MotherF#$%@*!!!!!

[wolf]

After a long and valiant struggle to exist, I must
sadly announce the death of my beloved P2-MMX
computer. (yes, you are not misreading this
information. it served me well for many years beyond
it's natural expected lifespan)

I need to do something about a replacement,
but have no clue how long or how much money this is
going to take. In the meantime I'm going to be a
little harder to reach than usual. (At least until I can convince my laptop to speak to my cable modem.)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Very large BUMMER
OK techies, do your stuff.

[SteveDallas]

Originally posted by wolf
(yes, you are not misreading this
information. it served me well for many years beyond
it's natural expected lifespan)

RIP. I had a 233MHz MMX system that I bought in Feb. 1998 that was working just fine till about a month ago--still is, as far as I know, but it's on a shelf since I built my franken-computer.

Oh, you want advice. Ummm I guess it depends home much $$ you want to spend and how self-reliant you want to be for tech support. You could put together your own (I'm sure you could score some help putting it together), but you'd kind of be on your own for tech support. Otherwise, I'd say look at the low-end stuff from the usual suspects. Any vendor is capable of delivering a lemon, but I personally would recommend IBM or Dell. Gateways have been inconsistent for me over the years, but a lot of people swear by them. Just remember, they all suck!

[Elspode]

Did you try putting a new pull-rope on the starter? How about having a look at the punch cards and making sure the programming slots aren't clogged with chad?

Sorry to hear about the demise of your 'puter, Wolf...I've nursed along more antiquated pieces of crap than that. In fact, I still have a 200 mhz clunker PII kicking around here somewhere.

[Elspode]

Oh...and if you actually wanted something useful in the way of commentary, Sam's Club here has a pretty decent spec-wise E-Machines tower for around $600.00. Biggest drawbacks are the embedded audio and video w/shared memory, but if you aren't a fanatical gamer, there's a lot of performance for a reasonable price, assuming you don't need a monitor, speakers or a printer. 2 gig+ CPU, nice big HD, lots of RAM...

I know a lot of people look down their noses at off the shelf machines, but I've had to buy a couple lately for on-a-budget people and business, and I've been pretty impressed with how well they perform. Haven't really pushed them with a big 3D based game or anything, but I'm betting they'd do as well as anything I own, and probably better since all I've got is a 1 gig machine with 256 megs and a 32 meg vid card.

[Undertoad]

The offer still stands to build a good system if you don't need a monitor. Or even if you do. These days we can really put together a much better system than any of the builders are going to offer at the same price. This may or may not include software piracy.

I've been holding back but this week I re-built my system with a new awesome Cooler Master case.

http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage....119-027-02.JPG

With an Antec True480 power supply, that's $200 sunk into the case and power supply, but I don't want to mess around any more. Generic power supplies suck.

[Elspode]

Originally posted by Undertoad
This may or may not include software piracy.

You mean that's optional? Hmmm....I'm gonna have to think this one over...you've unsettled my entire view of obtaining software.

Who the hell knew you could *buy* it?

[LUVBUGZ]

Sorry to hear about the pooter, Wolf. I have been wanting to ask the Cellar regulars about what kind of new pooter to buy, but since I know nothing about RAM, ROM, megahertz, memory, etc. I have refrained for fear of being eaten alive for my lack of pooter knowledge.

My mom, who is more pooter illiterate than I, just bought an e-machine from Costco. She likes it, but what does she know (rhetorical question, Juju ) ? Hers came with a monitor, keyboard, tower, and speakers, but no printer. I think it was only about $600? My gripe about it is it comes w/ Windows XP, which for some reason, I don't like. The screen is too busy for me I guess. There are about 3-4 places to open the same thing on the screen which seems redundant to say the least. Anyhoo, I digress. This probably doesn't help you much, but I thought I'd offer my 2-cents worth anyway.

UT, I don't know if your offer to build (guide to build) a mo betta, mo fasta pooter is extended to lil ol me too, but I have a dumb question (hope you answer it before Dave gets to me). Is it correct that no matter how bad-ass your pooter is, you still can't utilize it's full potential (re: Internet, downloads) if you still have to use a dial-up connection?

No, dialup gets faster the better computer you have. I still have dialup, but since my computer is a P4 2.66GHz with 2 gigs of RAM, it's fast as lightning. It has to do with how well the computer can compress and decompress outgoing/incoming bits.

[LUVBUGZ]

Originally posted by dave
No, dialup gets faster the better computer you have. I still have dialup, but since my computer is a P4 2.66GHz with 2 gigs of RAM, it's fast as lightning. It has to do with how well the computer can compress and decompress outgoing/incoming bits.

Wholly crap, Batman!!! A "nice" post from Dave . Thanks Dave . When you make a pooter from scratch, does it matter who makes the different parts? Is there the possibility of these parts not working well, or not at all, with each other? Or, are they manufactured to "play well with others"? I'm talking about general PC stuff, not Macintosh, of course.

[LUVBUGZ]

I'm curious why you don't have DSL or use your Direct TV satelite (if I remember correctly, you said you have this?) to connect to the Internet?

DSL is too expensive, and DirecTV DSL has a bad lag time (since it's bouncing off a satellite) that makes online gaming impossible. Plus, my computer is fast enough to make dialup enjoyable. So I use that.

[juju]

Yeah, computer parts are manufacterd to a standard so that they all work well with each other.

For that reason, I always found it odd that people treat computers like cars. "Ford vs. Chevy" becomes "Oh, you have a Gateway, but *I* have a DELL". Who gives a crap who put the parts together?

But of course, Dave has more expertise in this area, so he may have some counter-points to offer.

[LUVBUGZ]

Originally posted by dave
DSL is too expensive, and DirecTV DSL has a bad lag time (since it's bouncing off a satellite) that makes online gaming impossible. Plus, my computer is fast enough to make dialup enjoyable. So I use that.

I always wondered about that w/ satelites, since they are always bouncing around from one to another, I thought you might even loose the connection while its bouncing. I live in the Boonies so the only thing I have is dial-up through the phone company, no DSL through anyone is available , even if I was willing to pay for it.

Don't forget my questions in my post before the dial-up one .

[juju]

Also, I think dial-up is plenty fast enough when all you're doing is browsing the web and posting to forums. DSL speed is only really significant for downloading music or videos (or online gaming).