My 1.5 ghz P4 was having problems so instead of fighting it I decided to just go get a new tower.

I got a 2.6 Ghz Celeron with all the goodies for $374.00, I mean come on thats so cheap its unreal. I can throw these things away every year and still be ahead of the game.

Not a bad idea. When Windoze gets screwed up, just toss the box and get another one. Probably a lot quicker and easier than a reinstall.

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Rick Miley
2014 Tesla Model S
2018 Tesla Model 3
2017 Nissan LEAF
Former MB: 99 E300, 86 190E 2.3, 87 300E, 80 240D, 82 204D Euro
Chain Elongation References

I think it was a MB or processor issue, I am going to run Linux on it but I havn't decided which one yet.

MedMech...WHERE do YOU procure your gear!

I need to upgrade BADLY (100Mhz Pentium )...

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2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

On sale at Circuit City. I guess the reason I'm gloating is I planned on spending almost 10 times that but once I started playing around with the cheap on I said what the heck. I will link to the item.

emachine t2682

Celeron 2.6
256 Megs ram
80 gid HF
6 High speed usb
dvd-rom
cd-rw


and all of the other goodies.

It was not on the CC website so I bet it's an in store deal.

http://www.cnet.com/EMachines_T2682___C_2_6_GHz/4014-3118_9-30603166.html?q=

Alot of those are refurbs but this one was new.

OK, you know all the below, but i just can't resist:

Gennntoooooooo http://www.gentoo.org -- involved installation but easy maintenance.
Slack! http://www.slackware.com -- easy installation, updating not quite as easy.
RedHat ... spaghettiware, at least for me ...

or,

FreeBSD. http://www.freebsd.org , very very well worth checking out.

It'll be easy to tell if you've got a hardware problem on the old system too. You'll be compiling lots and lots of things, and if it bombs out at different spots then you know it's almost certainly hardware.

It was mainly bombing when the cpu load exceeded 50% I reinstalled windoze ect ect ect. Many unexlainable problems were arising like not being able to shut down in less than 10 minutes even in safe mode after a full format.

Screw it, for less than $400 I saved alot of headaches.

What OS do you use primarly?

Primarily Gentoo Linux (even on my Tangerine iMac, but that's currently in the closet), but I have a very solid FreeBSD computer running too. Only my wife's computer runs windows.

The big advantage to building yourself is that you can replace/upgrade individual parts without replacing everything. No propietary hardware to be concerned about, and you know a lot more about your system after doing a frame-up build.

eMachines isn't as bad as Compaq or Packard Bell (although I don't think they exist anymore), but I've generally had pretty poor luck with pre-built systems. However, I'm on a computer that I built in November '02 and have only had issues with the operating system (and those were relatively minor). OTOH, I'm still running Windows 98 SE, because there are a few programs that I need and I'm too cheap to replace those programs with XP-compatible programs...

I think I paid about $300 to build this system. This is actually a (fairly) basic computer for my girlfriend, with a 1.7 GHz Celeron (Socket 478, so I could upgrade it to a "real" P4), 128 MB of DDR RAM, a 40 GB hard drive, and a 52x CD-ROM and a 4X CD_RW drive. I was going to build a more powerful system for myself (I already have a case, a hard drive, and a CD-ROM drive), but $$ became really tight, so that got put on hold...for over a year and a half now

Warden, I think you're right on the money with building. You get industry standard parts, parts with known good drivers (a bit of homework ahead of time), you know exactly what's in your system, and you get to have some fun. Back in 1993 I bought an Expotech (VTech) computer; it taught me that building my own was the only way to go. Costly lesson. Maybe for people with little to no free time to research, the cheap pre-built machines might be good; they upgrade just by buying another one in a few years.

I would have built I have cabinets and hardware all over the place, but time was not on my side.

Hey MedMech, you don't need that old system, give it to me, I'll be setting up a distributed OS next school year and could use a few more systems

xp

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1985 190E 2.3L - a constant project.

Sorry, I'm stripping it.