Cheap home computer

[Alan]

Looking for a nice cheap setup for my parents.

Requirements :
- Run MS Office
- Have front USB ports

and thats if, there so easy to please

Looking at the following :-
http://www.inmac.co.uk/catalogue/item/FUJPC814
http://www.inmac.co.uk/catalogue/item/MECPQ140
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=431f

The only reason for going with inmac is our company gets a discount when we order from them (and free delivery) A collegue at work purchased that PC with that memory upgrade from them last month and said it was a nice tidy quiet PC.

The monitor is on special from dabs at the moment

 

[Gamah]

If your looking for some extra memory, I have 512mb of PC4000 cruical balistix lying around unused (motherboard goes mad when putting in 3 sticks) I can let go for 25 quid.

 

[Ballard]

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=431f

Just a warning on that monitor, The reason it is so cheap is it does not have digital input, it uses the old analogue D-sub 15pin VGA cable. Also note that athough the title says 8ms response the response time in the technical spec says 12ms. I recently bought a 19inch benQ (good brand) for NZD$450 (about £150).

That ram is a bit overpriced, generic ram should be about £25-26 per 512 mb stick. However we are only talking a small difference there


With regards to the system, if you have even a small amount of PC knowledge you are probably better off building it yourself, otherwise that price sounds fine for the spec offered. If you do want to build a quick one im sure the neighbourhood pc store should stock cheap opteron or celeron cpus, doesnt cost much or take much time to put together a simple system.

 

[Alan]

Built loads of PC's in the past, but for a set box like that for £180 its just not worth going through the pain of sourcing, ordering and building. If it was for myself then yeah sure - but not for the parents

I noticed the screen only had an analogue socket but TBH for just doing school work and browsing the net this would fine (i cant see my parents playing the latest installment of DOOM) a 19" screen for £130 is quite nice

 

[Phooka]

If your looking for some extra memory, I have 512mb of PC4000 cruical balistix lying around unused (motherboard goes mad when putting in 3 sticks) I can let go for 25 quid.

u Wannebe RAMman dont you xD

 

[Ati]

Ive got a awesome spec for a home computer
Will play some games aswell
It can be downgraded to 512 ram for 236 quid

here you go
Component Spec Price

Case £27.98
Motherboard £33.86
Processor 3000+ sempron £57.01
RAM 1gig £56.69
DVD Drive DVD +- RW £29.43
GFX card 128mb £25.61
Hard Disk 80gig £30.31
Total £260.89

http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...tedId=11145&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11145,11
http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...ey=11143&ExposedRefinement=11003&v=1#infoarea
http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...rchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=11022
http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...ionKey=11150,4294960195,4294959900,4294957152
http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...eMode=1&NavigationKey=11155,43050000,42640000
http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...137&NavigationKey=11137,42220000&v=2#infoarea
http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...rchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=11026

And your OS: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Operating_Systems_20.html

 

[Alan]

It can be downgraded to 512 ram for 236 quid
And your OS: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Operating_Systems_20.html

Thats still £70 more, plus all the hassle of building a box.

 

[Ati]

Thats still £70 more, plus all the hassle of building a box.

Its atleast three times better?

To be honest Tears, there is not really point in buying a comp with 256 ram and a 40gig HDD.

Once they get into emailing and sending pics of the kids dogs and gardens back and forth they will clog that up in a week!
Frankly aswell you dont really need to buy an OS do you? unless your really a legit person, im sure you can find a copy somewhere?

The computer above will not run Vista...this will.
All dabs parts have 1 year warranty.

You could get them all cheaper if u only took a month warranty (probably same as above)

Also, it honestly does not take less than a few hours to build a computer, a few hours is less than the delivery of that top PC when dabs is normally about 24 hours at the most .

That PC is also excluding VAT

Inc vat = 213 quid.

Errm...and i think its excluding delivery

So mine is cheaper?

 

[Alan]

Its atleast three times better?

To be honest Tears, there is not really point in buying a comp with 256 ram and a 40gig HDD.

Once they get into emailing and sending pics of the kids dogs and gardens back and forth they will clog that up in a week!
Frankly aswell you dont really need to buy an OS do you? unless your really a legit person, im sure you can find a copy somewhere?

The computer above will not run Vista...this will.
All dabs parts have 1 year warranty.

You could get them all cheaper if u only took a month warranty (probably same as above)


Also, it honestly does not take less than a few hours to build a computer, a few hours is less than the delivery of that top PC when dabs is normally about 24 hours at the most .

Well If i took the 512MB upgrade off it would be £100+ less than the one above, I just need to remember this is for parents who have no interest in gaming, no interest in running Vista next year - there not gona fill 40GB in a week (hell they have a 4GB drive running Windows ME on an old Dell GX1 at the moment and its not even 50% full)

All my mum does is play solitaire, write up some class planning material in Word and print it out and look at the Cliff Richard home page.

I seriously cant justify getting them to pay £100 more for hardware that they just would never use.

 

[Ati]

oops...read the edit

£225.54 including shipping

lol dude its same price really with 512 ram from dabs

 

[Ati]

here is some compatable ram:

2x http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...&NavigationKey=11150,4294960195,4294960192,11

= 32.50

so total = 236 quid

 

[Cynix]

Tear's if you work in the computer business and have done networking or something so you said for 15 years in the Elkie thread why in hell would you not want to build one unless you have no idea? It takes 30-60 mins depends on the case cheap or well made to put it together, hour and a half to install windows and drivers? Job done a lot better and cheaper. I know me and others that work in the IT business wouldn’t dream of buying a pre made computer.

Just noticed that ex Vat, Ati build is the same price but several times better ...

 

[Alan]

Tear's if you work in the computer business and have done networking or something so you said for 15 years in the Elkie thread why in hell would you not want to build one unless you have no idea? It takes 30-60 mins depends on the case cheap or well made to put it together, hour and a half to install windows and drivers? Job done a lot better and cheaper. I know me and others that work in the IT business wouldn’t dream of buying a pre made computer.

Just noticed that ex Vat, Ati build is the same price but several times better ...

Like i said - for my own personal use I would build my own.

For my parents that live over 100 miles away id rather buy an off the shelve box.

 

[Ati]

cool, well sorry was just trying to help find you better for same price!

good luck

sorry

 

[Alan]

cool, well sorry was just trying to help find you better for same price!

good luck

sorry

Its cool, nice to know if i had a budget of £250 I could get better for myself

 

[cHodAX]

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=431f

Just a warning on that monitor, The reason it is so cheap is it does not have digital input, it uses the old analogue D-sub 15pin VGA cable. Also note that athough the title says 8ms response the response time in the technical spec says 12ms. I recently bought a 19inch benQ (good brand) for NZD$450 (about £150).

That ram is a bit overpriced, generic ram should be about £25-26 per 512 mb stick. However we are only talking a small difference there


With regards to the system, if you have even a small amount of PC knowledge you are probably better off building it yourself, otherwise that price sounds fine for the spec offered. If you do want to build a quick one im sure the neighbourhood pc store should stock cheap opteron or celeron cpus, doesnt cost much or take much time to put together a simple system.

Most Benq screens use cheaper 6bit panels and the colour reproduction sucks compared to an 8bit panel, also they massively misuse response times. They always use grey-to-grey which is misleading when they should be using black-to-white response which is much more accurate for gaming/video purposes. I have seen panels that quote 8ms recently but they are cleariy 25ms panels and they ghost during fast action video/gaming. Be very careful when buying panels, if you see a grey-to-grey response time in the single digits then it is highly likely the panel is no better than 16ms in the way that matters.

 

[Cynix]

Its cool, nice to know if i had a budget of £250 I could get better for myself

What’s 20 quid difference for computer 3-4x better? I am not trying to be offensive or anything Tears but I don't think you know how to build one there is no reason not to if you are capable of building one apart from £20. But what’s £20 when the computer is a hell of a lot better and will last longer?

 

[Ati]

I understand where tears is coming from.

Its only for his parents
It gets delivered for him
He cba building one

Let him decide I just threw that together im sure you could get down even mroe with worse gfx and HDD to less that one. If you want tears ill put some effort in all you have to do is say word and ill find some really good value for you!

I wouldnt mind at all, aslong as I was helping

 

[Alan]

What’s 20 quid difference for computer 3-4x better? I am not trying to be offensive or anything Tears but I don't think you know how to build one there is no reason not to if you are capable of building one apart from £20. But what’s £20 when the computer is a hell of a lot better and will last longer?

When you've as old as me, and have been scrounged around building PC's to help out friends and family for the last decade, spent hours scouring the net for the best deals on parts, delivery, vat to put it all together and then have to deal with your mother on the phone "it wont power on" you just give up and accept spending a few £'s more is well worth it so you can turn around and say "ohh phone the manufacturer"

I've gone with home built PC's for my own personal use since I was 18 and 386's were the FOTM but when its someone thats 2hrs+ drive away they can have an off the shelve one if its only a few quid difference.

 

[Ati]

k nvm

that pc u sugested is awesome for them

sorry if i was a pain figured you wanted reccomendations


http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...tedId=11101&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11101,13


get that and upgrade ram = cheap cheap cheap

 

[Cynix]

When you've as old as me, and have been scrounged around building PC's to help out friends and family for the last decade, spent hours scouring the net for the best deals on parts, delivery, vat to put it all together and then have to deal with your mother on the phone "it wont power on" you just give up and accept spending a few £'s more is well worth it so you can turn around and say "ohh phone the manufacturer"

I've gone with home built PC's for my own personal use since I was 18 and 386's were the FOTM but when its someone thats 2hrs+ drive away they can have an off the shelve one if its only a few quid difference.

I do understand the phone thing, I build a few and sell a few PCs a week in my spare time and get phone calls like my internet is not working and they plugged the cable in the network port etc. It is damn irritating but you still have to drive up there with it . And if your mum is bad as my gran is with computers god help you twice every month I have to fix it and she only uses e-mail / plys solitaire

 

[Chronictank]

I do understand the phone thing, I build a few and sell a few PCs a week in my spare time and get phone calls like my internet is not working and they plugged the cable in the network port etc. It is damn irritating but you still have to drive up there with it . And if your mum is bad as my gran is with computers god help you twice every month I have to fix it and she only uses e-mail / plys solitaire

lol here here
i honestly do regret getting into the computer biz sometimes, like when your mum's friend needs help and your mum has mentioned you know a thing or 2 :/

 

[Alan]

Dont get me wrong its nice to get some tips and advice.

But after building PC's for friends for around 5 years, getting the constant question "will this hard disk work in my pc" as they hold up a SCSI drive they nicked from work. Never again.

The only PC i will ever build again will be my own personal one (ohh and those damn DL380 servers our supplier sends in mechano format)

 

[Cynix]

lol here here
i honestly do regret getting into the computer biz sometimes, like when your mum's friend needs help and your mum has mentioned you know a thing or 2 :/

Exactly that, I really do hate that "my printer doesn’t work" you never turned it on; you pressed the feed paper button.

 

[cHodAX]

When you've as old as me, and have been scrounged around building PC's to help out friends and family for the last decade, spent hours scouring the net for the best deals on parts, delivery, vat to put it all together and then have to deal with your mother on the phone "it wont power on" you just give up and accept spending a few £'s more is well worth it so you can turn around and say "ohh phone the manufacturer"

I've gone with home built PC's for my own personal use since I was 18 and 386's were the FOTM but when its someone thats 2hrs+ drive away they can have an off the shelve one if its only a few quid difference.

Agreed, for basic home use they don't need anything stunning. Hell a 500mhz machine can get the job done, a 2ghz will be more than they will ever need. Better to buy a pre-built with warranty in that situation and save yourself any potential hassles, at the end of the day that old saying is true, time is money.