Replies to post #137101 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[Joe Stocks]

OT- Schloss, Last winter I bought a Medion computer. I think they are a German company. Everything else I have bought over the years has been Dell but this came with name brand components at a very reasonable price of under $1000.
Here is what I got:
Pentium 4 2.66ghz
Sony CD burner
DVD, Seagate 120GB Hard drive, Samsung 256 MB Ram, 5 USB ports,DVD Dolby Digital Home theater system, AIRXL fan system to make it run quite, nVidia GeForce4 graphics card for dual monitors, A front side connection panel with S-video port, intergrated flash card reader and about any other kind of port you would need.

The system is loaded. The main thing that caught my eye was the dual monitor card. I use three monitors on this system. Adding the third was just a matter of taking an old video card out of an old computer and plugging it into a PCI slot. As I recall it cost me $895. Others I priced out with the same stuff were around $1300.

It did not come with a monitor. Medion calls it a Multimedia home entertainment design center. Model; Titanium MD8000.

[Old_Drummerman]

schloss_1 - I'm using a year old DELL P4, 2.26 gig, 512 of RDRAM, 80 gig hard drive, XP, 19" Trinitron monitor and cable.

I went from a 200mmx, 64SRAM, 8 gig hard drive, Windows 98ME, with dial-up.

I've had no problems (other than self-inflicted) with it at all from day one.

Well, except for....I did have to strap myself in for the first couple of weeks due to the speed, lol.

[inthehills]

schloss_1, my preference is not to be nailed to one spot in the house. As a result, I use a power notebook with 1gb ram and fast AMD cpu with a wi-fi set up. This type of notebook is expensive but provides freedom to move to outside decks etc. Unlike Joe Stocks I feel that information from multiple monitors overloads my simple mind. I do have a desktop but never power it on.

A ups runs the cable modem and wireless router for about two hours in power outage. The ups was matched to the run time of the notebook battery.

Jdaassoc is right don't buy a Dell or any brand just buy top of line components and put together if you want to sit in one place all the time.

[mlsoft]

schloss...

I have no brand to plug (I have a year old DELL, a worm infected 4 year old Gateway, and a new IBM laptop), but my experience in 'pooter buying is to load up with more ram and CPU speed than you think you will need. My next monitor will be 21" rather than the 17" (flat panel, the only way to go) I got last time - as I get older, the eyes get worse and I my end up with a large screen projection model <gg>.

I will plug my all time favorite computer device - the wireless optical mouse, which I could not live without.

In edit, almost forgot -- I have a 4 month old DELL laptop also, but no one is using it at the moment - what a waste.

Good luck.

mlsoft

[Sam_0]

That's a good size.... make sure you get the B I G G E S T monitor you 'can't' afford... You'll be glad you went into debt for it.. And RAM is the most important.. if you use an OS 2000, or Xp it will handle all the ram you can feed it [I'd suggest 1000MB (1 gig)]... where 98, or ME will not be able to manage much over 256...

hope this helps some

Sam

[Bruce A Thompson]

Schloss

Upgrading is not much more difficult than setting up a computer out of the box. You need a phillips head screwdriver.

I just upgraded. Trashed the AZ11 with the 750 Duron and the 32 Mb video card. Kept the case, 350W power supply, floppy, CDRW, WD 30 Gig hard drive and 17 inch monitor.

Bought the following goodies:

From New Egg.com

Asus A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard 400 speed FSB
DDR.......$127.99

Chaintech Gforce 4 MX440 128Mb video card.....$56

AMD Athalon 2600 333 FSB 2.08 Gb CPU......$100

WD 40 Gb 7200 rpm Hard drive............$54

Discount AMD/Asus bought together.......<$3>

Total....$342.96 Plus next day shipping $7.99

New Egg was very fast, effecient, and consumer friendly. They shipped Fedex and sent me my Tracking # the next morning. Very happy with them. I strongly recommend them to all.

From MS4ME.com:

2-512MB Samsung non Ecc 400 Spd DDR ram sticks. $176.00 Free shipping via 1st class mail next day. Took 3 days to get here. I also reccomend MS4ME.com.

Total upgrade cost $518.96

Install went smooth as glass. The Asus came with all the cables and optional ports including #5 and #6 USB ports. The board already has 4 usb ports. More than I need. Slaved the old hard drive.

Everything together....doublecheck all jumpers and connectors.......Plug in power.......Push "GO" button..............................................Nothing.

Goodbye 350W Power supply like Kris Kringle up the chimney. DAMMIT! Quick trip to the candy store. (Best Buy) Paid an arm and a leg for a 450W power supply and a new chassis fan and bingo! Back in business.

Loaded new XP Pro OS on the new HD then added the slaved HD to the system. (easiest way)

Comments on the new DDR system performance:

OH..........MY..........GOD!!!!!!!!!!! I wonder if Martin Baker makes an ejection seat for this thing?

No problem running Quote Tracker, My Track, 5 IE windows 3 with Java charts running, PCillin virus screen, Webroot Spy Sweeper, Another IE Popup Killer, and Asus motherboard monitor all at the same time. Memory usage @ peak 27% CPU hasn't gone past 10% to my knowledge. CPU temp 127F, MB temp 87F, room temp 76F. The system is stable as a rock.

Next upgrade Athalon 3200 CPU 400 FSB and 8X AGP video card with dual monitor output to this system when the price comes down on the AMD CPU.

BT