New PC Suggestions

[vad1er]

computer chips upgrade every 18 months so this is something to keep in mind so say it has been about that much time since quad core slammed the market...
If you do decide to go with a build your own PC I can help you with the OS and extras like office for very cheap just email me... And hey you don't have to take my word for it with the DELLs just giving you a heads up... While I worked for that company I saw some of the most shady buisness I have ever seen anywhere.. Infact I quit because they were calling my customers back from a site out of the states and tring to overcharge them sometimes by 2500.00 for what they had already bought...
For anyone that is curious I worked in the premium Q-4 wich means I got the calls from only the weathiest folks or atleast those in those areas.. And Dell perfered financeis is about 21% for the people with perfect credit scores and 29.9% for people with good to exellent credit.. Lastly if you do decide to buy Dell then atleast take this advice... Buy from the buisness department (cheaper and less crooked)-- So if they ask you buisness or personal use say BUISNESS and if they ask you if you have a federal tax idea for your buisness say yes... You Federal tax ID is your social security number... Dell does not seem to run as shady a buisness on the buisness computer side of things because buisness's sue and also the word spreads like wild fire... Anyway good luck!!!

[Rotund]

I sold computer gear and services for an integrator for 15 years (Corporate Slime) this is reminding me why I quit I love the ONN statement about features we don't even know we need yet. Good One.

Interesting comments about Dell. That's how Dell actually got started was building PC's for other college students there in Austin. He killed IBM and Compaq PC business by going direct and then jumped on using the internet first with great customer responsiveness and listening to what the customer wants. They could track every PC down to the individual that bought it. You could call in and give them a number off the bottom of the PC and they would call you by your name after giving it to them. Something IBM did not give a crap about. Quite a business story and some genious there. His company has completly tranformed the N35I corridor North of Austin.

And I agree with vad1er some where along the line they lost that "touch" and got RICH like the others and are just as SLIMMIE or worse than the rest. I would swear there was some of the famous 'friends and family" stock being shared with some of the VP's and CIO's I was calling on that all of the sudden changed to Dell back in the 90's. A bunch of criminals.

[samiller]

I happen to like my Dell XPS.....lol

Me too, so much that we have 4 of them at home. Never had any trouble getting them to do what I wanted them to do. My new one didn't come with junk on it. The OS, Works and Dell Support software. Plus the OS recovery disc they send will load on ANY Dell that can support it without having to put in the Key or activate it. I have several copies of Dell XP Pro recovery discs that I've loaded time and time again on Dell's, AND on non Dell's. My new Dell came with Vista Basic recovery disc. I used it to upgrade my wifes computer from XP Pro to Vista Basic. I like my Dell... :rolleyes: Not saying its for everyone though. I've built numerous systems from parts, either bought or recycled too and used them for years. Guess I got lazy and really don't care to work on em no more then I have to now a days. Helps to keeps my blood pressure down too.

[shredder]

I just bought an alienware x-58 with intel core i7 quad core with tri channel memory and vista home ultimate 64 bit. This thing is gonna be very fast and can't wait till i get it. I only have 3 gigs of memory but its tri channel capable of 24 gigs. 500 gig hard drive too. I know dell bought them out but they are still their own entity so i have no worries! Reading all the reviews on this processor it smoke everything on the market right now hands down...Did i mention i'm excited?! :')

[Rotund]

I happen to like my Dell XPS.....lol

Helps to keeps my blood pressure down too.

No kidding. Although I save some bucks I can't stand being the household IT guy. Especially when my kids use to download all the crap off the internet with viruses. Everyone in the house runs when something crashes.

[Coul10]

Is there a way to build something small like the Hybrid?

[Charvelguy]

yes, you can. Depends on how small you want to go and features but you can pretty much build any desktop form factor in a great deal of configurations. One can even build a laptop ..tho, building a lap isn't very cost effective comparitivelyn to mass produced.
There are mini & micro atx boards with good speeds which take dual core, and some are quad compatible using either Intel and AMD. The case, that may have to be a custom job but there is likely a aftermarket one being produced. Use a laptop drive or two....a low profile vid card.

I've thought about doing this for my car with bluetooth and wireless.

[JouniL]

I've owned plenty of Dell's (have 6 of them at home and work, mostly XPS machines). 4-5 years ago ALL Dells I bought were subject to waranty repair. That has changed, the XPS series are reliable.

If I'd be in the process of building a desktop DAW PC I would do something similar to a HTPC build. I've built a couple of those for my home entertainment system and it's quite easy and cheap compared of doing that now than a couple of years ago. The main reason would be that they:

1) can be made relatively small and sleek (there are plenty of cool HTPC chasis out there)

2) can be noise-less. This would be important for me! Use fan-less cooling where possible and supersilent fans or heatpipe technology. Samsung has excellent silent harddrives.

3) customizable. Only put exactly what you need into the machine. You don't wanna pay extra cash for a superduper GPU for a DAW machine. Make sure that it has two outputs so you can use two screens. This helps a lot while mixing/recording.

[Coul10]

Well Guys,
I went and got a Dell Studio Hybrid yesterday. Seems like a kewl machine. I'm not really going to use it for gaming or anything. I did have one question. I'm not a big fan of Vista. I was wondering if anyone knew where I can get drivers for XP? I'm going to reformat the harddrive and install XP. Any suggestions?

Thanks

[JouniL]

A search on eBay gave 967 hits for Windows XP under:

Computer&Networking/Software/Operating Systems/Windows

[samiller]

Well Guys,
I went and got a Dell Studio Hybrid yesterday. Seems like a kewl machine. I'm not really going to use it for gaming or anything. I did have one question. I'm not a big fan of Vista. I was wondering if anyone knew where I can get drivers for XP? I'm going to reformat the harddrive and install XP. Any suggestions?

Thanks

A search on Dell's site for drivers for the Studio Hybrid only brings up Vista 32-bit and BIOS drivers. I'm afraid you may be stuck using Vista. I was an XP fan and really didn't want Vista either, but it came on my new Inspiron and after using it, I actually like it better than XP.

[Coul10]

Thanks. I'm actually looking for a website that I can get drivers for my hardware. I have XP Pro already. Sometimes people have these great websites that have drivers to everything. I was wondering if anyone had a great site to go to.

[cwight]

Well Guys,
I went and got a Dell Studio Hybrid yesterday. Seems like a kewl machine. I'm not really going to use it for gaming or anything. I did have one question. I'm not a big fan of Vista. I was wondering if anyone knew where I can get drivers for XP? I'm going to reformat the harddrive and install XP. Any suggestions?

Thanks

If you get stuck Bill, contact vad1er, he has access to a lot of free software and stuff. You just need to do a search fro each individual item and you should be able to locate them.

Hope it works ok....

[Charvelguy]

Glad you got what you wanted Bill...not sure if the final word on XP is it is now officially unsupported by MS or not but it was supposed top be phased out. I don't have a website handy for everything but I did use autopatcher on a build..not sure if that is still up and running as MS had tried to shut it down. If I come across something.. I'll pass it onward.

[pooterpatty]

I like drivers.com