Need computer- what to do? (laptops, desktop, RAM, hard drive)

[HIF]

Both of our computers went down- months apart- but when the second one went, I had to have it repaired, so had her look at both of them. My son needs a computer daily for homework.

I have my own laptop, but it is for my work, so is off-limits to him. If I lose this one, I don't know what I will do.

She told me that the desktop has a bad motherboard and processor. The video card and wireless card are ok, the hard drive is okay. It was built for us and is about 2.5 years old.

The laptop- she said that she could not read the C drive, could read the D drive- but said it is "toast". It is my old Dell. It was fine until he turned it on and it got some weird message and shut down. Since he is a teen, I'm thinking it could have been anything that happened to it.

She recommends getting an Acer for about $260, as it will come with Vista and be able to hit the ground running. I have an Acer laptop and have regretted the purchase since the week I got it.

I am on very limited funds- started my own business in Oct. and things are slow, to put it mildly. Many anticipated expenses have hit us this year, as well.

What should I do? Right now we are going to the library in the evenings for him to do his homework, but I have meetings some nights and when that happens, I have to get him to school an hour early the next day to use their PCs. With the price of gas, that's not an inexpensive option on an ongoing basis.

I know next to nothing about computer hardware.

[Tek_Freek]

Desktop:

Newegg.com - HP Compaq dx2250(RT878UT#ABA) Athlon 64 3800+ 512MB DDR2 80GB ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 Integrated Windows XP Professional - Desktop PCs

Has XP Professional instead of Vista. I am not a fan of Vista, especially if you're wanting to use older accessories - Vista has a tendency to not play well with older equipment. Decent RAM (512MB) depending on what you're going to do with it. RAM can always be added. Pretty fast. Has graphics, sound and Internet connection included. Power supply is borderline. I prefer to see at least 400 watts, but 250 should do well.

Here is the page I found it on. There are others here that aren't too expensive. They won't have a monitor, but I figure you have one.

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

Laptops:

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

I'm not recommending you buy from this company. I will say that over the years I have purchased a lot of equipment and computers from them, both for personal use and business, and I've been extremely satisfied.

Mainly this is to give you examples to base decisions on. If you see a PC in a store and want to know if it is a good deal check this site. I figure if I can get a PC locally for $50 more than here, it's a good deal.

One thing you should know. Newegg isn't a place you can call. One of the reasons they sell as cheap as they do is the lack of a ton of people answering phones. They will, however, help with problems and returns. This page lists their policies:

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

Unless you are planning on doing very serious graphics or playing high end graphic-intensive games, any of these computers will serve you well.

[sponger42]

If you have a Fry's or other discount electronics store in the area, try there. Buy a copy of Windows XP to load onto any low-end computers (they will--insanely--come with Vista Pre-Loaded)

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!! To the $260 laptop with Vista unless you are prepared to reformat and install XP first. It won't go. No vas! No vas!

My current utility laptop was a similar story. Discount store purchase for less than $300. Came with Vista Basic pre-loaded. It was unworkably slow, due to barely meeting Vista's resource requirements, so I reformatted the hard drive and installed XP. It had been returned multiple times (thus the low price), and the problem was obvious; the OS was making it terminally slow.

It works like a charm, now.

If you have the installation/backup disks for XP from your old retired computers, you can use them on your new one. You are liscensed to transfer a copy of the OS from computer to computer, you just can't copy it for use on two computers at once.

Edit: If "reformat" and "install OS" sound scary or don't make sense to you, find a cousin, brother, uncle, friend who's a little tech-y to do it for you. It's about 1-2 hours of work (mostly sitting around waiting to hit "okay" and then downloading and installing a few device drivers), so buy them supper or something.

[bibit612]

Originally Posted by sponger42

If you have the installation/backup disks for XP from your old retired computers, you can use them on your new one. You are liscensed to transfer a copy of the OS from computer to computer, you just can't copy it for use on two computers at once.

I don't think this is true anymore. They have this warning that detects if you have a genuine (read single-install) version of Windows...we found out it won't work wirelessly with a USB adaptor, but will if you hardwire to the wall.

Also, OP would need MS Office applications and they don't run cheap in the box. My suggestion is to order from Dell or HP online as they still have the option to build with XP. She can skip the monitor if she wants to save a little bit, but the Office application she can choose to pre-load through them is about half the cost of a box one.

[Tek_Freek]

Originally Posted by bibit612

I don't think this is true anymore. They have this warning that detects if you have a genuine (read single-install) version of Windows...we found out it won't work wirelessly with a USB adaptor, but will if you hardwire to the wall.

Also, OP would need MS Office applications and they don't run cheap in the box. My suggestion is to order from Dell or HP online as they still have the option to build with XP. She can skip the monitor if she wants to save a little bit, but the Office application she can choose to pre-load through them is about half the cost of a box one.

Student version 3 user about $110 - $200 depending if I remember correctly.

Microsoft Office Student Version - Software - Compare Prices, Reviews and Buy at NexTag - Price - Review

[TKramar]

Originally Posted by HIF

Both of our computers went down- months apart- but when the second one went, I had to have it repaired, so had her look at both of them. My son needs a computer daily for homework.

I have my own laptop, but it is for my work, so is off-limits to him. If I lose this one, I don't know what I will do.

She told me that the desktop has a bad motherboard and processor. The video card and wireless card are ok, the hard drive is okay. It was built for us and is about 2.5 years old.

The laptop- she said that she could not read the C drive, could read the D drive- but said it is "toast". It is my old Dell. It was fine until he turned it on and it got some weird message and shut down. Since he is a teen, I'm thinking it could have been anything that happened to it.

She recommends getting an Acer for about $260, as it will come with Vista and be able to hit the ground running. I have an Acer laptop and have regretted the purchase since the week I got it.

I am on very limited funds- started my own business in Oct. and things are slow, to put it mildly. Many anticipated expenses have hit us this year, as well.

What should I do? Right now we are going to the library in the evenings for him to do his homework, but I have meetings some nights and when that happens, I have to get him to school an hour early the next day to use their PCs. With the price of gas, that's not an inexpensive option on an ongoing basis.

I know next to nothing about computer hardware.

HOW is it a daily requirement to do homework on computers? Your public library and/or school library should have computers for people to access. I do not own my own computer, never have. There were times that I used publicly accessible computers. There were even times that I have paid for them.

[Arcticthaw]

Skip the Acer, haven't herd any good words yet.

AS for software, caution, software from Dell, Gateway etc on newer machines are machine brand specific. Meaning if you have the disks from the dell laptop for office they may not load onto a non Dell brand machine. Same with gateway.

Determine what software your son needs to load, and if he just needs access to the net, maybe someone has an old machine laying around to loan or give you.

There is a small chance to replace the hard drive in the laptop too if it is not too old.

[Tek_Freek]

Originally Posted by Arcticthaw

Skip the Acer, haven't herd any good words yet.

AS for software, caution, software from Dell, Gateway etc on newer machines are machine brand specific. Meaning if you have the disks from the dell laptop for office they may not load onto a non Dell brand machine. Same with gateway.

Determine what software your son needs to load, and if he just needs access to the net, maybe someone has an old machine laying around to loan or give you.

There is a small chance to replace the hard drive in the laptop too if it is not too old.

As a computer consultant that has placed 20 plus Dell computers I can tell you this is not true for Dell. All MS Office products I have installed on these computers are not brand specific. The operating system (XP, vista, etc) may be, however.

Ditto on Acer, but I think the OP already went through one and knows it is a piece of junk.

[Tek_Freek]

Originally Posted by TKramar

HOW is it a daily requirement to do homework on computers? Your public library and/or school library should have computers for people to access. I do not own my own computer, never have. There were times that I used publicly accessible computers. There were even times that I have paid for them.

Read the original post again and pay attention to what was written.

[sean98125]

Until your cash flow improves, you can use Open Office. It is fully compatible with Word and Excel documents as well as Power Point, and it is free. www: OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite

You can also buy an older used computer and install Ubuntu Linux on it. It is easy to install and use, and you'll still be able to surf the web and use the Linux-based version of Open Office on it. It isn't the resource hog that XP or Vista are, so it will run fine on older machines.

You don't have to use Windows and Office.

BTW, do you have any kind of a list of what hardware is in the computer that's broken? It might be possible to do a quick and easy upgrade of the processor and CPU and to get a cheap hard drive to get you by for a year or two.