not, to enable their children to be better educated, to provide more access to jobs, etc., and so, if this scheme is genuine, then it will still be in existence a year or so from now.

Czari Zenovka · June 12, 2013

Thank you so very much for your kindness in sending that link to an ASUS PC to me, Dillon. :heart: Thank you as well for filling in some of my questions, such as how much RAM it contains as well as the power supply stats. I read your IM late last night (shortly after taking a sleeping pill - I don't recommend trying to digest this type of info after so doing...lol), and was trying to decipher what "2000 Hard Drive Size" was in GB; what "8192 Memory" was; and where it said anything about graphics and power supply. (Just looked again and I still don't see that...lol.)

I do know that Asus is a most-respected brand. Love that it has Win7 installed and I had assumed that a vid card could be added, although as I'm now paying attention to PCIe slots and didn't see those listed either, I was a bit concerned on that point. I looked at the same model AUSUS PCs on various sites and YEOW!!! for a new one (perhaps with better graphics & power supply, but not sure) the average price was $1,200.

Definitely a top contender at this point.

Czari Zenovka · June 12, 2013

Thank you so much, braylasana, for your info - it is most appreciated! I've come across the brand "Alienware" when researching PCs, but never checked out their site. I would imagine looks-wise they are probably similar to iBUYPOWER gaming PCs; will check them out as well as Directron. I am really, really getting more interested in building a PC. Since you do, are there any particular "pitfalls" to avoid? I think I posted this earlier, but I think this guy does an AMAZING job at showing how to build a PC:

This showed up in my email today - a few interesting looking bare-bones kits:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/email/wem3677.asp?cm_re=Homepage-_-Spot%2001a-_-CatId_campaign_wem3677

Czari Zenovka · June 12, 2013

I have no knowledge of how things work in the UK but this part is eerily the same in the US:

Also, being in the UK, I am extra cautious when the government is somewhere involved, and aside from getting everybody who is registered disabled or claiming benefits to eat a ton of baked beans and fart into the national grid, so that we are not totally parasitic, I get the feeling they are trying to find all kinds of ways to get us trained up for some kind of slave labour.

I went on disability prior to our current administration; however, I have seen stats that since this administration has been in office, the number of people awarded disability and/or food stamps has skyrocketed. The way things are going in this country, I'm a bit uneasy at having to be dependent on these government programs.

Perrie Juran · June 12, 2013

Marigold Devin wrote: