David McAfee
DMcAfee at haascnc.com
Wed Mar 12 19:40:00 CST 2003
Amen William! 1. This must be my problem (pacbell.com) why many of my posts are bounced (or waiting for Moderator approval) 2. no comment 3. Same here, I built an AMD 1400 2 years ago for about $1400. It included: 19" View Sonic monitor (Trinitron flat tube), 1 GB PC-133 Mem, 60 GB HDD (now 140), ATI All-In-Wonder Video Card (32MB), Sound Blaster Platinum, iWill MB, 24x CDRW. A month or two later my company upgraded my work computer to a Dell Dimension 8100, 17" monitor, 256MB (now up to 768) 400Mhz Rambus memory, 40GB HDD, Nvidia Geforce 2 MX4X (32MB), Sound Blaster 64V PCI, 8x CDRW (now upgraded to 24x). Its funny how the two differ. The Dell was several hundred dollars more. At home, I can listen to music, burn CDs, re-encode an mpg movie/TV show, have Outlook Open, Access 97 & 2000 open, SQL EM & QA running (all at the same time). SQL Statements run quick, no bog to the system at all. The Dell at work, well if I'm burning a CD, that's about all I can do, because the system crawls. I've updated drivers, upgraded the CDRW drive to a faster one (which helped a bit), wiped the system clean and no difference. I've upgraded the memory by adding another 512, this also helped a bit. but I often wish I were home working on my home system. The prices are so much cheaper now on the systems, that I can build a box for about $400 to $600 that kicks over my current home system. I was a big Intel supporter and didn't want to follow the advised of friends and coworkers to make the switch over to AMD...I'm glad I did! I've even heard complaints from co-workers who were on Celeron 600 boxes & PIII boxes who switched over the Dell 1600 Mhz boxes that they are slower too! 4. A computer vendor who sold my P-166 told me to forget about contracts and warranties on computers. If something DOES fail in a year, the replacement part is always faster, cheaper & better the original (and usually less than the price of the contract). 5. See #3 above :) just my 2 cents. David McAfee -----Original Message----- From:William Hindman Myke 1) ...everyone with a Bellsouth account is being bounced ...Drew is working on the problem which has existed since late Feb now :( 2) ...I like Dell for clients but they don't sell what you spec. 3) ...I still build my own development systems because its the only way I can get exactly what I want ...try the Atlanta Computer Show that runs at least monthly ...deal with a local vendor at the show and you can get exactly what you want assembled and tested while you wait for around 10% less than you can find it anywhere else. 4) ...service contracts are passé ...PCs are now commodity items ...the cost of a service call can often run more than the PC cost ...build it yourself and you won't need a service contract. 5) ...I use AMD cpus ...don't have anything against Intel's except the premium you pay ...AMDs have proved to be extremely reliable and compatible ime. HTH :) William Hindman "The tree of liberty only grows when watered by the blood of tyrants." Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac--a Frenchman ----- Original Message ----- From: "Myke" <mmmtbig at hotmail.com> > Note: I am using a hotmail email account to post to AccessD because > attempted posts from my BellSouth.Net email account bounce back. > > Soon I will buy a new PC and drop the oldest one from the lineup in my > office. I'd like some opinions on PCs. > > I'm an independent developer working from a home office with a DSL > connection. I live about 20 miles north of Atlanta. I use a keyboard > video mouse sharing device for all the PCs. I don't like fixing hardware > so I'd like a good onsite service contract. I don't need an OS or > software installed because I'm a MSDN subscriber. I'd like to have less > white noise from power supply/fans. I'd like to use temperature > monitoring software because most of the failures I've had were due to a > fan malfunctioning and the heat killing a hard disk. > > Opinions on the following would be welcome: > Intel vs. AMD; > DVD RW for backup; > Same day onsite service; > Best value monitor configuration. > > The easy decision is to buy a Dell. Anyone have suggestions? > > TIA, > Myke